Weyes Blood's Natalie Mering talks songwriting, noise, and 'The Innocents'

• Shawn Brackbill

Performing under the name Weyes Blood, New York-based songstress Natalie Mering has crafted a small but alluring body of songs rooted in British folk melodies and layers of musique concrète. Singing and performing with such modern experimental music luminaries as Ariel Pink and Jackie-O-Motherfucker may have informed her musical path, but as a solo artist, Mering creates haunting singular atmospheres filled with disquieting beauty. Throughout her 2013 album, The Outside Room, and her forthcoming Mexican Summer LP, The Innocents (due out Oct. 21), Mering’s voice and bold guitar melodies soar over gossamer narratives that evoke feelings of chaos, mystery, love, destruction, and various other complicated states of being.

After playing a show at the Mammal Gallery on Sept. 12, Weyes Blood returns to perform at 529 on Mon., Sept. 15, with Sun Araw, the Ruination, D/P/I, and Party Party Partners. Before the show, Mering took a few minutes to chat about writing songs, noise, and The Innocents.

I’ve been listening to the The Innocents, but I also came across your first album, The Outside Room. The more I listen the more I’m struck by how you use noise underneath the proper song parts that you write. Your voice is bold, and your songwriting is sharp — they could stand on their own strengths — without the added hidden dimensions that noise gives to your songs. What compels you to use noise in your songs the way you do?

I like using sound effects as instruments, and using the spectrum of atonal sound to accent what’s already going on. I think that happens a lot in percussion so it’s kind of like drying out percussion and adding tones to it. That’s basically what sound effects are so it does have it’s roots in traditional music, it’s just more of a Futurist interpretation. A lot of the sounds effects are there for a reason.

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The Outside Room by Weyes Blood

Would you use the term musique concrète to describe what you do?

Definitely, musique concrete, and, historically, the time when that first entered into the sonic sphere. It was really the Futurists and experimental classical composers that were first willing to use the industrial elements. I think because of the industrial revolution there were a lot more sounds evolving from acoustic instruments into things that people could create mechanically and making a whole new spectrum of sounds. Pierre Shaffer was the first guy to be like, “Wait, we can make pieces and weave these things together and intentionally take this industrial noise and make music with it.”

So when your merging elements of musique concrète with melodies and lyrics that you write, does improvisation play a role, or are you meticulously planning and executing your songs?

Improvisation is definitely part of that — especially in the sound effects spectrum — because you have to kind of feel around and accidently create. It’s best for sound effects to stumble upon the accidental harmoniousness of it all, and to be jamming and creating and all of sudden feel like, “Wow, that kind of works. Let’s go with that,” as opposed to, “I hear the sound in my head, I’m going to try to meticulously recreate it.” I’ve tried before, but it’s more difficult. It’s easy to have a vague idea of what you want to do and then try it. You have to follow your ears.

That probably leaves all sort of room for happy accidents to happen.

Right, and I find that happy accidents in music are some of the most pleasant aspects of it.

I’ve often found that when there’s an element of noise or chance paired with song writing, it makes your brain and your imagination work harder to find balance between the two signals that are coming at you.

Totally. Sometimes people can only hear the noise and sometimes people can only hear the song. It’s really like an appetite thing. If your pallet has been wetted with the experimental music already it sounds pretty conventional. But if you don’t know experimental music it can sound pretty strange. This new record is considered to be relatively straight, but when I play it for my friends who are into straightforward music, they think it’s totally sonically crazy.

The press release that came Mexican Summer draws a correlation between the title of your new album and the film The Innocents. Was that something you intended?

No, that’s something the writer just ran with. I mean, the movie is great — totally incredible movie, but The Innocents is a separate concept. The plot of the movie is kind of related. For me, it’s supposed to reference the concept of being innocent at a certain age range. It’s a reference to a time in people’s lives where the “innocence” is broken. Kind of like the mythological influence of television and media, or the American Dream, and thinking that you deserve true love or that you deserve success or you deserve to be creative. There’s a lot of breaking down that goes on in your early 20s, in this world. Especially in America because I really don’t think the education and the myths and the face applied to what forms your ideas about the universe are pretty far out and actually not grounded in reality. I think there’s a pretty big deficient of learning.

When you set out to make this record, did you have a clear intention of communicating that, or did the idea develop in the process?

It developed during the process. Once it was all done, I sat down and realized these songs are kind of older. I’ve actually aged since the record was made. So the lyrics and the vibe of the songs are, to me, more nostalgic now. It’s kind of like this first wave of style that now I feel like, getting older, my songs are becoming more complex, and less about the subject matter that’s on this record.

I guess that’s how it’s supposed to work.

Right!

Tell me about the album’s first single, “Summer.”

Sonically, “Summer” is my favorite sonic composition because the vocal harmonies and the guitar and everything is very tight and perfect. That’s the song I play for older people — like people that are like in their 70s that say, “Oh, you make music?” That to me is the most sweet; the way it was recorded. Also “Bad Magic” is the rawest vocal take. I recorded it in my apartment. In terms of the singles though, I went with “Hang On” because it’s the most fun. It’s the one that everybody kept talking about and now, it’s funny, because my friends and people who just love music talk mostly about “Bad Magic.” And some people think “Some Winters” is the best one. I’m at loss.

Are you releasing any more singles after the record comes out?

Yeah, on September 16, we’re going to release the second single. I’ve also been making a lot of little videos for a lot of the songs and those will steadily come out after the record comes out. “Some Winters” will be the second single. “Bad Magic” might be the third single or maybe it will just be the cult hit or the deep cut because it is the most loved song. I think my label wanting a bigger production as the single influenced me.

Do you have a band that’s playing these songs with you on the road, or are you playing solo?

I play solo, but I have been working with a band that could potentially tour once the album comes out. They started with a band. The only thing I have to work on now is how to put the sound effects and all the fun elements in there.

Is that difficult to pull off live?

I have two people playing with me, so we have to multitask. If I had five people in my band it’d be a piece of cake, but it’s not realistic yet. It’s really just about getting everybody on the same multitasking level where they’re willing to play their instrument and then some. Then it becomes pretty full.

Weyes Blood plays 529 on Mon., Sept. 15 with Sun Araw, the Ruination, D/P/I, and Party Party Partners.Free ($10 suggested donation). 9 p.m. 529 Flat Shoals Ave. 404-228-6769. www.529atlanta.com.