Interview: Maria Moles
Maria Moles is an Australia percussionist who released her latest album For Leolanda in early 2022. Her music has been released by labels Room40 and Nice Music, and is also available on Bandcamp.
In our previous issue, while interviewing Zeb and Jaxon from the label Garden, Jaxon had been telling me about an amazing percussionist who was playing at his venue Static Open that evening. It was Maria Moles. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make the gig, but after checking out Maria’s Bandcamp page I was intrigued. Her music mixes drone, drums, synths, and improvisation to create a collection of work filled with unexpected moments. Her album For Leolanda, released by Room40, opens with a sparse drone track before switching to a percussive jam. I decided to reach out to learn more about her work. We caught up late 2022.
I saw you’re in a few bands alongside your solo stuff. How did you get started making music?
So, I started playing piano from a young age and started getting lessons when I was six, I think. My older brother played as well so we would play a lot together as a duo, and I kind of saw him as like my mentor as he’s six years older and he influenced me a lot.
He was really into Philip Glass and Steve Reich, those kind of minimalist composers, but then also Kronos Quartet and a bunch of Australian composers he really liked. One was named Colin Love, who lives in Tassie, which is where I grew up, and another was called Matthew Hindson.
It wasn’t until high school that I wanted to learn a second instrument. I remember at the time, if you wanted to go to the conservatory, you had to learn a second instrument so I tried a bunch but they didn’t really work out until I tried drums. That would have been when I was 14 or 15 and I started playing drums in rock bands, you know, high school bands.
I was still playing piano, and getting lessons, and I did that up until Year 12 but then I found that I wasn’t really as enthused by piano anymore and I just really wanted to try and get better at the drums. I was getting into jazz more and one of my teachers suggested improvising, just playing without any rules, and that idea was really interesting to me. Then I studied at the VCA because I knew that they had a focus on more improvised music, rather than just straight jazz. I met a lot of great people there to play with and explore different ideas, because I still love playing in bands. But I just feel like, as a creative musician, improvising is just such a good way of developing my practice and just playing in a totally different way that doesn’t have the all the rules that music can have when you’re playing in a band.
I first heard you through some live footage taken at one of your gigs, and you were kind of rocking out on the drumkit, and then I listened to your album and the first track is ambient. So how did the ambient stuff come in? Was that something you’d always been interested in as well or did that come later at the VCA?
I guess I’ve always really loved music that is very slow building and draws you in, like The Necks. When I make music, especially when I’m playing the synth and using electronics as part of the music, I’m often drawn to making sounds that are very sparse and droning and slow building, that kind of undergo subtle transformations as the music develops. There’s something about that that I really love in making music, and with that album in particular, that was in lockdown, and I think I just needed that kind of music.
It seems like there’s lots of beautiful music that has come from that period. Maybe just because, as cheesy as it sounds, I think that music was really therapeutic for me to have during those moments, especially during that time, because I was living in this tiny apartment, a two bedroom apartment, with my partner and another housemate and it was just so cramped. I think those times were like my solo time where I could just create, and I found that really nourishing and healing during that time. I think that’s the other reason why when you listen to it, it is quiet, ambient, and calming.
Yeah, the first track is ambient, and then the second track wakes you up. That second track is kind of what I expected from a ‘percussionist album’. But it’s still full of unexpected moments.
Well, I really love doing that sort of thing. Especially because the drums are an instrument where you really can play with those dynamics. Building up to something, implying something, but then going somewhere drastically different. I think you can do that on the drums because of just the way that the instrument is and that attack of the instrument.
Speaking of the tone, on the album’s first track Riverbend, are they sine tones you’ve harmonised?
It was a bunch of different things. One of them was a synth that I really love, a Yamaha CS. They have these reface synths that are just like, tiny versions of all their classic synths. I use that a bunch on the album. Then there’s melodica on it as well, and I think I put effects through the melodica, and then it’s a Wurly that I’m playing the melody on…I think?
Well, it was two years ago now! Is that weird to record something in 2020 and not have it come out until 2022? Did you have to sit with it for quite a while?
I did. But it wasn’t really a difficult process. I sat with it, but it was kind of nice knowing that you don’t have to rush or anything. The strangest thing about it was that I haven’t really performed the tracks live. Because I wrote the album not really thinking about playing live because it was lockdown. Then when the album came out, it’s kind of a blur, but we were in lockdown when I released it, then gigs started happening and I just didn’t have a set together. Now, that everything’s back open again, I’m just kind of playing improvised solo drum sets again. Sometimes I get a little bit like, ah, I put that out and I should be performing it live. But there aren’t really any rules, like people can listen to it and it’s just another path or another aspect of my music making.
Have you thought about putting out a live album to kind of complement the fact you’re playing different things live?
Maybe. I have thought about it. I’d love to do a solo drum album.
With your artwork, who did the artwork for your recent releases?
The first one is by Adam Bragg, who is a graphic designer in Canberra. He did the artwork for a band named Tangents that I really liked, and I just loved his stuff. So I emailed him and he was happy to do it. Then the last one that I just put out [For Leolanda], that was just a picture on my phone. I found it on my phone andI was like, oh, that’s kind of pretty. I emailed it to Lawrence [at Room 40] and he thought it was great. It kind of fits the album really well, because it looks like it’s quite abstract, but kind of implies a landscape too, and I really love those kinds of things. It’s kind of an accident that happened.
I thought it was computer generated or something, like a gradient.
Yeah. I’ve actually had people ask me who did the artwork. They think it was commissioned. But I still really don’t know how it got on there.
That’s really cool. Apart from those happy accidents, how important is the visual side for you?
I feel like it’s pretty important. When you’re buying a CD, it’s about the booklet and having that package, and I feel like you want the artwork to kind of represent the music in a way. It doesn’t have to be too literal, or thinking about it too much, but there has to be some kind of connection to the music and I think it has to resemble a similar aesthetic.
Are you involved in the visual process for the other groups your in, like Doroth and Jaala?
Not as much, actually. Doroth is a duo, and the bass player, Loretta, she’s actually a really amazing artist so she just does all that stuff. It’s the same with Jaala. Cosi, the singer/songwriter, she’s an amazing visual artist, so she just does it all herself. Which I really admire. People like that, they just seem to have creativity in all these different ways.
In those bands, do you think that changes the sound of your solo work at all? Like does that kind of scratch an itch doing indie-pop? And then you can focus on more ambient stuff?
Yeah, I feel like the music that I mostly care about is playing improvised music. That’s where I feel I’m satisfying my creative practice and it’s a big part of the reason why I do it. But I guess I look at it as like putting on different hats and they’re all just kind of different ways of making music and different kinds of fun really. I’d say they’re like different versions of myself. Doroth did start off quite improvised, and it still has elements of improv. But then it is also quite song based now and, like I was saying earlier, I do love that, just playing grooves is super fun. That’s how I started playing drums and that’s why I was drawn to playing the drums, because of rhythm and grooves.
For your solo work, how does the recording process work? Is that improvised when you’re in the studio?
It’s different each time. So, the release with Nice Music was fairly improvised. That came together because I was developing ideas for a solo performance. There was definitely a form to improvise around, but there’s some structure so I’m not just, you know, playing aimlessly. Because that can happen too. I find it can feel a bit lost if you’re just in the studio while playing without structure there. But then I’m doing a piece at the moment and it started just as me improvising on the kit, just seeing what would happen, and then it morphed into something else and became a whole different thing entirely because I added synth. That improvised section is still in there but it’s towards the end of the piece, spliced together. So, it’s kind of a bit of both in a way, and it depends on what instruments I have, but I like to keep it improvised.
How in control of the sounds are you? Are the effects done in post-production, or is it all pretty live?
Definitely post production. But I’d love to try and get better at using electronics live. That’s something I’d really like to do.
Like using a looping pedals or effect pedals?
Yeah, I’ve got a loop pedal that I haven’t used live yet, but that’s something that I’ve been using in the studio. I’ve got an Electro Harmonix Pitch Shifter too and I use Ableton as well. So just very basic stuff. But I’d love to get a few more things and feel like I have the tools to be able to create the same effects when playing live.
You mentioned that you’ve got something you’re recording at the moment. Is that your next release? Or have you got other things planned for 2023?
That will be the next release. I’ve almost finished it, I think. I’ve just got to add a few more things and do the mixing for it. I’m sure in 2023 I’ll do some recording as well, but I’m not sure what that will be yet. •
Keep up to date with Maria Moles and her music at her official website and on Bandcamp:
This article was originally published in The Shadow Knows Issue #4, March 2023. Buy the fanzine here or read more at our website.
