BABEHEAVEN : Home for Now
From the jump, Babeheaven seemed on a mission to blend vintage trip hop influences with a certain modern indie pop sensibility. Their early single captured our imagination (and our hearts) with its confessional quality, taking bedroom pop to pillow talk territories. Many million plays later, vocalist Nancy Andersen and producer-instrumentalist Jamie Travis have let their sound grow and evolve, reaching new levels of confidence, without sacrificing the vulnerability that made their early material so special. We had a chat with Jamie and Nancy as they were readying the release of Home for Now, which is out today. We talked about the inspiration behind their lead single Craziest Thing, as well as the amazing video treatment for the song.
What inspired the song Craziest Things? What were you feeling when you wrote it?
JAMIE : For us, we wanted to make a track that brought a different element and feeling to the album, as this song is a bit more up-tempo and is a bit different from the other stuff. Instrumentally, I wanted something in the same vein as Broadcast or Stereolab, so we had a few of their songs in our heads before we wrote it.
NANCY : I was just coming out of a long period with insomnia, so when we went to write this song I wanted to write about that. I guess it’s like an apology to all the people closest to me that have to deal with the mood swings and erratic energy that come with not sleeping enough. It’s nice to write in juxtaposition with the music - instrumentally the vibe is so light whereas I am singing about a heavier thing, but making it sound light.
How did you produce the song? What was your creative process like?
JAMIE : We worked on this song first of all with Karma Kid. We quickly started on the instrumental track, finding some drums with a faster driving feeling, and then started on some guitar parts. We like to work pretty fast, so Nancy will often be working on vocal melodies at the same time, and then we lay down some basic ones when it starts to feel right.
We then took the track to our producer who has worked on most of the record, Simon Byrt, and developed things even further, recording bass, and re-recording the vocals, etc. I also went and recorded some live drums to get the right drive for the song. We added some seagull sounds and other little bits to round it off, and then it was finished.
Babeheaven’s sound has evolved over the years. In Craziest Things, you seem to strike a balance between indie, lo-fi, electronic, soul... Was that a conscious desire or did it just happen?
JAMIE : It was a conscious desire and something that we have been working on for the length of our career, and we continue to work towards. In the earlier days we just used what we had, which was a laptop and a guitar with some effect pedals, that’s why Friday Sky, for example, sounds the way it does. We always had in mind the way we wanted to sound in the future, and that just happened when we gained access to different equipment and working with people who we could collaborate with to help us get to where we wanted sonically.
How do you usually settle on a sound for a single or a record?
JAMIE : You normally have an idea in your head how you want a song to sound so you just go about trying to get what you hear in your head to match up to how it sounds as much as possible. It’s hard to get that to match up and you never really get there in my experience, but when you come close it’s really rewarding. The sound of the record is just something we have been working towards for the last 5 years. For the next record, things will probably change.
You’re launching your new album Home For Now. What can we expect from your this record?
JAMIE : I think you can expect an album that has some emotional depth and hopefully makes you feel something. With an album, you can explore a few more different sides to your music so maybe you’d hear something surprising. I don’t know though, the best way is to listen to it.
Were you listening to any music from other artists while you were making Home For Now? How did it inspire you?
NANCY : We were listening to a lot of different things - we both love stuff like DJ Shadow, Zero 7, and Portishead. So those have always been big inspirations for us. Most of the inspiration we take from listening to other music is based on the atmosphere of the track. The Craziest Things video features amazing visuals by animator Sasha Beeley.
How did this collaboration come about?
NANCY : We were super lucky to meet Sacha, she sent us a DM on Instagram whilst we were looking for an animator and I loved the look of her work. Once we started chatting, we realized she had worked on some other things with friends of ours. Her work is so amazing!
What was the inspiration behind the video?
NANCY : The video is based around the lyrics of the song. I suffered from a bout of insomnia at the beginning of the year which left me feeling tired and grumpy - the main character in the video is trying to get to sleep but it is constantly being kept awake by night terrors and little things which stop them from getting the sleep they need. But in the end, they manage to nod off…
What was your reaction when you saw the video?
NANCY : I was so happy with how the video came out - it was exactly how we wanted it to turn out.
What’s next for Babeheaven?
NANCY : Hopefully, we will be able to get back on the road, it’s sad not being able to tour. We should be going on a tour with Rhye in spring and can’t wait to play to some rooms with people again! And of course, working on some new music.
Home for Now is out today.