Allyson Smith
Albany musician Allyson Smith writes powerful songs that absorb and then permeate their surroundings. For their latest EP, Carter Creek Choir, Smith escaped to a secluded cabin north of the Adirondacks in order to connect with their surroundings and remain laser-focused on translating those moments of personal reflection in nature into the tranquil sounds of their music. Their experiences are reflected through the raw and autumnal sounds of the EP, particularly on tracks like “Vacancy,” which profoundly expounds on the impact of loss, and “Forever For A While,” a taciturn examination of the fleeting nature of love and the desire to hold onto it for as long as possible. More recently, Smith shared a demo version of their song “The Waves,” a minimalist pop track that’s packed with emotion. “The Waves” is the latest in a string of singles that Smith has released over the last two years, which combined, make up their All Good Things EP, a work in progress that is expected to be completed in 2021.
We caught up with Smith via e-mail to chat about their songwriting experiences in isolation, how they connect with their natural surroundings, the inspiration behind some of their songs, their plans for 2021, and more:
Take us back a little bit. What were some of your first experiences playing music? How’d you get your start? What projects were you involved with before starting as a solo artist?
I'm definitely a songwriter first, musician second. I've been writing songs since before I could write, ever since I was a child. I've acquired and learned instruments as a way to support my songwriting, getting my first guitar and a four-track recorder when I was in college.
Those four-track songs became the foundation for my first project in 2016, a band called Cannon the Brave, which used that superhero alter-ego as a lens to explore the transformation of negative experiences into positive ones by reframing them. When that band dissolved in 2018, I moved to the cabin in upstate NY and my solo work was born from all of the uninhibited creativity that I tapped into in isolation.
How have you adapted to the circumstances of 2020? Without live music, have you been spending more time writing and recording?
Honestly, the idea of normalizing live streams excited me because I'm not enthusiastic about solo live performances! But I'd been working in touring music and events professionally since 2016, so when the pandemic broke out it had a really jarring effect on my life that I'm still trying to process. Everyone in the music industry and live events is, really.
I threw a lot of immediate energy into wrapping up and releasing the Carter Creek Choir EP in May, which had been in the works since the previous August. But for me, the stress and incessant overwhelm of this year has made me largely unproductive. It's been too much to feel, and I'm just beginning to get to a place where I can start to make sense of it all and put it into words and sounds.
You seem to write a lot of your music in isolation, so with respect to your songwriting process, did much change for you? What was different, if anything?
My songwriting process relies heavily on undisturbed retreats into the self, and isolation helps to facilitate that necessary sense of solitude. Changes to my environment and routine have had substantial effects on my process. I haven't had as much alone time this year because of changes to my living situation, or the ability to unplug for several days or weeks at a time because of changes to my work and lifestyle. I've been picking up the pieces of my life and just trying to get by. So, accessing that sacred place of solitude has been difficult, even though we've had more "isolation" in general than ever before. That isolation has not equated to solitude.
In a lot of ways, we've seen this isolation give way to massive collective unrest, and processing my own experience within the context of the greater movement has been a huge challenge. I'm hopeful, though, that sitting with it and digesting it all in time will produce some really powerful songs.
Your latest EP, Carter Creek Choir, refers to the grandeur of nature and the way all things sing and speak to the spirit. You seem to draw a lot of inspiration from your natural surroundings, as you wrote your first two EPs self-isolated in cabins and that imagery comes out in some of your lyrics. What in particular about it would you say inspires your songwriting?
For me, it's about the conjunction of inner and outer worlds and the illusion of their separation. They're really these inseparable layers of reality that are being experienced simultaneously. Everything physical has a metaphysical counterpart. Everything material has an emotional equivalent. And so I try to explore these contrasts and make sense of the imperceivable by drawing connections to tangible things and creating what I imagine to be "internal landscapes" to explore.
You released a demo version of your song “The Waves” back in October. It’s a gorgeous song. I noticed it also appears on your 2019 EP, All Good Things. Since it’s a demo, how do you envision the finished song sounding? And are you planning on re-releasing a new version of the songs on that EP?
Thank you! I really love this song, it is one of my personal favorites both in its sonic aesthetic and in my experience of writing it.
The All Good Things EP is an ongoing EP comprised of singles, which are being released individually. The first two songs, “Wane” and “Bound 2 Be” were put out in 2019. The release of the final two songs, “The Waves” and “That's OK,” have been setback by recording and funding complications due to the pandemic.
So, I thought it would be fun to share this beautiful demo version of “The Waves” that was written with and produced by my friend, Kyler Hurley.
The complete EP will include a studio version of “The Waves,” which sounds more similar to the other AGT singles, with more of an indie-rock kind of sound than the demo's minimalist pop vibe. But both are beautiful, so I thought it'd add another dimension to the song by sharing its varying forms.
All Good Things
I found “Vacancy” to be a particularly powerful song, as it really describes that emptiness that you feel after experiencing loss - no matter what type of loss. What in particular shaped that song and how did it come together?
Thank you again! Another favorite. I made a hauntingly beautiful demo of this song in the cabin and just loved it so much. It definitely came from being isolated and reflecting on a great deal of loss. Past love, death, abandonment, and even just growing apart from friends and family because of the ways our lives take us in different directions. I'd been conceptualizing love as being like this hallway full of rooms in my heart. Each room had been occupied by people I'd loved, and those rooms being frozen in time like childhood bedrooms when their inhabitants left. The love is always there, preserved in a way to be returned to, but at that time the rooms were all vacant.
It really came together when I was working on the songs with Rick Spataro (Onlyness, Florist) who recorded and produced the Carter Creek Choir EP. He took what I did with the demo and really brought it to life with heavy and haunting sounds. We kind of joked that the song sounded like DIY Dido. It was a really great experience of everything coming together easily and falling into place, everything we tried just worked really well!
Who are some artists that have influenced your sound?
My artist page on Spotify has some great reference playlists I've put together, including a newly added one of Carter Creek Choir references, that dig into the eclectic influences I'm exploring during the writing or recording phases of any given song or project.
The list goes on and on! I definitely appreciate the songwriting under any given style the most, which allows me to make connections and find influences across genres.
Appreciating pop music was sort of an epiphany for me at some point in college and has definitely helped shape my sound. Life-long songwriting/vocalist influences like Brandon Flowers/The Killers and Taylor Swift just continue to come through with absolute hits to look up to. (Not sorry!)
My biggest recent influences have been artists like Crumb, Deep Sea Diver, Sasami, Willow, Clairo and Grimes.
What’s the story behind “The Waves?”
I was in LA between work trips in August 2018, crashing at my friend Kyler Hurley's place, sleeping on the floor of his studio. I had a bunch of songs we were planning to work on, but nothing was really fleshing out or getting us super excited. I remember feeling fussy, checking my phone a lot, waiting to hear back from someone I'd been talking to but nothing was really happening.
One day we both just wanted to do our own thing, so I went up to Kyler's room and sat at his piano while he was in the studio. I started playing this melody on the piano and everything just came to me all at once. It was like this big rush of feeling and energy through me, and all the imagery just hit me. It was overwhelming how much came through pretty much instantaneously. Definitely the most intense songwriting experience I've had to date.
Kyler came up to see what I was working on and I was basically sobbing over the piano writing this song, and he was hyped! He left to let me finish up writing and came back with a picnic of pre-packaged food from Trader Joe's that we sat and ate on the floor, and then we got to work on the production for this song for the rest of the trip. “The Waves (Demo)” is the version that we made that day, it just poured right out of us. The studio version has been re-recorded with a full band, but the original demo has always stuck with me because it has so much emotion and character, thanks largely to Kyler and his beautiful production!
What can people expect from your next release sound-wise?
The next release is an EP that's been almost completely self-produced! I'm really excited for that, because the songs sound the most like me than anything I've made before. They're catchy and pop-driven like the AGT songs, but they're a little darker sonically. And they absolutely slap! So sound-wise, they'll be similar but evolved. Uniquely edgy and infectiously catchy. I'm working with my partner, Willoughby Morse, on some co-production and on the final recordings.
What’s next? What do you have planned for 2021?
First, to finish up the AGT songs and get the complete EP out.
Then to shift my attention to my next release, that self-produced EP I mentioned. I want to use that release as a creative outlet to the fullest extent, producing and collaborating on a lot of the art, videos and merch items for it as well.
There are a few peripheral projects I'd like to work on too, so we'll see what I can get to and how the year goes. There is definitely a lot of exciting work in the pipeline, so stay tuned! :)
Who are some artists from your community, or who you have worked with, that you’re currently digging that you’d recommend to our readers?
Albany, NY has an incredibly strong and highly underrated scene of super talented musicians! I truly don't even know where to begin.
Check out Rick Spataro's project, Onlyness. Rick was responsible for all of the most magical sounds on the CCC EP.
Check out my partner, Willoughby J Morse, who is doing a lot of really interesting, collaborative work that explores interpretation.
Check out the 518 hits playlist on my Spotify artist profile, and the Upstate Mixtape compilation on Bandcamp!
