In our preview of Natural Science, Lindsay Reamer‘s new album out now via Dear Life Records, we described how the songs originated from a period she spent working as a field scientist collecting data across national parks. “While her official role had her surveying visitors and counting vehicles,” we wrote, “Reamer used the period to collect data of her own. Observations and experiences carefully noted and trapped in a jar, preserved in order to become part of [the record].” The resulting songs not only represent a study of a specific time and place—capturing a snapshot of environments both natural and human and the porous border between the two—but also a report on how it feels to exist within that period. As though Reamer serves as our guide through contemporary America as she knows it. A squeezed no-man’s land between the past and the future. A place where great beauty and banality sit side by side, where old choices drag unforeseen consequences towards us and yet the smallest details still seem to hold life in all of its inscrutable charm.
Though Natural Science is ostensibly a solo record, Lindsay Reamer enlisted an array of talents musicians to not only perform the songs but actively shape them. “A variety of collaborators bring Lindsay Reamer’s sound to life,” as we continued in the preview, “with Tyler Bussey (guitars, banjo), Artie Sadtler (bass), Lucas Knapp (synthesizers, percussion), Juliette Rando (drums), Will Henriksen (fiddle) and Eliza Niemi (cello) all lending their talents, and appearances from Victoria Rose (vocals), Michael Cormier-O’Leary (drums), Peter Gill (guitar), Frank Meadows (bass) and Jon Samuels (vocals) on specific tracks too.” The collective allows for a sound plastic enough to encompass the album’s range of moods and backdrops, be it evocations of the (not so) natural world on tracks like ‘Figs and Peaches’ to more urban snapshots such as that of ‘Red Flowers’.
We took the opportunity to chat with Lindsay to push a little deeper into the ideas behind the record and the process which brought it to life, so read on below to find out more.
Hi Lindsay, thanks for speaking to us! How does it feel to have your debut album out in the world?
It feels wonderful. Some of these songs were among the first I had ever written, so I feel really lucky to get to share them this way. I love hearing about how people interpret and receive the songs and that only comes from releasing them.
Let’s start with the title—Natural Science. Presumably this is at least in part a reference to your time as a field researcher? What exactly does the title mean to you and what significance does it hold for this collection of songs?
The title came about while I was thinking about the way I put together song ideas. It feels like my process is very much to observe, question, collect, and then come to some conclusion. I’m sure this isn’t unique to me, but it feels like a scientific approach. I love that “Natural Science” is a bit of an oxymoronic phrase as well. I’m interested in what comes to light when humans try to make sense of natural phenomena, sometimes it reveals more about us than the thing we are attempting to understand.
There’s so much detail packed into your lyrics, be that differing shades of emotion or the small observations accumulated day to day. I’m thinking of the John Bon Jovi hologram and smell of rotisserie chicken in Tupperware on ‘Necessary’, or ‘Red Flowers’ with its heat and sex shop and virtual farm simulator. How do you go about recording and remembering these details? Do you have a trusted method of preserving the details before they are written into the songs themselves?
I think this is super common amongst songwriters, but my iPhone notes app is my biggest tool for this! It works so well not only because we always have our phones in our pockets, but it’s also less serious than writing in a journal. I love the physical act of doing that, but it also feels too much like — I Am Writing— than I’d prefer. The iPhone notes are quick and not so attached to an outcome. I’ve also experimented with a long running Google doc that I always kinda have open. I drop images or phrases in there when they come to me.
On a related note, I’m struck by the balance between sincerity and playfulness in your work. The examples I listed above show your willingness to engage with the absurd side contemporary living, and it is so impressive how you pack the songs with these strange little images and wry humour without ever undermining their emotional resonance. Is this something you are conscious of when writing? I mean, does it take work to ensure the Bon Jovi hologram doesn’t take over?
Thank you so much. I don’t think I’m conscious of it really or trying to do anything, there are just certain images and feelings that I’m drawn to. I try to honor my natural impulses instead of discarding things because they don’t fit in “sad song” or “funny song” boxes. I love laughing and I find being alive really funny most of the time, so that sort of stuff tends to come through. I think someone like John Prine is a master of this in a way I could only dream to do. He’s painting with all the colors at once and he’s found the perfect spot for them in the picture. That’s why the songs feel so complete and timeless. The humor and sadness and everything else can stand together because that’s how life really is.
The ex-zoology research student in me has to ask about ‘Figs and Peaches’. So many representations of our relationship with/effect on the natural environment are presented in (justifiably) stark terms, where nature is presented as some static thing humanity changes almost inadvertently and to its detriment. But while the overall picture of the environment on ‘Figs and Peaches’ is concerning, the tone is a little more nuanced. There’s the suggestion of agency somewhere, the idea we can enact change in more than one direction. Like, not every human action needs to end up like the cane toad, you know? Could you expand a little on the background of the track and the ideas it orbits?
I think you hit the nail on the head! And I love the way you put that—‘the ideas it orbits’. The song came about while I was working along the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi. That’s a fascinating area because it’s a travel route that has been in use for 10,000 years. People travelled down the Mississippi river and walked back 400 miles north on the trail. There are a lot of tales and stories surrounding it.
In general, being around such a massive river will have you thinking about big things. While I was there, I was reading about invasive plants and the American Chestnut tree extinction, which was caused by a non-native fungus. American Chestnut trees were everywhere and then within 50 years the population was close to extinct. This is to say that things change quickly and things change over geologic epochs—but it’s always changing. In the mess of all of this, I’m always inserting myself and asking “where do I fit in?” It’s easy to think that nothing you do really matters…but I rather think that it does! And we know this because we can see the way that our actions have impacted things in a big way over time. I think the song is about remembering individual agency?
Despite recording under your own name, you have enlisted a pretty stellar cast of Philadelphia musicians to create a full band. Why did you decide to move beyond your roots as a solo acoustic musician and form a band? And what do these collaborators bring to the album?
I only started making music around late 2019 and then by the time I could think about collaborating with anyone COVID happened. So, I went on solo throughout quarantine and recorded my first EP alone in my room like everyone else. When I started going to shows again and seeing how fun having a band was, I slowly started adding folks in. So that’s what they bring— fun and camaraderie and more musical ideas than I could ever come up with on my own. It started small—just me and Lucas Knapp and we did some of our first shows that way as a duo. It’s my impulse to just let the band do whatever feels right on the songs, because that’s what I do. I feel confident that the songs stand as strong foundations to be added upon.
When I play the songs solo now, I play them like we do on the record, informed by all the choices we made along the way. I think that goes to show the impact my collaborators have had on the songs even though they began as solo ideas.
You grew up in what sounds like a very musical family. Does this have a lasting influence on your music now? (And what did it take to have the confidence to step out and make something of your own?)
I think it must have a lasting influence. The biggest way I can think of is from the voice lessons given to me by my grandmother. The time we spent at the piano in her basement was so special. It shaped my voice and the way I sing.
Nobody in my family is a songwriter, so that feels unique to me. My dad plays guitar and my mom sings… so I’m kinda a mashup of the two of them, naturally. It did take a lot of confidence to make something of my own, though. Playing my songs for people made me shake so much that I couldn’t really breathe properly. Luckily this has improved over time!
To follow that thread further, there’s recurring theme of self-acceptance running through the record. “I’m trying and I am sure / Despite what I like to tell myself / Today I’m better than before,” as you sing on ‘Spring Song’. Is it fair to say this is at least in part a record about overcoming doubt?
I think that is fair to say. I used to feel a lot less sure of myself than I do now, and making music has been a huge part of that change. Songwriting felt like something that wasn’t for me for a while, but I can trace back my interest in it to a very early age. A lot of the songs are about this path to greater self acceptance. Being able to do something that once made you afraid is one of the best feelings.
I don’t know if this makes sense… but now that I’ve jumped over this hurdle I’m looking forward to writing songs that don’t feel like they are about wanting to write songs haha!
Natural Science is out now via Dear Life Records and available from the Lindsay Reamer Bandcamp page.
