Margaret Glaspy’s Bold, Shining Return

I believe I discovered the work of Margaret Glaspy by way of her Tiny Desk concert six years ago. She’d just released her debut record, Emotion and Math, in 2016 and was establishing herself as one of the most formidable guitar players of her era. I was a freshman in undergrad and going through my big singer/songwriter, indie folk phase—and much of what Glaspy was making back then truly tapped into what I’d wanted from the genre. It was her guitar-playing—which was gravitational like an unshakable centerpiece—that pulled me in; it was her storytelling that convinced me to stick around. “Emotions and Math,” especially, is one of my favorite songs, for the ways in which Glaspy masterfully takes pop instrumentation and employs a raucous blues top coat.

“I’ve gotta get out of this tree, off of this limb,” she sings across the chorus of “Emotions and Math.” “I’m a woman acting like a kid, a skinny mess that’s breathless from telling you all the things that I’m gonna do.” Glaspy tells me in our conversation that she doesn’t think of herself as a good writer, but I kindly disagree. Her language is essential, and listening to how she constructs a story is as much a journey as it is a reward. On her second LP, Devotion, in 2020, her lyricism got thwarted into focus in an even greater way, as she muted her guitar just a hair and turned aglow a distinctive, enchanting realm of synth-rock and piano-pop. Too sophisticated for department store radio but not experimental enough to float under the radar, Devotion was a generous, stylistic endeavor that I dearly loved—maybe even more so than her debut!

Devotion was built out of a hiatus catalyzed by tour-induced burnout. Glaspy had spent a long while on the road, performing Emotions and Math for audiences across the globe. When she finally did unveil her sophomore record, it was just two weeks after the pandemic hit America and quarantines were in place—thoroughly upending and minimizing the album’s cycle. She couldn’t tour, couldn’t extend the project’s life beyond the vacuum of a release day. While that might seem like a dealbreaker for many artists, that forced retreat inwards helped Glaspy make Echo the Diamond, the career-defining benchmark she flashed sketches of seven years ago.

Echo the Diamond is a revelation of intimacy and confidence. From the hermetic roars of lead single and album opener “Act Natural” to the bare-bones, solemn and otherworldly “Memories,” Glaspy is circumventing doing too much by trusting her gut. What comes of it is her best work yet, a monolithic reaction to and document of grief, love and an unbounding sense of self-actualization. Echo the Diamond is spiritual in that way, as it lets every moment arrive organically. Many of the songs we hear on the final cut are either first takes or rehearsals—yet they sound divine and worn-in. Echo the Diamond was recorded in three days, though its impact will stretch much, much further than that.

With Echo the Diamond out this Friday, I sat down with Margaret Glaspy to talk about Buddhism, the evolution of her relationship with playing guitar, how to trust your musical instincts and how this era became her freest chapter yet.

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Paste Magazine: Around the time you were putting out Devotion, you had been working towards your bachelor’s degree at Harvard. How did your studies go after finishing that album?

Margaret Glaspy: It stopped. I started to take classes at Harvard before the pandemic began and then, once the pandemic hit—it was odd, because it was, kind of, the most practical time to be in school, because you had all of this time on your hands. But it was also expensive to try and keep it up and then not be working. So I put that on the backburner. But my classes, it’s always been a dream of mine—I’ve always been pecking away at my education. I think that it comes in waves. I’ve begun to study at a little Buddhist center down the street from my house and have to immerse myself in that world of starting to learn about Buddhism in a deeper way, which includes a lot of reading. The books just keep piling up, so I feel like there’s always that in my life, on some level. I’m always studying something. And I hope to return to pecking away at my Bachelor’s, because it’s fun for me. I really like to learn.

PM: Did you have a relationship with spirituality before that, or was it something you tumbled into for the first time?

MG: In terms of the Buddhist realm, it’s always been in my life a little bit. I think, in the last few years, it’s become more formalized for me, where I practice Buddhism. I’ve always poked at it in the past, but, now, I feel more immersed in it. I feel like I have a little bit more of a community for it now. I go to this really wonderful spot called the Tibet Center. It’s meditation and, just, actively pursuing compassion and good things. It’s only done good for my life, so, why not?

PM: After coming out of the gate really quick with Emotions and Math in 2016, you took a brief hiatus to regroup after a lot of touring. Did taking that time for yourself change the way you look at your own creative process at all? Did you ever feel more rushed to produce?

MG: I think I did. I didn’t really know what the landscape was, in terms of record cycles and how to really follow up with the next one and what the timeframes were, really, to be honest with you. I felt out on a limb after my first record, and I was also really exhausted. I was really, really tired. I think there was an aspect of being very tired, and then there was another one of just not really knowing how quickly I would need things to deliver in a certain way. I was writing a little bit on tour, and I made that EP Born Yesterday. Outside of that, I was on the road constantly and didn’t have any time for myself. Instead of making records while on tour, instead of writing records while being on tour, I was just on tour. By the time that was done, I started to write a record.

So, what needed to happen was I needed to write while I was on tour if I was going to have a record come out after being on tour for so long. I feel like, in many ways, I’m very thankful that I didn’t release a record right away—because I would have just been on a hamster wheel of staying on tour forever, which I love to do. Don’t get me wrong. I really like being on tour and performing, but it’s taxing, too, and it really does take a toll on your body.

In retrospect, I think I did need some time for myself. I needed a little breather to just look at what happened, and that was positive for me. I think it was really great. It was kind of unfortunate timing to come with my second record and then have it be COVID, but it just is what it is. I wouldn’t have been able to make this record if I hadn’t had that perspective on my last one, so I’m grateful for it all. This one feels like I could have only made it if I had these life things, so I’m happy for it.

PM: Devotion was built from a short story you’d written, am I right about that?

MG: That’s interesting. I forget about that, but I was writing some prose and I had a science-fiction thing going on for a little while. Yeah, I did have some stories that some of the songs branch from, which was interesting—some of them being a little bit dystopian and others being a little more centric to my life, I suppose.

PM: That’s something that interests me, because I was a creative writing major and my concentration was poetry. How does building a world through literary writing interact with your approach to songwriting?

MG: I think that, to me, the skills are different—but it’s all the same, in terms of just what you’re after. You’re after that human thing of trying to tell a human story and capture this kind of heartbeat. And how you do it is really the art of it all. I think that I’m a terrible writer. I think I’m a songwriter who wishes they were a book writer. I hold authors up on a pedestal and think that they’re the coolest people and have the dedication to have these longform works. It’s really cool to me, because I’m micro. I make songs.

But, that being said, I think, approaching it, I’ve found it to be very similar. The things that were different were more technical. How do I write good dialogue? What about grammar? All of these things that would raise questions for me but I would just blow through in order to try and get some kind of heartbeat of the story going. So, I think it’s very similar and I liked that about it—that, oh, yeah, I’m just trying to do the same thing that I would do with the song, but there’s just more words and no music.

PM: The world-building aspect of it often intersects, trying to establish your vision. You work with David King and Chris Morrissey on Echo the Diamond. How did collaborating with them open up the possibilities of where this project could go?

MG: They’re both magnificent musicians. They’re really incredibly great at what they do. I had the songs done and I was very excited about them. Once we got in the studio, it was a lot of green lights. There was nothing to really even think about. It was really “Let’s play the songs” and we did and a lot of the songs that you hear on the record are first takes. Some of them are even rehearsals, where we were just like, “Let’s play it through and see if we know it.” And then we’d keep those takes. [David and Chris] are really talented, wonderful human beings who I just feel like were meant to be on this record and elevate it in a really great way. Those musicians come from such rich backgrounds, being involved in jazz and rock ‘n’ roll. I know that Dave has played on a lot of hip-hop records in the past; they pull punk rock and post-punk-era stuff. Chris is playing in the pop world extensively.

And they’re both songwriters in their own right and they span a lot of different backgrounds and influences to the point that, when they show up to the studio, they’re pulling from all of the things that I would want them to be pulling from. It was really inspiring for me, as a producer and as a songwriter and a musician, because they have spanned so much territory. They know what things are without being derivative. They’re very unique musicians who are aware of all of these different genres and these different stylistic things that one could do. And, yet, they still do it in their own voice. That is unique and really cool. I felt lucky, it was just us three in the studio and we made the record in three days. It was really fast and it was because, you know, they didn’t need a lot of time.

PM: And then of course your spouse Julian Lage co-produced it with you. And something I love is how it hones in on the rock ‘n’ roll styles you employed on Emotions and Math. How did being in company with folks you trust and love allow you to reach back towards the work from seven years ago in such an affectionate, honoring way?

MG: Julian, Dave and Chris are all musicians that can really deliver once called upon, and I felt so excited to be included in that, too. As a musician, to be in the audience of people that I look up to and then try and deliver, it was really exciting. And thrilling, because your hero’s around you, being like, “Okay, what do you got?” It was a fun environment to be in and trying to impresss, and in a really non-ego way—because it was really not about trying to impress an audience. It was about trying to impress these minds and hearts that you really care for. Maybe “impress” is even the wrong word. It was like a show-and-tell of this little box of things that I had made—and that was cool.

All of those people, I really trust emphatically. Julian is such a great sounding-board and such an honest person (and, obviously, my husband) and we really help each other with music quite a bit. We’re able to really share, in a present way, what is going on without having any kind of bullshit involved—which is very valuable when you’re in a bubble in the studio, because, sometimes, it can get a little bit bullshitty. You can start to feel like there’s something cool happening—or convince yourself when there isn’t—so, when you have somebody that goes “No, this isn’t right. You’re not on the right track right now,” it’s really, really valuable. Julian was definitely that for me and for us. He was totally my right hand in making [Echo the Diamond].

PM: This record, what I love about it, is how upfront and loud and raw it is from a musical standpoint. I’m thinking about how the cut of “Female Brain” that we hear is from a rehearsal, and it makes me curious about what pushed you to this place sonically. Because, on a track like “Act Natural,” it’s the heaviest you’ve ever sounded.

MG: Honestly, it’s just where I’m at. It’s interesting, because it’s probably felt the least hard I’ve ever worked—in terms of making music. I think that that’s what’s coming out right now, and it feels like—especialyl on some of these songs, especially for something like “Female Brain”—it’s the easiest music I’ve ever played. There’s something about where I’m at right now, I’ve learned that I don’t have to work or go far for things to feel genuine. They’re right in front of me, and I think that I’m finally embracing that for myself—both musically and creatively. Climbing uphill doesn’t always equate to things being good. Actually, you can just pick up the things that are right next to you, you can reach inside your own heart and pull out something that’s worthy. You’re allowed to do that.

I actually never felt like that was an option. Before, I always felt like, “No, you gotta traverse as far as possible, find some gem on a mountaintop somewhere.” When, really, now it feels a lot more native these days. I think Echo the Diamond feels covered in that. It’s just things that, actually, are my instincts. They’re not the things that I concocted in my mind to be interesting. It’s the most natural thing I could show you, the music that’s on that record right now.

PM: And then it musically lushes out on “Memories,” which is potent and immense and vulnerable. It’s one of my favorite tunes on the project, and I imagine it will be others’ favorite too. Was there hesitancy when it came to making such a choice to be so open and honest when tracking your own grief?

MG: Yeah, but I think it was really because it was just physically hard. Grief is hard, it’s horrifying. It’s decimating in so many ways and can be very beautiful and lesson-learning and all of the things. It’s just everything under the sun. That song was really quickly written and it was very naturally written. Performing it was really hard in the studio that one night. I just couldn’t get through it, so the take on “Memories” is the only full take that we had. It was just difficult. I think there were parts of me that felt like “This is hard, so I don’t want to have something that always is making it hard for me.” But actually, now, it feels like such a blessing to have this song. It lifts me up in a weird way, even though it’s sad. It’s really sad. It’s a lot of different things. Grief is weird. We all have, or will have, lost someone in our lifetime. I don’t know if I was afraid, but it was really like, “This sucks.” But the courage came and it was like, “It’s hard, but it’s okay.”

PM: It’s so hard to navigate—in a headspace sort of way and your day-to-day. It blows me away when folks are able to take that grief and open it up into reflection for the rest of us. It’s warm, but it’s also devastating and welcoming at the same time—which is wonderful and emotional, too.

MG: I can only speak from my experience, but I know that songwriting—at times—can help. It gave me a little context for where I am. It can be a helpful tool to be able to process grief, whether you’re doing it professionally or not. Who cares if someone hears it or not? On this record, I wrote a lot of songs that nobody heard. And that was interesting because, afterward, I thought, “Oh, I think I’m actually not writing for these to be heard. I think I’m just writing them to do it.”

PM: “Act Natural” begins as this portrait of marveling and infatuation, and it then sends us down reflections on grief, privilege, misogyny, and death. The sequencing of this album really stuck out to me, especially in the way you present it to everyone—because it’s a very intricate way of starting out on a joyous, free note before you transition into heavier, grief-filled worlds. How did you decide on that part of Echo the Diamond’s construction?

MG: It was kind of intentional. I felt like that with the record while making it. I roped myself in by writing songs that were really fun to play and made me want to move my body and be on stage and have that transcendent experience of playing fun and fast songs. And then, as I was writing, I would start to get into the weeds of some of the heavier shit. I think the sequence of the record matches that, where you get pulled in by the fun—and then you’re like, “Oh, wait, actually I’m kind of sad.” It’s intentional to pull you through it and get you in the door and then sit you down and party you out. Personally, I don’t really love to sit in anything for too long. To make something an experience is the point, from my perspective. That was the intentionality with the sequencing, to have you move through it all and have all of the experiences of how it felt for me.

PM: I wanted to ask you about your Telecaster, the one you’ve been using so long. In the context of a song like “Act Natural,” which is such a searing guitar track with a heavy heavy blues riff, how has your relationship with the guitar, and your Telecaster especially, changed across three albums?

MG: It’s changed a lot. On the first record, I was playing a combination of guitars. I played my Danocaster and I also played a Danelectro. I barely played any guitar on Devotion. My friend—who produced that album—Tyler Chester actually played some acoustic guitar on that. I played a little electric guitar, some lead on a couple of songs. Then, on Echo the Diamond, like four days before I amde it, I was at the guitar shop and found this Telecaster Deluxe—which I’ve never owned before. It’s what’s on the front of the record, that black guitar. I fell in love with it and I use it a lot on this record. I used that in combination with the Danocaster.

I think that, for me, it’s the most I’ve ever just dove headfirst into guitar. It’s the most I’ve ever felt really close with just being a guitarist and really wearing that on my sleeve. I’m actually very excited to be a guitar player and also represent the guitar. It’s funny that you see them less and less, in a weird way, on the musical landscape. Of course, guitar is everywhere. But, at the same time, music trends change and it comes and goes. But I’ll always be an ambassador for the guitar. It’s in my blood. It really is. I grew up with my brother playing guitar around me constantly. And my mom and my dad and my sister play the guitar, so it’s always been in my life. It’s been there for me at every corner, so I feel like I’m gonna be there for it. I’ll be flying that flag until the day I die. [Echo the Diamond] is me standing up for the guitar. I love it and making songs together in this life of mine.

PM: On “Turn the Engine,” you take your vocals to an octave that reminded me quite a lot of Joni in a lot of ways, with how the words coil around high notes and whatnot. But you’ve always had this reputation for such a unique singing style. Someone in the comments section of the “Act Naturally” music video even went as far as to compare you to Billie Holiday with a Telecaster. Were you actively trying to challenge where your voice could go on this album?

MG: I really started to challenge my singing voice five years ago, because I was living in the body of—I felt like a teenager, in a way. It felt like I had a singing voice that I related to my younger years and had a stylistic viewpoint that was attached to earlier music I had listened to. I never really questioned that before and thought about ability. I’d always think about style. “What does it sound like?” but not “What can I do?” I think I started to think about what I am capable of around five or six years ago. And that started to be fun, to try and actually just have my own style. I’ve always been told that I have a certain style, since I was a young person. But, now, it feels fun—because it’s not just affectation for affectation’s sake. I actually have fun pushing the boundaries of my own vocal ability.

There was a little bit of that on this record, just trying to—honestly—sing without thinking about it too much. I started thinking about it five years ago, when I was trying to actually push the envelope, learning how re-sing again. On this one, I was actually able to just perform and not think about other things as much—on the guitar and as a singer. I was able to deliver and do it, not wondering “Am I hitting these notes?” No, I’m just doing it.

Listen to Margaret Glaspy’s Daytrotter session from 2015 here.

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Matt Mitchell reports as Paste‘s music editor from his home in Columbus, Ohio.