After more than a decade of touring the globe, California songwriter Corinne West put her guitar down, moved to Austria, and spent more than a year working on visual art. Instead of taking her away from music, the break served to bring her deeper into the creative territory she's mined on four well-received collections of original music. In 2013, she returned to the Bay Area, making a seemingly effortless transition back to where she left off: forming new collaborations with top players, showcasing at the recent FAR-West Conference, and writing a new batch of songs for what will be her fifth recording, TROUBLE NO MORE. Amidst a crowd-funding campaign to support the new work, Corinne discussed her time away from, and joyful return to, a life immersed in making music.
Q: After a long run of touring and living abroad, you're back living and
creating in the Bay Area. How is it to be back and how is it shaping
your current work?
CW: I
am quite happy to be back in California, (although I do miss Austria.) My
current body of songs have been deeply influenced by the year I spent
in the Alpine mountains, and my experiences leading up to that time.
Returning to America provided distance and space to reflect on what it
meant in my life to be away from home, and what it means to have a true
home away from home… which lead to the fertile ground of contemplating
the meaning of home in the first place.
Q: Tell me about your break? Did you plan it consciously or did it just evolve?
CW: In
2011, after 10 years of full-time touring, and on the back-end of a
two-year duo project, I took a sabbatical from music completely and
lived in a village in the Alpine mountains in Austria for 13 months. I
had been moving at such a fast clip that I began to lack a connection to
what I was doing and saying and feeling during performances. All the
pieces were moving, yet somehow on a soul level, I wasn’t there. It was
time to recalibrate and figure out what held meaning for me, and the
only way to really address this was to flip the switch, and pull the
entire plug out of the wall. When I stepped away from my identity as a
musician it got very very quiet. In the middle of that silence I had the
powerful and often difficult experience of looking myself in the eye
and asking myself what it means to me to create for a living, why am I
doing this - and what am I doing.
Q: You practice multiple art forms (visual media, etc). Is there a typical rhythm to your days creating?
CW: I
am finally at a place in my life where the mediums I work in are all
informing one another. If I am working on mono prints, I am infusing the
work with the music I am listening to or writing. In making the new
record TROUBLE NO MORE, I will be creating the artwork for the CD
lending a visual reference for some of the sonic landscapes in the
music. It’s all one energy with different outlets or manifestations. So
to answer your question, every day holds one facet or another of
creation, and the rhythm of the day is a blend of letting it unfold, and
keeping in time with the tasks at hand.
Q
How was writing this collection different (or similar) to your past
projects? Do you
have an idea of what the songs will be about/what rhythms, etc, when you
start or are you a fairly organic writer? Why did you choose Redwood
Canyon to write this collection?
CW TROUBLE
NO MORE has her own character for certain. Some of her songs were
written in 2011 as co-writes. Then there was a huge sabbatical from
music and a 13-month life in a foreign land. Then a return to music, and
a return to songs that have been existing in limbo for a year. In
addition, there are pieces that were written very recently, so there is
an arc to the record, of time, and change. I would say this is the most
intimate and directly autobiographical record I will have offered. At
the same time there is a mythic cycle underneath the pieces — the
vulnerability of unity, the pain of leaving familiar ground and love,
the loneliness of a desolate heart, and the diamonds gathered (for the
sharing) for taking a journey into the unknown. Universal principals
through one person’s experiences. It’s everywhere… I just happen to be
someone who writes and sings about it.
The
songs were written in the redwoods in Marin county. This California
canyon is majestic, and has an abundant history of songwriting and
music, a bit like Laurel Canyon. It just seems to be in the air — when
one sits to listen and write it out.
I
would have to say, yes, I am a fairly organic writer in that I don’t
have a formal process at all. Being quiet and undistracted is vital. I
feel the creative process once “in” it, is quite hypnotic and
trance-like. I am also a hypnotherapist, and I use self-hypnosis to
inform my writing. I like to go deep inside and see what can be brought
to the outside.
Q:Tell us more about what you have planned for the recording. Are dates
set, studios booked? Where do you see yourself a year from now?
CW: TROUBLE
NO MORE will be recorded in Berkeley. It is my hope that the recording
will be wrapped by the end of December. There are some wonderful players
lined up for the tunes. This is my 5th studio record, and I have never
embarked on crowd-funding, but this time, it’s needed. We have been
focused on the campaign so that we can get in the studio and get these
songs out into the world.
Where do I see myself a year from now? Shoot… hopefully smiling at the day with my hands deep in the next batch of fresh music.
For more information visit http://www.corinnewest.com/
(I've also been getting up early and catching some lovely morning light: including this shot from downtown Alameda over the weekend)
LISTEN: All sorts of good sounds have been released of late. While driving around last week, I heard an interview/performance by Pieta Brown and her dad Greg Brown that made me want to keep finding excuses to stay in the car. The music was great and the banter was, too. I couldn't figure out how to find the archived recording when I got home, but I did dig deeper into Pieta's latest release "Paradise Outlaw" which contains this apt-for-the-week tune, "All My Rain." 
Jeff Desira is eagerly anticipating his CD-release party at Amnesia on July 19th, 8pm, for "Weathervane." Produced by Scott Mickelson and mastered by Michael Romanowsk, expect some quality hook-laden tunes. (He'll be part of the Alameda Songwriter's Roundup on July 26). 
