In this interview feature, we speak with Ira Lawrence about the new project, influences and much more.
Full Q&A, links and streams can be found below. Ira’s new album – MAPAGKAWANGGAWA – will be available tomorrow, October 7th!
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)
I’m a Baltimoron turned Brooklynite and I play spacey and distorted folk music on a haunted electric mandolin that belonged to my estranged grandad.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to stay the course?
I met my estranged grandmother for basically the first time in 2014. She had a gift for me: my grandad’s electric mandolin- which had been unplayed and in storage for 23 years. I never had the opportunity to know my grandad while he was alive, but when I posthumously received his mandolin- something instantly clicked and I knew I had to focus on making music with it. What we do in our lives has the ability to resonate and have meaning despite death, and morbid as that may seem, it keeps me going.
Who or what are your biggest influences when it comes to your creativity?
Brian Eno, My family skeletons, travel, my Everything Is Everywhere crew, The Sipat Lawin Ensemble, David Bowie, the insanity of New York, R.E.M., Lou Reed, Boho Interactive, The Magnetic Fields, Applespiel, The Mountain Goats, Wham City, Temporary Distortion, Guided By Voices, Ryan & Molly, The Philippines, theater-making.
How is your new release different than previous ones? Did you set out to accomplish anything specific?
I released an EP called Elegant Freefall in 2015- the first set of really good songs I wrote after teaching myself to play the mandolin. And immediately after recording Elegant Freefall, I quit New York, and headed for The Philippines with my AustraliAmerican Theater collective EVERYTHING IS EVERYWHERE (2 Aussies, 2 Americans, 2 Gals, 2 Dudes, 2 Goys, 2 Jews, 2 Legit 2 Quit). We were in residence in Manila creating a new theater piece for The Sipat Lawin Ensemble’s Karnabal Festival. In The Philippines, I visited bombed out hospitals from World War II on the island of Corregidor, snorkeled through a sunken cemetery on the island of Camiguin, and almost wound up as a lead in a Filipino soap opera.MAPAGKAWANGGAWA hugely influenced by the boundary pushing and audacious work of The Sipat Lawin Ensemble. At Karnabal I saw a participatory theater piece called Gobyerno- where the audience is literally placed in the role of a city planner. I saw theater pieces that incorporated live animals and elegant shadow puppetry, as well as an American Idol style show featuring HIV positive drag queens and former military sex slaves singing Beyonce. A dollar of every album sale will go back to The Sipat Lawin Ensemble so that they can continue to make work which is vital vital vital vital vital to their community and the world.
When I got back to the States I immediately began channeling my trip into music. I gave myself the strict parameters that the only instrumentation to be featured on the album would be sounds created by the mandolin. I subconsciously had a sense that MAPAGKAWANGGAWA would be released during an election year, so I hope that this album can be a lens by which Americans can consider the ongoing impacts of colonialism, war, and corporate power on the rest of the world.
Do you face any challenges as an indie musician in a digital age? On the flip side, how has technology helped you (if it has)?
I self-recorded MAPAGKAWANGGAWA at a friend’s apartment on a pirated copy of Logic with an audio interface and a pair of microphones. This gave me the freedom to record without the financial pressures of a proper studio. I was able to lay down over 20 songs, work at my own pace, improvise, and demystify the recording process without feeling like money was flying out the window any time I botched a take or tried something different. So technology was a big help on the recording side of things.
I’m releasing MAPAGKAWANGGAWA on a limited edition USB harddrive- which I’m really excited about, but it was a real challenge arriving there. I’m a vinyl nerd, but the financial realities of producing and releasing vinyl for an artist like me, seem unfeasible and silly…especially considering the album was recorded digitally. I toyed with the idea of releasing MAPAGKAWANGGAWA on CD, but I don’t even own a CD player anymore. Thankfully my pal Scott from Temporary Distortion, tipped me off to the bulk harddrive biz: decently cost effective, the album fits in my wallet, and it looks awesome. Best of all, even if you totally hate my music (which I hope you don’t), you’ll still get a functional piece of technology that isn’t steeped in nostalgia.
How do you feel about streaming services? Any romantic attachments to the physical formats: vinyl, 8-track, cassettes, CDs?
Fun fact: Sean Parker of Napster/ Facebook fame is on the board of Spotify- which is to say that streaming services are run by software people who aren’t especially bothered if an artist gets paid fairly (or at all) for use of their work.
Silicon Valley knows that every piece of recorded music- regardless of past or future popularity- is a rapidly depreciating asset which the music industry is willing to give away for fractions of pennies to keep their flickering lights on- and those same fractions of pennies will show up on your phone bill every time you access that new Beyonce hit or classic Bowie jam from a streaming service.
In hindsight, the most incredible aspect of the Ipod might be that it required no data charges.
My music is on streaming because- for better or worse- streaming is how people currently hear new music (which will all change soon enough, I’m sure), and there is some kind of presumed legitimacy for being on streaming services (when in reality, you just pay $50 to Tunecore), but I prefer vinyl for a lot of reasons. The pursuit of rare objects gives me endless pleasure, I like being able to listen to music from the past in the format and context it was designed for, I love the superior audio quality of vinyl, I love record stores, and I especially love the fact that vinyl listening is a private act that is divorced from social networking algorithms and Orwellian surveillance issues.
That said, I’m still holding on to my CDs in the hope that they become fetish items in the future.
Where can we follow you online and hear more music?
Anything else before we sign off?
Thanks so much!
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