Song Exploder - Deradoorian - A Beautiful Woman

Episode Date: October 5, 2015

Angel Deradoorian has been a member of the bands Dirty Projectors and Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks, and has contributed to albums by Vampire Weekend, Flying Lotus, and Brandon Flowers. This year she released her first full-length album as Deradoorian, The Expanding Flower Planet. In this episode, Angel breaks down the album's lead single, "A Beautiful Woman." After leaving the Dirty Projectors, Angel moved from the east coast to Los Angeles to focus on her own solo music. She talks about how "A Beautiful Woman" was inspired by the loneliness of moving across the country, overcoming creative self-doubt, and transitioning from a secondary role in other bands to the main role of songwriter and producer for her debut album. This episode is sponsored by Hover (use offer code ANGEL), Lynda.com, and Lagunitas Brewing Company.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe. This episode contains explicit language. For six years, Angel Deradurion was a member of the critically acclaimed band Dirty Projectors. She performed on national TV, recorded with Bjork, and played sold-out shows around the world. But she left the group to pursue her own music. I was in Dirty Projectors from 2006 to 2012. was when we announced me taking a break.

It's hard to let go something that you've worked so hard for and then put faith into yourself that you're going to be able to come out with something. My name is Angel Derradorian, and I play as Deradorian. Deradurian's debut solo album was released in August 2015. In this episode, Angel breaks down the track, A Beautiful Woman, and how the decision to lead her own musical project affected her and inspired the creation of this song.

This trek into making my own record was part of me moving into a leadership position and being in charge of everything. Was that scary, huh? Fuck yeah. It's scary. Oh, yeah. Because there's so many things you have to put to the side. It's like you can't take a real job.

You can't hang out with your friends whenever you feel like it. You have to have some self-discipline and you have to have faith. that it'll work out because I wasn't saving any money in this time. I was cleaning houses and then working when I could. Cleaning houses, a lot to you alone time. Can listen to music. Don't have to interact with people so much. So you're not expending your energy in conversation with people all day

and then trying to go and work on your music later. It gave me the freedom to think about what I wanted to make and then be able to go back and do it. This song is like really kind of sad to me. I mean, it's about myself and the transformational process, kind of like the future self, the ideal self. I wanted to connect with people, and I think part of what that was also was being vulnerable

and kind of showing people a part of myself that maybe I wouldn't. The two things that I think are important for accessible music that was in air quotes. It was a really strong melodic line for the vocal part and a really strong beat, the drum parts. So I started with writing the beat. My brother is a drummer, so I grew up listening to someone play the drums every day. My family are musicians and very into like soul R&B, any kind of music with a really strong beat. So I was just always listening to that.

And then I've always just had instruments around me to access, so I've always played things here and there. And drums are definitely the most difficult, but I still love playing them because it always just comes out super weird because I don't know any drum techniques or, like, playing techniques. So it's just whatever I hear. The guitar part, like, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. I just, like, couldn't do it smoothly at all.

Just like playing it so shitty. Keeping it that way. I love imperfection and music. I don't respond so much to perfect playing, although I really respect that a lot. I think the tone of this guitar is very fragile, but I put a lot of overdrive distortion on it and reverb to get it to sustain

because it doesn't sustain, which is like, but the guitar tone came out good, so it didn't seem necessary to redo it. The bass line, which is, It's both rhythmic and melodic. But I left a lot of room for the vocals for this song. So I could allot myself a lot of melodic room and to be able to fit more words into my felonies.

When I sunk into the sea, when you saw what I did to me like I could fall to my knees and worry about everything. I had a hard time relocating to Los Angeles. It was a really big move and it was, you know, all the way from the East Coast where all my musical peers were. And so I just had a really hard time when I got here trying to find work and trying to settle and be creative. And that's what I'm talking about.

When I sunk into the sea, when I sunk into the sea, it was kind of like when I was just going into this kind of depression. When you saw what I did to me. And when you saw what I did to me is like, I know I don't have to feel this way, but it feels so hard right now. When you, also, you know, when you're creating, you make a lot of shit sometimes,

and that was happening. And then I was like, I suck. Why am I doing this? Needing to overcome a lot of self-deprecation. I think everybody has that, but that's another thing I've had to really work on. It's just like not being so hard on myself, but also still working hard.

But I'll be on my way to better things. But I'll be on my way to better things, like having to go through it. But knowing that after every kind of dark phase, there's a light phase that follows it. So keeping that knowledge through all the darker times, and this song is like really kind of sad song to me. I also just think that when you are a creative type of person making art, music, film, whatever it is,

you're more likely to hate yourself because you have to take so much time to learn who you are when you want to make a piece of work to show other people. because that's where like the honesty comes from. It comes from sensitivity to society and the world where there's just like constant comparison, what is good, what is bad. And again, yeah, from that guilt and shame of like feeling like you could do so much more,

many more hours, that could be just much more devoted to the writing process or just being in the studio. But you won't really, really succeed if you keep putting yourself down or doubting your work. So I think I've gotten better in that regard. A beautiful, a beautiful woman, a beautiful woman. The one with Ruby Cee. So the person I want to be is me. Okay, so that's my sister and Nikki singing that part. Nikki Randa, she's a really

amazing singer. She sings on a lot of Flying Lotus records. It's a vocal hawkett. It's two people singing the opposite, the one and three. In the two and the four. It's called hawketing. H-O-C-K-E-T-I-N-G. This hawketing part in the weird delayed jungle

cry in the beginning. More textural, psychedelic additions, that's like the hook to me. This part is in the bridge. and this we all sang together. Me, Arlene, and Nikki. Arlene's my sister.

And it's just like this cry, you know, so I felt it would be more powerful if we all sang it together. I wanted them in there for textural difference and power that sometimes you can't create on your own. This is a strong, feminine energy kind of song, so I felt like I'll bring my ladies in with me. the ladies I love. I feel like I've been lucky.

I understand struggling with your work, but I also know that your mind is a very powerful thing and that you'll get there. If that's what you want, you'll get there. And it'll work out just how you thought of it. And now here's a beautiful woman by Daradurian in its entirety. For more information on Daradurian, including a link to buy this song, visit songexploder.net.

I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishi Keisheh Sheerway. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs.

And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Rope. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album

with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Noss. Rat, Jason Manzukas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikash.co. Or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live.

Thanks. Next time on Song Exploder, composer Harry Gregson Williams breaks down the score for the film The Martian. You can follow Song Exploder on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and subscribe to all the episodes on iTunes or wherever you download podcasts. You can also find the show at Radiotopia.fm, home of all the shows on the Radiotopia Podcast Network from PRX. Special thanks to Christian Coons and Mickey Carter. My name is Rishi Kesh Your Way. Thanks for listening.