The Canadian indie-rock uniform, Postdata released their third album, Twin Flames on March 5th. With a carousel of rotating collaborators, front man Paul Murphy delivers an enchanting expose of sensory driven musical incarnations of life experiences. He took some time to answer a few questions about his latest work, creating in quarantine and cupcake choices followed by a review of the new album by one of our contributing writers/photographer, Marc Fong.
Were you planning on making this album pre-covid or was it something that came about during quarantine?
I was planning something, but not this soon necessarily. I felt like I needed to do something during those first few months of Covid though and so it was that need that led me down the rabbit hole.. I had lots of stuff I might not have brought to the table if I were to have waited and accumulated more (which I might have done if everything hadn't shut down)- a song like "Twin Flames", which at the time was just a pretty instrumental track with no vocals.. that might not have made the cut at a later date in terms of stuff I would have sent over to Ali Chant. So yes, the record could have taken a slightly different shape if I had waited.
When did you start writing songs for the album?
Most of it was starting to be written I’d say 1 year to a couple months before pressing record aside from 1 or 2 outliers.. guess the oldest song is “Tomb”, written 2017-ish... the newest ones were probably written a month or two before starting.. "Twin Flames," the vocal melodies and lyrics were written for that song during the production process.
When & where was the album recorded? Did quarantine/COVID-19 make the process of writing and recording an album any different than it was pre-COVID?
I think the difference was most keenly felt in the recording/production area.. normally it would be done in a live setting with Ali in the room while I tracked, and likely whoever was playing on the track.. I'm not sure actually how he normally does it. But due to the remote nature of the recording, that we were a sea apart, we were forced to build it all around vocal performance and a basic rhythm instrument whether that was guitars or strings or synth part and then layer it up..
What's the story behind making "Twin Flames" the title track?- was the hauntingly romantic theme with an eclectic collection of sounds something that was planned going into the making of the album Twin Flames or was that something that happened organically?
I guess I chatted a bit about this in a previous question but it was an instrumental track initially.. acoustic guitars and backwards synths and a bit of strings.. Ali really connected with the instrumental and suggested I slow it down a bit and try some vocals over top.. So that one I completed the writing of it while we were recording it. Matt did incredible drums and vibes work on it and Ali I believed added the glitchy sounding synth part which happens later in the track. Your description of it reminds me of one a friend described recently - "the afterglow of nature reflecting, as the machines come alive"
What gave you inspiration for "A Fire In The Storm"?
I think the image of a fire in the storm in "Twin Flames" just came as a visual.. It felt really dream-like lost in a moment.. in the eye of something.. Some song ideas lyrics come as more a narrative and others are more visual.. This one is kind of a combination.
I understand that Postdata is a collaborative effort with yourself and a rotating collective of supporting musicians. Do you go into a song with artists in mind that you want to collab with?
Postdata is my solo project. I write all the songs, all the lyrics. I play and write a lot of the musical parts on the different instruments and come up with the general direction of the song treatment across all songs on all the records. The vast majority of the work on Twin Flames is done by myself and Ali Chant (co-producer, mixer). When others are brought in it’s largely directed towards achieving an end result that I’m hoping for - more a product of the need for a given song. It’s hard (and probably easy to interpret the way you’ve interpreted it) when describing a thing as you want to mention the people that played on it and everyone that plays on it adds something really special to the equation- but I think describing it as a collective implies something different than what it is and maybe gives the wrong impression..
I definitely think a lot about who I’m going to produce a record and mix the record with beforehand. But in terms of like who is playing on this or that track.. It's usually a friend. It wasn’t super specific before starting the process. Certain tunes once we got going made me reach out to different people I knew. Ali has people he loves working with too, but yeah it came together as we were going along.
Any plans to play any live streaming shows in celebration of the new album? Any hope of playing live shows this year?
March 12 9pm ET (in Canada/US) I think it airs everywhere but I’m not sure if it airs everywhere so I’ll just put that disclaimer there.. Check out sidedooraccess.com! If you can log into that I don’t think it is geo-blocked. After that I'm hoping to do some summer proper live touring at reduced capacities here on the east coast if it's at all possible (last summer it was for a couple months). Maybe another Side Door show with a band.
Why did you choose to release "Inside Out" ahead of the release of the album?
I was planning something, but not this soon necessarily. I felt like I needed to do something during those first few months of Covid though and so it was that need that led me down the rabbit hole.. I had lots of stuff I might not have brought to the table if I were to have waited and accumulated more (which I might have done if everything hadn't shut down)- a song like "Twin Flames", which at the time was just a pretty instrumental track with no vocals.. that might not have made the cut at a later date in terms of stuff I would have sent over to Ali Chant. So yes, the record could have taken a slightly different shape if I had waited.
When did you start writing songs for the album?
Most of it was starting to be written I’d say 1 year to a couple months before pressing record aside from 1 or 2 outliers.. guess the oldest song is “Tomb”, written 2017-ish... the newest ones were probably written a month or two before starting.. "Twin Flames," the vocal melodies and lyrics were written for that song during the production process.
When & where was the album recorded? Did quarantine/COVID-19 make the process of writing and recording an album any different than it was pre-COVID?
I think the difference was most keenly felt in the recording/production area.. normally it would be done in a live setting with Ali in the room while I tracked, and likely whoever was playing on the track.. I'm not sure actually how he normally does it. But due to the remote nature of the recording, that we were a sea apart, we were forced to build it all around vocal performance and a basic rhythm instrument whether that was guitars or strings or synth part and then layer it up..
What's the story behind making "Twin Flames" the title track?- was the hauntingly romantic theme with an eclectic collection of sounds something that was planned going into the making of the album Twin Flames or was that something that happened organically?
I guess I chatted a bit about this in a previous question but it was an instrumental track initially.. acoustic guitars and backwards synths and a bit of strings.. Ali really connected with the instrumental and suggested I slow it down a bit and try some vocals over top.. So that one I completed the writing of it while we were recording it. Matt did incredible drums and vibes work on it and Ali I believed added the glitchy sounding synth part which happens later in the track. Your description of it reminds me of one a friend described recently - "the afterglow of nature reflecting, as the machines come alive"
What gave you inspiration for "A Fire In The Storm"?
I think the image of a fire in the storm in "Twin Flames" just came as a visual.. It felt really dream-like lost in a moment.. in the eye of something.. Some song ideas lyrics come as more a narrative and others are more visual.. This one is kind of a combination.
I understand that Postdata is a collaborative effort with yourself and a rotating collective of supporting musicians. Do you go into a song with artists in mind that you want to collab with?
Postdata is my solo project. I write all the songs, all the lyrics. I play and write a lot of the musical parts on the different instruments and come up with the general direction of the song treatment across all songs on all the records. The vast majority of the work on Twin Flames is done by myself and Ali Chant (co-producer, mixer). When others are brought in it’s largely directed towards achieving an end result that I’m hoping for - more a product of the need for a given song. It’s hard (and probably easy to interpret the way you’ve interpreted it) when describing a thing as you want to mention the people that played on it and everyone that plays on it adds something really special to the equation- but I think describing it as a collective implies something different than what it is and maybe gives the wrong impression..
I definitely think a lot about who I’m going to produce a record and mix the record with beforehand. But in terms of like who is playing on this or that track.. It's usually a friend. It wasn’t super specific before starting the process. Certain tunes once we got going made me reach out to different people I knew. Ali has people he loves working with too, but yeah it came together as we were going along.
Any plans to play any live streaming shows in celebration of the new album? Any hope of playing live shows this year?
March 12 9pm ET (in Canada/US) I think it airs everywhere but I’m not sure if it airs everywhere so I’ll just put that disclaimer there.. Check out sidedooraccess.com! If you can log into that I don’t think it is geo-blocked. After that I'm hoping to do some summer proper live touring at reduced capacities here on the east coast if it's at all possible (last summer it was for a couple months). Maybe another Side Door show with a band.
Why did you choose to release "Inside Out" ahead of the release of the album?
I think it's a really warm, inviting song...a hopeful song. feels like a hug. We all need one.
What flavor of cupcake would you choose if you had the choice of any cupcake?
It involves chocolate and caramel and salt I think at the moment.
Postdata (Paul Murphy of Wintersleep’s solo work) just released his latest LP, Twin Flames. A hauntingly romantic album, the tracks wander complex and varied soundscapes. For example, the opening track, Haunts, features distant, bittersweet sounds and melancholy lyrics but the following song, Inside Out, is more upbeat and romantic. Though seemingly out of sync, the two songs are complimentary and representative of the album as a whole: there’s an ebb and flow between tracks. A heavy poignancy that’s followed by a swell of triumph.
Other examples of this bittersweet give-and-take can be seen throughout the album: from the title track, Twin Flames, Murphy’s vocals are accompanied by soft guitar riffs and ethereal horns, underscoring the bittersweet theme; then, two songs later, Behind You, Murphy gives us hope with an upbeat tune that reminds us of Murphy’s Wintersleep roots.
Murphy says the album is about a storm, but it’s also about the fire burning through the storm. An apt description as one hears the isolation and weightiness of the music, but similarly, there’s a sense of warmth and hope; an undercurrent of light in the dark.
Twin Flames is out now on Paper Bag Records.
review by Marc Fong
Q&A by Nikki DeMartini
