While in Australia earlier this year I got a call from musician Trevor Brown asking if I was up for coming in to dance on a couple of songs that night for singer/songwriter Inga Liljestrom, home from France, at Venue 505. I’d heard of Inga of course, and had been invited to the concert earlier by painter Esmeralda Aponte Wood who was going to be painting a live tableau inspired by the music. Other musicians included the talented Haydn Walker and Paris based violinist Melissa Cox. The concert was incredible. Inga’s voice is transporting in an ‘other worldly’ sense- she’s not an artist you simply listen to or watch but someone who creates powerful mystical moods in earthy tones that envelop the audience and delivers deliciously. Back in Paris I contacted Inga only to find out she’d relocated to the UK… and has just now released a new album, ‘We Have Tigers’…
‘We Have Tigers’… where does this title come from?
We found it quite difficult to come up with a title, and spent weeks trawling through ideas and suggestions from friends. I was doing a little net surfing and found a photo with a caption, I Am Tiger, and the name progressed from there. I like the idea of having a protector animal spirit and have had dreams of panthers walking around my home, protecting it. I like the word Tiger more though for the title…still a strong animal totem.
How was the writing process?
It began with the song ‘Man of Constant Sorrow’ when Michael Lira submitted this for a competition for a title track to a feature film. We won the competition, and decided to keep writing. He had his home studio in Australia at the time, and i was in France, so we would send each other sound files, and create the pieces this way. I’d usually begin the piece, setting the key, tempo, guitar and lead vocal, and Michael would then orchestrate it, playing all those fabulous instruments you here on the recording.
Does ‘We Have Tigers’ continue from or merge away from your previous work ?
I think it continues from my previous work, as the album before this one, ‘Two Dangers’ was delving into folk music with Appalachian roots. ‘We Have Tigers’ is also quite sparse at times and has a real Western flavour to the songs, very much a soundtrack to our own film running in our minds. A good friend also said this current album harks back to my first commercial release ‘Elk’, both being quite filmic and cinematic, strings, slow…
It was no doubt a highly collaborative process with Michael Lira- how did you two work together?
Michael and I have known each other for 20 years now, and have always made music together but nothing like a full album. We know each others’ style well and can bring out the best in each other I think, and can easily read what the song needs. Making this album while never being in the same room was quite a feat, but was finally quite easy- it flowed. I think having established our friendship and having made a few tunes together in the past laid good foundations. It would be difficult to make an album with someone on the other side of the planet if you didn’t really know them… would be hard to let go and just do your thing and trust it.
“Our home studios gave us the luxury of perfecting our work to our own standards, and really making it us without any colouration from engineers or producers etc. It is 100% us, our vision and how we wanted it to sound.”
Can you talk about the choice of recoding in home studios?
We both are composers and work a lot at home, and it’s actually really lovely not working in big studios, with all the time constraints and pressure of all that money being spent. Our home studios gave us the luxury of perfecting our work to our own standards, and really making it us without any colouration from engineers or producers etc. It is 100% us, our vision and how we wanted it to sound.
How was it enriching and/or challenging to produce between two continent? How exactly did this work out?
I didn’t really find it challenging. Perhaps the challenge is now, when we are putting out the album ourselves without a label, and without promoters etc. This will be the real challenge. I’m doing my best with contacts from previous albums and seeing if we can make it work. It’s all a big experiment. We’ve been lucky enough to be signed to a film synchronisation company in LA, so fingers crossed some feature films will snap up our songs. But really this whole process has been so enriching. I even made all the artwork for the CD, a 16 page booklet of collages and a digipack, so this was an amazing challenge in many ways. I just love that we have kept true to our vision.
You have a very loyal and loving fan base. What do you think resonates in your songs in your audience?
For me, I just sing songs that resonate with me, that are close to my heart, even if sometimes i don’t even understand what it is i’ve written or lyrically if the words are making any sense as sometimes they are just images and feelings and not stories, and hope that the audience get what i’m on about or at least enjoy the journey. I also write in styles that i like to listen to, and have been blessed to perform with wonderful musicians who can take my vision up a few notches. With Michael, he is so musically diverse and dexterous, playing so many instruments, and stylistically can perform similar to Mr Bungle or huge cinematic film scores. And he’s an incredible performer, if ever you’ve been lucky enough to catch Darth Vegas or Vicious Hairy Mary…
You’ve just moved to the UK from France, after Australia. What prompted the move and how is it going?
We moved because of my partner’s work, so we are expats in the UK. I love it here, the nature and the kindness of people. We went to Glastonbury last week and I had a good fix of crystals, meditation, healthy food and colourful people. It’s very different to France. I miss French food!
What are you listening to at the moment?
I’m doing a little regressing at the moment, and listening to a lot of Joni Mitchell, John Martyn, Townes Van Zandt…great songwriters. And a little Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan- always good in the home.
Plans for the next six months? Any tours/concerts planned?
I’ve got a nice project to work on writing the music and doing layers of vocals, so that will be my main focus. Then a few collaborations with various lovely musicians. As for tours, I’d love to! Just need to find band members here in the UK. But there is talk of some touring in Eastern Europe for early next year. I hope so! And lastly, I’m longing to perform in LA, and return to Australia too…play some shows to my friends and family.
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For a limited edition collectors CD, write to ingalil2010@gmail.com
International Arts & Travel reporter and principal of RUBY TV. 