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from Santa Fe Reporter, November 9, 2022

HEAVY PETTING

Same World, Di erent Voices—IAIA Fall ’22 Senior Exhibition Opening Reception Thursday, November 10, 6–8 pm, IAIA Campus

Join the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) at the opening reception for Same World, Different Voices, an exhibition representing the culminating achievements of IAIA’s Fall 2022 graduating BFA in Studio Arts and BFA in Museum Studies classes.

The OGs of Indigenous Fashion Panel Conversation

Saturday, November 12, 3–5 pm, SITE Santa Fe

Join the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) at SITE Santa Fe for a conversation about the progressive fashion scene surrounding IAIA in Santa Fe from the 1980s to the present.

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Learn more at www.iaia.edu

With Musician Heather Trost

JEREMY BARNES

Though Albuquerque-based musician Heather Trost is perhaps known best as a collaborator with acts like Swans and A Hawk and a Hacksaw, she’s also an accomplished artist on the cusp of releasing her second full-length solo record. We loved 2017’s Agistri, and the song remains the same for the upcoming Desert Flowers. You wouldn’t call Trost’s newest a pandemic album, per se, but she definitely worked on its concepts with her husband throughout the lockdowns and beyond. Regardless, it’s an organ-heavy and energetic bit of pop bliss by way of R&B and psych-rock that not only showcases Trost’s penchant for layering effects, instruments and vocals into emotionally-charged numbers, but shows real growth as a songwriter. Flowers drops this week on indie label Ba Da Bing, and with a show in Albuquerque (7 pm Friday, Nov. 11. $10. Sister, 407 Central Ave. NW, (505) 242-4900) we decided to take a little listen and formulate some Qs. This interview has been edited for space and clarity. (Alex De Vore)

I’m hearing a lot of psych and R&B influences on this record. How’d you get there? Did your listening habits change?

I’ve always loved R&B and also a ton of psychedelic music. I was listening to a lot of Lee Fields and the Expressions, and I feel like that influenced some of the songs with really nice R&B-like smooth baselines that are moving a lot. Spacious drums. I definitely think that’s a newer influence. Another person I really love is Kathryn Riberio. She was a French singer from the ‘70s.

It wasn’t a conscious decision. I think I was just listening to a lot of music at the time, and it kind of maybe influenced me unconsciously. But when I heard some of [my] songs, I was like, ‘Oh, this kind of reminds me of something I’m listening to,’ like Lee Fields or…I started listening to more dub music, which I really love, and I feel like that kind of influenced some of the sounds—although it’s not a dubby record at all, just a little bit of the sound was influenced by some old Jamaican stuff. It’s definitely organic. When I’m creating I usually start with a melody. I write a lot on the piano, and that’s before I’m even thinking of what organ I’m gonna use, so I come up with the harmony and the melody on the piano first. That, to me, feels like it’s coming out of my unconscious. As I’m recording and also … my partner and the person I record with, Jeremy Barnes, has influences he’s recording from. It’s never like, ‘I want this to sound like an R&B record.’

You’re known for being a collaborator, but you’ve also got some solo cred going after your 2017 record, Agistri. Is the new record collaborative in any way, or is it more of a strictly solo thing?

I should say that Jeremy...we’re married, he’s not just my partner, and he and I do so much together. It’s very much a solo record, but we co-wrote a lot of the songs. Even though it’s a solo record, it is a collaboration as well, but it’s first a solo record. He’s got such a good ear, I just really trust his ear in terms of production, and he played a lot of the bass on the record and drums—he’s a drummer first and foremost, so he’s played drums on all of my records. He’s also played some organ and keys. He’d come up with a bassline and I’d come up with chords and melodies.

Can we talk about the recording process? What was that like? And what happens now?

We have a home studio here in Albuquerque. The writing process is actually quicker than the recording process, than the mixing process. Sometimes they’ll happen, like, I’ll work on one song for a while and come up with an idea for another song. I’ll have songs in phases. I think I pretty much started writing in the spring of 2020, and then I started recording in the summer, but that was also sort of congruous with finishing writing the songs. It basically took from the fall of 2020 to the end of the summer of 2021 to finish mixing and recording. That process took a while. I like to take my time in the studio, though, which is what’s so nice about having the home studio.

Then in August of 2021, we went to a studio in Michigan called Key Club Recording, and I did all the vocal recording there. I did that last, and they have a lot of really cool vintage, analogue keyboards, so I laid down some stuff, and we mixed it there. We comixed it with an engineer named Brian Fox. I’m definitely happy now, but the mixing process is a lot of back and forth, so even after we mixed at the studio, there were things here and there I tweaked. There’s a certain point where you have to be done, though.

I took a break after we mastered the record and I didn’t listen to it for a very long time until I started practicing and trying to figure out how to do it live. I’m doing a record release at Sister Bar in Albuquerque on Nov. 11, which is when the album comes out. I think it’s sounding pretty close to the record. We’re playing a festival in Austin, a couple shows out there, and I’ working on getting a show in Santa Fe. It’s kind of…I know bands are touring, but we did our last Hawk and a Hacksaw show in Japan in the end of 2018. It’s interesting, because I love touring, but I also love recording and writing, so it’s like, getting back into that mindset. But I’m always kind of writing stuff, so yeah, I definitely have lots of songs going around in my head that I’m working on.

THEATER

AN ILIAD

El Nido 1577 Bishops Lodge Road (505) 954-1272 One-man retelling of The Iliad; also dinner. 6 pm, $125

THE SEAFARER

The Actors Lab 1213 Parkway Drive B (505) 395-6576 A card game turns into a wager for a man's soul. 7:30 pm, $15-$30

THU/10

ART OPENINGS

IAIA FALL '22 GRADUATING SENIOR EXHIBITION: SAME WORLD, DIFFERENT VOICES (OPENING)

Balzer Contemporary Edge Gallery 83 Avan Nu Po Road (505) 424-2300 New art grads from the Institute of American Indian Arts show. (See SFR Picks, page 17) 6-8 pm, free

BOOKS/LECTURES

CITY THEME STORYTIME AND CRAFT

Santa Fe Public Library Main Branch 145 Washington Ave. (505) 955-6780 Story and craft hour for kids. 10:30 am, free

HUMAN RIGHTS ALLIANCE MONTHLY MIXER SPECIAL INFORMATIVE SESSION

Santa Fe Public Library Main Branch 145 Washington Ave. (505) 955-6780 A presentation on new state outreach mental health info. 4:30 pm, free

HANDS ON ART WITH THE GEORGIA O'KEEFFE MUSEUM

Santa Fe Public Library LaFarge Branch 1730 Llano St., (505) 955-4860 An open art workshop with O'Keeffe Museum pals. 3:30 pm, free

HANDS ON ART WITH THE GEORGIA O'KEEFFE MUSEUM

Santa Fe Public Library Southside 6599 Jaguar Drive (505) 955-2820 Folks from the O’Keeffe Museum show up to get kids interested in art in a less stuffy way than at, oh, say, any museum anyplace. Let kids touch art. 3:30 pm, free

LIVING WITH WILDFIRE: A COMMUNITY LISTENING SESSION

Online bit.ly/3DxnVj8 Voice your perspectives and ask questions regarding forest management and fire ecology in our local Santa Fe Mountains You must register for the Zoom session through bit.ly/3DxnVj8. 5:30-7:30 pm, free

PRIYANKA KUMAR: CONVERSATIONS WITH BIRDS

Collected Works Bookstore and Coffeehouse 202 Galisteo St. (505) 988-4226 A conversation between writer/ critic/essayist Kumar and editor/publisher Amy Bianco. 6 pm, free

EVENTS

SECOND THURSDAY SOCIAL RIDE

Railyard Plaza Market and Alcaldesa Streets (505) 982-3373 Look for the other bike nerds. 7 pm, free

VETERANS & FAMILY APPRECIATION DAY

Santa Fe Community College 6401 Richards Ave. (505) 428-1000 A variety of resources and career opportunities. 10 am-2 pm, free

FOOD

SUSHI POP-UP

Tumbleroot Brewery & Distillery 2791 Agua Fría St. (505) 303-3808 Chef Brent Jung gets in the sushi game and you're reaping all the benefits. 4-8 pm, free

MUSIC

BOB MAUS

Cava Lounge @Eldorado Hotel 309 W San Francisco St. (505) 988-4455 Blues and soul for fans of James Taylor and Carole King. 7-10 pm, free

HE SHE BANG AFTERPARTY

Mine Shaft Tavern 2846 Hwy. 14, Madrid (505) 473-0743 Just because the annual fundraiser He She Bang always sells out doesn’t mean you can’t do the dance party with DJ DMONIC’s hip-hop, dance jams and more. 9 pm, free

JOHNNY LLOYD

Cowgirl 319 S Guadalupe St. (505) 982-2565 Americana. 4 pm, free