Transcript of an interview I recorded with Emily Highfield, talking about her SULDUSK project - 9/04/19. Full article here MAL-
On the line with me right now, Emily Highfield talking about the Suldusk album, which is called 'Lunar Falls'. Emily, thanks for joining me. EMILY- Thanks so much for having me, Mal. MAL- It's a very great pleasure. When did you get the inspiration for this? How did it come about? EMILY- This album has been a natural evolution from just some songwriting. I started uploading on Soundcloud just for my own therapy, I guess. And then, yeah, just getting a live incarnation of the sound with another acoustic guitarist. And the further I went into the songwriting, the more I started to realize how you're metal for life, it never leaves you. It's a wonderful affliction. And, I started to conceptualize like a bigger sound rather than just the more intimate stuff. There were other elements that I wanted to incorporate. And that's when then the natural flow of going into a fully fledged studio and working with a professional producer evolved and that's kind of how the album came out. MAL- Now, was it initially just you, you know, like jamming at home type thing? EMILY- Yes, definitely very much so was myself, my interface, my laptop and my guitars, my little family of guitars and being a bit of a loner and a bit of an introvert, it's my world and it's such a wonderful way to articulate things that you can't say in any other way or place, and that's kind of how it started. And then it was just the SoundClouders who egged me on and you know, I don't know if there were just, you know, egging on a deluded fool or encouraging me, I don't know. Was it bad or good? I think it was good overall because I think I genuinely did feel some good feedback there. So I just kept going and yeah, originally and the concepts were pretty much coming at me. It was like, after a long break from music was like I, I turned the tap and the water of creativity's just being flowing so it's kind of with music especially with metal you can run but you can't hide. MAL- Exactly. Did you write all of this yourself? All of the album? EMILY- Yes, all the songs although, 2 of the songs were...one's an adaptation of another band's song. I'm reluctant to call it a cover because the lyrics and the presentation are different. There's is more Doom aspects, mine's more acoustic based, and it's also a tribute to the artist rather than a cover, and the other one. The other song is a collaboration with one of my SoundCloud buddies, who's a one man black metal project called Skyggefigurrer. He was writing some beautiful black metal infused acoustic compositions. And, you know, I just basically asked him, 'I love this piece of music' and that was the 'Drogue' song. And I said, 'Can I write something to this? It just spoke to me', and I just felt compelled to do it. And then he gave it a blessing. And yeah, it ended up on the album because I just, I don't know every time I've listened to it or just just did something. MAL- Okay, when did all this start to come together? You mentioned before going into the studio. When was this? Where was this? EMILY- It felt like it feels like an eternity ago, but it was all it was all last year. Pretty much I was still practising at this time last year, the process took a while, I think because a lot of the concepts were not realized pre-studio. So I'd walk in and I'd say to Mark the producer, 'Look we've got to get this tone right you know, it's got to be heavy but it can't be generically heavy, you know, can't just be, you know, an EVH pedal, scooped sound, you know, it's got to be, the distortion has to be something a little bit more washed out and different', you know, so just getting those guitar tones took took time, took fine tuning, sometimes it was back to the drawing board, I think a frustrated Mark quite a bit, but I think between the two of us we nutted it out and he was just a delight to work with and it was great. I had the other guitarist leave the project halfway through and Mark and I then had to fill in the frequencies and and improvise, so it was like in anything, you know, there's always challenges but you just have to be resilient and see the big picture. MAL- So you started jamming at home, you've got inspiration and a bit of egging on from your SoundCloud buddies. So you've gone in to make an album, was it all the way along just planned as an album project? EMILY- No, I honestly did not know where this would go. I've got to a certain point on Soundcloud where I was getting a lot of followers and I just kind of went 'Well, this is all a really safe, wonderful world'. You know, this, this wonderful platform of musicians writing to musicians and I just kind of thought, 'Do I still have something to offer the greater music sphere?' and that was the challenge for myself was maybe if I put something together saying professional, something elevated maybe people would want to listen to it. I see myself primarily as a vocalist, although I am a guitarist, and I think I'm a damn solid one, but vocals came first to me. So I wanted to hear more female vocals I guess, something I could relate to a little bit more. So I wasn't really hearing much of that. And there's a lot of cool vocals out there a lot of cool female vocals, who I admire and am inspired by, but I just wanted to know if I could offer something a little bit more or different. MAL- You're in the studio. You spent a lot of time doing this. We've got an album at the end of it. What was the plan for release? Who's picking it up? Is anyone picking it up? I know you've got the bandcamp thing happening. EMILY- Yes. So once the album was finished and mastered, the next step was to see if there would be any label interest. And of course that's very daunting because on one hand you know, you're very protective of this, this work but on the other hand, you got to kind of put it out there. And this is, I guess, a bit of a test really and it's nerve wracking. But um, I put it out there and I got three offers. One was from a major label in the darker sphere, but with them there was just a few red flags with him in the whole process. The second one was with Northern Silence. And straight away, I just, I love Northern Silence Productions. That's one of the reasons I sent the album to him. He's essentially a one man label operator from Germany and his roster is to die for in my humble opinion. I love all the atmospheric black metal artists he's got on there. Especially there's a project called 'UNREQVITED. There's a project called HERETOIR there, that's a full band. He's had AMESOEURS on there who are very black 'gazy' band. He's had GHOST BATH, like all these fantastic newcomers, you know, they're a really wonderful solid starting point. And I just knew from what he said to me that he understood the album and he is very passionate about it. And that just spoke volumes. And I just thought, yeah, and the other the other label were a very well respected, more depressive metal label from Asia. And I love their repertoire as well. And I was kind of thinking, maybe go with them. But in the end, I just, I really just resonated with Northern Silence, and I just knew that the vision was the same and he's very sort of underground and he's curated some albums that I love. So it was it was absolute thrill to to be picked up and to be assisted by a label like his, so it's been great. It's been fantastic working with him. He understood the concept and yeah we've gone with it. MAL- When I heard it for the first time as I mentioned, I loved it. I really do. What's the response from other people been like? EMILY- Its overall getting I'd say very good reviews, but more than that it's people sending me messages from around the world. Just getting like it's so beautiful and overwhelming in the best way to get a message saying 'Your song Catacombs made me cry, or the song sounds. You know, this particular song. There's just something I had to write to you and thank you for your music.' Whoa. Okay, I didn't I didn't expect that and other artists who I respect like, just to get them writing to me as well, there's been 3 or 4 artists who I really admire and I've written to me and said, Can you be on our next album? Can we collaborate? And that's it just means the world to me because I just respect these people and I also respect the audience so much and their goodwill is just everything. So yeah, it's pretty amazing time. MAL- Now I did notice that there was a gig mentioned just sort of recently. What's the deal there? EMILY- We played four shows in a row in February, March, and we got to open for ZEAL AND ARDOR and LINDSAY SCHOOLCRAFT when she came out and did the solo thing without CRADLE OF FILTH and we got to play with ANAAL NATHRAKH and it's just been absolutely mind blowing, just playing as an acoustic ensemble. But now that the album's out, we really needed to, we need to go back and we've started nutting out the guitar parts and recreating the sound of the album, keeping that acoustic flavor because now there'll be three guitars now so there'll be the acoustic and the two electrics and I'll be playing one of the electrics now and I must say, Mal, I have missed playing my PRS. It's such a beautiful instrument and my my rig, you know, I'm getting all kind of flustered, you know, just thinking about my rig. It's just the tones and I'm working with a brilliant guitarist. He plays in a technical death metal, and he he's also in a post rock band, so he totally got what I was doing with SULDUSK and when I asked him if he'd like to collaborate, he's like so stoked and I'm super stoked. I'm even more stoked to have him on board because he's a great technician. So we're nutting out the recreation of the frequencies in a live capacity and I'm just loving doing that and yeah seeing it come together on a bigger level and my tribal drummer gets to go behind a kit and he had a big shit eating grin on his face the other day when he got to play with his kit. He was like, you know, he's like a really happy man. So it's just a lot of fun to to realize that, and we don't really have any gigs, we're doing a couple of little charity shows. I'm going to promote them a little bit but because they're still acoustic, I don't really want to mislead people and I really kind of want to save up the the reveal factor. Do you know what I mean? MAL- Speaking of going to a bigger level, when do you reckon you'll be hopping on a plane? EMILY- I think well, let's say I'm getting my passport really now so, cuz I know takes a while. But next year I think Mal. That's the wish. I hope we get invited to play a few festivals and I have got my eye on one in particular which is in Colorado, it's called Fire in the Mountains and they have this it's like pagany environmentally conscious get together, all the black metal. WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM are playing this year and just a few of the other bands are just kind of my flavor. So that's one I've had my eye own for the last few years but we'll see how that goes. Hopefully I'm putting it out there. But there's a few other festivals around as well but hopefully it unfolds. MAL- All right, so we've got this album out and Northern Silence on board, where can we pick it up? EMILY- We can get it at suldusk bandcamp. We just need to Google that. Or you can go for the Northern Silence Productions bandcamp. And it will be available for streaming as well, which is on April 12, and will be Apple Music and Spotify and all the other providers. And I think that's pretty much covers everything. It's on YouTube as well. You can, the full albums on four channels actually. So again, you just Google that and it'll come up. And that's been that's been fun watching all the comments appear people. People think the artist doesn't look at the comments but if you're do you do, you stalk it. MAL- Emily Highfield, great to have you on the show, talking about the SULDUSK album, and great to hear your insight into it. And as I mentioned, I love it. I wish you every success with it. And thanks for joining me. EMILY- Thank you so much, Mal. And thank you for having me on the show and thank you for the great chat. Comments are closed.
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AuthorMetalhead who hates bad parking. |