“I’m addicted to the flame / and it keeps me burning every day,” sings producer, cellist and songwriter Laura Wolf on the first single of her new EP, Shelf Life, coming this summer on Whatever’s Clever. “I can’t complain but / I’m a sucker for the game / I got caught up in calligraphy and calculations.” The track offers our first glimpse into the release written and recorded in the aftermath of the loss of her grandmother, the songs coalescing as Wolf found herself delving back into family history to examine the assortment of facts and myths of which it comprised. The very title of ‘Calligraphy and Calculations’ encapsulates this process, nodding toward acts perhaps mundane in practice but capable of beautiful or meaningful results. “I was charmed by the Wikipedia page of Kane Tanaka,” Wolf describes, “the (then) oldest person alive, which listed her favourite pastimes as ‘calligraphy and calculations’.”
The period also saw Laura Wolf housebound after emergency surgery, and forced to reimagine her identity as a musician. With her parents’ attic as an improvised recording studio, Wolf threw herself into Ableton and the intricacies of electronic production, committing to the tedious trial and error of a cliff-face learning curve. Her own form of calligraphy and calculations which would ultimately lead to the composite style built from orchestral, pop and found sound elements.
What emerges is a sound positioned at the intersection of primary and manipulated sources. A sonic of equivalent of family history, where original truths are cherished and embellished into folklore, and stories take on as much importance as the fact of any event. But moreover one playful enough to confront such complicated matters. If reality and fiction are braided into history, then Laura Wolf wants to unpick the threads.
Shelf Life is out on the 2nd June via Whatever’s Clever and you can pre-order it now.
Artwork edited by Dan Criblez, Ambient Pasta Productions