In Conversation With #268 - Cruel Sister
Cruel Sister - aka Faith Nico from Dublin - has just released her brand new EP ‘Turgid’ - which sees her unraveling her head by writing from the heart across five tracks.
Drawing inspiration from the artists love of early 90’s grunge, shoegaze and alt-indie - notably early PJ Harvey, My Bloody Valentine, Wolf Alice and Sonic Youth with all the experimental production and evolutionary sounds of artists like Grimes and Sky Ferreira - but with more gusto and more of herself.
She took a moment to talk to us about how the EP came together.
Hey there Cruel Sister - how are you? So your EP is out now - how does it feel to have it out there in the world?
Pretty great! It’s a body of work I’m incredibly proud of and a big departure from girls my age sonically, so I’m glad people are finally seeing this new side of what I’m capable of as a musician, producer and songwriter.
It is called ‘Turgid’ - what is the meaning behind that?
When I was in secondary school I remember learning about plant cells in biology and about how when the plant cell gets swollen and filled with water it's a good thing, but it’s not a good thing for animal cells. I just thought that was a really incredibly grotesque image, human cells and human parts being swollen and congested. It also alludes to how sometimes my brain can feel that way when I’m completely overwhelmed with unpleasant thoughts and insecurities, like it’s swollen with horrible things I can't get rid of. I thought it would be interesting to describe a brain as turgid, which I did in Lenny, and so I took the EP name from that, as I go into that theme a lot in it. I also only found out recently that I have been pronouncing it wrong this whole time! It’s tur-jid with a soft G, not tur-gid with a hard G as I have been saying it, since that’s how my biology teacher said it, and sure I only went and recorded the vocals and finished Lenny with me singing it that way!
Where was it recorded? Any behind the scenes stories from the creative process you are happy to share with us?
All over the place! Hands was recorded entirely in Arad studios by Les Keye with my amazing live band, and the rest was between the Yellow Door studios and my own bedroom. I live at home with my family in an apartment with people behind almost every wall, so when I was recording the vocals, which involved a lot of screaming, I had to really get into it wholeheartedly to get the right take or else it just wouldn’t sound raw enough. Naturally my parents asked me to stop doing it in my room because it sounded like I was enduring some sort of horrible pain and we didn’t want the neighbours to think that, so I decided to record the rest of the vocals in my rehearsal space. I produced the EP and recorded all the guitar and bass parts for all the songs (except for Hands) in my bedroom and the rest of the drums were recorded in yellow door by Aaron Corcoran (AKA the artist Skinner) and played by Rhys Mayes, my drummer.
What are the key themes and influences on the EP?
Overall it's me exploring the less pleasant and desirable parts of my psyche that I’ve been pushing down my whole life, particularly intrusive thoughts, which is something I really struggle with. As someone who usually writes songs music-first I find writing lyrics sometimes can feel a bit artificial if it’s not an intense emotion I actually feel, so I can struggle a lot with finishing songs because I find I don’t quite know the words for it just yet. But with Turgid everything just came out, I think because I was allowing myself to be raw and vulnerable and letting the conversation with my inner self flow, despite how much I hated that side or how ugly I thought it was. There was a great inner pain and a deep feeling of insecurity that needed to be talked about. It’s a bit cliché but it's so true that writing your feelings out in music can be really cathartic, and it can be about any feeling, no matter how big and small, but it feels better when it’s honest.
If the EP could be the soundtrack to any film - which one would it be and why?
Probably something really violent, with women committing the violence, so maybe Kill Bill ?
Do you have a favorite lyric on the EP - if so, which one and why?
Probably from Lenny, it's pretty simple but I really like it.
“I rot in bed waiting for something.
I decay all day, all day.”
I suffer from executive dysfunction and when I’m feeling low I can go for days and days just sitting in my room doing nothing, because I’ll have no motivation to do things, even things I want to do, and it feels like I’m rotting like a carcass, waiting for life to make me feel something.
Now the EP is out there - what next?
My musical interests change with the wind, so the next thing I make could be an entirely different animal altogether. I feel like the sky's the limit and I’m not containing myself within any genre, if that's not where I want to be. I just want to keep making art that I am proud of.
