DATE OF INTERVIEW: 4th May 2020
LOUISE PATRICIA CRANE
METAL DISCOVERY: You’ve made some luxury art cards to go with the vinyl edition, one per song, which I gather are prints of your own work that you’ve sold with the deluxe, hand-numbered vinyl set, which sold out quite quickly, I gather?
LOUISE: That’s right.
(Louise Patricia Crane on the artwork she created for each song on 'Deep Blue')
"...from the synaesthesia aspect, that’s why I chose to do abstract pieces because I could explore what those songs and lyrical themes make me see in my mind’s eye; what I see whenever I hear that music."
PART 4 BELOW
PART 4 ABOVE
Louise Patricia Crane
Interview by Mark Holmes
Photograph copyright © 2020 Ester Segarra - www.estersegarra.com
PART 4
PART 4
RELATED LINKS
Official Louise Patricia Crane website:
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to Andy Turner for arranging the interview
Official Louise Patricia Crane Facebook:
Official Louise Patricia Crane Instagram:
Metal Discovery's review of 'Deep Blue':
Official Louise Patricia Crane Twitter:
MD: How did you approach each of those pieces? Obviously, each piece was inspired by one of the songs, so how did you get in the right creative and emotional space so that the songs would inspire the art? Did you play each song on loop while creating each piece?
LOUISE: Yeah, I would listen to the song whenever I was painting those pieces and, of course, knowing where I was coming from in terms of how I wrote the lyrics and knowing what I was trying to achieve, some of which is probably hard to even articulate, I think, from that aspect. And listening to the music, too, from the synaesthesia aspect, that’s why I chose to do abstract pieces because I could explore what those songs and lyrical themes make me see in my mind’s eye; what I see whenever I hear that music.
And it was always the plan to do this. Even when I first wrote ‘Deep Blue’ and I had this idea in my head, okay, finally I’m going to do this album, I was always gonna do a piece of artwork for each song. It’s weird that I just knew that and I had to do that. And, yeah, so I just immersed myself in each song and it wasn’t a super-fast process; it’s something I really had to be in the right mind frame for, and I had to sit down and really be totally focussed on. I completely transformed this dining room into an art studio and… yeah, everything was just covered in ink! And there was alcohol... more than usual!
MD: Heeeey! There’s kind of like a botany theme in the art, as well. The artwork is very botanical.
LOUISE: Oh, absolutely, the botanical theme’s really come through. I think, probably, the craziest one is ‘The Eve of the Hunter’. It’s just, that’s what I see whenever I hear that song. Just dark, earthy colours and golds, bronzes, blacks. You know, it’s dark to me. It might not be for the listener; it might be something completely different, but that’s exciting to me.
MD: Have you got any plans to create more art for selling? They’re all very beautiful pieces, so there’ll undoubtedly be quite a few takers out there…
LOUISE: Thank you. Absolutely, I am actually in the process of creating more original artwork and art is such an intrinsic part of what I do; it’s an intrinsic part of me as an artist, a musical artist, and visual artist. So, yep, I will have a gallery and I will have original artwork for sale and I will have prints for sale.
MD: Marvellous. Obviously every musician’s plans are up in the air now, unfortunately, but were there any plans to take ‘Deep Blue’ on the road and play a few shows?
LOUISE: For sure, yeah. I already have a live band and everything… [Laughs]
MD: Oh no… well, I should say oh yes, but you can’t get out there, so oh no!
LOUISE: I know, it’s so annoying. But, the good thing is, eventually, this will all blow over and it will be something… I cannot wait to go on the road with this, to perform these songs with my live band. The plan is to do a run of UK gigs, up as high as the north of Scotland but a number of dates throughout the rest of England.
MD: And you can perhaps tempt the likes of Ian Anderson out for the odd show, maybe, for a little guest spot?
LOUISE: Yeah, maybe, I would love to. I would love to tempt Ian out; I would love to tempt Jakko out. But, yeah, we’ll see how it all goes.
MD: A bit too far for Scott!
LOUISE: I can try and see what he says! But it’s an exciting time, and definitely the reaction so far, like your review and the review in Prog… I don’t know if you’ve read the review that was in Prog?
MD: Yeah, I saw you’d posted something, and Dom Lawson’s given it a very glowing review, which is a great name to have behind you because he’s very well respected as a journalist.
LOUISE: Yeah.
MD: That’s a brilliant bit of coverage to get.
LOUISE: It is. It’s totally surreal, like I said. At any point, I’m going to wake up!
MD: Or hopefully not!
LOUISE: [Laughs]
MD: The final thing I was going to ask - I took a look at the Spotify playlist you compiled recently and posted online, and there’s a big 70s bias there, so do you think that you were perhaps born in the wrong era?! You know, would you have wanted to be a teenager in the 70s, getting into all this stuff, first-hand?
LOUISE: Oh yeah, it would’ve been amazing, yeah. I mean, to be able to have seen some of those artists and musicians live at that time would be phenomenal. I just can’t get enough of 70s music. The music that came out in the 70s, I’m constantly discovering new stuff. I’m a complete record collecting fanatic. It’s not just about collecting the records; they’re not just museum pieces… I actually do listen to them.
MD: Yeah, I find that weird when people… hipsters and people who latch onto trends, buy vinyl and never play it.
LOUISE: What is that all about?!
MD: I read an article very recently, it might’ve been in The Guardian, where it said that something like twenty per cent of people who buy vinyl don’t actually even own a record player. It’s like…. what?!
LOUISE: It’s very strange. I do find that strange. But I think so much of my musical discovery comes from buying records. And so much of it is just from taking a punt on amazing LP sleeves with great artwork.
MD: I remember doing that as a kid because there was no internet, and no YouTube and less radio for alternative music, so you had to take a punt. I remember seeing album covers, loving them and thinking, yeah, the artwork’s great so the music must be great. Sometimes, it’s complete shit but, you know, sometimes it’s amazing, but it’s the punt you took. You end up with a 50/50 collection of stuff that’s either shit or amazing!
LOUISE: There’s definitely some howlers in my collection! But I think a lot of the time, whenever I’ve made choices with records, a lot of the time it’s because of a particular musician in that band, or I know that person plays on this record - I don’t know the music but I know this person plays on it. You go down a rabbit hole a bit, sometimes. If it’s a genre you really love, you take a punt on things a bit more. But, yeah, there’s all kinds of nonsense in that collection.
MD: All part of the fun.
LOUISE: It is.
MD: Right, thank you so much for your time, it’s been a real pleasure chatting to you, and finding out more about ‘Deep Blue’. And congratulations again, on such a magnificent album.
LOUISE: Thank you very much, Mark.
MD: For want of a better phrase, it’s fucking amazing!
LOUISE: [Laughs]
MD: So I hope it does really well for you when it’s out there. And it’s the escapism people need right now, so it’s being released at the right time.
LOUISE: Definitely. That’s what I hope is the case, anyway. I was exchanging a number of emails with Ian Anderson recently and he said something very sweet. He said that, “This is probably a good time to release your album, because it’s probably the time when people actually need escapism a bit more than they usually would.”
MD: Definitely.
LOUISE: So that was lovely to hear from him.
MD: And he’s a man to respect and take notice of, so hopefully everyone will, and I hope it sells really well for you.
LOUISE: Thank you. Keep in touch... and I really love your review.