“Feels like that of musician looking to embrace all the disparate influences which came to shape his sound, be it the genres he has moved between or the places in which he has worked on them.” So we wrote of Keep in Touch, the new EP from New York-born, Lisbon-based artist M. Vaughan in a preview back in April. A fitting sound for an artist who has lived in a transitionary state over the past few years, the move from the US to Portugal coming not only with all the associated joys and difficulties inherent within any new culture, but also triggering a wider contemplation of his creative work too. Hence, Keep in Touch reckons with M. Vaughan’s past in the spheres of electronic and dance music while looking towards a more rock-adjacent future too.
With the EP now out via Super Tuff Records, we got M. Vaughan to reflect on the release, going through each track to delve a little deeper into their origins and the intentions behind them.
I wrote these songs between 2021-2024. It took me some time. At first, I was worried I’d lost my mojo because a lot of the things I made after that were schizophrenic and some of them just plain not good.
It’s hard to balance living in a new country, job, social life, and making music. Sometimes I just paced around my apartment practicing how to say “Congratulations on your Wedding” in German and never touched a synthesizer.
But honestly, if you don’t live life a bit, you won’t have things to write music about and these past few years have been incredibly rich. No regrets.
Tire Swing
I wrote this song in Berlin during my first Spring. I didn’t have a good time in Germany and was really homesick when I wrote this. I had been wondering if I made the wrong choice by moving abroad, if I’d deserted a lot of great friends for this shitty unknown world I was trudging through at the time.
Sonically, I love the interplay of the cheesy piano and blown out drum break, it kind of reminded me of Fishmans, an iconic Japanese post-rock band.
All Good
This was my attempt to write a non-bummer song. I’ve been living in Lisbon Portugal for two years and I used to think that I can’t write music because I’m happy now. Compared with living in a mouse-infested flat in Brooklyn, living in a sunny, warm place can strangely be a destroyer of motivation.
There’s a sample underpinning the whole song which I recorded while visiting my friend in Morocco. It’s this peaceful moment in the morning in his garden outside Casablance. There was a massive commotion of birds buzzing around his yard and you can faintly hear the call to prayer in the distance. It’s my own reminder to allow yourself to breathe and enjoy life’s small moments.
Nazaré
Nazaré is a town about an hour north of Lisbon that’s known for having the biggest waves in the world. It’s a surreal, spooky, David Lynch-ian place. When you walk the streets there’s these old ladies who walk around in black hoods, waiting for their husbands they’ve lost at sea.
When I wrote this, I was listening to a lot of Blood Orange, Erika de Casier, and Massive Attack at the time. I had a lot of fun recording the call and response vocals at the end and I love the mega chorus that it crescendos into. This is my personal favorite track on the record.
Cold Read
This one is about working up the courage to do hard things, to overcome isolation, to put yourself out there enough to be seen by others.
When I wrote this, my mom (who lives alone in rural Vermont) was going to audition for a play in her town. I’d get on video calls with her at night to help her prepare. We’d read her lines and mark up her script together on FaceTime, and I’d try to pep her up. This song is about rooting for her—wanting her to shine, to self actualize, and for her to see how awesome she is.
While I’m writing this, Carnival celebrations were going on outside my window in Lisbon, days of parades with thousands of people in costumes and drumlines and glitter everywhere. And I’m this sober curmudgeon, locked up in my apartment trying to finish this last song.
There’s a theme about the battle between isolation and creative expression. Wanting to be seen/heard but working in this self-imposed exile at the same time. And once you’re done, when you spill your heart, will anyone give a shit? I was working through these doubts and just trying to find fulfilment in the process.
Keep in Touch is out now via Super Tuff Records and you can get it from the M. Vaughan Bandcamp page.
Photos by Chiara Soldati