cloud collecting #48: Jessica Roch + Lauren Helene Green

March is the month where my curation projects come to life this year and I am excited to share that the music I contributed to Northern Spy’s Across the Horizon series is now available to the public. I was chosen as a curator alongside Mary Lattimore, Clarice Jensen, Chuck Johnson, Balmorrhea, East Forest, Carlos Niño and Alan Sparhawk (what a lineup, right?!).

Today’s cloud collecting is a special edition with Lauren Helene Green and Jessica Roch, the artists I chose to write a song for the series. I’m in awe of what they created and am grateful to help share their work with the world. If you haven’t yet, I highly encourage you to spend some time with their music. Once the songs are released from all curator drops, a vinyl edition will be released with our three songs plus the music from the other curators and their artist picks. Super cool project created by Northern Spy + SUSS, make sure you check out all they are up to as well.

Jessica Roch is a London-based composer, multi-instrumentalist artist and improvisor, who writes across ambient, electronic, contemporary classical and experimental music.

Initially classically trained on violin and piano, her solo work is known for it’s textural diversity; pairing classical instruments with a vast array of electronic elements. She creates immersive, evolving soundscapes that balance atmospheric depth with close-up, gritty detail.

Her previous single, “Sixteen Fifty-Two” was featured on Apple Music’s ‘Classical Edge’ playlist as well as BBC Radio 3 and KEXP’s “Pacific Notions”.

Last year, she won a Composer Spotlight Award at the Production Music Awards and wrote a three-movement piece of music called ‘Pandemonium, Music for Parakeets’ for an exhibition at The Design Museum in London.

Alongside her solo work, she co-runs and performs with the London Ambient Orchestra and works as a media composer for film, tv and commercials, and also with a wide variety of artists as session musician.

Lauren Helene Green is a multi-instrumentalist musician, artist, and woodworker living in Northern New Mexico. One half of dream-pop duo Tan Cologne, Green is a shaper of music, wood, and various creative projects inspired by both Earthly and otherworldly landscapes.

1. What was going on for you when you wrote the song for this project both creatively and mentally? And what tools or gear were you working with at the time?

Jessica: So the track has a little bit of a heavy story behind it. I wrote it the night of my dad’s funeral two years ago. I stayed up most of that night just to write it - it was essentially an outpouring of grief.

However, it made me feel incredibly lucky to have that outlet. Maybe it sounds a bit nuts, but after I finished writing it, I honestly felt like it put my grief two months into the future.

I’d written it straight into notation so there weren’t any recordings of it at that point. I didn’t look at it again for over a year when I decided to record it. And then didn’t listen again for a few months when I went back to it to start editing and mixing it.

For a while, I wasn’t sure whether or not to release it. At times, it felt too heavy. However, I wanted to release it because I just hope that it resonates with those dealing with grief. If it resonates with even one grieving person and helps them even a tiny bit, then it was worth it. I really hope it can help in the same way that it helped me to create it.

I wrote a piece about grief and music on Substack a few days ago that dives into this and grief/music in general a little more.

Lauren: “Underwater Tape” was composed during a mild yet cold burst of winter in Taos, NM. Coming off the heels of heaviness in the world and personal loss, creating this track was a respite and joy to dream up and soundtrack. Creatively, I was envisioning a scaled creature swimming along contours of swaying aquatic plant life and sunken coins near the Tahiti Islands in the 1950s. A simulation of layered electronic and organic instrumentation captured on a lost tape.

For gear, I used chorus, tremolo, and reverb guitar pedals, acoustic guitar, various synth sounds, soft brush strokes on a snare and bongo for percussion, bass guitar, and a digital beat I created. I ran the beat through a Pioneer DJ FLX4 controller and slowed and morphed it. I also featured my partner in music + life, Marissa Macias, on the track who played electric guitar and used carbon copy analog delay and reverb guitar pedals.

2. What role does community play in your creative life?

Jessica: A big one. I co-run The London Ambient Orchestra. We’re an orchestra made up of musicians and composers. But most importantly, all of us are improvisors. We improvise as a group as a part of every performance we do and every rehearsal. It is the most healing thing. It is a beautiful community of musicians where we listen to each other (musically and practically) and work together. Very proud of the work we’ve done as it is always very much a team effort.

We played a recent show on ‘Blue Monday’ (aka the saddest day of the year) at London’s beautiful Jazz Cafe and we were very moved by the audiences reaction to us that night. We all felt like one big community in that room. Audience members could definitely feel what we were feeling on stage - particularly whilst we were improvising. It was very special.

Other female artists in my life feel also like a community, too. I didn’t know enough women making music when I was really young and it was very lonely at times. You (Cynthia) are very much a part of that. You also really understood the weight of this track which is why it felt right to put it out on the compilation. You made me feel comfortable and safe with it.

Lauren: Living in a small (yet growing) town for the past 11 years has taught me that community, whether small or large, becomes family. It’s like creating your own world. Being able to interact with the Northern New Mexico community where I live is an honor and I’m grateful to share my music, teach woodworking classes, as well as be inspired by the landscapes here.

3. How do you cloud collect (connect to childlike wonder) in your creativity?

Jessica: I think we all feel like children sometimes, right? I think it’s great to embrace it.

I think I connect with it when I improvise. It’s always been a hugely important outlet to me. It is the only way I can meditate. My brain is too busy to meditate and always has been (and I’ve tried really hard!).

I started improvising when I was around 5 years old - first on piano. I remember when I was a kid, staring outside into our little garden, looking up into the sky. I used to hope that certain things I was playing could change the weather - make it rain, make it sunny. When it happened, I felt like maybe I had a magic power. When it didn’t, I just had to try harder.

The constantly-changing British weather may have had something to do with it but who knows. Maybe, occasionally, I can still try to believe that I have a temporary magic power.

Lauren: Cloud collecting to me is an infinite exploration of inner and otherworldly observations. Collecting life research without any limitations and information sharing what feels vitalizing. Seeing where the expansion of your own creative world leads you and how the process itself unfolds along the way.

• I wanted to share the song I wrote for the Across the Horizon project too, a little love song for my husband about the walks we take in our neighborhood at night.

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