Author: quilla

Thank you everyone for the recent love on my song “Beans Beans Beans.” Here is some insight into the background of the song.

I created this song as a one-word mantra elevating one of my favorite foods, the humble bean. Both a carb and protein, it has long been known that the bean is kind of magical, and can be used and consumed in so many different ways. With a colorful and diverse array of manifestations, the humble bean tastes good and has nourished billions of human beings for thousands of years. In truth, it has helped our species survive until today.

The idea for “Beans Beans Beans” first occurred to me when I was asked to provide a live soundtrack to an outdoor circus performance of “Jack and the Beanstalk” (Jacques et l’haricot magique) for Montreal Culture Day in September 2009.

I had been doing work-outs with the circus group for a while already (directed by my friend Diana Sutherland), but a knee injury from too much rhythmic gymnastics during my adolescence kept me side-lined from doing most of the physical circus feats in performances. So my role was in the “Jack and the Beanstalk” show was to dance as the character of “The Hen Who Lays Golden Eggs” as well as perform live music during the other acts (for which I created a ton of music that I barely remember, since much of it was improvised on the spot).

When the main character Jack sells his cow to an old man in exchange for a bag of magical beans, I would start singing and improvising on the word “beans” with my looping pedal onstage. Jack and the old man performed acrobatic feats and a hanging silk routine to the song. As the layers of “beans” grew more complex, Jack climbed the silks, which symbolized the beanstalk growing to the land of the giants. (Thanks to my father Denis for reminding me about that performance; I had nearly forgotten what an amazing time that was!)

My plan for bringing to life the magical beans scene was to make various stacks of vocal melodies and percussive elements that helped the listener picture one dancing bean (symbolized by the initial bass line “beans”), then two beans, then three, and soon a cascading waterfall of beans pouring down from the heavens and surrounding you with a multifaceted world of glorious beans.

I thought about the sensation of dipping your hand slowly into a huge container of dried kidney beans at a market, and how the texture of those beans feels soothing on the skin. I wanted the song to be soothing, hypnotic and silly but without being overly ridiculous. I suppose in the recording, it sounds like I planned this piece out a lot, but in reality it came out rather quickly in one of my loop practice sessions, and I stuck with it and developed it over time after the Jack and the Beanstalk show. Each time I performed it was a little bit different, and I ended up playing it for years.

I remember playing it in my Center Camp set at Burning Man in 2010 and hearing people shriek with sheer joy. After that, I just kept throwing it into my live sets to see how people would react. I loved seeing their expressions of hilarity or incredulity when they realized the entire loop song only had one word in the lyric: BEANS. Each time I played it, the piece took on a life of its own. I learned how to improvise in the moment and push myself just a little bit more.

Recording this song in the studio with my engineer Mike Garrigan was a fun and spontaneous process. We didn’t make the studio version until 2014, which was five years after I composed it. By that point, I had already test-driven “Beans Beans Beans” live on my vocal looper dozens of times in front of random audiences (some receptive to it, some definitely not!). In doing so, I had figured out the exact tempo that would work: too slow was a death sentence for the song, and too fast made the song totally freaky and inaccessible for people. I settled on 88 BPM, a slow groove that allows for a lot of space to play around. For the studio version, I had to decide what underlying layers would loop well. Once those were established, adding new layers and improvising new melodies and beatboxing on top was a pure delight.

Mike and I laughed a lot in the studio, and often referred to recording this song as one of the more carefree  production sessions over the years. We recorded it at the end of a long session doing a different song for my first album “Beautiful Hybrid.” Recording “Beans Beans Beans” was almost an afterthought on that day; I recall thinking, should I even include this song on the album? And in my gut, I heard a resounding YES! YOU MUST DO THIS SONG! So that was that. I trusted my instinct, and I am glad I did.

Side note: I had been writing and recording a lot of vocal tracks for EDM producers around the time (between 2012 and 2015). Even though my vocal lines in those songs may sound simple or obvious to the listener, those EDM projects were very actually very meticulous and hard to put together. The projects could be stressful when there were looming deadlines, fussy producers to deal with and various labels and stakeholders to please. “Beans Beans Beans” was the antidote to all that, and it represented the type of freedom I needed in that moment.

UPDATE IN 2021: Owing to this song’s fandom on Reddit and Tiktok, I am finally going to create an official music video for this song, which will premiere on Rootle later this year! Stay tuned.

Thanks for listening, and for reading my story.

Hi Quillabytes!

I have two upcoming shows in North Carolina:

Saturday June 8th at Monstercade in Winston-Salem NC, with electronic artists Tide Eyes and Ships in the Night.

Friday June 14th at a secret spot in downtown Greensboro NC, in partnership with SoFar Sounds. This event will kick off the SoFar Summer Series and will feature two other North Carolina electronic and low/fi acts.

New music on the horizon! My upcoming single “Sagittarius” (Ritual Fire Records) will be available on all platforms next week, on Friday June 14th, with a brand new music video!

Directed by Jennida Chase and Hassan Pitts (the dynamic duo also known as s/n), the music video for “Sagittarius” was made in production with third-year students in the UNCG Media Studies department and it features incredible dance performances by Greensboro talents Esha Hickson (choreographer), Devin Simone and Nayirah Harris. Stay tuned!

Here are some sneak peeks from behind the scenes:

I knew Taylor Bays because of his fierce presence in the Greensboro music community. We shared the bill at local venues and parties many times, and we knew the same folks. He gave the best hugs and really cared about his friends and fellow artists. He sang in a way that was raw, electrifying and f*cked up.

Taylor was a complicated being. At times otherworldly, at times wound up and gritty with the world’s pain, he was silly, profound, self-deprecating and uplifting all at once. He caught people off-guard and did unexpected things, which led people to find him weird and eccentric. His charisma usually won people over. Difficult and outspoken, he did have a dark quality to him, and some people remember that side of him too.

I never found him that strange; I thought he was really unique and not afraid to be himself, and I admired his tenacity. He was one of the few people who truly did not give a sh*t what people thought of him. I sometimes wondered how he ended up on Earth. He was different and highly perceptive, behaving as if he came from another place.  

He formed close connections with those struggling to make to their art. Since his passing, the musicians I have spoken with about him all say the same thing: Taylor was unconditionally supportive of their music. He would regularly reach out to see how they were doing and was ready to give them constructive, meaningful feedback about their songs. The world needs more people like that.

Taylor was a true friend for many people, and an enemy to some. He listened to people with an open mind and appreciated what he heard. He resonated with people’s pain and felt everything on a deep level. He spoke up when he felt something was problematic or unfair, and towards the end of his life he caused rifts. He left a controversial legacy behind.

He struggled on a daily basis (physically, spiritually and financially) and channeled it all through his music. One of my favorite songs of his is entitled “Pencil Song” (on his album Whatever Dude, recorded in Greensboro at On Pop of the World Studio). I remember seeing him and his band The Laser Rays perform it at The Blind Tiger a few years back. I was so so enthused, so happy to hear someone playing something so unexpected and original that I cried and laughed at the same time.

The lyrics perfectly capture his joyful yet reckless spirit, punk ethos and his supreme closeness to his friends:

I want some ice cream
I want some pie
I want to stick my finger into my eye
so I’ll have a reason to go to the ER
I hope on the way there I don’t crash my car

Cuz I’ll be driving with one eye
Pumping gas with one dollar
I can drink a gallon of orange juice
with one swaller
If there’s a problem
I’ll just call my crew
and they will kick the sh*t out of you

Taylor Bays, you will truly be missed. Your smile was contagious. Your lyrics were genius. I feel like your spirit and music will live on for years to come.

Photo of Taylor Bays draped in a flag by Carolyn de Berry.

The music video for “Sacred Field” (the final track on my 2017 album You Got It) is now available to everyone who has access to the hive mind!  The story behind this video is worth telling, and one that people in North Carolina may relate to. My family’s basement music studio got flooded in 2018 during Hurricane Florence, and again during Hurricane Michael, and this piece is a dramatization of those events.

At the time of the hurricanes, I was in the middle of making a short documentary entitled “A Storm of Crumbs” exploring the topic of being a musician and a new mother.  The project was directed by my good friend Stefan Kei DiMuzio, a visual artist and musician originally from Japan who resides in Greensboro, NC. He actually lives in my old house, four blocks away from where I currently live, which made filming the scenes of daily life fairly easy. The flooding of our music studio shook up the narrative quite a bit. Since it changed the course of the film, so we decided to find a way to weave it into the documentary.

Stefan had a clear vision for how to re-enact the flooding in an aquarium, and to my astonishment, he built the set and filmed it all in a matter of days. The cinematography, visual effects, editing and the tiny set design were all done by Stefan. For those of you have have worked with me in my studio, you know that the resemblance between the tiny set and the real place is uncanny! Many thanks to Stefan’s partner Lauren, and my partner Marty, for being supportive and helpful during this interesting undertaking. Here are some production stills:

The music studio, before the flood. Photo by Stefan DiMuzio.

When we were editing the flood sequence, the idea popped into my mind to pair it with my track “Sacred Field” whose inspiration was climate change activism. “Sacred Field” an experimental drone piece that I made during the time of the Standing Rock #NODAPL Dakota Access Pipeline protest, which took place in North Dakota in early 2017. I had made the track in the span of two days after having some intense dreams about Standing Rock, and wishing I was there (but I was pregnant at the time, and could not travel). In my dreams, I was a hawk flying over the protestors’ camp, and the music I heard in my mind was loud, synth-laden, resonant and ominous.

The track “Sacred Field” ended up being very different than all of the other tracks on my album You Got It, but it was important to me to include it because I wanted to remember how those dreams felt, and what it was like to watch the protestors from far away.

I felt there was a connection between the track and the visual themes we were exploring in the flood sequence: man-made climate change, water being the source of life and the source of death, loss of protection due to grander forces, losing what is dear to you, adapting to new ways of being amidst loss, etc.

When pairing the flood footage with the “Sacred Field”, Stefan and I were awestruck to see that the audio lined up very nicely with the visual pieces, even having the exact same total length (3:10). While unplanned, the two pieces seemed to be in sync with each other.

The resulting piece was beautiful in and of itself, so we decided to release it in its entirety as a music video. A shorter, edited version of the flood sequence will appear in the “A Storm of Crumbs” documentary, set for release in April 2019. Stay tuned for that.

The vastness of climate change is hard to wrangle, and North Carolina was hit hard in 2018. Each person was affected in unique ways.  Seeing the flooding interpreted onscreen has helped me process the complex feelings that arose in the aftermath of the storms. It’s a microcosm of what happened, and a way to re-imagine and heal the past.

Thanks for taking the time to read this far. 🙂 Stay toasty, my friends.

– Quilla