Anita Tatlow’s voice builds worlds. Whispered melodies bloom into spiraling sequences, a living road map that reads like a memoir. On her newest album, the roads that shaped us, she explores the places she hasn’t been swaddled in the context of where she is. It’s a beautiful, drifting meditation on place in the sense of where we are situated, and how we got there. Reflective piano melodies slow dance beneath her floating incantations like small anchors keeping these sounds tethered gently to the Earth. Her arrangements are elegant and cloudlike, hovering above, just about still. the roads that shaped us invites listeners inside, and crafts passages open for contemplation. Sound that uplifts and inspires, getting lost in memory.
the roads that shaped us is OUT NOW on Echoes Blue Music.
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What are some of your earliest memories of sound?
I remember sitting sheltered on my grandparents’ porch when I was very young during a huge late-summer thunderstorm and just finding the rain and the sounds of the thunder together with the lightning absolutely mesmerising. I’ve always loved the sound of rain on windows too – especially when you’re cosy inside.
And from there, when did music start to become an important part of your life? Did you always want to play and write music?
Growing up, I sat between being classically trained on the piano and also having an ear for music – I would sit down at the piano and just make up tunes – music gave me a lot of expressive freedom in my early years.
So you’re classically trained as both a vocalist and a pianist. Was there a particular moment that you remember where you kind of stepped outside of that training and realized, or decided, the “correct” way of using those instruments didn’t quite work for you?
I actually studied music at university: the programme was quite varied, which really opened my eyes to the depth and breadth of music – both historically, genre-wise, and across cultures and art forms as well. That lit a fire inside of me – which is still burning – to explore new and more experimental sides to music.
You’ve got this lovely new record out – the roads that shaped us. It’s framed around the idea of paths not taken. Was there an actual path not taken in your life that this album is sort of circling around, or is it more of a general feeling?
Yes – it’s both about the paths not taken, but also a gratitude for the ones that we did take.
In my adult life, the paths that me (and my husband Ben) have taken have been quite unconventional. We have lived in three different countries, and chosen to step outside of our ‘conventional’ jobs that we once had. Even the path to growing our family has been full of decisions – our eldest son is adopted, and we are living and raising our kids in a country which neither of us grew up in.
So I think all of those ‘big choices’ – as well as lots of small ones along the way – are what I wanted to write about for this album: the idea that they were integral to leading the present moment. There’s this sense that life could be different if we had chosen another path at any one of these crossroads. Overall, I feel so much gratitude for where we are, so it’s both a reflection and a celebration. That’s not to say all the paths were easy, but choosing gratitude and joy is something I actively try to practise.
I love that all the sound beds here are built from your own vocal samples. It’s something that really heightens the emotional weight of the record. I’m curious what that feels like, though, hearing your own voice come back to you in these forms? Does it still feel like you, or does it feel like something else entirely?
It’s something I’ve done for a while, so I think I’ve gotten used to it, but for this record I wanted both a cohesive sound and to make sure the ‘human’ element was present – I processed a lot of the vocals through pedals, which I feel gives a real grounding to the overall sound. When I listen, I hear breath, calm, almost a meditative quality that exists in the music – and I hope that’s true for others when they listen too.
I also find myself drawn to the different ways piano appears on the record, especially when you layer it in a way that it becomes this almost hidden texture lurking in spaces beneath the melody. How do you know when a piano part is meant to be more felt than heard?
Interestingly, the piano was never the first layer I created for any of these tracks, and while I did ultimately record multiple piano stems for each piece, through the process I removed (or heavily effected) a lot of piano elements for a ‘less is more’ kind of approach. Towards the end of ‘and that made all the difference,’ there’s a piano shimmer that started off as a high-pitched piano tremolo, but then by processing it through various pedals and effects it becomes blurred, almost hidden, but it’s also so integral to the piece.
Half of the record is collaborative. What does co-writing actually look like for you? Do you bring in someone after you’ve already got the bones of a piece, or do you get in a room and start with nothing and see what happens?
I’ve done both with collaborations in the past – but for this album, I sent piano and vocal ideas over to my collaborators – as I wanted to make sure the record as a whole was as cohesive as possible. But I also admire and trust these people so much that it absolutely could have also worked the other way around.
Can you talk a little bit about your collaborators on this record and what they brought?
There are so many people who could have collaborated with for this release – and the obvious first person to involve was my husband Ben, who is also a producer. He features on two of the tracks (under his monikers Antarctic Wastelands and Memories of the Forgotten), which is quite appropriate as a lot of these songs are about the roads that shaped us together!
Marshall Usinger (Be Still the Earth) has been with us on our music-making journey for a long time, and I have actually collaborated with him a few years ago, back when I started creating solo ambient music, and so it made sense to bring in someone who has been on this path with me for quite some time. I also trust him so much and love the depth and beauty he is able to bring to everything he creates.
Frogi and I only crossed paths in the past year, when she was part of gentle voices vol. 1, which is an ambient compilation that I curated together with the wonderful Cynthia Bernard (marine eyes). And while I have known Ben for a long time, and Marshall for several years, I felt it fitting to involve someone whom I have only gotten to know more recently – to have this spectrum across the album as well. Frogi is just a wonder when it comes to creating music – it started off that I sent her two different ideas to see which resonated with her. Long story short, she worked on both of them, and we loved how both the collaborations unfolded – these ultimately became the tracks ‘golden hour’ and ‘where do we go from here?’
You’ve made the case that none of us journey alone. Is there someone specific (not necessarily a musician or an artist) who shaped the road this album is named after?
There’s a poem by Robert Frost called ‘The Road Not Taken,’ and these lines are definitely a big part of my muse for this album:
“the Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
You’re based in Hong Kong these days. How has that shaped, or added to, your approach or your sound? Does the city show up anywhere on this record, even if it’s more felt than it is literal?
We actually live more in the countryside of Hong Kong – which isn’t something everyone is even aware exists here. We live near the mountains, as well as being close to both the beach and hiking trails – ‘november rains’ and ‘wild lotus’ feature nature sounds recorded close to our home. And our studio is also at home, so the inspiration of being near nature is never far away.
What surprised you the most about making the roads that shaped us?
I chose to use the Strymon Nightsky pedal to process a lot of the vocals and even the piano on this record – to really explore the variety and extent of what it can create as a tool. As well as creating many subtle layers across the album, it also helped bring a sense of hidden cohesiveness to the album.
What challenged you?
I really initially wanted this record to be entirely self-produced – but as we neared the final stages, I felt like I needed fresh ears on the final mixes, so Ben did help with those and took care of the mastering as well. So although I had my initial vision, as the project progressed, I learnt to hold it just a little more lightly – which is probably a great lesson and metaphor for this journey too.
When you listen back to the record now, as a finished sequence, does it feel like one continuous road, or is it more like a set of separate paths that happened to end up next to each other?
A bit of both – the sonic journey feels cohesive, and actually I’m loving listening through to it as a whole listening experience. Alongside that, as I hear each of the tracks, they also bring individual memories that transport me to specific places and moments in time. And then there are the feelings that emerge with each piece as well – so it has many layers for me when I listen now.
And, as always, too close… What are some of your favorite sounds in the world?
I love rain and thunderstorms… living in the climate that we do, the weather can be just spectacular – some of my favourite moments are sitting in front of a bedroom window with my kiddos for a good storm watching – or storm-listening – session.
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