INTERVIEW // PROPHESY SUN

INTERVIEW // PROPHESY SUN

FOR THE POLYPHONIC PIXEL

prOphesy sun is a a multidisciplinary performance artist and musician who lives in East Vancouver. Her latest offering, Bird Curious, is a collection of songs that weave together elements of vocal improvisation, organic room noises and environmental vibrations to create emotive spaces, exploring the fleeting realm of the time. The kicker? It was recorded entirely on an iPhone. Over the past few years she’s built herself up as one of the main creatives of the vibrant East Side scene, performing with Tyranahorse, Spell and Her Jazz Noise Collective, to name a few. Haunting and surreal, Bird Curious was released May 1, 2012.

The Polyphonic Pixel: What made you decide to record your album on an iPhone?

prOphesy sun: First and foremost, music for me is immediate. In my art, my performance tends to be in the moment. Recording on the iPhone was just another style of working in the moment. I’ll have a tune in my head, and then I’ll just record it. For me, another reason why I chose to use this medium is that something that has that feeling of immediacy has limitations too – sometimes my phone will run out of memory space so I have to make room. Another thing is that if I’m biking, or hearing the rain falling, I can record the space I’m in. In the past I have used soundscapes from recordings with a hand recorder, to capture the space I was in at that moment in time.

PP: You’ve told people you tend to do things in “one go.” Why?

ps: I am an improvisor so it’s really in the moment; its just right there, it’s what comes out of me. There’s a vision in some ways, aspects of altering something, but it would lose some of its originality and I’m interested in the source of things. When I go with that emotion or feeling, it will take me somewhere.

PP: How do you feel about people describing your work? Do you feel like people are constantly missing the mark?

ps: It can be awkward or disconcerting sometimes. I feel lucky that anyone would listen to me because it’s a very personal practice that I’m sharing with the world. It’s interesting to hear people clarify things for me, like when I’m doing things in the moment, I have no sense of how it fits with things. It’s like a reality check. I come back down to reality and have others put it into everyday culture.

PP: Bird Curious is your third album. Were there events, ideas or things you felt especially inspired by?

ps: Things for me tend to run along three angles. I love serenades, in not only present and the past, but potential serenades where I could explore if I loved another person, and how I would love them. My second is a real fantasy; I start to push my limitations on what I feel what my voice can do, and how it can evolve. It’s cool to make sounds I had no idea I could make. Finally, I like being open to just being. I sometimes find where these sounds come from, that it’s like a meditative process. The sooner I work within something, I can transport it somewhere else, like fantasy reality, chaotic ethereal space where I can create a soundscape.

PP: Tell me about your music video, for “Moments Pass.”

ps: The music video was not done by myself; I worked with designer Kendra Patton. Her and I got together and I told her I was putting together some work. Her and I were in contact with another mutual friend who was renting space in an apartment building that was to be condemned a week later, so I lined up everything with one crew and used that same space for the video.

PP: Do you find your style of making music to shift, or change since your first album?

ps: I’m moving more into using text or words; in the past I was so focused on finding the melody but now that’s evolving a lot more into language. I’ve really focused on the voice. In my second album, I was shifting a lot between the instruments I work with: a broken harmonica, a kazoo and some broken electronics and sound samples. My first album used a lot more sound samples and my voice, but this album is really just my voice. The evolution of my music now is really about me really pushing my voice more and more, learning about how it’s an innate tool with endless possibilities.

Check out the music video for prOphesy sun’s “Moment’s pass”:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLc2V2PUHOQ]

SONG OF THE DAY // Lana Del Rey’s “Blue Jeans”

SONG OF THE DAY // Lana Del Rey’s “Blue Jeans”

I feel as though Lana Del Rey has been a bit of a product of some unfortunate incidences. With her debut album being overly hyped up, and a poor performance on SNL, the singer’s offering “Born to Die” has received mingled reviews ranging from high praise to pure disappointment.

I’ve always liked her work though. While some of her lyrics can be reaching for something at a point she’s not at yet, there are moments of innocence and soulful realization that I find endearing and relatable.

x

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRWox-i6aAk&ob=av2e]

Lyrics:

Blue jeans, White shirt
Walked into the room you know you made my eyes burn
It was like James Dean, for sure
You so fresh to death & sick as ca-cancer
You were sorta punk rock, I grew up on hip hop
But you fit me better than my favorite sweater, and I know
That love is mean, and love hurts
But I still remember that day we met in December, oh baby!

I will love you till the end of time
I would wait a million years
Promise you’ll remember that you’re mine
Baby can you see through the tears?
Love you more
Than those bitches before
Say you’ll remember, oh baby, say you’ll remember
I will love you till the end of time

Big dreams, gangster
Said you had to leave to start your life over
I was like: “no please, stay here,”
We don’t need no money we can make it all work
But he headed out on Sunday, said he’d come home Monday
I stayed up waitin’, anticipatin’ and pacin’ but he was
Chasing paper
“Caught up in the game” that was the last I heard

I will love you till the end of time
I would wait a million years
Promise you’ll remember that you’re mine
Baby can you see through the tears?
Love you more
Than those bitches before
Say you’ll remember, oh baby, say you’ll remember
I will love you till the end of time

You went out every night
And baby that’s alright
I told you that no matter what you did I’d be by your side
Cause Ima ride or die
Whether you fail or fly
Well shit, at least you tried.
But when you walked out that door, a piece of me died
I told you I wanted more-but that not what I had in mind
I just want it like before
We were dancin’ all night
Then they took you away- stole you out of my life
You just need to remember….

Will love you till the end of time
I would wait a million years
Promise you’ll remember that your mine
Baby can you see through the tears?
Love you more
Than those bitches before
Say you’ll remember, oh baby, say you’ll remember
I will love you till the end of time

SONG OF THE DAY // The Shins “40 Mark Strasse”

SONG OF THE DAY // The Shins “40 Mark Strasse”

The newest offering from The Shins has made me very, very happy. I started listening to their retro-style indie pop back in 2004 during my first year of university, and many of their tunes eventually became anthems and the soundtrack to my life at several points.

As for this song, I just think it’s really pretty. Hope you do too.

x

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kFH5A9J1uA]

Lyrics:

Is it all so very simple
And horribly complex
You’re suffering
And there’s nothing coming next

Your mom smokes in the kitchen
Her voice a cutting drown
They’re creeping out, you pass the bar
Your father’s second home
That leaves you on your own

Nights I’d often watch you
Float across the ground
Out the gate to the motorway
What secrets have you found?

You had to know I wanted
Something from you then
Too young to know just what it was
Something more than a friend
Is that you at the end

Well, you play in the street at night
You blow like a broken kite
My girl, you’re giving up the fight
Are you gonna let these Americans
Put another dent in your life?

My mother says your dirty
They’re gonna find you dead
But have you got that final chapter
Written in your head

Cause every single story
Is a story about love
Both the overflowing cup
And the painful lack thereof
You got the heart of a dove

But you play in the street at night
You blow just like a broken kite
My girl, you’re giving up the fight
You’ll have to lose all them childish notions
If you’re gonna let these American boys
Put another dent in your life

You play in the street at night
You blow just like a broken kite
My girl, you’re giving up the fight
You’ll have to lose all them childish notions
Are you gonna let these Americans
Put another dent in your life?

SONG OF THE DAY // Mumford and Sons “I Gave You All”

SONG OF THE DAY // Mumford and Sons “I Gave You All”

Monday mornings can be surprisingly introspective for me. I found myself listening to this on the morning commute, watching the rain beating at the windshield, my mind wandering.

Based in London, Mumford and Sons have a distinctively soulful twang that they throw into their mix of folk bluegrass, enough to the point that would make you feel like you were sitting in a little tavern in Alabama. This song holds immeasurable weight in my heart. I hope you enjoy.

x

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyU5OAAOOBE&feature=related]

Lyrics:

Rip the earth in two with your mind
Seal the urge which ensues with brass wires
I never meant you any harm
But your tears feel warm as they fall on my forearm

I close my eyes for a while
And force from the world a patient smile

How can you say that your truth is better than ours?
Shoulder to shoulder, now brother, we carry no arms
The blind man sleeps in the doorway, his home
If only I had an enemy bigger than my apathy I could have won

But I gave you all

I close my eyes for a while
And force from the world a patient smile

But I gave you all

And you rip it from my hands
And you swear it’s all gone
And you rip out all I have
Just to say that you’ve won

Well now you’ve won