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new interview from .it

PostPosted: Mon Apr 12, 2010 1:52 am
by neonico
Here is a new interview with Ingrid Chavez on davidsylvian.it in reading the last part confirmed my assumption that ingrid and david are back together ......i thought this was the case for quiet a while back actually when i saw the the wedding ring from the wire foto...

[2010 - davidsylvian.it] A flutter and some Ingrid - di Gianluigi e Antonio
Posted 10 April 2010 - 5:39pm by camphor

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Antonio: Your image through your music, videos, pictures and on the pages of the main social networks seems to be centred on quiet natural elements of the earth. What kind of relationship have you got with Nature?

Ingrid: My relationship with nature is in it's rhythm. As a writer and an artist, I have found that it's rhythm is vital to my own creative rhythm and energy. I was raised in the south eastern part of America. When I was twenty I moved to Minneapolis Minnesota where the seasons are very extreme. I felt a creative energy that I had never known. The bitter cold winters were long. Looking back, it was like we went underground all winter dreaming and creating new work. When spring arrived, it was like coming out of deep hibernation. Everything was alive with creative buzz. I never realized how important this rhythm was to me as an artist until David and I moved the family to Northern California. I was lost creatively. California is beautiful but it had only two seasons, summer and the rainy season. I just felt disconnected from that rhythm that I had found in Minneapolis. It didn't really dawn on me what was missing until we moved to the northeast coast. I was back home. I had my rhythm back. I love winter for it's nakedness, for the fires in the home and the snowy landscape. This is the season that I love the most and it is very prevalent in my writing.

Gianluigi: Your words reminded me of a poem by Emily Dickinson :

"Beauty be not caused, It Is

Chase it, and it ceases Chase it not, and it abidesOvertake the Creases

In the Meadow when the Wind

Runs his fingers thro' it Deity will see to it

That You never do it"

I think that the concept of elusiveness of beauty is the foundation of art in general and music in particular, do you agree?

Ingrid: I feel like as humans we are searching for truth in art, music and poetry. If you replace the word beauty with the word being then we get closer to what we as humans are searching for. A writer finds the words, a painter finds the colors and the lines and a musician finds the notes and melodies to sum up the human condition. A lot of my songs come out of a sad place. I am not searching for beauty, I am not necessarily trying to capture beauty, only truth, but what makes it beautiful is that I have captured some essence of myself and it speaks to some truth or sadness in someone else. We all want to connect on some higher plain of being or existence. The artist is just as important in this journey as the patron. It's this need to be a part of something greater then ourselves. I have a line from a song that says, 'It's the sad songs that I love the most'. That is what speaks to me, whether this expression of sadness and loss is found in a photograph, a painting, a poem, a film or a song, I recognize it and feel a connection with the artist's work. Having said this, I loathe sentimentality and try to avoid it in my own work. Beauty in truth is something deeper, it is spiritual. It has the power to soothe and heal the soul.

Gianluigi: "'The great way is calm and large-hearted. For it nothing is easy, nothing hard". Which path of your spiritual journey are you passing through at this point of your life?

Ingrid: When I think of a spiritual journey I don't imagine there being any point other then 'here now', the present. As for paths, there is only ever one and it's the one you are on. I am exactly where I am meant to be and I appreciate it for it's kindness and it's challenges. I believe that if you are present, you will always know what the right thing to do is at any given point. With that in mind, wherever I am in my spiritual journey I hope and strive to be present. In a little studio in Loano, where we recorded some of the music for A Flutter And Some Words, on the side of a shelf is written, "ingrid was here".

Gianluigi: But inevitably past and future are essential elements of our life. Without our past, without our memories without our experiences we would not be what we are and without our ambitions, our aspirations, our dreams we would not be able to achieve anything. What is your relationship with "past" and "future"?

Ingrid: Of course, but we can't live in the past or the future and trying to live anywhere but in the moment will cause suffering. It's true, we are made up of our memories and our experiences and without desire we might never realize our dreams, but it is where we live that determines our happiness. You have to be present to make good choices in life, to fully enjoy life. I am who I am because of the life that I have lead before this day and I wouldn't change a thing, and the future, it's pregnant with possibilities. I was born with this unwavering sense of hopefulness despite the hardships of my life. I try not to carry my past with me everywhere I go, just as I try not to project my fears onto my future.

Gianluigi: Let's talk about your latest work: A flutter and some words. Can you tell us about the birth and development of the project?

Ingrid: A friend suggested I open a Music Myspace page about four years ago. I was so surprised to see a fan page for me there, I had no idea that anyone even remembered me. Once I got the page up, I was flooded with people asking when I was going to release a new album. It had been so long since I made music, I wasn't sure how to proceed. Musicians started sending me songs asking if I would be interested in a collaboration. It wasn't until Lorenzo Scopelliti introduced himself that my interest was peaked. We just shared poetry and photography in the beginning. One day he asked me could he send me a song that he had written for his new solo album that he was working on. I said sure. The piece was titled 'Song For Ingrid'. The first time I listened to it, it brought tears to my eyes. The next day, I recorded a vocal to it and sent an mp3 file to him via email. Although it was not intended to be a collaboration between the two of us, he loved it, and it became the seed of the project. The song was renamed Isobel, the penultimate track on the album. From that point on, over the course of the next two years, we continued sending files back and forth finishing one song at a time until finally, we had a full album. I flew to Italy on three different occasions to record vocals and mix with Alessandro Mazzitelli. He was fantastic to work with. He really understood what I wanted with arrangements and the sound of my vocals. The album is a miracle given the distance and the language barrier. It was a great journey, a beginning.

Antonio: How does the creative process works for you? Do your songs rise from fiddling with an instrument or do they originate mainly by lyrics and singing?

Ingrid: I generally work with a writing partner. Some songs I will begin on piano but for the most part I respond to music through words and melody. Most of my songs begin with a melody. I love to drive, so most of my melodies are born out that experience. Once I have a solid melody, I let words come naturally from that place.

Antonio: In the EP "By The Water Re-Imagined" you sing some italian sentences on "Come On” with a pronunciation that makes incredibly sensual your voice, still so sensual itself, giving to it a soft-hearted tone...and I'll tell you, the men are so grateful for such a luxury that your voice and your way of expressing yourself give us, it sort of releases a nice feeling of well-being. Compared to the past generations how sensual you think the woman is today, do you think that she has somewhat lost the womanwood that has heavily marked her throughout the past centuries?

Ingrid: Interesting question. I don't think that woman have lost their sensuality, but that as a society we have lost our ability to enjoy the simple pleasures in life. Life is so fast paced now and we are inundated with people and products vying for our attention. Sensuality is in slow food, it's in putting on a pair of headphones and really listening to music, it's in the sounds and smells of nature, it is all around us if we pay attention. For me personally, hearing my voice through a nice microphone through good headphones is a sensual experience. Every note and syllable, every breath and nuance makes me feel something when I perform it and hear it back. There are several steps for me in writing and recording a song and each one of those steps is a sensual one for me because I feel my writing and voice deeply. I always hope that people will experience it the way I do. I know that most people are very busy in their lives and don't take time to listen to music that way. Most people listen to mp3 players on shuffle while they are coming and going like a soundtrack to their busy lives. In this age of sound bytes we are lucky as artist if enough people buy an entire album to make it worth the expense of producing one, but artist like myself, it's like writing a book and there is a whole story to be told and we just hope that there are enough people out there who love music enough to buy the book and not just a chapter. Listening to an entire album is like stepping out of your own world and into someone else's, it's intimate and it can be a sensual experience if you let it be.

Antonio: Returning To Seed is such a beautiful song other than being of great elegance. The quality of being essential permeates every single instrument involved in your work, nothing sounds saturated, it is really an aspect that stands out all along the album where it all sounds as if you were tiptoeing. Does this being essential reflect your lifestyle as well? Do you like to isolate yourself from the surrounding world?

Ingrid: I really love music that is not over produced. I have been said to be very economical with my lyrics. I live in a little bubble and do not take in many influences. All of my words and melodies reflect this simple life. The snow is melting here now, the sun is warm and long shadows of naked trees stretch across the garden. Little rivers of melt snow are running downhill and ziggy my dog is curled up napping in the chair next to me. The sun is streaming through the windows falling across my desk as I type these words, lending an air of lightness and calm to everything. This is my world. I have no desire to make up a world to write from, this simple one is perfect in it's imperfections. I think that you can take the soul out of a song by working it over too much.

Gianluigi: These are beautiful words that show all your inner beauty. I'm curious about your "little bubble": is it large enough to hold something or someone other than yourself?

Ingrid: My bubble for the most part holds everyone close to me.

Antonio: I'm impressed at how Back Roads sound reminds me of Dead Bees on a Cake by David Sylvian. Back then, other than some singing, did you give him your contribution in the writing process as well?

Ingrid: Interesting. I would say Back Roads has always reminded me of David's lighter style of writing from the mid '90's. No I didn't make any contribution to his writing process back then. I guess maybe our lives were in sync and that was the influence. I have lived with him for so many years, maybe hints of his influence comes through now and again. I admire his song writing immensely and hope that I have learned something after all of these years of being around such a great artist. I don't think too much about a melody when it comes, it's such a natural process and I don't question it.

Gianluigi: How difficult is to face and overcome a separation after so many years of life spent together?

Ingrid: I guess that depends on the two people and what they have made together in that shared life. Sometimes two people just need to change their relationship with each other to be able to see the beauty in each other again. Separation is never easy if you love that person. No Goodbyes speaks a little bit about my own feelings about it. David and I are very close, raising our daughters together. I needed to be here where I am, making music again. I lost that. I am happy to be back at it.

Gianluigi: Back to the album, are you planning some live dates?

Ingrid: If it comes about naturally, I would love to perform the songs. If not for this album then I will tour for the next one. I have thrown myself back into writing new songs. That's what I love to do more then anything else in the world.

Re: new interview from .it

PostPosted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 3:58 pm
by Hawk
Woww so beautiful and intriguing... Hawk feels a candle glowing inside him. Hawk could see the scene Ingrid described with the sun streaming perfectly...

Hawk wonders if 'togetherness' for solitary people is different. Not necessarily like glue, but more like water - streams adjoining and then separating. Independent currents. When flowing in the same direction, or overlapping, can create illusion of a partnership. Sometimes people are bothered by things being an illusion. But partnership itself is only a concept. It is just like looking through bright light making things a different colour. When the light is gone it doesn't change what has been or whether it may or may not shine again. If we abandon the discipline of concepts, the illusion becomes reality, as reality is everchanging. In those times of shared reality, seeds are planted, and they grow in our minds through the seasons, withstanding the currents of our personal journeys. If the roots are strong, sometimes we will look back in 10 years time and there will be a tree. And maybe we will both meet again at that tree, and our streams will collide again for a brief moment. Being brief doesn't make it less valid, as brief is also a concept. A butterfly lives its whole life in just a few days.

Hawk knows being solitary can bring creative benefits. But colliding can bring....a relief....a smile....a realisation of being real, and of others being real, and therefore of being part of the human world as well as the natural one.

Sorry if that had nothing to do with the topic. I just felt inspired... I hate just writing "I enjoyed reading that interview."

At the same time, Hawk wonders if Hawks view will change tomorrow, so Hawk is unsure of putting thoughts into words. Hawk read a quote somewhere that you cannot judge an artist until you have seen the entire breadth of his work. Change, and temporary states, when threaded together, are what make us human. They are truth. I think I know what Ingrid means when she says searching for truth. But it is a hard thing to think about... Hawk has a headache.

Re: new interview from .it

PostPosted: Thu Apr 15, 2010 12:26 pm
by digimarsh
I have never been one for being really that interested about Davids 'private life' ,however if he and Ingrid are in fact reunited,either romantically or spiritually (or both),it will be interesting to see what impact it has on David's musical output.

Re: new interview from .it

PostPosted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 2:20 am
by Adrian
come on people - they are raising their children together, something loads of couples do who are otherwise not together anymore. And of course they are still connected, having shared a large portion of their lives and a meaningful spiritual journey. I can even understand why David might still wear his wedding band in light of this. Anyway - I still need to get her new album, but her own site won't let me order it so I need to wait till I can get it from amazon.co.uk