If you are a semi-regular reader of Wake The Deaf, you will probably have guessed by now that we are big fans of Jonas Bonnetta’s Evening Hymns. A few weeks ago we wrote about their most recent release Quiet Energies, and album about finding peace and joy in a life darkened by loss. As the piece described:
[Quiet Energies] takes the suffocating, nebulous shadow of grieving and distils it into something small and hard and strangely tactile, a mysterious object that will always be there in your pocket, radiating its secret and peculiar brand of comfort.
We were lucky enough to ask Bonnetta a few questions about the record and his musical career, exploring his influences, plans for the future and listening habits. Enjoy.
Jon: Hi Jonas, thanks for chatting with us! How has life been treating you since the release of Quiet Energies?
Jonas: All is well! Been getting ready to tour the new record around Canada a little bit and have been working on a bunch of new projects.
The album saw a shift in tone, with many tracks more cathartic and upbeat (for want of a better term). Do you have a better time when playing these songs live? And do you think the changes set a trajectory for where Evening Hymns are headed in the future?
Well I haven’t toured them long enough to understand them live yet so that’s kind of nice. Our current live setup allows us to explore the songs more than in the past and so that’s been satisfying so far. I’m not a huge fan of touring a record for a long time though so talk to me in a year from now and we will see. I’ve been writing so much new stuff that I’m itching to just keep developing new material live. I don’t think the next record will sound like Quiet Energies though. I’ve been working on some piano music that’s more rooted in soul and R&B so who knows… haha…
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In my review of Quiet Energies I mention how you retreated into the countryside at various points, and recorded the album in a rural home studio. Is this escape an important part of your creative process? Are we talking escape-the-city rural or cut-off-wilderness rural?
I just need to be left alone with my thoughts. It’s too easy for me to get distracted and so forcing myself into solitude is my solution to fighting writer’s block. It’s not so much as escape now as a way of life as I moved out here permanently. And it doesn’t feel so much as an escape but more of a homecoming. This is how I grew up and it’s what resonates with me.
What else do you consider as influences on your writing and sound? Are there any musicians/writers/artists you consider important in your development? I’ve seen Jaan Kaplinski’s name bandied about, although it wasn’t clear if it came from you or a reviewer.
Huge Kaplinski fan. I own everything that has been translated to English and even recently acquired some Estonian books of his from a friend. He’s been a large shadow on my work since the beginning almost.
Space and environment are crucial to my work. I always come back to trying to explain this project as less a songwriting project and more of trying to create spaces for people to exist in.
And I’ve really recently been truly inspired by art itself. Just recognizing that I’m very fortunate to make a living by conjuring up things from nothing. I feel very lucky.
Recent months have seen you take a crack at the silver screen, what with an Evening Hymns song in the latest Cameron Crowe film and your score for the documentary Strange and Familiar. How did these projects come about, and how does the experience of making a soundtrack compare to recording as Evening Hymns? Is it something you’d like to do more of?
Well the Crowe film came about cause he got into the last record Spectral Dusk and we became Twitter buddies and chatted a bit. Next thing you know I got an email from Sony requesting the song for an upcoming picture. It was a trip. Very cool and I’m super thankful for that. The doc I scored I’m equally excited about it. It’s about this charming little island off the coast of Newfoundland. The first trailer for that film was cut to my music by an editor friend and the directors really liked it and they reached out. I’m working on mixing that music to release it sometime in 2016. That kind of work really suits my lifestyle right now. I have a home studio that I’ve just added a second room on and so I can work quietly on my own out there. I’m hoping I get to do more score work.
The EP is a collection of songs that we recorded during Quiet Energies sessions but didn’t fit the vibe of that record. I actually saved one of my favourite songs from those sessions for this EP so I’m actually excited for people to hear it. It feels like it stands on it’s own as another angle of my life from that time. The EP with Jim is almost done I think. He reached out to me last winter and told me he had these songs he had written on nylon string guitar that he wanted to record and asked if I would go help him do it. He has a sweet little home studio called Fixed Hinge and so I camped out there in the dead of winter and we tracked a handful of tunes. It was a real nice time. I can be a little cautious when the term EP comes up cause it can feel like leftovers or something but Jim sent me these demos and I loved all of the songs. I’m so excited for people to hear this EP. Jim and I had a real nice time making it and I got to record Jeremy Gara from Arcade Fire on drums which was a real joy. It’s fun working with Jim cause I feel like we’re both just super excited to have our own spaces to work in making music and so together there is a really nice excited undertone. He’s a fun dude and I’m a big fan of his songs. I’ve also just started working on a record with Rolf from the Acorn. We’re not sure what it’s going to be yet but I’m really into where we’re at right now and writing with him feels like a nice fit. It’s been easy for us to create things. So there’s that. And I’m almost wrapping up this record by Leanne Simpson who is this amazing Anishinaabe writer/performer from Ontario. We’ve been making a record together that we’re almost finished and it feels really important to me. It’s full of poems, songs, field recordings. Hopefully I’ll be sharing more info on that one soon. And lastly, I’ve got about 14 songs demo’d for the next Hymns record that I hope to start recording this winter. We shall see.
We’ve been in a literary mood recently here at Wake the Deaf. With that in mind, what’s the last really great book you read?
A Little Life by Yanigahara absolutely decimated me a couple months back. I went to this great bookstore in NYC called Three Lives & Company and asked them to recommend a book for me. That’s the one they gave me. I was weeping on the plane. It was incredible. So heavy. I’ve been recommending that one a lot. And I was just in NYC again a couple weeks ago for the Strange and Familiar premiere and went back to the same store to say thanks and ask for my next assignment and they gave me A Brief History of Seven Killings [by Marlon James] which they were freaking out about so I’m just easing into that book now. So far so good. It’s nice having someone you trust to recommend books.
Finally, could you list four or five bands you’ve been listening to recently? They can be old or brand new, obscure or gigantic hits, whatever you find yourself returning to.
Chris Cohen – Overgrown Path: This record never leaves my iPod/turntable/gramophone. The songs are amazing. The production rules. It feels like a good secret. Love it.
Frank Sinatra – Watertown: Frank made this record in 1970. I read somewhere it was his response to Woodstock which I think is weird. Anyways, it’s this great album of pop songs written from the perspective of this guy who’s wife leaves him with their two kids and he longs for her return. Bob Gaudio and Frankie Valli from the Four Seasons wrote the music. It was the only record that Sinatra recorded his vocals as an overdub, separate from the orchestra. Yeah, that’s right. All those classic Sinatra tunes were cut live with the fucking orchestra. That blew me away to find out. Anyways, this record is worth the time!
Max Richter – Sleep/Infra: I’ve been on a pretty big Richter kick the last few months. I got through neo-classical/ambient spurts and when I heard about Sleep I wanted to listen. It’s an 8 1/2 hour long piece of music that Richter composed to be slept through. It’s truly beautiful and great background music for long tasks. I was listening to it while working on my studio renovation this fall. His other records are all great but I’ve been really digging into Infra lately. There is a track on that record called Infra 5 that is perfect music. Draw a bath.
The Dream – Love/Hate: I’ve been into this record for years but just recently have gotten way deep into it. Haha. I got a new car that has a new sound system and I’ve been pumping these jams and cruising around like one of those guys. The Dream has this amazing ability to use the same instrumentation on all these songs and have each track flow into each other yet maintain their own personality.
Fennesz – Venice: I love this record. It’s kind of always on my iphone and so it gets a lot of airtime. It is is music. It is not music. It’s a record I always lean to when I’m tired of listening to music. This one always comes on at about hour 3 of a long drive. It’s a palate cleanser. You can’t tap your toes. You just keep driving and thinking.
You can buy Quiet Energies now from Outside Music (US/Can), Tin Angel Records (UK/EU) and Kütu Records (France).