Summer Of Glaciers

Ryan Wasterlain: First and foremost, there’s Miranda now, so vocals are a big thing which, on the album, I did myself, and then we started working shortly after that, and she started adding things, so you’ll hear that more live. It’s also gotten a lot darker, oddly enough. I think my first summer here was kind of brutal, just from the heat, and also I had moved after a break up and everything, so the music got darker and darker, which seems to be what my albums have consistently been doing. No more summer jams!
DJ: The mood here is a little different than in San Francisco.
Ryan: Yeah, it’s…I mean, Miranda has pretty much grown up in this area, so she can definitely speak to that, but it’s a lot more open, which you would think would give me a bigger, open sound, but I feel like it’s actually closing in on itself more. San Francisco, I felt, was busier, so everything I did was noisier and kind of in your face. There were a lot of layers in everything, and being here, I pared everything back, which actually works well for bringing in vocals from Miranda, so she has areas to sit on top of now.
DJ: I think Texas is known for having an oppressive atmosphere, especially compared to California.
Ryan: I mean, in San Francisco you always have to be so on all of the time that it gets overwhelming at a certain point. Like, I like living there, I’m not bad-mouthing my area, but it’s like you’re just so go go go all of the time that you don’t really get a lot of time to reflect, necessarily, and I feel that coming out here, yeah, there’s definitely a lot more religion for sure, there’s a lot more politics in terms of Texas so far, but just in terms of the atmosphere of just being able to sit and talk to friends and have a more relaxed environment, that’s where my headspace is at.
DJ: How did your new collaboration start?
Miranda Alvarado: Well, we both work at Fossil HQ in Richardson. We met each other through work and…I don’t know how it came about, but I actually somehow sent Ryan a recording that I did on my iPhone of me covering a Hole song, and he was basically trying to convince me that we could do something together, so he took it and took my voice and chopped it up and made this short little demo with it, and I loved it, and we just ended up practicing together. It came together really easily because I was able to listen to the songs ahead of time and just think of what I wanted to add to it and what things we wanted to keep the same, so…As far as the process, it was actually really smooth, because I was able to prepare prior to getting in there, so, we’re good.
Ryan: So, coming up, it will probably be like a year or two before we get anything written because it’s all starting from scratch from here on out.
DJ: Will you be writing together?
Miranda: Yeah, I think so. Definitely together.
Ryan: Yeah. For the most part right now, I’ll start with some of the ideas of sounds and everything, and then pass like a minute or two of something I’ve worked on over to her to see what she’s thinking, and she’ll send back ideas, and eventually we’ll get some scratch vocals and build everything from there.
Miranda: I actually live in Denton, so I have a long drive to Richardson to listen to those things, so I get a lot of practice time in the car.
Ryan: And now I can claim Denton!!
DJ: Do you imagine that the music you create together will continue to get darker?
Ryan: So far, yes.
Miranda: Yeah, I think that we’re in agreement on that. Usually, we’ll hear things that we like and we’ll be like ‘I really like this, but I would love it more if it was a little darker.’ We pretty much level on that.
Ryan: Yeah, we’ll see how it goes. The first couple of things we’ve been working on are really…it’s getting even more beat oriented, and so far I don’t think I have a single thing that actually sounds like a guitar. It’s getting a lot more processed-out. It’s still guitar, but it’s just getting heavier into beats, so we’ll see where that goes. I usually make like fifty demos and then throw everything away, and then the album can start, so…It’ll be a process, but I’m imagining it won’t be the new Beach House album, necessarily.

Ryan: I think I would just like somebody to allow the time to sit with it…I mean, I write— and we talked about this in our last Violitionist interview, that I write albums to be full pieces. It’s like, from song one to song six, it’s kind of an overall storyline, and what people bring from that, whatever, that’s fine, but I hope that people would actually just take the time and sit with it for a little bit, because it definitely…it doesn’t necessarily make you want to dance, it doesn’t make you happy…I guess I hope that people get sad and sit in their room for a long time. [Laughs] Just put it on repeat, or I hope Brent listens to it on his car ride every day for the next year like he did Concentric.
Brent Frishman: And Small Spaces!
Ryan: Yeah, and Small Spaces.
Brent: I listen to Small Spaces all the time!

Ryan: I mean, hopefully it’s not as long as I joke about. What I’d like to do, just because Miranda is still new to this, I’d really like to get another three song EP or something. As much as I’m not into doing, like, little small pieces, I’d love to just get that out there so we can shape the sound again, what it sounds like with a new vocalist, and where we’re going. Test that out, and then, hopefully in the next…A full-length is still somewhere on the horizon. Small Spaces was actually supposed to be a full-length, but I got six songs deep and was just like, ‘I don’t think I can do it.’ So, I’d love to have another full-length. I’d love to play more shows. Right now we’ve kind of been hibernating a little bit, just because we’re a new team together, but I would love to be able to play in Denton, down in Dallas, Austin, just to get out and about a little more, because we’re definitely…we’re definitely quiet currently, and if you’re not constantly playing…I mean, you know, if you’re not constantly playing, people don’t necessarily know who you are anymore, so, we need to get out there.
Miranda: Yeah.
Ryan: A tour would be amazing, but we’ll see how that goes…
Miranda: Yeah, if we can plan that out it would be great, but…we’ll have to save up some vacation time.
Ryan: And some money!
DJ: It’s got to be difficult, if you’re working together, to coordinate time off so that you can both be away to go on tour or work on your music.
Miranda: Yeah. I mean, we work on different brands and stuff. We’re in the same building essentially, but don’t necessarily have to work together, so…
Ryan: What will suck for them is when we get famous and we both have to quit at the same time. [Laughs] Vacation time? No problem.
DJ: Make sure to give them a few months notice as to when you plan to become famous beforehand.
Ryan: Yes, ‘I see June 2013 is not going to be a good month for you, work!’