Photo @Guillaume Simoneau

ARCADE FIRE’S RICHARD REED PARRY:
MUSIC FOR HEART AND BREATH, BODY AND MIND
By Paul Freeman [July 2014 Interview]

There’s nothing unusual about a rock star indulging in a side project. But Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry explores challenging musical avenues and his unique new album, “Music For Heart and Breath” (Deutsche Grammophon), his debut as a neo-classical composer, proves to be extraordinarily enthralling and deceptively intricate.

The music arose from a fascinating concept - having the musicians play in time to their heartbeats or breathing. Within an ensemble, you might imagine that the result would be chaotic and cacophonous. In fact, the opposite is true. Parry’s music throughout is immersive and profoundly soothing.

Parry, who plays piano and double bass on the album, wrote pieces for different combinations, from duet to quartet to sextet to orchestra. From complexity and coordination points of view, it was difficult for the players - who often had to rely on stethoscopes - to master the technique involved. Fortunately, Parry had enlisted such outstanding musicians as The Kronos Quartet, yMusic, violist Nadia Sirota and the guitarists from the band The National - Bryce and Aaron Dessner.

Originally from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Parry grew up in a musical family. In addition to being a member of the Grammy-winning indie rock band Arcade Fire, he plays with the Bell Orchestre and has contributed to albums by The National, Little Scream, Sufjan Stevens, The Unicorns and Islands. He’s now writing for the Brooklyn Youth Chorus.

We had an opportunity to chat with Parry as he was embarking on the Arcade Fire Reflektor tour.

POP CULTURE CLASSICS:
The new album, “Music For Heart and Breath,” it’s a fascinating concept. What sparked the notion in your mind?

RICHARD REED PARRY:
That’s a long time ago, actually. It was when I was in school, and I was studying art and electro-acoustics and dance. I was really into a lot of perfectly fragile, perfectly delicate kinds of music at that time. And I was trying to think about ways in which one could create music that couldn’t help but reach for the state of real exquisite fragility... but without being trite about it, without forcing that as a musician. And so my mind was just thinking about that, ways you could put in motion, systems you could create that would enforce a certain delicacy to music, the way that John Cage would put a system in place so that certain aspects of the music would just define themselves. I was very much influenced by that way of thinking, ways of creating music by freeing it from certain confines and putting certain rules in place so that something different would emerge from the music. And it just kind of popped into my head one day, as an idea, of tying music directly to the body. And I also happened to be listening to a lot of really cerebral, sort of egg-headed sound art at the time, that I was finding really inspiring.

So my brain was kind of going the opposite way and was thinking about how could you make something feel more physical and more resonant in the body. And I just really craved music that would properly resonate in the body, in one way or another, but without doing that through aggression or repetitiveness or through the sort of hypnotism of really strong rhythms. I was really looking for something more delicate, but something that would strike you as a listener in a physical way, with just as much strength as something else that was, say, powerfully rhythmic or powerfully loud. I was trying to get to the same point of intensity in my mind, but through delicacy and renunciation of loud volume or loud dynamics.


PCC:
So when you’re recording with several musicians, did you set the beat to one’s heart rate or breathing? Or each musician plays to his or her own? How do they get in synch?

PARRY:
Well, it changes, piece to piece. And it often changes within a piece. And the first piece is a duet, so that would be just really exploring the idea in its most basic, simple, transparent form, for the first time. So that piece, you have the violist just purely playing at the speed of her breath, in three different ways. And playing one note per breath, per inhalation or per exhalation. And then both. Which makes it three different movements - inhalation, exhalation and both. And then you just have the pianist playing to the speed of his heartbeat, using a stethoscope, and then just following the speeds of the violist’s playing and know that was what would cue when he would shift chords. And that was the most transparent way of doing it that I could think of.

And that was the first piece. The next piece I wrote was for Kronos Quartet and so that was going for the same kind of transparency, but with more people. And, at that point, I was thinking about in a very sort of egalitarian way and wanted everybody to lead and everybody to follow and everyone in the ensemble to have a chance to do everything that everybody else was doing [laughs]. And I abandoned that after that, but it was great and it informed the Quartet in a nice way. So you have, now the cellist is going to play a melody at the speed of his breathing and everybody else will play to their heartbeat at the same time. And then the cellist will cue everyone, using his breathing, but everyone will be playing at their own speed of their own breathing. And they’ll play the same thing, except it immediately becomes quite out of synch with itself and turns from a unison melody into more of a harmonic pile. And then you have the violist doing the same thing. And then violin one and violin two and the leadership gets passed around.

And really, every piece that I wrote for this record was for a different size of ensemble. And, in every one I explored the technique in a different way, fitting different amounts of notes into phrasing, making the leadership work in different ways, just really exploring it as a process by which to be guided through writing music in a way.

PCC:
The idea of dealing with the stethoscopes and all the coordination that’s involved, was it initially difficult for the musicians to get used to the process, before they got into the rhythm of it?

PARRY:
Yeah, for sure. And every time that I play it with new people, that’s a big chunk of the rehearsal is, “Okay, let’s figure out how to do this,” because they kind of have to wear the stethoscope behind their head so that it doesn’t touch the instrument, because if it touches the instrument, then the vibrations of their instrument are excruciatingly loud [laughs] and they have one ear - this is a large part of the musician’s faculties. And now they have one ear blocked by a stethoscope and not being able to use it the way they normally do. They sort of have to pay attention to this rhythm that’s coming at them from one ear and then listening with their other ear to their own playing and to the ensemble around them. As well as sight-reading at the same time and looking for visual cues from other players. And it definitely turns normal playing of music into a real headful and a real handful.

But everyone that I’ve worked with so far has been super cooperative and I think the challenge is exciting for people, as well. And it also kind of tunes people into this different way of playing music and it kind of gets you onto a bit of a different wavelength than you are on normally. This sort of asks you and, in a way, forces you, into following this much more delicate rhythm that’s coming from you and yet you’re not controlling it, per se. So it’s quite a funny head space to get into, as a musician, where you’re used to playing the music the way you want to play it and the way you think it needs to be played, where this music asks you to play it the way that your breath is naturally falling and the way that your heartbeat is naturally falling and to follow the dynamic of that, even if it doesn’t seem that it’s musically correct, that it is correct for this kind of music. And that’s a really different sort of reversal of sensibility. For most musicians, it’s quite a strange thing to have to do. And it’s bizarre, because it’s obviously so personal and so intuitive on this one level, but it’s so unintuitive from a musical training perspective.

PCC:
The fact that you didn’t have loads of formal classical training, do you think that makes you less conscious of limits, more open to invention?

PARRY:
Yeah, I think so, for better and for worse [laughs]. Yes. It can help. It can also trip you up. And in those cases, I’m really lucky to work with such good musicians, because a good musician will point out to me, “You know, you’ve written this this way. This will sound much better, if we change the voicing of this chord that you’ve got the strings playing,” etc. So it’s a blessing and it’s a curse at the same time. It means you make silly mistakes sometimes, but it also makes you do things that maybe more formally trained composers wouldn’t do. So there’s a certain naiveté that helps and hinders.

PCC:
What’s the effect you hope the work will have on the listener?

PARRY:
I kind of hope that it just really pulls you into a certain space and that space being something that exists somewhere between the music and the internal space of the music and the internal space of the players playing the music and your own internal space. For me it does that. It can have a really calming effect and a kind of hypnotic effect and a kind of physically grounding effect. And a certain kind of listening... for me, it’s a little bit of a Spidey sense that starts to listen, as well as just your ears or just your mind, especially if you know what’s going on in the music and what the players are doing.

There’s some part of you that listens in a different way and perhaps in a deeper way and a more sort of naively intuitive way than when you listen to most any music. That’s my hope. And I’ve gotten that feedback from a lot of people, especially, live, when you explain, “This is what happens in these pieces,” beforehand, and then the musicians go about playing it and the audience starts to listen to it, not just as music, but they try and link their own self and the speed of their own body and what’s automatically happening within them, to what’s happening in the music. And just that, in and of itself, conjures quite a different listening space, quite a different feeling, as a listener, than it would if you were just listening to a piece of music that isn’t so inextricably linked to the inner rhythms of the bodies of the musicians.

PCC:
Do you generally perceive music to be an elemental part of our psychological and physical core?

Photo @Guillaume Simoneau

PARRY:
I do, yeah. I really do, especially in the case of non-literal musics, like musics that don’t have a narrative to them, don’t have lyrics, not programmatic music that’s about the ocean or pictures at an exhibition or whatever, where like I’ll have a really strong visceral response to something, to like a John Cage string quartet that’s loosely about the seasons, But I find myself reacting on a much more profound and inexplicable way to it than just meditating on the subject of the seasons. But I’ll find myself responding really viscerally to like an Aphex Twin ambient piece that has some sort of unnamable, not quite tenable, emotional quality to it, a kind of mysterious quality to it that feels like it brings something up in you that is bigger and unnamable. And maybe it’s just fine to leave it at that.

But definitely musics that have that kind of effect on me, I would definitely try to create music that has a similar effect, that does something that feels like it speaks without speaking literally and feels like it evokes, without attempting to evoke something very specific and namable, but does that thing, of it kind of hits you physically on some level and hits you mentally on some level, except not on a specific one, not on a narrative, literal one, but that really just brings something ephemeral that feels real and that feels, as I say, unnamable, but feels like you’re getting something. Something is being communicated, even though you don’t know what. And I would definitely aspire for this music to have that effect. I mean, it has that effect on me. And its had that effect on some listeners. That’s all you can hope for, really.

This album definitely aims to speak maybe to the subconscious or to the slightly unconscious, to try to stimulate maybe lesser heard or lesser felt parts of the brain or parts of the body in some ways. That’s a pretty ephemeral thing to try and achieve, but that’s definitely one of the hopes, that it stimulates something, which you can’t necessarily conjure in any other way.

PCC:
Work like ‘”Music For Heart and Breath,” do you find it to be kind of a counterpoint or counterbalance, to what you do in Arcade Fire? Or for you, is it all the same realm?

PARRY:
It’s definitely a counterbalance. Both really important. If I’m shut up in an ivory tower of quiet music academic composition, I definitely go crazy and have cabin fever and feel like I want everyone to be playing raw, rock ‘n’ roll music and really going for it [laughs]. And when I’m in an onslaught of a long, never-ending rock tour, and playing at rock ‘n’ roll festivals and things like this, where you’re just surrounded by rock music, I also get cabin fever and go, “God, don’t you people just want to be alone with some quietude and intellectual music?” [Laughs] And so, yeah, that’s the two extreme ends of the balance for me, both of which feel very important.

And it felt really timely, fortunate for me, to be putting out this album now, at this point in the Arcade Fire career, to just kind of firmly establish that as a musical counterweight in an official way. And it’s something I’ve been working on for years, but it’s nice to have this be the physical embodiment of the whole record and having it be out there in the world in a real way. Until now it’s just been one piece after another, having little premieres or little performances at different places live, which is great, but it doesn’t establish a body of work in time, in the same way as putting out an actual proper record, as a body of work, does.

PCC:
Do you view the success of Arcade Fire as having given you a freedom to immerse yourself in projects that might be less commercial, but creatively fulfilling?

PARRY:
Absolutely, yeah. The good fortune of that is absolutely not lost on me. But it, in many ways, feels quite, I guess, perfect for me in terms of achieving a balance that is the natural thing that I strive for, musically. And the band does open doors to do all sorts of different things. It’s like, now I’m writing for the Brooklyn Youth Chorus for a show this November. And I definitely wouldn’t have gotten invited to do that out of the blue. But it’s like, “Oh, this guy can write songs and orchestrate things and create different kinds of music. Let’s ask him to write choral pieces.” And that absolutely comes from having the band as a calling card. And I’m really thankful for that. And it does work out, as I say, quite perfectly for me, because I do feel really drawn to do all those other things. I feel drawn to do electronic experimental composition. And I feel drawn to do super-delicate chamber composition. And I feel drawn to produce other people’s records, that write songs in a totally different way, and write for a choir, and really all of those things feel like they pull at me with equal urgency, in a way. And so, thankfully, my band gets to be a calling card and gets to bring a myriad of really interesting things to the table, like that. And lets me explore this broad spectrum of music that’s out there. I’m equally drawn to it, in its myriad forms, as well.

PCC:
Working with numerous artists - The National, Bell Orchestre - different settings, different collaborations, does that expand your creativity?

PARRY:
Yeah, I think so, and like I say, I do feel quite naturally drawn to all of it. It’s not just like I have a giant ego and want to do everything. I feel, musically, like my tastes are so divergent and so diverse and my musical self and my musical discipline, I guess, has been impacted, profoundly impacted by such a diverse breadth of different musics and different kinds of art. And, on some level, I feel like all of those different kinds of music and sound art resonate so strongly for me, in so many different ways, it does feel natural to then gravitate towards those things or to reference those things in the work that I’m doing. And that can be as subtle as, “Let’s try and make this part of an Arcade Fire song sound more like Fela Kuti or sound more like Debussy or more like anything from across the broad musical spectrum.” Or, it can be, “Oh, I want do do a standalone composition that only uses wood blocks.” It all feels like the more wide a breadth of music that has naturally impacted me, the more that presents directions and options and inspirational jumping off points to then do more work and to create new interest in hybrids and take new angles on old forms, or things like that, just combining the wide range of aesthetics that have had an impact on me as a person.

PCC:
Do you hope to expand the musical palette of Arcade Fire as the band evolves?

PARRY:
Yeah, definitely this particular project, the “Heart and Breath” record, I don’t wish that Arcade Fire was more like that. As I say, that it a real counterweight and a counterbalance for me and I like to keep those things separate in a way, but also I think it’s really healthy and just kind of natural to invite in any and all influence that feels genuine and that feels authentic into anything that you’re doing. If you take a song that you're writing and say, “Oh, this one doesn’t really work like this. Let’s try to play this more like Nirvana would have played it.” Or let’s try to play this more like The Rolling Stones would have played it” or something, because you love equal parts Nirvana and Rolling Stones as you love much more esoteric instrumental classical musics.

It just feels like all those things come in and mix and those different influences find a home in one aspect or another of your writing. I have written all these songs for the Brooklyn Youth Chorus that I was mentioning and that’s much more of like tapping into a folk music part of my brain and I was raised in a folk music community. So writing for the Choir, it’s immediately like, “Oh, I’m going to write folk songs for a choir,” but it’s going to turn into something quite different. It’s not going to come across like a folk song. But there are elements of that in it. And you just know that something new and hopefully something good and something exciting will come out of that, by just allowing those influences to speak from a new angle.

PCC:
Do you think it’s important for both the rock and classical worlds to open themselves to new ideas from other areas of music?

PARRY:
Yeah, I think so. And that’s not a new notion anymore. But I also think those things, those combinations and those hybrids work best, when it’s coming out of an authentic place of really wanting your new songs to be more influenced by the Caribbean or wanting your chamber music to be more influenced by a specific piece of John Cage or of Ryuichi Sakamoto or something, because you feel drawn to that. You feel compelled towards that, not just because of a notion that, oh, now that the boundaries are down, now one should combine rock music with electronics and classical music with percussion ensemble or whatever. It’s like, As long as it comes out of a place of authenticity, where a musician or a composer feels drawn towards doing something, then I think it’s going to end up probably being great, rather than just because it’s the modern paradigm or something like that.

PCC:
Do you think there’s a danger of intellectualizing too much about music?

PARRY:
I think that’s always there, yeah. I think once you’re too in your head about music, you lose a big part of music, which is the body. And an idea that definitely had a big impact on me was a writing that Brian Eno did, where he talked about the large brain and the small brain and the large brain being the body and the small brain being the brain and that music is really at its best, when it engages both those things. A music that’s too intellectual and only listenable by academic intellectuals really is sorely lacking in the large part of what’s there and what’s available within music. And likewise, something that’s just a big, empty house music beat with super-repetitive synths, that’s not done with any intellectual finesse or any consideration for composition overall, dynamic arc, is also going to be sorely lacking and is going to fall flat and just seem like empty physical music, in the same way that something can be empty mental music.

PCC:
In your life so far as a musician, what have been the greatest challenges and the greatest rewards?

PARRY:
The biggest challenge may be the same as the biggest reward, I think, the biggest challenge being - doing it all [chuckles], trying to make a super-delicate chamber record at the same time as doing a massive-sounding, more danceable rock ‘n’ roll record in this insanely popular rock band and then guesting on the side with friends’ rock bands and getting to produce the Little Scream records at the same time as getting to go and do a collaboration with the Kronos Quartet. It’s like doing all these things is the greatest gift. And, at the same time, it’s the greatest challenge, because doing them all is mental [laughs]. It can literally make you go quite crazy, when you’re just trying to juggle the physical time of doing all the things, but also to just juggle the head space and try and find the individual focus during any one of those activities, any one of those tasks, trying to have all your faculties available and ready and on point.

And I’m somebody who works better over long periods of time, so things can really get fuzzy and unfocused, in my case, which is not as I’d wish it, but there you are. So the biggest challenge, I think, is just in the doing of all those things and doing them all well and having enough time and fortitude to do them all well and also find enough time away from those, so that you can have some space to let them do their unconscious growing, let them do their away time growing, because I really believe that music and art and thinking and anything creative really also happens in the background to your conscious life, as well as in your conscious life.

So there’s an amount of time that I feel like I have to give things, where you’re not actually spending time doing the thing, but you’re spending time not thinking about the thing, once you have already spent an amount of time thinking about the thing. There’s an important gestation and growth that happens while you’re not thinking about it and while you let it sit a little bit. For me, I have to provide time for that to happen, as well. And that basically means scheduling times where there’s nothing going on and your brain has this other kind of work, on a different level, even though it doesn’t seem like you’re working on them. And it’s hard to find that time. That’s a big challenge for sure, in terms of the overall balance.

PCC:
There are so many intricacies to the creative process.

PARRY:
Yeah. And to each creative process of each different thing. So once you have too many things on the stove at once, it can get a little mental.

For the latest on this prolific artist, visit richardreedparry.com and www.arcadefire.com.