“I think sometimes you just get carried away – you’re just like layering, and layering,” Addamo laughs. “I love layering! Just different pads and synths over the top of each other. Sometimes it can get too crowded and then you have to listen to the final and go ‘Hmm, let’s just take a few things out!’”
The tracks that comprise Nightswim are definitely each their own rich little lasagne, but it’s not like everything is electronic; there’s too much intelligence and self-awareness in there for it to ever be really artificial, and Addamo explains that the recording process was central to this idea as well. “Sometimes I find, for me – I don’t know if it’s the same for every singer – but the first take that I do, it’s so fresh and so emotive, I mean you just wrote those words! And you go and sing it, and usually you’re like ‘Oh I can re-record that later.’ But on this album we ended up just keeping [those takes], because they sounded great the first time ‘round.”
The album’s titular track itself demonstrates how Addamo has meshed electronic and acoustic elements together successfully; it’s a pretty beautiful love song, and the strings in particular are heavenly. Are they real strings? “Yeah, sometimes it’s hard to tell now that you can emulate everything,” the singer says, “but actually yes, all the string elements on Love Run Dry, Hurricane … were live.”
Hurricane is a mightily compelling track, with thumping drums, plenty of synth and a chorus of Addamo’s airy harmonies singing ‘Hit me with your hurricane/Hit me with your hurricane’ in a way that sounds like she’s all swept up in the air. It seems to have so many parts which are great ‘gems’ (as my impro teacher used to say) in themselves. “That one came from just a beat and a few synth sounds, like a little demo, and then it kind of flourished into this massive percussion piece,” Addamo explains. “We recorded some live drums and also some sample drums, and then I got some strings, and it kind of turned into this massive song. It’s funny how some songs work,” she muses. “Some songs you write the demo and they end up being pretty much the same, but that song was very different by the end of it.”
Another stand-out is Diamonds In Her Eyes which contains the line ‘Let me cause a whirlwind in your world’ – the wind is an apt theme for the whole of this record, because the instruments Addamo uses, such as strings and synths, produce long sustained sounds which mimic a sweeping movement through space. “I kind of had the idea that [Diamonds In Her Eyes] was going to be very layered, and very lush,” says Addamo. “And it’s very hard sometimes to play [those kinds of songs] live; it always sounds a bit different.”
The live versus recording conundrum is one the 22-year-old feels strongly about. In interviews previous to her last small tour, Addamo said she wanted to play her unfinished material to fans and make decisions on its recording later on. “I think what you learn on tour you put into the live practise, but before I went and recorded this album I didn’t really think about the live aspect because I think it will limit you with the sounds that you’re using,” she says. “If you’re in the studio thinking ‘Oh, I can’t do that live’, then it’s going to limit you. And I think now there’s so many … things you can buy, new technologies coming out every month, you can always find a way to put [ideas] on in a live way.”
Now that the time has come to tour Nightswim, Addamo is investigating how to put that belief into practise. “Around now, when I’m kind of practising the songs and trying to put them to a live stage, I’ve thought about things like what reactions I got from some of the songs that I’ve played, and where to put them in the set. I think I’m a lot smarter now writing setlists, whereas before I was just like, ‘Oh, I’ll chuck any song here, it doesn’t really matter.’ But it kind of has to have a build; I’m more aware of the dynamics that live shows have to have.”
To help her recreate the sweet sounds of Nightswim, Addamo will be joined on this tour by a percussionist who will play both acoustic and electronic drums, a bass player, a synth player and “a few other things.” She’d also really dig some backup singers. “I think it’s a cool vibe. A lot of people haven’t been doing it, I think just because it is so expensive [to take them on tour], but I really hope I can find some. I think it would just be the cherry on top.”
BY ZOË RADAS
