Get To Know hemlock
Photos by Andrea van den Boogaard
Amplified meets with Carolina of hemlock to discuss recording their song-a-day album, october, adapting and embracing seasonal change, and celebrating inspiration across industries in Chicago.
A: Amplified
h: hemlock
A: I’ve been listening a lot to your album that recently came out, october – Especially with the seasons changing. I wanted to ask you about the song-a-day phone recordings that you do, and what that creative process is like for you.
h: For me, this project came about because of the inherent accessibility – Just using whatever you have available. This is the fourth one that I’ve done now, so I’m doing them once a year, every year, until the full calendar is blocked out eventually. So I think the main hurdle now is just losing sleep. (laughs) Getting into the routine of doing something like this is that it’s quick and easy in one respect – Because it’s on this phone that’s with me all the time and I can pull it out anywhere at any time, theoretically – But that often ends up being at the very end of the day, at 1 or 2 in the morning, and involves me sitting down and trusting intuition, and whatever first rolls out to be the song for that day. (laughs)
It’s been a very intimate growing process with myself. I think I feel a lot more comfortable just hitting a button on my phone than being in a studio environment that often feels constrained by the pressures of time or money in a way that this isn’t. I guess what I’m going for with it is folk in the true essence of the word… in that it’s something of the people, something that anyone can do. Accessible cost-wise and time-wise and means-wise.
A: And in the technical process, once you have the recordings, what does the next step look like for you?
h: So…. I guess it’s kind of a lack thereof with the technical process. (laughs) I record on this app called Spire. It has, like, 8 tracks that you can record on, and then it just has basic sound checking and level setting and panning, and that’s the only mixing that gets done on this whole project. So I guess this one was the most technically refined, even in that it was mastered so that all the volumes are comparable to one another. But that’s it! Just pressing the button, recording them, arranging them panning-wise and levels-wise how I want, airdropping them onto my laptop and then putting them all on the internet at the end of the month! (laughs). So hardly technical at all.
A: And that’s speaking, too, to the vulnerability that it takes to let people in with you recording in your bedroom.
h: Yeah, or wherever it happens to be! And I mean, there are little tricks of how I like to record that I’ve learned from doing it so much at this point, whether it’s doubling vocals or doubling guitar, where I like to put my phone down… And a lot of it is that I try to do as few takes as possible, so one or two of each track that I’m doing. It feels like the more “takes” that it takes, the more sterile that it can get, or the more feeling it loses. So I’m just really trying to honor the most fresh versions of all of these things as I’m getting them down.
A: When you talk about honoring the moment that you’re in when you record, do you remember what the moment, or place in your life, was when you started recording for october?
h: Yeah. It was actually a very intense time for me. But I think the songs really help me transport myself back to that moment. Like, I think I did really well with - I’m proud of myself, I’m patting myself on the back for this one – the rawness and the freshness of those feelings that I captured in october. Because I can very viscerally be transported back to where I was in the moment of writing the song. And thinking of the first week of them, they often were sitting on the front porch of my childhood home in Louisiana, processing a lot of grief and loss and changes going on in my life. And it was really… beautiful, I guess, in some ways, to be able to move through that with this project.
And even the older [albums] - like february was the first one I did in 2019, and I can listen to that and remember where I was writing a lot of those songs now, three years later. I have a huge fear of forgetting things, and also in a major memory hoarder, kind of amateur archivist way, I think this project lends itself to that – to holding onto these feelings and memories, trying to be present with myself.
A: And you write poetry as well, outside of the music that you put into the world?
h: Yeah. I think at this point, I’m in the place where poetry and songs are kind of synonymous to me. So I have all these little nuggets in my Notes app –
A: Notes nuggets.
h: Yeah! (laughs) Which often become songs. And I feel like these days, I don’t sit down to write poetry as much as I used to when I was in high school or college anymore - Poetry in that it won’t become a song later. Because I feel like often now, what I’m writing almost always becomes a song, in that the music of it and the words of it feel very interdependent for me. I definitely used to draw more of a distinction between poetry and song, but now I feel like they’re one in the same. (laughs) I feel like I do write poetry, but also that the songs are poetry.
A: And I think that for me, as a listener, that really comes across in your music, too. I wanted to ask you about change and transition - especially thinking about october, and now hearing that you, as an artist, were experiencing these changes as you were writing – and the change of the season, the change that October brings, sitting here in the leaves off of the trees around us (laughs) – Where do you go in the city to feel that change, to watch the change happen around you, however you experience the fall-to-winter transition?
h: I think the number one answer for that question, if I’m being honest, is my back yard. (laughs). I really am fortunate to have a very nice back yard right now. It’s nice to wake up in the morning, making a cup of tea or something, and every day check in with the yard. Or walk through it - We have garden beds, and the person who owned the house before it got sold recently did a lot of work to plant a lot of beautiful produce and perennials and flowers. There are these different seasonal roses that come and go throughout the course of the year, and lillies and things… And I’ve gotten to know that little cozy, intimate plot of land really well. And it holds me through the changing of the seasons.
And I live right off of the 606. I take the 606 to get a lot of places on my bike, and I feel like not a lot of people go all the way to the end, but there’s this corridor of trees along it, and some berry vines and trees and things toward the western end of the 606. So taking that very often, every week, feels like it carries me through this portal of the changing of the seasons. Watching these little bits of nature that you can forget are there, and the commute to work, or whatever it is… So biking on the 606, my backyard, and Humboldt Park as well. I’m in that little pocket of Chicago. And Humboldt is absolutely gorgeous, whether you’re by the lagoon or sitting on the big hill, there are so many changes to be seen there from week to week.
And then honorable mention to the Indiana Dunes across the way. (laughs) I did that a lot more my first year [in Chicago], when my former roommate was still in town. She was going out there all the time and I would just jump in the car and go with her. That was the most dramatic changing of the seasons in the Midwest, I think…. Going from one week to the next in the dunes, like the ramps are there, and then you go the next they aren’t anywhere, and it just flourishes and is incredible to behold.
A: Do you feel like you experience the seasons differently in the Midwest and in Chicago than you did in Louisiana?
h: Oh yeah. Yes. The leaf changing is so vibrant and incredible. It’s like a grieving process more here, too, because when the leaves start to drop, and everything is getting kind of barren, I feel such loss around it, and that’s okay! (laughs) And I think that it marks the passage of time in a way that’s a lot more palpable than what I grew up with. Because we don’t have a true autumn or a true spring, it’s just, “Oop! It’s really hot every day! And now it’s kind of cold, I guess?”
A: I hear what you’re saying about the passage of time, though – And knowing that it happens every year, to accept it and see the beauty in it… Or just learn to appreciate it in a new way. And I felt that way when I was listening to october, too, because I felt like I was being held through the process of changing. It felt a little bit less scary, a little bit less daunting.
A: While we’re talking about Chicago spaces and things that inspire us – Are there any Chicago artists that are inspiring you right now?
h: YEAH. (laughs) Yes. Liz McCarthy at GnarWare, the ceramics studio in Pilsen. Endlessly inspiring space - Both Liz, who owns and runs the studio, and her artistry – And everyone in that studio space. If I’m there, just dinking around with mud, you look around and everyone’s just working on something that blows your mind. So they’re huge inspirations. I think that GnarWare is an invaluable community space for the arts in Chicago.
And then The Neofuturists, which is a cliché Chicago thing but it stays fucking incredible! Every time I go, I cry! And every time I go, I laugh! I gotta shout them out because they are consistently one of the most inspiring things that I experience in town.
Fran - The project, Fran, that my friend, Maria, is in. Her melodies inspire me so much and I was very honored to sing on her album that’s coming out early next year. It’s been beautiful to watch her artistry evolve, even over the last year…. Tenci, their new album’s incredible and they’re one of my favorite live bands I’ve ever seen. I think each of them brings something so special, and each of them are powerhouses in their own right. So Tenci is an obvious answer, and then Advance Base is another obvious answer, Owen Ashworth and Orindal Records, it’s so incredible to live in the same town as him… Because I think he also cultivates such a strong artist community.
And then Han Sandoz is a friend of mind from Lafayette, Louisiana. So it’s been nice to be inspired by each other in a similar arc of being from the same place and now living in the same place. They just have an eagerness that I really appreciate. It keeps you excited and is inspiring to me. (laughs) I got more!
A: Go off!
h: Okay! Include what you will! Matt Greene and the bartenders at the Alderman in Pilsen! Those cocktails are so good! It’s an art! My partner and I went there for our two year anniversary this year, and the cocktails… One of them made him cry. Because it triggered a nostalgia, it was a taste from Chile that he remembered from his childhood. And that takes some artistry! If you can make a cocktail that makes someone cry, then you’re doing your job pretty fucking well. So, them.
The whole staff of Middlebrow – Everyone. They’re all artists in their own way, a lot of hustlers. I just quit, shoutout! But I was working at Middlebrow and all of the staff members there are artists in some respect. And the people in the kitchen and the bakers, too, are just some of the most creative culinary people that I’ve ever met. So they’re artists, as well, that inspire me.
And then Lily Cozzens makes some of my favorite visual art in Chicago. I have some of her pieces hanging in my house. Some nuts ballpoint pen drawings that I don’t know how she does, and other things too. I don’t know how she does it. And then Nnamdï’s new album is rocking my world. And I think how he balances humor and pain is inspiring to me.
And then the Great Lake Jumper! I don’t know if you’ve seen his Instagram –
A: FUCK YEAH!
h: Dan T. O’Conor! I don’t care if you think he’s an artist, or if he even thinks he’s an artist, he’s an artist to me. I think anything that takes that much persistence is an art. He inspires me. That’s my truncated list. That’s so long.
A: And there’s truly no limit to how long the list can get.
h: And I barely scratched the surface, still.
A: Well, what I appreciate is that there are so many different creative pockets of the city. There are so many different types of craft that go into each one place, and I think that a lot of the places in Chicago seem like an amalgamation of a lot of different forms at the same time. So of course any one musician will be inspired by a whole spectrum of people that exist within the city, because there’s kind of artistry everywhere you look, in that way.
h: Yeah, I mean just the lake itself inspires me so deeply. I was gonna say, these are my favorite kind of waves today, too. They’re that gentle, rolling swell. So glad to see them.
A: Shout-out Lake Mich.
h: The endless inspiration, for sure.
A: So, we can stream october on all platforms, and we can read some of your work - You write under the name hemlock?
h: Yeah! I guess there are minimal writings published outside of the songs. I was featured in Lyrics as Poetry, which is this beautiful collection of a bunch of inspirations and friends in that publication. That’s the only poem, I guess, that I have published.
A: Sweet! And you have a show coming up this week?
h: Yeah! December 1 at Golden Dagger with Max Subar and Nico Play.
A: Great! Well, shout-out all of those things coming up.
h: I think we covered a lot of good ground! Thank you for your questions.
A: Thank you for your answers.
hemlock performs with Max Subar and Nico Play at Golden Dagger on December 1, 2022 (ticket link). Their most recent album, october, is streaming on music platforms now. Find updates on upcoming events with hemlock on Instagram at @hemlocksounds.
