Nelson references many different icons in her music. Her moniker (Nelson’s true title is Lia Tsamoglou) comes from the Serge Gainsbourg album Historie de Melody Nelson (1971), a record she adores. “It’s a really amazing concept album, based around a Lolita-sort-of-esque character,” she says warmly. “I just love the music on that album and I thought, ‘That’s a great name!’ It was something that I really wanted to come across through the name, you know, referencing this era of music.”
Motion pictures from the ‘60s and ‘70s have also been a big inspiration for the musician. “Yes, [Dario] Argento, and a lot of [Roman] Polanski, that whole suburbia sort of thing. Rosemary’s Baby, and Repulsion. Just those sorts of edgy films that are just really, you know, kind of fucked up. I feel like back then, things were a little bit more experimental and a little bit more messed up. Valley Of The Dolls, The Stepford Wives. There’s always something a little bit seedy going on underneath,” she says pointedly, over-articulating the words comically. “The themes of the album make reference to those sorts of things: murder, death, and depression.” She says this with a low giggle at the darkness of it all – because this, friends and neighbours, is not a dark woman. She’s down-to-earth, certainly, but jokes and laughter come easily.
Martha is a layered beauty of voices, organ, and in the chorus there’s a deep whistle which sounds almost like something from a horror movie. The organ in particular has an incredible sound. “It’s a…Wurlitzer? No, it was actually just my Nord, it has that effect… I think it might be a Hammond. The organ setting,” she laughs brightly. “[Piano] was the first [instrument] that I learnt when I was seven, and I’ve sort of been playing since. When I first started playing guitar, I had trouble. But after teaching myself guitar I found that easier to write with,” she says. “When you learn scales and stuff like that, sort of rigid, classical pieces, it’s hard to then write pop songs. And I didn’t know how to do that until like… recently,” she says, chuckling. “I don’t play keyboards any more though. I had an ‘80s Casio that I used to use last year that had a chorus-y effect, that made everything sounds really cool and ‘80s and ‘90s. I kept getting Twin Peaks comparisons. So I’ve gone a bit more traditional now, with the Nord.”
To The Dollhouse was recorded out in Thornbury – “It took a little while to get there on the tram,” Nelson laughs. The singer put a lot of thought into where and how she wanted to write, particularly when it came to lyrics. “I had this notebook and I wrote down really weird things that I kind of wanted to happen. My boyfriend had a look at it and said, ‘That is the funniest thing you’ve ever written. It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever read.’ I wrote weird tasks for me. Like, ‘A song about a dead wife, from her point of view, while she’s dead in the back of a trunk.’ Stuff like that. Then I wrote Martha and [my boyfriend] was like, ‘Oh, I get it!’”
Kel Derrig-Hall, Nelson’s boyfriend and partner in crime during the years of experimental pop outfit Moonmilk, plays bass in the artist’s backing band. “He’s been there since the beginning,” she says sweetly. And what is it like to have your man in your band? “Don’t ask! No, no,” she laughs. “Being with other people in a band is really interesting, and we wanted to be in a band together so that if either of us toured we could hang out with each other. It’s a bit challenging sometimes. He notices it when I’m passive-aggressively trying to tell someone in the band to change what they’re playing. He’ll challenge me though, he’s the one member that will challenge my tyrannical ways.”
BY ZOË RADAS
