Michelle McAdorey's voice has been heard on some very fine albums, although it has been a little while since her name has graced a new release. Wavelength's Spring Equinox show is all about looking for signs of seasonal renewal, and with that in mind, Joe Strutt exchanged some e-mails with Michelle about new outgrowths and old roots.

Wavelength: The new single contains two beautiful songs, and it’s a bit like getting a postcard from a friend you hadn’t heard from for a while. Just to get us caught up, what have you been up to
while you’ve been “away”?

Michelle McAdorey: “Away” ...

Whilst it is true I have been “away” from putting out new music for quite awhile, I have not been “away” from writing songs and singing. This is something I have found to be essential to my being. So while it may seem I have been “away”, I think of it more like going underground and now back on or through the surface of the earth again and out into the light of day. And this Wavelength gig just happens to fall on the first day of Spring.

I also have a son, and chose to spend a lot of time with him when he was very young. It was also important to be underground for a time in order to search a little and be revived. And hell, life can throw curves too. Meanwhile I have been working on getting a new record made for quite some time, so that too has kept me busy behind the scenes.

And what led to this single coming into being now? Is there going to be an album to follow?

I started working with Greg Keelor on a new album at his place. He introduced me to Tom Street, a great drummer who also plays on the single and full length LP. Tom also runs seventhfire records. Tom has a real passion for vinyl and he told me of his idea for the limited edition vinyl 7” 45 series, which I thought was really cool. At that time I had a tune – “Line Across My Heart” – and we had two completely different versions of it. I thought it would be interesting to release the two versions as a single, which didn’t ultimately happen, but that became the start of our conversation in terms of me putting out a single. Tom asked me to be part of the series and I thought it would be a great to put something out while I kept working on a full-length recording, and also essential to moving out from underground.

Was working with Greg Keelor sort of like coming full circle?

Working with Greg I guess has a circle effect to it because we started Crash Vegas together many moons ago. We are very close friends and he is someone I trust and have a great deal respect for as a writer and musician. Through my searching and experimenting in terms of figuring out how I was going to make this new recording it became very clear that Greg understood these new tunes and what I was going for. It has been great working together.

The info with the single mentions you are “playing with a full band.” Who did you have in the studio — and who will we see playing with you at the Wavelength show?

Part of what I have imagined and have been going for sonically with these new tunes and in recording has been the sound of a band with multiple instrumentations. I have been listening to a lot of British Isles Folk Rock music, among other things, and I would say that music has influenced my writing and also how I imagined the sound of these new recordings. On the single the musicians you hear are James McKenty (guitar/bass), Greg Keelor (guitar), Chris Altman (pedal steel, piano, electric guitar), Mike Boguski (synth and organ) and Thomas Street (drums). That said these tunes can also be played in different ways and stripped down in instrumentation, in keeping with all that folk/rock music I am so inspired by.

At the Wavelength show, which will be our first show, we will be a three piece. Tom will be on drums and James McKenty will be on guitar. James is a beautiful guitar player/songwriter and he has been working on the recordings with Greg and I from the beginning, and he is also the recordist (engineer). I am excited to begin playing again, especially with Tom and James who have a long history of playing together. Chris Altman is in Nashville right now, but I am sure we will play with him too some time in the future. But right now it is lovely to begin so intimately with these new tunes.

The music industry has been totally turned upside-down in the last decade and change. Now we can find your songs on soundcloud, keep up with you on Facebook, etc. but at the same time there’s a lot more other voices competing to be heard, and getting fairly compensated for making music isn’t easy. Do you feel optimistic or pessimistic to be putting music out into this landscape?

Don’t think I am either of these – optimistic or pessimistic – in terms of putting music out. Writing songs, making records and playing is something I love to do and need to do. Ultimately I would like to thrive doing what I love to do – like so many people. Is it possible? Ultimately it comes down to good people, good relationships, and a good home to help put out the full-length LP. It seems to me that it is the day-to-day that counts and who you spend your time with that matters. So that’s about as far as I can take it in my mind.

What you said about music as a part of day-to-day life (and the importance of who you making it with) definitely registers with me. A couple weeks ago I saw Martin Arnold give a talk, and he started with the premise that communities make folk music and sort of unpacked that, looking at the whole realms of interchange between songs and performers (and performers and audiences) that are possible when you start from the idea that a song is a shared, living thing, and not a product to be sold.

Coincidentally, the last time I saw you play (back in ‘09) was with a band that included Martin, as well as Eric Chenaux and other members of the Rat-Drifting nexus. Besides making new connections between people (I hadn’t realized you’d played with Eric quite a while back) it was a revelation to hear the different musical approach, with a lot of abstract atmospherics. Beyond “folk,” are you also interested in improvised/experimental music? Is that one road that you might go further down someday, or is “a good tune” more where you’re at right now?

There is a lot that could be gone into with this question. I am definitely a huge fan of Martin Arnold’s work – his compositions are incredible and have at times been revelatory to me. It was great to play with him too. In terms of your question of whether I am interested in improvised/experimental music: yes, and “a good tune” is also something that interests me as well. Really what concerns me most is melody. That is what I am always pursuing to a greater or lesser degree – melody, melody, melody – and that is also how I understand “a good tune”. Or that is usually my way in, through the melody and harmonies and dissonances. I haven’t worked this way in a while – songs with parts and structures – and I am really enjoying it. And again it’s all about the melody. Does that answer some of your question?

What is the relationship between the music you’re making now and the material you presented earlier in your career? If someone in the crowd at one of your current gigs requests “Smoke” or “Inside Out”, would they get a shudder and an eye roll?

At the risk of being overly repetitious, perhaps it is my obsession with melody that is the thread that runs through most of the music I have been making over the years. I have always been drawn to folk music (and I like how Martin defines folk music); it has just taken different turns and directions in terms of how I was trying to find expression for what I was hearing in my head. And then there is Love. I write about love a lot and not necessarily romantic love. So perhaps there is some relationship there thematically also. Definitely there is affection for many songs I have written in the past, some more than others of course. I could see playing an older tune whether it is from the Crash Vegas era or post-CV songs from records like Whirl or Love Don’t Change. Could be fun to think about some new arrangements for some of them or not. It is also a wonderful thing to play a song for someone that they really want to hear; maybe it will be one of these new ones.

In any case, I’m glad we’re in the here-and-now, and I’m looking forward to celebrating Spring’s arrival with your songs at Wavelength. Thanks for your time and answers!

Thank you. It is our first show and we will play all new things - so there will be a little bit of the rough and maybe a bit of magic if we are lucky.