Interview: Basia Bulat
A month ago today, I wrote a gig review about when I caught Basia Bulat at Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath here, and so I thought it only fitting that I post up my interview with her from after the show...
I’ve heard that you
studied in London. I soon found out that this was not actually London, England
but London, Canada. How do you find that the two cities differ?
They’re complete opposites, except for in name. We even have
a Thames River, an Oxford Street and a Piccadilly Street. All the names are the
same but it’s only 300,000 people. It’s a university town. It’s probably got
more in common with Birmingham than it does with London, England, but it’s a
very sweet town and there’s like a very cool and small but strong music
community and even though the roots are disparate, they’re very interesting.
Like history of the kind of avant-garde and like punk music in London which is
cool. The biggest band that has probably come out of London, Canada is called
The Nihilist Spasm Band, a cool kind of noise band.
Before I found out
about your music I had never even heard of most of the instruments that you
play. What inspired you to pick up instruments like the autoharp and the
charango?
Everything kind of ends up being by happenstance. I want to
say like “Oh, it was this grand plan!”, but it really wasn’t. I started playing
piano when I was a kid – my mum taught piano – and when I was in school we had
great music programmes. Then my neighbour was selling an autoharp out of his garage
so my mum picked it up and she’s like “Oh, I think you’ll like this ‘cause it’s
kind of weird”. I’d actually seen it before when I saw Will Oldham playing it.
When I started researching it I realised that there were all of these women
playing the autoharp so that was kind of cool so that’s how I fell into it.
It’s a lot easier to play than it seems, I mean it says “auto” on it. Now it’s
kind of cool because I’ve seen people like Grizzly Bear and PJ Harvey using it
in their shows so now that you can plug it in and make it electric there’s a
bigger range of possibilities. Then the charango, I ended up on a cultural
exchange at the BANFF Centre for The Arts in Canada and there was this amazing
charango player and I just fell in love with the instrument. I started seeing
it everywhere and hearing it everywhere. I think I’m always drawn to things
that look small but sound big. People think it’s a ukulele but when they hear
it and it can be plugged into an amp, it can be a little bit fierce.
You’ve toured with a
lot of different artists and in different countries. What is the most
unexpected place that your music has taken you or the most unexpected
collaboration you’ve had because of it?
I think the most exciting has been the response to my music
in Spain. I was so lucky that I had the opportunity to learn Spanish when I was
in school and to make friends from around the world like within the Hispanic
diaspora, then to go to Spain and play and sing (a little bit) in Spanish –
just there’s something that’s always kind of connected. I’ve always been
interested in their literature and poetry so it still blows my mind. When I was
first learning Spanish never in my dreams did I think “Oh, I’ll be playing in
this theatre in Madrid and there’ll be all these people there and they’ll clap
or sing along” – that was really out of this world for me you know.
Many have said that
your latest record Tall Tall Shadow is
more electronic than your previous albums. I’ve noticed that quite a few
mainstream artists have also recently gravitated towards a more electronic
sound. Did anyone of anything influence this decision for you?
I think like in general it was probably going to happen. I
think this record’s still pretty folky but I think in general you always want
to grow and change. For me anyway, to do whatever is a challenge so like my
first two records, the challenge was that I’d never recorded before but I kind
of fell in with a group of people where we had a similar aesthetic and the
challenge was to record onto tape, like the old school way. I heard this
amazing interview with Bjork and she was talking about how with electronic
music, there was more space for women in that world. I don’t think that I’m
making electronic music – I’m listening to more of it now, especially since
listening to Bjork’s interview and hearing about the idea of the actual way of
making it being a bit feminine and I’d never really thought of it like that. I
don’t know so it’s kind of exciting in that way, it’s like “Oh the thing I don’t
know or think about, I wanna go do that.”
Your brother Bobby
plays the drums in your band. How do you think having a sibling in your band
affects touring?
Right now we’re touring less – well obviously I’m playing
solo right now – but he actually also has a whole other life in film and TV. He
works on like film and TV crews with lighting and electrical departments; he’s
working on a show called Orphan Black,
so right now he’s not touring. But when we do
tour and when we do make music together, it’s kind of weird. I feel like
everybody has the same experience with their siblings where you can drive each
other nuts but you also have the capacity to read each other’s minds. So it’s
like just being aware of the fact that you’re with your sibling all the time, but
at the same time I’m pretty lucky because he kind of knows, like sometimes when
I’m writing a song he knows what it’s about before I even realise what I’m
saying. I think it’s a pretty typical sibling relationship, but it’s a good
one.
Arcade Fire’s producer
worked on Tall Tall Shadow with you.
Have you had the chance to listen to their new record Reflektor yet?
Yeah it’s great! It was myself and Tim (who plays like a
million other instruments in the band) and Mark who engineered this record and
the previous record and it was so fun. Working with my brother and Tim and Mark
it was like I had three brothers basically – they were all making fun of me
constantly and just finding all sorts of ways to tease me. But yeah, I feel
like that’s something I really love with Arcade Fire – they do change with every record and they’re
always doing something different, so that’s something I think I’m drawn to in a
lot of artists like that now. I really admire that in people, just to keeping
pushing yourself and trying different things. That’s not to say that it’s bad
to just do your one thing and be the best at it but for me I’m hoping that I
can keep trying something new.
What are some of the
artists or albums that you’re listening to at the moment?
Well I am still listening a lot to Reflektor. I’ve kind of been going back through all the My Morning Jacket albums and this band
from Canada called Braids. I’m
listening to a girl that I love, her band is called US Girls, she’s a really amazing mix of analogue like old and new.
It sounds like girl groups of the future but recorded with like tape and
samples. It’s almost like the girl groups were from a different planet, but
from the 60’s. Um, I really love the singer/songwriter Willis Earl Beal and he’s pretty much, I feel like, one of the best
singers of ‘our generation’. The things that he says in his songs they just hit
me really hard and that’s always a good thing. Listening to the newest Timber Timbre which is sort of like I
guess if Serge Gainsbourg made folk music - it’s kind of spooky and moody and
beautiful. Well, I’ve been listening to Prince
actually like non-stop lately too!
