INTERVIEW - SALLY SELTMANN
Published: The Vine, April 9, 2010.

Having dropped two wonderfully fragile home-recorded albums under the New Buffalo moniker– the stunningly wonky sample-craft of 2004’s The Last Beautiful Day and the elegiac, lo-fi piano renderings of 2007’s Somewhere, Anywhere – Sally Seltmann has turned the tables with a collection of confident record of maximal, melodic pop songs released under her own name.  

Recorded with Francois Tetaz and a host of Melbourne’s finest – think Mark Monnone of The Lucksmiths, Jessica Vebables, Cameron Bird and Gus Franklin of Architecture in Helsinki, Ned Collette, Jens Lekman and her husband Darren Seltmann (of Avalanches fame), Heart That’s Pounding is nothing short of a reinvention.

We spoke to the ever-affable Seltmann about the new record, finding confidence in herself and breaking away from her nom-de-plume.

So you’re back up in Sydney now?

Yeah, I’ve moved back up there around Christmas.

Is it a very different life being back in the homeland?

Yeah, it’s different, but we feel really happy up here. So yeah, it’s great.

I love the new record.

Thanks!

I don’t know if confidence is the word for it, because I thought the last record sounded confident, but perhaps this is just more joyous and realised or something. I don’t know if you feel that way about it?

Um, yeah, yeah, I feel like I wanted it to be a kind of uplifting pop record and I feel like it’s way more direct and way more pop (laughs).

Sure. At the same time though – and I think why it works – is that while it’s really quite maximal. It still retains that real intimacy that your older work possesses. Vocally, it still kind of feels like you’re right there in the room…

Yeah, because I produced this album with Francois Tetaz and we talked about that being my thing in a way – that intimate vocal sound – and that’s what people tend to respond to, especially when I play live. So we knew that we wanted it to still have that. I mean, with my last two albums I’ve just made them by myself in home studios, and we still wanted it to have that feel, but to be much more kind of slicker in the way it was put together.

Speaking of which – especially with recording the last album down in your shed at Torquay – I remember you talking about this necessity of really isolating yourself and getting inside your own world when you record. Has that changed for you, especially in the context of becoming a mum?

Yeah, it was a bit of a different process, mainly because I was working with Franc, which meant that I didn’t kind of spiral down into ‘Sally’s imagination land’ and not talk to people for a long time and feel really weird (laughs). Franc was constantly kind of pushing me to think things through more and things like that. But I still felt that, whenever we’d get together to work, I was really able to focus and get into the zone.

But it is really different. Before, I’d just be able to sit by myself for eight hours and just be working away and working away, but now because I’ve got a baby it’s about thinking how to maximise your time. You can’t just sit there fiddling around for ages (laughs).

Otherwise you’ll hear that little crying voice again and know you’ve missed your hour and a half window of opportunity.

Exactly!

Was the decision to record with Franc part of a conscious decision to break away from your old methodology? The home-recording thing?

Yeah, because Franc mixed my first two records I know him really well. And I knew that I really liked working with him and liked everything he brought to my music. And I did feel that with this album I wanted to break away from that whole, home-studio, self-produced thing. I didn’t really think about asking anyone else except Franc, and then he said yes and it just seemed to – straight from the start – work really well.

The decision to step away from the home-studio context seems to mirror your choice to release this under your own name instead of New Buffalo. Was it kind of a case of that New Buffalo alter ego running its course?

Yeah, well actually, my label in America were the ones who suggested the name change. Like, how would I feel about being just Sally Seltmann now. I had thought about it a bit in the past and I had found it really quite frustrating having to always kind of explain New Buffalo to people. But that said, I did intentionally call myself New Buffalo because I never really wanted to stand out in a crowd, and so that hopefully, people wouldn’t really know who I was (laughter). Which is quite stupid really.

But when Arts & Crafts made the suggestion, I thought that yeah, I definitely wanted to be Sally Seltmann now, just because it was easier and I felt more confident. And also with this album a lot of the things that I sing about, are about change and feeling as though I’m changing and trying to sort of overcome the shy person I have been.

Was that at the start or the end of the process? Like, did you enter the studio with the idea that this was going to be a Sally Seltmann record?

It happened towards the end. I always find with an album that I kind of delve into it and I sort of have strong ideas about what I want to do, but it’s not really until near the end that you can really see the body of work you’ve created and start to understand it all. Like ‘Oh, that’s why I wrote that song’. Everything begins to link up and you start to get a picture of where your life is at.

What about all the guests on the record, many of whom are your friends? Was it a plan to have so many people on there, or did you just kind of draw on them as you went along?

I knew that I wanted there to be some male vocals on the album, so we’d work on a song and then I’d think ‘Oh, it could be nice to have this person sing on the song’ or whatever. And I knew I wanted to have Jessica (Venables) sing harmonies and things throughout the album, because she’s played live with me and I really love working with her. But then there were other bands that I just liked. Like, I really love The Middle East and I had that song ‘Five Stars’ and I thought it would be really beautiful to have a group of singers coming in at the end. So I asked the band and they were really keen to do it and that was great.

What about Mark Monnone’s “unconventional percussion” on ‘Dream About Changing’? There’s a mention of that on the press release. I was talking to him when you were making the record and I didn’t hear anything about percussion.

It’s Mark slapping his bum (much laughter). For a while we were referring to that track as ‘Mark’s bum-slapping song’.

That’s such a Mark thing to do as well…

(Laughter) Yeah, I know!

That song is really beautiful though, and far more complex than it appears at first. You feel like you know what you’re going to get, but the chorus and the bridge expand it and take it to another place.

Oh, thanks! I actually kind of reworked that song quite a bit. It wasn’t one of those songs that just comes out really easily.

Lyrically, the record seems to have a kind of surety of self or something. You’re not singing that everything’s great and that you’re happy every second of the day, but it seems that you’re far more accepting of your own quirks and shyness and flaws. Whereas in the past I felt that your lyrics captured more of a confusion about life and yourself…

Yeah, that is really spot-on. I can tell you a story about ‘Heart That’s Pounding’, the song. I occasionally write lyrics where I’ll just go ‘Oh, that’s far too embarrassing, I can’t sing that’ and I just take that as proof that I should definitely sing it. Because I think it’s so much better not to have this self-conscious thing going on as a songwriter or writer of any kind, and I always respond really well to when other writers are like that. So I was thinking that that song was just this love song that was about being so desperately in love. Then I Googled ‘heart that’s pounding’ and it came up with all these anxiety websites (laughs). So that really resonated with the song and it definitely became a lot more complicated than it first seemed.

More like a heart that’s palpitating…

Yeah!

The record – and I think this is true of all your work to an extent – is feminine to the point of almost being old-fashioned, but proudly so. Would you agree with that?

Yeah. I feel like that, with this record especially, I’ve tried to write songs that are very pro-feminine. Like, I try to put the message out there that you can be a very strong woman and still be very feminine at the same time. I kind of hate how women try to be men, just because I think that being feminine is wonderful and you should celebrate it.

Do you feel that becoming a mum has really changed the way you think about yourself and your art?

Yes and no. One thing I’ve noticed since having a baby is that, for example, when you’re in a dark house at night you’re the one who has to be the tough guy. If you hear a noise and you think it’s a burglar and you get scared, you’re still the one who has to be like ‘It’s okay, we’re going to be okay’. Whereas I was used to being the scared one who would need someone else to be the big, strong one.

So in a way, I kind of feel like I’ve got this new strength because I’m caring for someone and playing the reassuring role. So it has definitely changed me in that way, but then at the same time I think that, ultimately, I do have the very similar thoughts to before I had a baby. I’m still the same person, but I’ve just experienced something that I’ve always wanted to experience and has changed my life, and I guess maybe some of the songs on the album reflect that.

Dan Rule

Heart That’s Pounding is out now through Shock.

sallyseltmann.com

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