Rooms is a Vancouver-based production that produces ethereal, relatable and top-notch music. This album features crisp production, nostalgic vocal refrains, and a mixture of traditional drums and electronic step-sequenced style beats.
This is an album you are sure to enjoy, whether it’s the brave bassline and brass on “Best part of waking up”, the cheery, bright background vocals on “What the world” or the track “You’ll be home” where nostalgia reigns supreme.
The feeling of Don’t be yourself is quite positive and forward-thinking, and you’ll understand its overall message only a few tracks in. The album is heavily vocal-focused, with lead singer Besh giving an excellent performance throughout – accompanied by three other vocalists.
The message of positivity carries through to “Let it go” until “Laying in lavender”, one of the best tracks on the album, evoking a pseudo-druggy rhythm of utmost softness that fits well with the psychedelic music video released.
“Moon signs” is a surfy track and the vocals are front and centre once again, with vocals waxing on a lost friendship or perhaps an ended romance.
By track 10 Don’t be yourself takes a more serious tone, with Besh rhyming apologetically about some past misgiving. The background vocals make a reappearance, with light, lilting harmonies helping aid the somber moodiness of the track. Halfway through, the track picks up with a steady beat. In my opinion the best-produced track of the album, although be warned: you might be in for an emotional roller coaster.
The aptly titled “Get out of my room” is an angsty yet relaxed view into the life of the character described by it. The soft, dreamy vocals pair nicely with the heavily distorted bass guitar and finishes the album well.
INTERVIEW
How long did the process of making the album take, and what advice do you have for beginner musicians who want to record an album? Were there any “a-ha” moments across the past three albums you’ve released that you’d like to share?
This album took a year to make, we lost some recordings a while back and considered not going forward. But I ended up writing more songs as time went on, and suddenly we had enough to do another full length album. We made this album as parents for the first time, so that changed everything about the recording process. Things were harder to schedule and a lot of the takes weren’t perfect, but we had to settle to be able to move forward. I think one of the things you realize the more music you make is that it takes time to collaborate and coordinate – EVERYTHING takes longer than you think it will.
I guess another take away could be – not to rush things – cause you might regret it later. There will always be things you wish you had done differently or more thoughtfully. I’ve been enjoying releasing many singles from this new album – I guess a personal celebration of what we’ve made. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there – there will always be someone who likes your music – even if it feels like no one does. You just have to keep giving them chances to hear it. Also, releasing music is a huge accomplishment! And it takes a lot of courage!
I am so glad you are releasing physical media in an era where it seems streaming has taken over. How has the album been received so far? Any cool stories?
We’ve been doing a bit of a soft-start to releasing the album. As a musician and artist this can be a scary part of the process – you don’t want to miss a step and also feel out of your element. There is a lot to learn about releasing music when you are doing it yourself, just from the last few years every seems to have changed.It’s been funny navigating how we want to release music in 2022. It can challenge your ideas about music and why you make it – it can feel impersonal and kind of shallow, even gamified. We’ve been so lucky to collaborate a bit and benefit from the knowledge of folks who have witnessed the changes more first hand. I really valued this essay written by the Cups n Cakes Network member Jeff MacCallum. It’s called The end of the music blog. I found it while I was compiling a list of blogs I wanted to send Don’t be yourself to, this is something I’ve done whenever I’ve released music in the past – I remember reading it and thinking, oh no! How will I go forward releasing the album – that is the only way to get reviewed as a musician at my level in the music world. There is still a pretty solid community of music lovers supporting local music and working together, but it’s very small.
Following up on that, how do you see the future of physical music that you plan to release? Cassette, vinyl, or something else? Would you ever release solely on streaming platforms?
We just released my new full length album – Don’t be yourself on cassette last weekend. We decided to do a presale – before it’s released digitally. It’s funny, this time around, having played few shows the last couple years – I did consider just releasing on streaming. It was a weird feeling that luckily didn’t last long – because Alex from No SUN recordings (who is also a family member) offered to put the tape out and I didn’t have to sit in that decision too long. I see my project as pretty small, my scope and reach is very much local – I think making a small run of merch is really meaningful and I suppose very much part of my process – I am speaking as a child of the 80’s who has collected cassettes my entire life – It’s a beautiful way to experience the closure of a bigger process too. I enjoy conceptualizing the album art, and making something out of nothing, while at the same time creating a time capsule for myself and others. My songwriting style is really self-referential and I’ve been told relatable – so I hope it resonates enough that a tape can be meaningful the way it is to me, to those listening as well. The cassette is available now on the No SUN Recordings SHOP https://nosunrecordings.bigcartel.com/product/rooms-dont-be-yourself-c-s
Many artists have difficulty putting their work into a genre or category. What are your influences, and how would you categorise your music for a new listener?
Finding where you belong as a musician can be hard. I would say that having to always be identifying genres is extremely isolating. When there are so few options – I often go with indie rock, but most of the bands/ artists in that category don’t feel relatable or appropriate for my music and style. Lately, we’ve been describing the band with genres like soft rock, sap rock, mama rock, labour punk and singer/songwriter. One of our songs recently got added to a very long bed time playlist – but that is one song/one mood. LOL Sometimes it feels impossible.
I tend to gravitate towards lyrics and emotion in song writing. I love local music – coming from people I know or have seen play live. I think music or artists that can tap into power imbalances, structural inequality…. identity, can be very powerful. I know for myself, as a white settler and social worker (a subject position with its own unique evil legacy) – going forward I believe creating material that goes into the world should come with responsibility. I want to be aware of these things, the space I take up, the messages I am putting out there. I try to make that implicit in my songwriting.
In terms of sound – Rooms has a soft raw driven sound, natural vocal layering (sisters), dreamy, easy listening – dynamic, thoughtful/heart string guitar solos, soothing basslines and drum patterns. The new album goes from heart wrenching ballad style, to more typical short and lyric driven Rooms songs, and even dabbles in lullabies.
For our technical audiences, what gear do you use to record your dreamy vocals with? (microphone, vocal chain etc)
We were so lucky to record many of the songs on the album in this lovely lane way cabin-esque space with our friend Dan from Analogue Sound. According to him – for vocals – we used a Shure Beta58 mic through a Neve 1073 style preamp and an ART ProVLA compressor for tracking vocals. All of the “full band” songs were recorded (mostly) live off the floor, which is a particular sound that is definitely identifiable in my other releases, as well. It’s really fun to record that way, a lot of amazing things can happen. Some of the songs were recorded at home on very consumer level equipment by my partner Enzio. We used a Heil PR22 Dynamic mic into a SSL2 interface. We mixed it in different softwares – first Waveform and then Reaper with various reverb and compression and EQ plugins. .
Thank you for the interview. Do you have any future albums planned?
It’s always possible!
Buy the cassette or stream the singles today