The Narrative has released another brand new song from their highly anticipated new album Golden Silence, which was released on December 2nd.

The aptly named album Golden Silence comes four years after just that – silence.

Born and bred on Long Island, NY, the band has recently relocated to Nashville, TN, armed with a new ideology and prepared to finally release the long-delayed record.

Golden Silence is an album about discovering hard truths in life, told through the lenses of the band’s interpersonal relationships, individual experiences, and relationships with the outside world. The themes on the album range from broader topics such as societal values, to much more intimate subjects like the band’s relationships with their own music.

No matter where they go, Suzie Zeldin and Jesse Gabriel of The Narrative, seem destined to create music together.

In this interview spotlight, we chat with Suzie and Jesse about their influences, the new project and much more.

Full Q&A along with links and streams from The Golden Silence below.

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.)

Jesse: We’re originally from Long Island, New York, spent most of our adult lives living in New York City, and now reside in Nashville, TN. We make fight music, for high school kids. Just kidding, we pretty much just make music that speaks to us in the moment. We write with the intention of creating something emotionally and artistically meaningful, and while we may not always hit the mark, we like to think that effort shows. The most important thing for us has always been to give back as musicians what music has given to us, which is a soundtrack for your life.

Who or what are your biggest influences when it comes to your creativity?

Suzie: I think personal experience and my observations of other people’s experiences most often inspire my creativity. When I see someone going through something that I can relate to, it affects me emotionally and makes me want to write, sing, play, and create. I also feel inspired when traveling to new places and taking really long car rides. When things quiet down around me, I can hear whatever thoughts have been building underneath the surface.

Jesse: I’m constantly trying to listen to new music and gain inspiration that way. I think everyone risks getting to that point where they stop growing as an artist because they stop paying attention to what’s going on, and I don’t want to wind up down that path. I also am inspired just by day to day sounds. A door squeaking as it closes shut, or the harmony of insects on a summer evening. Subject matter-wise, I tend to find inspiration from my personal life, film and TV, and the news.

How is your new release different than previous ones? Did you set out to accomplish anything specific?

Jesse: I think we’ve tried to do something different with every album, and will continue to do so. With this one, we wanted to open up some space for experimentation with new instrumentation, specifically orchestral arrangements. We also realized that in the past a lot of songs felt like a “Suzie” song or a “Jesse” song, and so we set out to create vocal arrangements that made it feel more like a band versus two people singing different songs. We are a band, and it’s important our music expresses that. I think we had also matured a lot in terms of the things we were writing about, as though many of these songs were written now 5 or more years ago, they mostly still resonate with us today thematically.

Suzie: We rented a converted barn in upstate New York and basically built a pop up studio, hauling car loads full of audio gear to set everything up. We really wanted the recording process to be less stressful, so we planned to be there for 6 weeks and took time off of pretty much everything else going on in our lives so we could focus, but also work at a semi-relaxed pace. We had a fire crackling in the background of almost all our recordings. Some of us would cook for each other while others worked through their parts of the recording process. It was very friendly and communal and the experience of it all was pretty much nothing like other records we’ve made.

How do you feel about streaming services? Any romantic attachments to the physical formats: vinyl, 8-track, cassettes, CDs?

Jesse: I’ll always miss a physical release. Digital can not replace the emotional satisfaction of tearing the plastic off of a CD or cassette, flipping through the lyric booklet, and feel like you’re actually holding a part of a band you love. Sadly, for most small bands these days, printing a physical album doesn’t make financial sense, and if you want to keep making music going broke is a bad plan. I think streaming services have contributed to this somewhat, but I inherently think streaming services are awesome. The problem is that all streaming services to date have payment models which aren’t built to sustain music, and the larger companies are busy paying their CEO’s unnecessarily large salaries versus contributing to music and musicians. The great benefit of streaming is it’s easy for people to access your music, and is likely helpful in terms of audience building. The drawback is that fewer people buy music and most musicians, regardless of their talents, will disappear after one or two album cycles due to the inability to sustain their art. This leaves us as listeners in the hands of the big money brands, who are more focused on continuing to monopolize on already existing musical architecture and fatten their pockets than they are in furthering the art. Of course, most of my opinions are based on the US market and I think some other countries, notably Canada, do a nice job supporting their artists.

Suzie: I love the care and attentiveness that goes into listening to music on vinyl, the blown up artwork, needing to flip the record over, being careful with where you put the needle, accidentally playing a record at the wrong speed… I just think it’s a really fun and engaged way to listen to your favorite records. I loved CDs when I was younger because of the artwork and the lyrics, but I hated how easily they got scratched up. For me, vinyl gives me a similar nostalgic feeling to owning and collecting CDs, but is much more satisfying. In fact, I threw out all my CDs when I moved and just saved the booklets.

Where can we follow you online and hear more music?

Suzie: Our website, http://www.thenarrativemusic.com, has all our social media links. You can also sign up for our email list there. We don’t send many emails, really just when we have something big to share.

Anything else before we sign off?

Jesse: In this very rapidly changing world and political climate, try to do something with your life that leaves a positive footprint and makes humans, as a species, seem like a valuable addition to the universe.