Switched on Pop - Shaking Out the Numb with Sylvan Esso

Episode Date: February 8, 2022

The last proper, blowout concert Charlie attended was devastatingly long ago, back in the winter of 2019. Bringing some funk to buttoned-up Walt Disney Concert Hall, the duo Sylvan Esso rocked Charlie’s world with epic performances of songs like “Die Young.” When live music, and the world, shut down shortly after—well, it was a great note to go out on.  Now, that moment comes full circle, as Sylvan Esso’s Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn join Charlie to discuss their album, Free Love, one of the bright spots during a dark time—an album which is now nominated for best electronic/dance album in this year's Grammy cycle.  Free Love is a testament to Sylvan Esso’s unique sound. If you choose, you can just listen to the intoxicating textures and move your body unconsciously. But if you listen in close, you’ll find the duo blending the inquisitiveness of folk lyrics with danceable electronic beats. Each song offers layers of sounds and text to ponder, so we dove deep through Sylvan Esso's latest to better understand the secrets behind their musical alchemy.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Euporia of Calvin Klein, the new collection Elyxir. Three new elixires perfume intense. Solar, Magnetic, Boll. Pulsan the banner, do the quiz, and discover your fragrance euphoria. Welcome to Switch on Pop.

I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. The last proper indoor large crowd concert that I saw was devastatingly long ago. It was the winter of 2019. My friend Drew had an extra ticket to the Walt Disney Concert Hall to see Sylvan Esso. They're a married pop duo that blend the inquisitiveness of folk lyrics with

danceable electronic beats that make really great pop music. I particularly remember them playing their hit song Die Young. It rocked the whole Symphony Hall. It was ecstatic to have thousands of people dancing in such a hallowed musical venue. and then, of course, 20-20 came along. But one of the bright spots in that year was Sylvan Esso's album Free Love, which is nominated for Best Electronic Slash Dance Album in this year's Grammy Cycle. If you'd like, you can just listen mindlessly and take my word,

you will move your body unconsciously, but if you listen in close, there are worlds of sounds and lyrics to ponder. And because I just can't get these songs out of my ear, I had to speak with the duo behind the band. Hi, I'm Amelia Meath. And I'm Nick Sandpoint. And together we are Sylvan S.L. Thank you for talking to me on Switchdown Pop.

I'm really happy that you're here. Thank you so much. I'm such a fan. You write songs not just to dance too. You actually write songs about the active dancing. I feel like you treat bodily movement as a space for different kinds of emotional expression. Like dance is not a monolith. It has all.

kinds of varieties. So why don't we listen to Ferris wheel to begin with? Yay. I wanted to write a song about that amazing feeling you have when you're first coming into your sexual power. Like you're 14, you're getting some attention. You don't know what the heck it is. You're kind of scared and freaked out. But also, like, you can tell that there's, like, some magic there to be used. You're, like, discovering yourself in that way. And I wanted to like write about if at any point when I was like 15 or 16 and was like able to be at the party that I had seen on TV where like all the teens somehow go to an amusement park and like their parents don't come with them and they just like have a sexy time. I wanted to set a song there and talk about how fun it is to flirt. There's a specificity in the lyric, slamming in your dancing shoes, knees all bruised.

Like it doesn't have that vague universal chorus. It has a highly specific, imagistic kind of language. It takes you to that place. One of my general modes is specificity when I'm really trying to, reach for a true hook, I'll try to write something that's really cinematic, which is what I was very proud of with this song to be able to do that. Also, to be able to talk about Bruce Knees, like, to talk about, like, being like a weird, awkward little kid.

Yeah. Yeah, it puts it into reality. I think that's a thing that we're always shooting for is to, I think a lot of pop makes things more vague and cooler than they were and more, more. And by being more, it ends up being almost like less human, like more simplistic or more aspirational. And I personally love songs that lean the opposite way and like heighten the celebration of the ultimately human things, you know? I'm also very proud of getting to talk about the film underworld in the chorus of this song. Explain more.

Sainted Halo on. Underworld goth vibes. Oh. She wrote that in the studio, and it was like two weeks later or something that I was like, what are you saying there? She's like, Sanity Halo Underworld Goth vibes. And I was like, you mean Underworld, like, the movie?

She was like, yeah, of course. Yes. I was like, oh, my God. Right. Like Underworld, the early 2000s critically pan commercially successful vampire film. series definitely qualifies as goth vibes and I guess what I'm gathering here is that the song has a lot of youthful playfulness and maybe it's a bit of a stretch but I feel like we can even hear it

in the production choices where you have synthesizers that are sort of dancing back and forth with each other that appeared really late all of a sudden Amelia is like what if it sounded like Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel. Like, you know the beginning sound in Sledgehammer? They're like, that DX-7 crazy like, dulcimer flute thing. Yeah. I'm going to hear it.

Yeah, exactly. Oh yeah, we love Genesis. Because of the absurdity of these connections, maybe it's an appropriate segue to go to another song about dancing that is, I think, kind of an emotional opposite. I have a weird, super dorky obsession with 1950s procedural dance songs, like the twist.

And I've been kind of like trying to figure out how to make one that sort of hides that idea. So shaking out the numb appeared kind of as a way of being able to talk about that, but also about being able to talk about like dancing yourself back into your body after feeling nothing. Or like trying to shake yourself out of sadness or apathy or all those things. This is the opposite of the twist. Indeed, it is kind of the opposite of the twist. But also, but it is the same, the part of the song, that's my favorite is the bridge

where I'm like talking about why you're shaking your body around, like why you're helping yourself be more present in the moment for these myriad of reasons. You're shaking to remember, shaking to pretend, you're shaking yourself back for the

for the ocean and for the forest and for your family. That was also a crazy day where we're just having a really terrible day. And we had kind of hit a wall in the studio that day. We were about to leave. And I was like, let's just say for like 30 more minutes and just like make a thing and just let it be bad. Like let's just like make a thing to like to like crack the knuckles of the day, you know. and I think that's why the beat is so frenetic and fast. It was an anxiety beat for me.

I was just trying to make a thing that felt really electric and cathartic for me in the moment. And then when she had that line like immediately, it was crazy. And then we added the bass wobble. It's a bass sound that is. actually based off of a physical movement that I was doing in the studio, it should feel like this. Like, it should go like, whoa, but it should be like really big and like feel like it's like a full like shakedown of your body. Yeah.

And then once we got that, it was an amazing thing. The whole thing kind of came together. Yeah. And I feel like even now I wake up like from some stress dream like before the sun comes up most mornings. where you're like looking at your phone in the dark and like actually doom scrolling. When you wrote that, it was like, it took me to like that moment in the morning each day where like I have to like the sun will start coming up and I have to be like, oh, okay. No, unproductive. You know, like.

I feel like the collective we really ought to learn this dance. That's the dream. I think we need to shake out the numb. All the time. Literally every day, multiple times a day. If you start to doomscroll, stand up, put it down, shake out the numb. Nothing is going to be better.

It's curious to me how these songs about dance often feel you all have a very specific place or feeling. One of my favorites is rooftop dancing, which is maybe even questionably a dance song, but it's about dancing. That was the quickest, like, oh, I have a totally different macro interpretation of this song between the time we wrote it and the time it came out. Just the idea that, like when we shot the video for that, Cheryl Dunn shot the video for that,

and it just ended up being kind of a pandemic video in New York, about like the one safe thing you could do in the fall of 2020, you know? Rooftop dancing. Yeah, and just this like, it became this homage to like the love collective of a city, you know, and just like the kind of mycelial network that everyone's a part of whether they want to be or not. The whole, I think the whole album kind of zoomed out for me. It's constructed more. around chanting and hand percussion than it is around the typical sounds you might want to bring you

onto a dance floor. It's that outdoor dancing, as you put it, the thing that's just sort of interwoven between us. Yeah. Very simple. Yeah. I don't think any of our songs are actually, or like particularly on this record, like it's not a dance record. Well, don't tell the Grammys that. I won't tell them that. But Sandy always makes fun of me because I like, obsessively write about dancing. And I think the thing that I'm actually writing about is the amazing thing that happens when like two people are dancing and then 25 people are dancing. And like it's, it is the collective agreement that we are all going to show ourselves in a way that is authentic and is less, less performative even though it is performative to dance or whatever.

But it's everybody saying like, okay, I will be here with you in this way together, which is the same as rooftop dancing, the same idea, like you were saying, the hand percussion, or like doing something physical together that is simply for joy. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova, and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition,

work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready? Do not sugarcoat something for me. No, no. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey.

Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. Episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. Amelia, as part of the record release notes, you said that you wanted to make pop songs that don't fit on the radio because they're too weird. What does it mean to make pop songs that are too weird for radio? I would love it if they fit on the radio. Oh, God.

We keep thinking they will. I know. It's just we're too damn weird. Like every time I'm like, I really did it, you know? Like, I'm like, Ferris wheel, stone cold pop thing. But like still I talk about like underworld. And like, yeah, yeah, we want to make pops. Or like, we want to make undeniably catchy songs that are for like fun and joy.

There are a lot of pop-oriented and joyful songs on your album Free Love. But I feel like you're also getting at the heart. of what makes pop complicated, and maybe the best example of that is your song, Train. Pop music made me go insane for on the floor and the tracks keep changing. Give me a ticket to ride that train. Pop music is driving you insane. Can you please elaborate? Um, with that song in particular, I wanted to talk about how disposable pop music is in general.

like at any point you can love a song so much and it can be like who you are. And then, you know, three years later you're like, who was that band? Who did that thing that I liked? Which is so crazy because like I both have that opinion. And also it hurts my feelings when people are like, oh yeah, you're still doing that. And I'm like, yes, please. It's my life's work. Like, love, which is why in the bridge I like,

strung together a bunch of song titles of songs that have, like, meant that to me and that have been, like, thrown by the wayside. Or that, like, still, like, totemically live on forever, but, like, aren't my jam. Nick Drake. It's a David Gray song. Oh, the water. Van Morrison. It's raining man.

You're an American girl. American girl. I'm a love man. Love man. You got the cha cha cha cha cha-s-law. Breaking glass again. I love this kind of breaking glass. Yeah.

When I really love a song, it's like you love it because you feel like somebody has identified, like, the thing within you, like, that you are. And so the other, like, subtext to me of that song is that you're constantly slow. bluffing off versions of yourself. Mm-hmm. You know, like performative emotional versions of yourself. Are you just being reborn every moment? I love that one. Thanks.

I think it's one of the best examples of this balanced restraint that I hear consistently throughout your body of work. Here's a song that talks about four-on-the-floor dance music that never breaks out. Give me a ticket to ride that change. The drop never hits. We never get the four on the floor kick drum. We get some claps.

That's him. Well, but it's like the thing where you're always, I love that stuff because it's like, it's like songs that are about getting ready to go to the party. You know, like pink, like I'm coming up or whatever. That's like a trope, you know, of like that getting ready to go to the party is better than being at the party. And sometimes the claps that lead into the build are better than the drop itself.

You know? Like it's kind of, you just want to like this propulsive, like we're almost there feeling. Like you're like the anti-David Getta. Can I put that on a T-shirt? Don't do it. Do we, does anybody know David Getta? Oh my God. Can I get permission to that?

I wonder what would happen if he remixed that song. I think at some point, immediately. after those claps, you'd get the hit the red button and the whole drop happens. I'll say where it would end up is the radio. So that's really, it's probably all my fault, really, at the end of the day. It's just so funny that we have a band that's literally about like scrambling and trying to get on the damn radio. Like we literally have a song about it. Yes.

I'm in love with the medium of the radio in general, just because it's so beautiful. sounding. We also used it all over this record. We started doing this thing where Sandy got these like cool little transmitters that you used to be able to like plug in to your like discman and then you could broadcast your disman into your car cereal. Remember like a world before Bluetooth and ox cords and stuff? It worked just as poorly as Bluetooth though. Yeah it's terrible. Yeah. Because of that we started throwing like just printing mixes to the radio, which we would play. We would put the mix through that and into a shortwave frequency and then would hold the radio up to a microphone

so that I could move the radio around while it played our music. And it was like putting everything to tape, basically, except we would run it through the radio. You made a mixed tape of your own music that was not yet released to be recorded onto the thing that will be released. Yeah. Well, the wild thing is it's got this, even if you know, Mike, even just plug it in. Like there's this sound to something being broadcast and then received, like encoded and then decoded, that is like a distortion that we all know, even if we don't know that we know it. Yeah, it makes you feel good. And you can hear it in frequency.

This sounds like I'm trying to tune into a station and it's not quite catching. Yeah. Oh, me get it when I get apart. Here you go She's the one I swear to got a frequency She's got a frequency And I call it Here our voice

Went into the radio And then came back to clarity there It's like really subtle But I feel like it's one of those things That everybody knows Like in their bones You know Or like that song free

We just did the entire song Like we made a mix of the song And then printed the whole thing To radio I tell them don't be crazy There's too many people around me If I love them all, they break me You see?

I think it might be the weirdest song I've ever written In that the thing I'm talking about Is being like the fact that like In order to let yourself be loved, you have to let yourself be simplified And therefore be a performance of yourself Every time you sing the word free It reverberates in this sort of cavernous emptiness.

To be free. It's a freedom that feels completely alone. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, exactly. I wanted to write about how weird it is that part of accepting other people's love is accepting their inability to truly see the fullness of who you think you are.

It's another one where it's one of those grown-up sad realizations that ultimately, You don't really have a choice, but to make peace with it and move through it and be okay with it. Yeah, like, I'm not even sure. I'm happy that I articulated it, but I'm not sure if it's a really good idea to talk about too much. Or like, in the context of this interview, 100% I'm down. But like, in general, I'm like, it's an intense thing to say. And, like, particularly because I was able to talk about it in terms of performance as well. Yeah, I think it's emphasized for performers, but it's one of those things that's universally true

for anyone who's been in any relationship. You know? And what is, like, that's the weirdest part. It's like, and this is very cancerian of me. Anytime anybody, like, actually sees part of me that I don't want them to see, I'm like, fucking. You get mad, yeah. Back off. Like, you are not, like, yeah, intimacy.

I do feel like there's a version of the, of my interpretation of that that does feel positive, which is that part where you're talking about, realizing that it's you. that you're loving. Like you're seeing their idealized version of you and you're able to love yourself through that sculpture. You know? And like that is a beautiful thing that everyone has the ability to give themselves, you know? Thank you.

Thanks for that reminder. You wrote it. Sometimes it takes another person to see what's actually happening inside for us. I'm really listening all of the time. I know you are. Maybe a good place to close out the conversation on love would be this song Ring, which also contains, I think, varying perspectives on romance, celebrity, sound. It's a ring.

I'm running away. It's a ring. It's safe the end. It's a free. I wanted to write a song about tinnitus. I've had it. I forgot that's where this started, was my big tonightus scare. Yeah, you were saying he was really freaked out about tinnitus.

But also about like the nature of the record cycle and then all of the other looping things. And then the rings. Yeah, and then rings. So it's a song that's first about sound, but it's also about romantic love and marriage and band life and all of it. And partnership, yeah. Also, tinnitus is such a good, it was such a great place for that to. start because it's, it's, it's, ringing in your ear. Yeah, but it's also, there's a mortality to it. Yeah. You know, it's like, it's, it's not, it's not romantic on its face because it's tinnitus. But, you know,

but it's, but I think there's a thing, I think it's that thing of, uh, the world wearing your body down over time and seeing that in the person that you see the most. There's a part of that that is inherent to long-term relationships. There's always a moment in any long-term relationship where mortality creeps in, and you recognize that this is going to end. Yeah. And so that's, you know, that's the one ring. We're so intense.

We're a pop band. What are we doing here? Here's a piece of advice to y'all. I don't think that top 40 radio is that into looking at mortality. See, this is our problem You're right It's like Democrats cancelling student debt, man They just, you know

They just don't want to do it Can't do it They can't do it They say that, yeah But that's the thing I think also It's set off this thing for us Because I think there's so many The record itself

Is meant to be a loop You know, it starts at a death And a birth It's meant to be listened to in a circle But it also, the last song on the record references the first song we ever made together. Mm-hmm. No it easy.

No it plain. No it's simple. Oh, life. Dying out in the ocean turned to clouds. It's coming back to the beginning of us as a band, but also to the beginning of the record itself. We like this feeling of like acknowledging the cycle. the cycles within things, like the surface cycles, like the record cycle, but then also those

things are just echoes of these bigger and bigger cycles that are dominating our lives, you know? The tide and the loop of life and the inherent ebb and flow of good and evil in the world and within yourself. It's playing no. It's playing no. It's playing no. There's like a way to listen to it where it's just like, oh, I'm in a coffee shop and this song is on and this is so fun. And like, I love being in love too.

But like, you know, we're always, that's always right at the top and then everything else is like, but know that we're together, we're going to die here. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you could be reincarnated into underworld, so. 100%. from Underworld. Because

holy moly. I think that was the point of this whole conversation. That's what we were trying to get to. Formative sexual awakening moment for your boy Randy over here. Genuinely, this was one of the most fun conversations

I've got to have on the show in a long time. Thanks for chatting with me. Of course. It was a joy. Switched on Pop is produced by Nate Sloan and me Charlie Harding. We're engineered by Brandon McFarlane

edited by Jolian Myers. Our community manager is Abby Barr and illustrator Iris Gottlieb. Our executive producers are Nashak, Karwa and Hana Rosen, a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network and a production of the Fulcher. You can find us on social media

at Switched On Pop. Our website is switchedonpop.com. Find that catalog there. Next week, we're going to be speaking with Leon Bridges and Krungben, who have a great new album out, Texas Moon. We're going to be talking about modern classics

and the Texan canon. It's going to be really fun. Check it out next Tuesday. Until then, thanks for listening. You don't say, and together, we are Silvanesso. Together. Would you like that? Will you, please?

Oh, my God. All right, ready? I'm going to say, and together, or should we do it? No, we should improvise it because it should be kind of bad. No, we can't make it bad. It's going to be good. Don't worry about it. Just later, we are Sylvan Esso.

You're a creep. I know. He had to make it creepy. No, no, no. He wants real. No, but if he wants real, then people are going to be like, oh, this is right. I mean, also, like, I feel like it's also, like, now the full conversation of underworld is absolutely contained, like, the whispered vampiric kind of vocal quality. That's great, yeah.