Bloomsday: Capitalism doesn't want you to be in awe
Musician Iris James Garrison on Halloween costumes, ‘Heart of the Artichoke’, and nurturing your sense of awe
Iris James Garrison is in the car when I call.
“I’m sorry about the timing,” they say “I don’t know why I’m so challenged by it.”
It’s nine A.M. Pacific, noon Eastern, Halloween morning and we’re finally connecting after Iris accidentally no-showed on me earlier this week.
Shit happens, of course. Especially when it comes to creatives and time.
The newsletter intro which should take 15 minutes takes two hours. Things get away from you. The days start to blur.
Four months ago, Iris released Heart of the Artichoke, their sophomore record under the moniker Bloomsday. It’s 10 tracks, most of them good, some of them great, with Chunes like “Dollar Slice”, “Carefully”, and “Old Friend”, evoking the spirit and sensibilities of Adrianne Lenker, Julian Baker, and Lomelda.
While I knew I enjoyed the record, I knew almost nothing about Iris before dialing them.
And so we talk: about recording the album and Iris’ approach to collaboration, but also what inspires them, and how to maintain one’s creative spirit under late-stage capitalism.
Through it all, I can hear what I think is Brooklyn humming in the background.
A few hours after we hung up, my phone provider informed me I owed $35 in international calling. Roughly a dollar for every minute of our call.
Creatives and time, man, I tell you.
ES: I didn’t realize that we had rebooked this for Halloween. Happy Halloween.
IJG: Happy Halloween. Are you going as anything?
ES: No. I carved our pumpkin this morning, but I’m not dressing up or anything. Are you?
IJG: I got roped into dressing up like Charli XCX.
ES: Laughs. All this costumery is just a knife.
IJG: I never want to dress up for Halloween. If I do, it’s usually something like vampire makeup and a leather jacket. But this year my friend said, “We have to be something funny.” I suggested Charli and she’s going as Troye Sivan.
ES: Cute! So you’re going as her in the Brat era?
IJG: Yeah I got a wig and the glasses. I’m not sure what I’ll wear outfit-wise. I might be more chill on that because the wig is a lot.
ES: To quote Addison Rae: You can get away with anything when you’re wearing a wig.
IJG: Yeah they can do most of the work.
ES: When did you first get into Charli?
IJG: I started a couple of years ago. I watched her documentary about her relationship with her fans during the pandemic. It was the making of How I’m Feeling Now. I love that album and I love that documentary because she was, and is, so sweet and cool to her fans.
ES: She is an expert at community-building.
IJG: Totally. Like during the pandemic, when she released the full stems to her record. Like, “Here you go, make a remix!” She’s in direct communication with them.
ES: I love how open she is to collaboration and how she celebrates that, whether it’s with A.G. Cook, or George Daniel, or with the fans. We even saw that recently with the remix record.
IJG: Brat is like a universe that we’re all a part of.
ES: How do you approach collaboration? Are you writing everything by yourself?
IJG: For Heart of the Artichoke, I went full collaborator mode. Like the lyrics and melodies and song structures are me, but I love bringing people in… I love having outside perspectives when I’m working on an album because, by that point, it usually feels like I have taken the songs as far as I can by myself. I love how things blossom and open up with collaborators. When you're making an album, at least for me, it feels like the first time you’re hearing your own music. You’ve heard the songs in their rawest form, but the recording is when you know what the song sounds like. Or the opposite happens, and you realize something’s not right, and you have to go back and work on it more.
There are no rules. Something can be as it is, and that can be enough.
ES: Were there any moments with Heart of the Artichoke where things snapped into place, or a song came alive through collaboration?
IJG: That happened with the song “Artichoke”. I had written the chorus, and nothing else. I had some verses I was playing with. Usually, I try to come into a session with a complete, structured song, but my collaborators were like, “This is great, let’s work with it and figure out an arrangement.” That song was cracked open by instrumentation. There’s a clarinet on that one. The way the instruments move through each chorus phrase helps the song from feeling unfinished. It feels complete.
ES: That song is beautiful. I really like it.
IJG: It’s habitual for me to try and add more to a song… But that taught me a lesson. There are no rules. Something can be as it is, and that can be enough. You can make something beautiful out of that.
ES: There’s a bravery in simplicity, which I was thinking while listening to the record. It’s direct, and heart on your sleeve, but not in a saccharine way.
IJG: Saccharine is a word we were talking a lot about during the recording. We were always trying to avoid the saccharine while still being as honest and as authentic as possible. With this kind of music, it can veer into that pretty easily. You have a meter in your gut that tells you it’s too sweet, you know?
ES: Are there any songs you were nervous to share with the public?
IJG: I usually get more nervous around live stuff. The song “Carefully” is one that I get shy about. Sometimes I’ll have it on the setlist and not play it. It’s a poem and it’s about carefulness and anxiety, and having a dialogue with yourself about being enough and being okay. There’s this verse about writer's block, and the tension that comes with that and trying to be as careful as possible, trying to not mess something up. Conveniently, the song is pretty hard to play. Laughs. I can do it but if I’m especially nervous I can mess up or forget the words. It’s ironic.
Write some words down carefully /
You'll cross them out /
They'll never be /
The walls are making a mockery
— "Carefully”
ES: Do you feel like songwriting makes you more open and vulnerable? Or do you tap into that through other ways?
IJG: It’s a combination, I think. I’ll be revealing: I’m going through a breakup right now. It was a four-year relationship. And when you go through life moments like that… It’s all about preserving your energy and feeling it within yourself… I'll have conversations with people whose work I admire.
Other types of artists, I think, really open me up. I have this painter friend. I find painters so fascinating because they express ideas in such a different way and have such a relationship with fantasy.
So to answer your question, it’s everything. As long as I’m not personally falling into the routine brain too much. Does that make sense?
ES: It does. It can be hard to discuss inspiration and vulnerability because art is meant to be a transcendent experience that defies language. And yet here I am trying to talk to you and write everything out. So I appreciate you playing ball.
IJG: Yeah. For me… It’s gut instinct and having conversations that are opening me up… Following my instincts and inspirations, whether it’s going to concerts or plays or art openings or working in a restaurant. Having random interactions with new people can open you up to new perspectives. It’s just about being open and coming from that curious place of awe, which I think needs to be nurtured. Capitalism doesn’t want you to be in awe. Capitalism wants you to be regimented and predictable and in control of everything.
ES: That’s so true. And it’s probably why it feels like creators have to fight so hard to make time and space for their work.
IJG: It’s really discouraging. I think it makes creators feel selfish, or at least that’s how it can be framed within a capitalistic society. And that’s why I’m so inspired by painters because imagine painting something and taking however many months to make something and not knowing if it will go somewhere.
ES: I notice on Instagram that you follow Jenny Lewis and I wonder what influence, if any, she’s had on your work?
IJG: I’ve definitely known her music for a long time but I don’t know if I can speak to her much as an influence… I draw a lot of inspiration from Adrianne Lenker and Laura Marling. With Adrienne, it’s kind of intense. I’m in awe of her transcendence.
ES: I’m not the biggest Adrienne fan — but only because I feel like I’m missing something.
IJG: She has a sort of spellbinding quality to her music. Her solo music especially has this guitar plucking, and strange tunings, that open up a lot of curiosity in me.
I took her songwriting class and she mentioned that she’ll tune to a strange tuning and place her fingers wherever they fall and let the melodies and words come to her. She’ll look around the space and describe what’s presently in front of her and let that lead to what's happening within her emotionally. I think she does a beautiful job of rooting you in a present moment that is relatable, while still going existential, always going to some larger feeling in that moment.
ES: Last question. You’ve got a show coming up in Wild Pink which is cool…
IJG: Yeah, we’ve been trying to play together for a while, and he hit me up about that show in New York. It’s at Union Pool, in Brooklyn, where I’ve played a whole bunch. I’m excited. I haven’t seen that band play live. (TICKETS HERE)
ES: What’s your go-to Wild Pink album?
IJG: The new one. Dulling The Horns.
ES: It’s so good!
IJG: It’s super good. He’s really big in Portland, OR.
ES: Really? Laughs.
IJG: Yeah. Also, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Brooklyn neighbourhoods, but he’s really big in Green Point and Prospect Heights. He’s got the late-thirties crowd on lock… New parents are really vibing. And I’m down for it!
Iris James Garrison is the singer-songwriter behind Bloomsday. They live in New York. Buy Heart of the Artichoke here.