Wenn die Melancholie zuschlägt und auch der Synth genau diese Frequenz trifft, die direkt für Gänsehaut sorgt – dann hört ihr vielleicht einen Song von Tusks. Die Sängerin, Produzentin und Multiinstrumentalistin aus London hat atmosphärische Synths mit dunklen Pop-Melodien zu ihrem unverwechselbaren Sound gemacht und verpackt in ihnen Verletzlichkeit, Ehrlichkeit und Intimität. Die Vergleiche schwanken zwischen Daughter, Sigur Ros und Art School Girlfriend, und auch wir haben ihr neues Album Gold erstmal ein wenig sacken lassen müssen. Dann haben wir jedoch die Möglichkeit ergriffen, um Tusks selbst was zu ihrer Musik erzählen zu lassen.
Tusks im Interview
Anna: You’ve been making music for some time now. How would you describe your new record in comparison to the last two?
Tusks: I think it definitely feels more refined and mature than my previous two. I fully feel like I’m In my 30s writing it now. Like I was way younger making the first two. I think it’s richer, I think the songs are more developed and I think it sounds maybe more like the music I listen to a lot.
Anna: Gold is an album full of contradictions that you also pulled from your personal experiences. Is there one that fascinated you the most, or one that made you struggle the most?
Tusks: I think Strangers is the one that I struggle with most. The idea that you can be so close to someone for so long and then the relationship can end and you can just become strangers… Something about that just always feels so sad and gutting to me – even if its right to break up the relationship. Every time I sing it live it makes me sad in a different way to the other tracks.
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“You will be OK.”
Anna: What’s a learning you pulled from these experiences? Maybe we can learn something from them, too.
Tusks: I think that you can always get through the things that felt like they would be too much to handle. I feel like experiences just come around again and again in life disguised as different things and you will be OK – even if it seems impossible.
Anna: Your music is very ethereal, and it’s really easy to let myself just fall into it. How was the process behind the music for you?
Tusks: I love losing myself in the process of writing and producing music. Normally, I’d take myself away to a secluded place, not talking to anyone for days. It all kinda flows out of me. Then I take it back to the studio and start producing it properly. This one was really fun to produce. We ran it through loads of tape machines and analog delays and got really creative with the recording side of things. That brought so much fun and energy to the process.
Anna: Can you share songs (or artists) that recently made you feel like falling into them?
„Kinda like a daydream.”
Anna: Your song The Way is addressed to anxiety and trying to accept the things you cannot change. Did writing the song and addressing it so clearly change something for you?
Tusks: Yeah it did actually. The song is about realising that this is the way it was always going to be. Something about having that element of control or choice taken away from me really calms my anxiety. You just have to accept that this is how things are and this is what’s happened and move on. There’s no other choice really.
Anna: Read The Room also feels like a very personal song. What is it about?
Tusks: Yeah it is. Its another break up song – kinda more reflective and defeatist than the others on the album. It was all recorded in one take in this studio in Wales. Then I did a take of synths over the top through a Copicat Tape Echo which I think makes it feel way more lonely than the other tracks. Its meant to be a bit of an interlude. Kinda like a daydream.
„It would have been a completely different album“
Anna: In parts, the album was written amidst exceptional circumstances of 2020/2021. Do you feel like you would have written a different album if it wasn’t for Covid?
Tusks: Yeah for sure – it would’ve just been a completely different album I think because there was such a pause on everything that I just wrote and re-wrote all the songs. I think maybe only two of the songs that made it onto Gold were in the original ten songs – Wake and Cold Storm (weirdly the first and last).
Anna: What is the weirdest (or coolest) habit you picked up during the lockdown years?
Tusks: Haha err I made a lot of pasta at home. But I feel like that’s something you can only really do when you have the time you have in a lockdown.
Anna: For our last question we always ask for an untold story – something you’ve never shared in an interview before. Is there something you want to get off your chest now?
Tusks: The middle 8 of strangers came about because I got covid just before we went in to record the album. I was living in this warehouse of 11 people at the time. The rule was if you got covid, you couldn’t leave your room. I tested positive for ten days so was in this room for ten days and it was literally like 2m x 3m. It was so bizarre. Luckily it had a huge window which looked out across London and we were on the top floor so there was an amazing view – one day I just watched this crane build a house for hours. But yeah – I wrote the middle 8 of strangers at that time too which I think is why its so full of angst and tension.
“Full of angst and tension”, aber trotzdem wunderschön – wir können euch allen Tusks Album sehr ans Herz legen. Hört hier in Golden rein!
Fotocredit: Emily White
