Josh Kolenik//Small Black

 
 
 

“I love Excel when I’m working on a song because I can go both vertical and horizontal when searching for the right words.”

If you see Josh Kolenik of Small Black at a cafe crunching numbers on a spreadsheet, he’s actually crunching lyrics to the next Small Black song.

 

Josh Kolenik of Small Black loves a good Excel file. He’s always been a big fan of spreadsheets and statistics, and this affinity plays a big role in his creative process. First, he fills journals with words and phrases that he hears and likes. He then transfers those words and phrases to an Excel file. Each journal gets its own file. He has, in his words, “a monster list of titles and phrases.”

When it’s time to write a song and he’s got a hook to work with, he heads right to the journal, “I go into a song with a loose concept of a hook, then go to the Excel file for words and images that fit that hook.” Kolenik doesn’t like using the same word or phrase too many times, so Excel offers an easy way to double check his work.

This is not to say that Kolenik is all numbers. He draws heavily from literary sources and reads voraciously. Kolenik starts his day by reading around 50 pages of a novel, and once he’s found an author he likes, he plows through that author’s entire canon without reading anyone else, as he just did with Jim Harrison. He’s also a big Raymond Carver fan. “I want to write songs that get into the world he’s in,” Kolenik told me.

Fun fact: Kolenik graduated from Colgate University and I used to teach there, but we missed each other by a year.

Small Black’s new album is called Cheap Dreams. Watch my interview with Josh Kolenik below!

 
 
 
 
You may also like...
Lauren Mayberry//Chvrches
Indie, Indie Rock, Synth Pop
Lauren Mayberry//Chvrches
Indie, Indie Rock, Synth Pop

Lauren Mayberry of Chvrches has a songwriting process that involves spreadsheets, Pinterest boards, and hotel pens. And a jar full of scrap paper.

Read More →
Indie, Indie Rock, Synth Pop
Michelle Zauner//Japanese Breakfast
Indie, Chillwave, Synth Pop
Michelle Zauner//Japanese Breakfast
Indie, Chillwave, Synth Pop

“Raw source material is supposed to be crap,” Michelle Zauner says. “You have to allow yourself to be terrible.” Her best writing comes in the revision process, not in those “garbage” first drafts.

Read More →
Indie, Chillwave, Synth Pop
Josh Kolenik//Small Black
Indie, Chillwave, Synth Pop
Josh Kolenik//Small Black
Indie, Chillwave, Synth Pop

Josh Kolenik of Small Black draws from both Excel spreadsheets and Raymond Carver when he writes songs. He looks everywhere for inspiration. “It’s important to have a breadth of material to draw from,” he says.

Read More →
Indie, Chillwave, Synth Pop
Yukimi Nagano, Little Dragon
Trip Hop, Synth Pop, Electro Indie, Indie
Yukimi Nagano, Little Dragon
Trip Hop, Synth Pop, Electro Indie, Indie

Yukimi Nagano of Little Dragon is a book hoarder at her local library in Sweden. She browses the stacks across all subjects, from photography to poetry to flowers. Then she walks out with as many books as she can carry. When she gets home, she peruses those books for both words and images. Sometimes the words make their way into her songs, and other times the images give her ideas to spin off of. "It could be a book about flowers, for example, and I might find a beautiful name for a flower that could be a song title," Nagano told me. And when she gets home, she does most of her writing in the kitchen. There's something about the "nice, soothing hum" of her refrigerator that's conducive to her creativity. 

For today's interview, I have a companion. Last November I interviewed Theresa Wayman from Warpaint. It remains one of my favorite interviews. I recently read that Wayman was a big fan of Little Dragon, so I asked her if she wanted to interview Nagano with me. She gave me an enthusiastic yes, and somehow we made this happen: I was in New York, Wayman was in Rhode Island, and Nagano was in Sweden.  We had a fantastic discussion about the creative process.

Read More →
Trip Hop, Synth Pop, Electro Indie, Indie
Jenn Wasner, Wye Oak and Flock of Dimes
Merge Records, Indie, Rock, Synth Pop, Dream Pop, Indie Pop
Jenn Wasner, Wye Oak and Flock of Dimes
Merge Records, Indie, Rock, Synth Pop, Dream Pop, Indie Pop

Regardless of what kind of art you create, some level of self-awareness is important. If you're a songwriter, you may marvel at the miracle of inspiration and how sometimes songs just fall into your lap. But at some point, you have to think about your process: you have to think about the parts that work, the parts that don't work, and why they do and don't. Successful songwriters have that level of self-awareness. It's hard to be productive if you're oblivious to your process. Jenn Wasner knows what works and what doesn't work, and this is one of the reasons why she is so prolific and so talented

Read More →
Merge Records, Indie, Rock, Synth Pop, Dream Pop, Indie Pop
Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans, YACHT
Synth Pop, Indie, Electro Indie, DFA Records
Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans, YACHT
Synth Pop, Indie, Electro Indie, DFA Records

You'd be selling YACHT short if you just called them a band.  Sure, Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans make music that has been praised by many, including Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and the New York Times.  But they are, in their words, "a belief system," and the two spend a lot of time on the visual aspect of the band as well: the shirts, the logos, the web design, the videos.  So when you think of YACHT, don't just think of two people who make music, think of two artists.  And when you read about their creative process below, it's easy to do.  Their new album, Shangri-La, is out June 21 on DFA Records. Listen to "Dystopia (The Earth is on Fire)" from the album:

Read More →
Synth Pop, Indie, Electro Indie, DFA Records
Jenn Wasner, Wye Oak
Synth Pop, Rock, Indie, Indie Pop, Dream Pop, Merge Records
Jenn Wasner, Wye Oak
Synth Pop, Rock, Indie, Indie Pop, Dream Pop, Merge Records

There's no doubt in my mind that Jenn Wasner of Wye Oak would be lost without her phone. It's the key to her songwriting. That phone is where she documents all her observations for the day.  She's constantly in touch with her surroundings, and all of her lyrical and melodic ideas that come from this connection go into the phone's voice recorder for later, when she actually writes a song.  Wasner says her "switch is on all the time . . . if you're always looking around and noticing your environment, it's a big help."

What impresses me most about Wasner is that she calls herself a writer, period. And she knows that being a writer takes hard work. Like any good writer, she knows that the time spent actually crafting her words is only a small part of the writing process.  Wasner recognizes that writers are always writing, even when they aren't.  That is, her writing process takes place when she's driving, walking, shopping, anything. During this time, she's inventing ideas, trying out lines, just doing everything except putting pen to paper. In fact, she approaching her writing process with this wonderfully simple mantra: "living is work."

Read More →
Synth Pop, Rock, Indie, Indie Pop, Dream Pop, Merge Records
Andy McCluskey, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD)
1980s, Pop, Post Punk, New Wave, Influencers, Synth Pop
Andy McCluskey, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD)
1980s, Pop, Post Punk, New Wave, Influencers, Synth Pop

It's a tribute to Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark that the sound they helped create, the shimmering synth pop that was so innovative when the band started three decades ago, is now de rigueur in music. OMD is out with a new album called History of Modern; it's their first in fourteen years and their first in over twenty with the 1980s "If You Leave" lineup.  It comes at an appropriate time, given the popularity of synth pop and the band's influence on groups like The xx and LCD Soundsytem. And the public has responded: OMD were conservative when booking venues on this tour, but now they are having to book second shows in some cities and move shows to bigger venues in others.

When it came to making History of Modern, Andy McCluskey, the band's singer and co-songwriter with Paul Humphreys, told me, "We analyzed our history and realized that we had created our own musical voice with the first four albums, and we wanted to go back to expressing ourselves in the language we invented ourselves.   We had to strike that balance between something that was OMD but also not some nostalgia trip."

Read More →
1980s, Pop, Post Punk, New Wave, Influencers, Synth Pop
Jesper Anderberg, The Sounds
Indie, Indie Rock, Post Punk, New Wave, Synth Pop
Jesper Anderberg, The Sounds
Indie, Indie Rock, Post Punk, New Wave, Synth Pop

How can I not promote a songwriter who reads Shakespeare to prepare to write for his band's latest album? That's what Jesper Anderberg, keyboardist and songwriter for The Sounds, did.  The band hails from Sweden, so English is not their native language. Anderberg read some Shakespeare, a man whose writing he admired for its lyrical quality; Midsummer Night's Dream was his favorite.  According to Anderberg, you can almost sing the lines from that play.

The Sounds' newest effort, Something to Die For, will be out the end of March on SideOneDummy Records.  It's the band's debut release for the label.  (photo credit: Markku Anttila)

Read More →
Indie, Indie Rock, Post Punk, New Wave, Synth Pop
 
 
Indie, Chillwave, Synth PopBen OpipariComment