Sylvaine: Emotion And Introspection
Genre is a funny thing; some like to pigeonhole bands, to categorise them exactly according to a set of oft-unwritten rules, to put music in a neat box. Sometimes, that works. Other times, like with SYLVAINE, the one-woman project of one Kathrine Shepard, it’s futile. Genre becomes ultimately redundant, practically meaningless in trying to categorise her work. With fourth full-length Nova, she’s continued in her own solitary vein of fusing ALCEST-like blackgaze with choral music, post-rock, and much more.
When we sit down with her to talk about the album, it’s a short time before release and she’s just released the title track to the album, an entirely choral piece – which we’ll come to later. She’s in high spirits after its overwhelmingly positive reception from fans, and thankful for it. It’s in that light she opens up about catching the coronavirus during the recording sessions for Nova; “it was a good opportunity to catch COVID-19, because we were isolated in the French countryside,” she starts, “so we weren’t putting anyone in danger by having the virus ourselves, but it wasn’t super great that it was during the recording session!” She laughs. That’s not to say it was a trivial matter; she had to almost relearn vocal control and regain her strength afterwards, in order to continue the recording, but she’s keen to stress that she’s managed well over the past few years.
For SYLVAINE, that meant keeping busy not just with Nova, but with covers too; she shared both a cover of SLOWDIVE’s Falling Ashes (“SLOWDIVE has been a part of my life for many, many years and I love them to death – that specific song I’ve listened to on repeat so many times”) and a surprise cover of BILLIE EILISH’s Ocean Eyes, one that she put her own twist on. “I felt like everyone loved to hate her, and it’s just, I think you’re really underestimating the enormous talent that she and her brother are together, they’re really a force of nature in this creative sphere,” she opines. Putting her own spin on a song that’s far outside of her usual realm is perhaps typical of Shepard; she’s not one to shy away from working with new elements or ones that don’t fit a certain mould – as she says herself, “I don’t really care about genres! As long as there’ something that speaks to me, it can be anything.”
This translates to the way she writes, and the way in which Nova was pieced together. Though preferring not to go into specifics around what exactly inspires her work, Shepard explains that writing is ultimately a way of sharing her innermost self and thoughts with the world. “People ask me if there’s themes, or something specific I plan to make the songs the way that they turn out. And the answer is always no, it’s a stream of consciousness at the initial idea, just trying to keep it authentic. By not messing with it too much, not questioning, not trying to force it into some kind of box that it should fit into.” Delving into what it is she’s trying to say with Nova, she explains that “the shortest reply is that Nova as a record, is about loss,” before expanding on it. “It just happens to align perfectly, in the worst way, with what’s going on globally. I was going through my own personal loss back in 2019-20 and then the pandemic happened, and everyone was going through a collective loss.”
While she’s reluctant to delve into exactly what was going on, it’s not evasiveness; instead, the lush melodies and emotional core of Nova channel those feelings more strongly than words ever could. Indeed, it’s on the title track, the final single, that she opens up completely, with a piece that’s entirely choral, layered vocals with no rhythm, just the current of emotion carrying it along. The idea and desire to do a choral piece is one she’s harboured for some time, and finally the time felt right to create one for what is perhaps her most personal album to date. When we asked why Nova was the right time, it’s that introspection and personal aspect she comes back to. “The absolute, most personal instrument you can use to express emotion is your own body, your own being. I don’t think you can get more personal than making a piece solely based on you,” she explains. It’s a piece borne of feeling, not words; there are no lyrics, with the words themselves being an entirely made up language. There’s no rules, no shape to them bar the emotion being communicated. “It doesn’t say any words. It just expresses all the emotions that went into this record. It expresses the emotions of SYLVAINE as a project and as a whole.”
As our time draws to a close, she explains that, while there’s always something a little selfish in creating as a solo project, it’s enabled her to create entirely on her own terms, express everything she can through music and have it resonate with her fans to the extent that she receives messages – such as about Nova – that they understand her loss without any words being shared; there’s a bond of shared emotion. Something indescribable and valuable. “It’s really special when you release something that’s from the core of your being and people pick up on what you were writing about, words can’t describe that.”
Nova is out now via Season Of Mist.
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