“I was planning on going to see Megadeth, but they’re playing right now,” she says. “I had to choose Megadeth or interviews, and I tried to reschedule it, but then I fell asleep and by the time I woke up it was too late. I was tempted to try and do both, but then I’d be outside at a Megadeth concert screaming at people down the phone, not hearing anything so making up answers.”
That idea actually has all the hallmarks of a fascinating interview, but having zero conversational obstacles allows us to talk about the development of the album some seven months after its release. Back then, Pitchfork described it as “an album full of trapdoors,” plunging the listener down sudden sonic shafts. It’s an apt sentiment, but while the songs still allow Deradoorian space to expand, when it comes to her live show we’ll be hearing a very considered set.
“Well, I’m very impatient, so I want to change it all the time,” she says. “This is the most consistent I’ve ever been playing live. But I have opportunities to play the music by myself, and there I can change it a lot. I just did a couple of solo shows in Brooklyn and re-recorded all of the songs and then bounced them onto a cassette, made them sound really lo-fi and fucked up. Really gritty.
“Songs can always evolve. It’s like, when you’re recording them you’re kind of putting them to death in a weird way. It’s not bad, but I think for live situations you get the opportunity to change that. At least for now though I’m trying to be consistent. I’m also at a point in my career where people are just getting to know me and my solo music, so I have some freedom there.”
The subject of death takes on unexpected prevalence during our interview. Deradoorian isn’t overly morbid, but the essence of human experience – including our grasp on mortality and the finite – seems a recurring concern.
“If you’re geared towards the melancholic aspects of life, you tend to write them out,” she says. “I think to a lot of people I seem negative or sad, but in my mind I’m a realist. I also think I’m much more optimistic now than I’ve ever been. But I’m still sensitive that when things are heavy I have to explore why I feel that. Like, what part of my childhood made it so much harder for me to deal with it now? I think that might actually be futile. I think I always had some semi-sinister understanding that the world was not really the place I wanted to be. I wanted to be in other worlds, and so I lived in my imagination for the most part. Or read books, seeing beautiful places that I couldn’t go to. Trying to do something that was artistically linked to a way to get to these places.
“[Looking back over] journals now I wonder, ‘Was I just always sad? Did I ever have a happy day?’ I should start writing some of the happy times, too. ‘I had a delicious orange today. It was so fresh and wonderful.’ But usually it’s just, ‘Wow. I feel like shit,’ [laughs].”
Throughout the development of the album, Deradoorian’s sense of creative freedom remained largely unchallenged. The sheer variety of Expanding Flower could see subsequent albums move in countless directions. But despite this, there remains a troubled core. She is very open about the emotional and philosophical struggles that shackled her in the past, and those that continue to cast a pall.
“I’ve been thinking about music a lot lately, and how it’s kind of like a conduit. It can serve you completely differently at different times in your life. I don’t know. For a time I had a bit of a jaded view of what music is, and that’s changed a lot lately. I feel like I’m much more open to listening, but I’m still very critical of what I hear. It’s hard to talk about.
“I think making [the album] reflected my mental and emotional state, which I think is how every record is going to be. I like that the songs are different and that they’re finding a way to work together. I like hearing that in other records, too, where there’s not ever the same tone twice. Sometimes, you feel monochromatic as a person, sometimes you have many different things going through your personal life and that can manifest into the music. So, I don’t really shape out what something is going to sound like, but I like the element of not knowing, the unconscious aspect of any form of art.”
BY ADAM NORRIS
