Meet Montaigne…A Pop Songstress With A Powerful Message
Bursting onto the scene in 2014, Montaigne is an artist that holds nothing back in her music. Hailing from Australia, the songstress creates an environment for listeners to feel heard, be informed, and start those hard conversations about what’s affecting our society and the world. After gaining critical claim with her debut album Glorious Heights, Montaigne has quickly become an artist to watch. Now with the release of her sophomore album COMPLEX and fantastic single and video for her track Ready making the rounds, we can’t wait to see what she has in store for this new era.
We got to chat with Montaigne about the video for her track Ready, how her music has evolved since her debut and more…
The video for your track ‘Ready’ elevates it’s powerful message, what was the creative process like for the visual?
Me and the director Nick Waterman had a lot of emails and phone calls with each other bouncing around visual inspiration. The umbrella idea we had was to celebrate the kids taking the lead on the school climate strikes. I’ve found that activistic phenomenon really inspiring and Nick, who has a baby, shares similar anxieties about his child that I have for my potential future child so we both think making art about this pressing issue is kind of an urgent imperative. We sent each other some Blood Orange and Feist and Joy Crookes music videos and triangulated some sort of intersectional point of all those things, plus our own imaginations. It wasn’t a pretty easy process but a very passionate one.
What do you want fans to take away from the track and visual?
I want them to feel kind of angry but also empowered. I think anger alone is paralyzing but coupled with hope and determination, it can be very powerful. And it’s important to note the video and all these strikes are about community and togetherness, the ability for us all to connect through an issue we care about and to be able to team up and work together to achieve positive change. There are no chosen ones or solitary heroes/leaders in this narrative, it’s all about solidarity and public unity.
Can you give us some insight on your new album COMPLEX?
It’s a pretty gnarly one! It often sounds like a bunch of fun pop songs but it comes from a place of deep neurosis and insecurity. Reading the lyrics makes that apparent. I think the combination of dark matter with bright form is what makes it kind of special, as is the case with a lot of my favorite music (Arcade Fire, for example).
What were some of your favourite moments while creating the album?
Watching the musicians we tracked with at 64 Sound in Highland Park, LA do their thing. The harpist was so beautiful. I could listen to a live harpist play all day. Trying to put together the songs Tony and I did together was really special too. Tony is special and the way we work together is special. It’s very comfortable and free and we do have our moments of tension but breaking through them and getting to the end makes the final product all the more sweet.
Did you find it difficult to open up about your intimate feelings on the record?
Not really! I’m an open book. I really identify with people like Amanda Palmer. She’s awesome.
What are the major differences between COMPLEX and Glorious Heights?
I was a totally different person with evolved tastes from Glorious Heights to COMPLEX! And of course I worked with 9 different people this time as opposed to just the one. Those different brains and branches of creativity were like color dye added to the water of my own imagination.
How have you and your music evolved since your 2014 debut?
Oh gosh, this could be an essay length answer. I don’t know that I’ll go into it too much but I think I have become, as Brené Brown would say, more wholehearted. I have greater confidence in myself and my worth, and my values and my life mission have changed from ones oriented around conventional markers of success to ones that are more meaningful and personal to me. Those shifts have also changed my goals both long and short term. It’s all changed in so many ways, and I think most of my being now moves, hopefully, in the direction of love and the spirit of eternal learning. In the words of Jedidiah Jenkins, I am eternally teachable, and the object of being taught is to be able to be of service to my loved ones and the wider community whilst also preserving my own energy, needs and boundaries. I think COMPLEX went through the turbulent journey towards this place and you can really hear it in the lyrics and arrangements.
What are three goals you want to achieve with your music and as an artist?
I’d like my music to make being sensitive, introspective, and emotionally aware a cool thing — I hope it inspires people to become more confident with looking inwards and reconciling themselves with their own darkness. I’d like for each individual in my audience to become friends to themselves. I hope my music inspires more experimental pop. And I hope it normalizes conversations about trauma and shame and insecurity and all of that general tip-toed around subject matter. I think it’s vital to talk about that stuff as opposed to stuffing it in the back of the closet.
Make sure to check out Montaigne powerful video for her track READY below!
