(Antifolk) Diane Cluck - Black With Green Leaves (EP) - 2002, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

#777Diane Cluck has been sampled by Prefuse 73, described by Devendra Banhart as his “favorite singer-songwriter in all of New York City”, and lauded by music fans, critics and contemporaries alike for her rootsy folk abractations and spellbinding performances.
I caught up with Diane after performances by herself and fellow “antifolk” luminaries Barry Bliss, Golden Ghost and Viking Moses, in the slightly-weird upstairs of a pub in Ayr this summer, to ask about her career, songwriting techniques and future plans.
Martin Skivington: How is the tour going so far?
Diane Cluck: We’ve been playing all different kinds of places; small rooms, big rooms, sometimes we played to like 12 people who didn’t know who we were in Exeter, it was like a punk rock club and I don’t think anyone was that interested; but then Green Man was probably about 7 or 8 hundred people; I feel like overall people have been really welcoming and kind and responsive.
MS: Do the UK or European crowds react at all differently to your music than at home?
DC: I haven’t toured much in the US, I’ve mostly just stayed in New York when I’ve played; but I’ve always felt really good in the UK in particular.
MS: How much of a role does improvisation play in your songwriting process, and in the eventual outcome of the composition?
DC: With the playing it’s usually a lot of it is based on improv; I can’t really just sit down and try to make something, it just doesn’t work it would be much harder that way, it feels a lot better to just pick up a guitar and sing; And sometimes what comes isn’t words it’s sort of sounds; but if I just keep repeating with that, and working with it over time it usually forms into something;
Kind of like, I think there’s a sculptor maybe it was Michaelangelo who said when he saw a big block of marble he would see the finished statue in it, and just kind of like you just work it little bits and eventually you just feel when it’s finished.
MS: Do you ever write purely from a feeling?
DC: Yeah; Those are usually the most powerful ones, I try to do that as much as [pause] I think that’s usually what I do; Some of the songs that are more wordy, or like storytelling aren’t so much that way, but sometimes they almost feel like a colour coming up in me, like an emotion coming up in me, and then it just kinda comes out into something. [pause]
Sometimes it’s actually hard to translate feelings into English because they feel like shapes; or they feel like sounds, that don’t have a language to them except that.
MS: Much of your work relies heavily on poetry and lyricism; Can I assume that you’re a fan of reading?
DC: I don’t read, hardly at all. I used to when I was younger, most definitely, I spent a lot time when I was in high school I used to work in the library, just so I could kind of hide in the shelves and read what I like; I read a lot of poetry then and that’s how I started writing when I was younger, I did a lot of journals and a lot of poetry but I don’t really read now much at all.
MS: You said before that you didn’t try to sell music and you’ve skirted between different labels in your career; Do you think that’s a healthier philosophy to work for artists to work by than the traditional grind of promotion, releases etc?
DC: [Nods] Well it has been for me, I’m still finding out what it is that I’m doing, I think the way of getting music across to people is changing a lot right now, I have a feeling CDs aren’t going to be around much longer, they’re just kind of like cheap plastic things that break, and most people are carrying around their players; and I don’t think the quality of mp3s is very good- but in one sense I like the fact that there’s a lightness about, it’s not a big thing that gets dusty and broken.
I think live performance is really important, and for me it’s been important to just be able to do what I’m inspired to do, when I’m inspired to do it; From what I’ve heard from a lot of large label situations you are asked to be productive; when maybe you don’t feel like being productive, so I try to only, put out something that’s inspired. I haven’t always; there’s one time I didn’t and it was a huge mistake and so I learned from that; but I only share things if I feel like I’m inspired to do that, because then the quality’s the highest.
MS: How did you hook up with the musical collective in New York who you roll with?
DC: There was an open mic night, there still is an open mic night at Sidewalk cafe in the East Village on 6th St, and it was down the road from where I was living; I just kind of started writing songs but I hadn’t played them for anyone yet, and I sort of made a goal for myself that I would go to the open mic and play 2 new songs a week. It was a really unusual open mic because most open mics are cover songs, at this one everyone was playing original songs; and there might be 60 people a night, playing original songs; it would go until 4 in the morning;
it was like a crashcourse in songwriting, I learned a lot just by being there and meeting the people that I met; and all the people that you’re talking about, the the New York crowd who I ended up rolling with, I met there; It was like there was a spark of energy around like 2000, 2001, 2002; is really when it happened for me. It was almost like at school, and it was like graduating, and then we all went out to different branches of our tree, and a lot of people moved to different places. A lot of really strong personalities emerged so it was almost like you couldn’t hang together for too long, it was like having a bunch of leaders in one place, so everyone kind of trickled out and is doing their work and it’s really nice; it feels like a family to me.
MS: So what’s next for you, you mentioned you have vinyl coming out, is that of new material?
DC: No that’s just Oh Vanille an older record… [interruption] …that’s just because a label asked if I wanted to put out a vinyl because some people had asked about it. But next, I’m working with drums; my dad was a drummer and I’ve always liked rhythm a lot, and always wanted to play drums but I didn’t have a place to do that; I moved to Georgia in January and I’m in a house now where I can make a lot of noise; but since I’ve moved I’ve mostly been gardening, I’ve been growing some of my own food, that’s been really important thing for me;
So I’ve just been basically exploring other areas of my life, because for about 6 years I was putting out an album like every year, and suddenly I just didn’t find it that interesting to be that productive; I wanted to be productive in other areas of my life, or just explore other areas of my life; so gardening and resting, and working in a herb shop and restaurant is what I’m doing in Georgia, and playing drums; and I think maybe next year I’ll have something new to come out and share again.
Mon 22 Oct 2007 By Martin Skivington