Getting to Know... Laura Barrett

Laura Barrett's MySpace page classifies her music as “neurotic sci folk for neurotic sci folk.” Her label, Paper Bag Records, calls her a “musical linguist.” But Barrett's mesmerizing, dazzling kalimba and piano melodies, ornamented by her enchanting soprano, tend to surpass labels and aim towards transcendence itself. Her two EPs and debut album, Victory Garden, stand out among the works of other folksy songstresses with their delicate construction and eerie minimalism. Between cat-sitting and reading up on human biology, the 27-year-old Toronto native took a few minutes to talk to Paste about songwriting, her other musical projects and her unusual instrument of choice.

Paste: Victory Garden came out in in the U.S. in February. Have you been busy touring since then?
Laura Barrett: I’ve been doing a whole bunch of things, it’s kind of a scattered state that I’m in. I did some touring abroad—I was in Germany recently, and I did a songwriters’ residence program up in Dawson City, which is in the Yukon, in Canada. So I actually haven’t been touring, but my big plan is to do a West Coast U.S. tour this September, and hopefully have some kind of EP or something to my name to sweeten the pot.

Paste: Can you tell me a little bit about how you got interested in music in the first place, and in becoming a songwriter?
Barrett: Oh, it goes way back. I’ve been a musician for, I guess, twenty years. I started taking piano lessons at a pretty early age and I’ve always written my own songs. But they started out being instrumental, mainly, and it’s taken me a long time to develop confidence in my own voice and my lyrics, and the whole aspect of public performance. I’ve only really been a public performer for a few years. I was in a band at the turn of the century, but I only played two shows with them. So it’s been a pretty recent phenomenon. But music [has always been] the language that I like to express myself in.

Paste: You said you started on piano—how did you get into the kalimba?
Barrett: Yeah, I started on piano. I only really played [the kalimba] a little as a child because one of my uncles did a lot of work in Nairobi, and he had a collection of instruments—and some weapons, I think, though I didn’t play with those. [Laughs] So I kind of played around with one as a kid, but it wasn’t until 2005 when I found one on the Internet, kind of in a roundabout way. I was looking for something, I didn’t even fully know what I was looking for. I had an idea that I would get some kind of device that was portable that allowed me to program MIDI compositions, because I was writing a lot of instrumental electronic music…somehow, the way that Ebay works, I was getting [kalimbas] in my search results, so it was on a bit of a whim… I bought one online and followed it up with a bunch more that I tuned in different ways, when I started getting into the feel of it and just started exploring it as an instrument and as a modality.

Paste: Had you heard a lot of kalimba music before? Or did you start listening to it more once you began playing the kalimba?
Barrett: Yeah. I even participated in an event that brought together a lot of people doing different things with the kalimba. There’s a guy in Toronto who’s originally from Cameroon called Njacko Backo, and he performed at this event, and I got a chance to hear more of the Cameroonian style of kalimba playing, which is really trancey and interwoven… And around the same time that I got started playing the kalimba that whole Congotronics album came out, but it was purely coincidental, so I definitely heard that, and love it, and think it’s amazing. And I want to build my own kalimbas.

Paste: Were you immediately drawn to that sound, or did it grow on you? Is it something that you think naturally appeals to people?
Barrett: I think it’s a universal kind of sound, it’s like water or a human voice. When I first started playing it, with my limited knowledge of that kind of instrument, I thought it was more like gamelan music, but even that I wasn’t totally well versed in. I think it’s just bells, the sound of a bell, I mean, every musical culture has bells in it, I think—I don’t know, that’s probably me just making something up. I think it is a really beautiful sound and I think it does appeal to everybody.

Paste: So the kalimba is the focus of your solo music, but you also play with a couple bands, The Hidden Cameras and Henri Faberge and the Adorables? Are you still playing with those groups?
Barrett: Yes, definitely. The Adorables are on a bit of a hiatus while Henri finishes a second album, and we’re learning new songs but we’re not playing as much. And meanwhile, The Hidden Cameras have a tour tentatively booked for late October and November, so I’m still active in those bands. It’s hard to be active in The Hidden Cameras, though, because Joel lives in Berlin now, but he’s back often enough for us to get together and learn new songs. He writes really quickly—I really admire his prolific songwriting abilities.

Paste: Is it hard to switch between those two sounds? Because those bands have a much bigger sound I think, a much wilder sound than your solo music.
Barrett: Yeah, it’s liberating to do that kind of thing. I think it’s been good for me to sort of open up my stage persona to include running around stage and dancing like a maniac, and playing different instruments. I play clarinet in the Adorables and I play keyboards, mainly, in the Hidden Cameras. I like the fact that I went from doing the solo stuff to being in these bands and doing solo, as opposed to the other way around, because I feel like I developed my own personality from my own stuff, but then I kind of opened up more fully. Now I’m able to express something louder about myself. ‘Cause I can be really loud, but my music is generally not loud. So it’s awesome. And it’s a little bit less stressful when you’re not the sole person responsible for the sound.

Paste: Yeah, I’m sure. When you are writing for your solo music, what is the process for that like? Where do you get your inspiration?
Barrett: A lot of it is from generalized concepts that I think about a lot. I mean, with Victory Garden, I feel like it has a lot to do with food and energy, movement. It’s hard to say, actually. OK, there’s no big theme connecting the songs on Victory Garden… but I start with a melody for sure. Lyrics come later to me, as I see what kind of mood it has—it’s hard to say exactly how it happens, and I like that—but it’s this weird mixture of the theme and the melody and the mood, and then maybe some interesting phrase that I think can be expanded on and expounded upon.

Paste: Like “Robot Ponies,” for example?
Barrett: Yeah, “Robot Ponies.” At least there I was building a story, a very specific story, but other songs, I feel like they’re still kind of, in a sense, not unfinished—but they’re a little more versatile, like they’re kind of free-form, you can still see them in different ways, and even I see them in different ways sometimes. So I kind of like leaving them open, lyrically and in terms of their specific meaning. But definitely the short answer is that I sit down, and I plunk away, and I do a little bit of automatic writing verbally, and something comes out and then I try to work with it.

Paste: You said you’re working on an EP now—is this going to be along the same lines as your others, or will this have a different sound?
Barrett: I think it might have a slightly more melodramatic sound, but it’s not fully set yet. I mean, I think it will be, like Victory Garden, half-and-half kalimba and piano songs, because there’s some songs that I wouldn’t be able to play on the piano, they wouldn’t sound the way I want them to, and vice versa. I’m really still kind of in the two modes, which I like, and it will be a little bit of a strange mixture of things. I’m learning a lot about human biology right now, so it may have to do with like, the cardiovascular system! [Laughs] But not really.

Paste: [Laughs] Well, that could be interesting though, combining such different things.
Barrett: Yeah, I’ll have a better idea in a couple months what it’s really gonna be like. But I’m excited, I’m just enjoying it.

Listen to "Wood Between Worlds" from Laura Barrett's Victory Garden: