Cloudward: A Conversation with Mary Halvorson

The Philosopher G.K. Chesterton once commented, “There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.” Here on the ground, architects must follow rigid rules and principles to ensure the sturdy erection of their vision and avoid collapse. But what happens when you work in a place where it is safe for some of that rigidity to evaporate? If once sound restrictions are no longer requisite? This is the environment charted in Mary Halvorson’s second album with her sextet, Cloudward (Nonesuch, 2024). 

Throughout her career thus far, Halvorson has found much acclaim while forging a formidable idiosyncratic voice. No one is mimicking her incomparable perspective, which can be consistently heard throughout her output. Part of her coherence in vision – even as she continually changes her approach- is attributable to the intricacies of her compositions. Although improvisation plays a central role in the guitarist’s work, equally important are the ideas she writes ahead of time and the direction she provides to others in her groups. This is particularly evident in her two fairly recent recordings with the Mivos Quartet – Belladonna (Nonesuch, 2022) and Amaryllis (Nonesuch, 2022) – where detailed compositional techniques were paramount to incorporating a string ensemble. To some extent, she places those skills aside on Cloudward. 

Do not misread that. Cloudward features great music writing. But there is also more space and quiet than one stereotypically expects from Halvorson. Her choice not to dictate who will solo at any given moment is key to this seemingly new method, as it forces each artist to approach their comments with a little more caution. The other members, the same as on Amaryllis, of this sextet – Adam O’Farrill, Jacob Garchik, Patricia Brennan, Nick Dunston, and Tomas Fujiwara – are the perfect crew to ascend with the leader through the ether as they themselves are consummate experimenters. At the same time, despite its more polite approach, the album also refuses to shy away from distortion, effects, and, well, edge. 

The result is musical construction that takes ground rules and stretches them to provide complex ornate sonic structures free of an overbearing gravitational force. Hence, pieces like “The Tower” where Halvorson’s languid solo – forcibly designed to sound a little out of tune – turns frenetic and then repeats a quasi-minimalist infused motif. The new theme leads to a guitar and vibraphone duet that provides hypnotically mesmerizing cascading waves of gentleness. On the opposite end of the spectrum, “Desiderata” marries hues of chamber music with the aura of heavy metal. 

Ultimately, Cloudward further adds to Halvorson’s already secure firmaments as a composer by uniquely soaring through completely new terrain without minimizing or marginalizing that which came before. While only January, it is already evident that Cloudward will be an album floating toward the top of many critics’ year-end lists.

PostGenre: Before getting into Cloudward, you also have a fascinating trio called Clone Decay, with Kalia Vandever on trombone and Weston Olencki on trombone and electronics. Do you have any plans to record that group?

Mary Halvorson: Not specifically, but that doesn’t mean I won’t. We have a performance coming up soon at the Stone, and Clone Decay is a group that I want to continue with. It might be cool to do a live recording together. I’ve thought about the trio perhaps releasing a live album, but I haven’t put any plans into motion. Although we continue to perform as a group, my primary focus right now is on my sextet. 

PG: The same sextet as on your last album, Amaryllis. How do you feel the group has changed the most between Amaryllis and Cloudward?

MH: I have always loved keeping bands going over a long period of time. I feel that with longstanding bands, the music always gets better. This band is unusual in the sense that it felt like a band from the very beginning. The first time we played together, I remember being struck by the thought: “Oh wow, this already sounds like a band,” which doesn’t always happen. I feel like there’s a great personal rapport in this band. Everyone gets along, and we have a great time on the road together. But, even so, I feel like the group has further solidified as we have played a lot of shows. So, for me, Cloudward is really about momentum and continuity from Amaryllis.

PG: How do you think live shows have improved the band?

MH: I feel that people take more risks and can try out different things when we play live. This allows the music to develop in different ways than it would have without the live performances.

PG: In terms of rapport and evolving together as a band, with Cloudward you tried to step back a little more than you did with Amaryllis to allow the other musicians more input.

MH: In general, I’ve tried hard not to control what happens with this band, but even more so as time has progressed. All the songs have solo sections, but I rarely dictate who’s supposed to solo where. Leaving that aspect open has been interesting. As the music develops and we go on the road, people end up finding their favorite spots to solo on. As an example, there might be a moment in a particular song where Patricia [Brennan] enjoys soloing, so she will often fill that spot. We end up with everyone almost “claiming” different spots in the songs, which I think is very cool because sometimes I can’t anticipate who would enjoy soloing most in a certain moment.

But then, as we go on the road for two weeks or more, often we each want to change things up and folks end up soloing in different parts than they did originally. So, you end up with little moments where suddenly somebody else jumps in unexpectedly, which may cause the song to go in a completely different direction. I love that. The uncertainty keeps things interesting by ensuring you do not end up with the same thing happening every night.

PG: If you are not telling others in the group where to solo, do you ever find that things get chaotic or, suddenly, there’s nobody left playing?

MH: Sometimes you will have a little moment, a second or two, where nobody does anything. But that can be interesting too because then maybe suddenly two people start playing at once as a duet. Or maybe nobody plays and then suddenly it turns into a bass solo or a drum solo because those are the musicians who were still playing in that moment. You get those interesting things that happen, but most of the time, somebody just decides to take the solo.

PG: Does leaving the solos open in that way impact how you compose the pieces?

MH: When I wrote this album, I already knew what the band sounded like and wanted to challenge myself to make this album sound different. I pushed myself to explore areas I had not explored in the last one. I tried to take more risks to make sure what I created did not sound like the last album.

When I wrote the music for Cloudward, I was feeling optimistic. I was excited about the band, its momentum, and the ability to spend time with people I love personally and respect musically. I was also writing this music post-COVID. In contrast, when I wrote the first album, we were all stuck at home during the pandemic and unable to leave the house much. With the worst part of the pandemic basically over when I wrote the music for Cloudward, I felt more momentum. We were starting to travel again, and shows were starting up again. And I have this band that I really like. So those kinds of feelings shaped the music I was writing.

PG: Is that optimistic outlook part of why you chose the album title Cloudward?

MH: Partly. I like titles that have many meanings. With Cloudward, there is an element of optimism behind the title. But it also reflects how our group is flying places and traveling. And how we are looking forward to more.

I was also studying tarot during the pandemic. I became fixated on the images on this tarot deck, the Rider-Waite tarot deck, which is the classic one. There are four suits in the deck, and each of the aces has a picture of a cloud with a hand coming out of the cloud offering something.

PG: Hence, the cloud with the arm stretched out on the album art.

MH: Exactly. I love that idea of a cloud-hand. There’s also another card, the four of cups, where somebody’s sitting there, and a little cloud shows up with a hand offering the fourth cup. The track “The Tower” is also named after a tarot card. 

The artist who designed the artwork for Cloudward, DM Stith, also did the artwork for Amaryllis and Belladonna. I talked to him about the tarot element when he was creating the artwork. Many people roll their eyes when they hear the word tarot, but I’ve always enjoyed these esoteric subjects. When I was talking about my ideas for the imagery with DM, he actually had a tarot deck sitting in his studio. So, he understood the concept right away. But I also didn’t want the album cover to look like a tarot card, and it doesn’t. It’s DM’s unique and abstracted take on it. So, between my increased optimism, things moving forward again, and the tarot imagery came the title Cloudward.

PG: So the natural element of cloud imagery was not part of your choice in the album name? Your last two albums – Amaryllis and Belladonna – were named after flowers and clouds are above the flowers and produce rain to nourish them. A cloud is a step higher than a flower, just as this album is a further development of your sextet’s work in Amaryllis.

MH: Wow. No, I never thought of that, but you’re right. That is a very cool aspect of the name as well. It is really interesting how, even though I did not have that perspective in mind, or maybe just not consciously, when I named the album, it is nevertheless there too. I love that.

I’m trying to build a book of music to allow us to play things from any of the albums; in other words, building a repertoire. I think that approach keeps life interesting and allows you to develop something significant with the group. And I’m writing new music now as well. I have music that we’re gonna be playing at the record release shows, which is brand new, in addition to songs from Cloudward and Amaryllis. 

PG: It seems these compositions for Cloudward leave open more space for solos and duos than in Amaryllis.

MH: Yes, I consciously tried to create more moments where the music had a little more breath and air, with different subsets of musicians playing. I think doing that makes the moments where everybody is playing a little more powerful. Leaving more breath in the music was one of the things I tried to do differently this time. I have a tendency, if I have six musicians, to overwrite music so that everybody has a part all of the time. Trying to move away from that a bit was an interesting challenge for me.

PG: The press materials for the album quote you as stating that it is difficult for musicians to be surprised by music. Do you feel that part of why you have left the music more open is to increase the likelihood of you and others in the sextet being surprised by what emerges?

MH: I think what I meant was that when we are surrounded by music all of the time, it is rare to experience those transformative moments, like when you’re a teenager hearing something for the first time. I’m sure you feel this too, as someone who lives and breathes in music. The more we are exposed to all types of music, the harder it is to find moments where we just can’t believe what we’re hearing. That’s not to say that we don’t hear tons of great stuff, but we’re less likely to be completely surprised by music like we once were, just because we’ve heard so much.

Keeping things more open for the sextet allows for the creation of little moments where something can happen that you’re like, “Oh wow, that’s never happened before in the context of this group.” I greatly value those moments, even if they’re small ones. I very much like to try to keep elements of surprise in the music so you’re not following a script all the time.

PG: In general, you try to compose in a way that avoids repeating whatever you did before. Do you find it difficult to continually come up with new approaches when it comes to composing pieces?

MH: It depends. 

Usually, if I’m excited about a group, I end up having ideas. And sometimes, when you are doing a second or third record with a group, you end up having even more ideas because you can reflect on what you did before and what you haven’t tried yet. You can take some more risks and try something that you’re not quite as sure about but that you think might be cool. Also, the more you know the group, the more you can hear the sound of the band in your ear when you’re writing. So, I think as long as you’re inspired to do it and excited about the group, it’s almost easier to compose once you’ve made some headway with the group already.

Of course, there may also be a time when you decide that you’ve taken things as far as you can go with the group and that you want to try something different. There is something nice about the challenge of a new group and new instrumentation. But right now, I’m still really excited about writing for this sextet.

PG: Is that search for ways the group can go in different directions a part of why you had Laurie Anderson join the group as a guest artist on “Incarnadine”?

MH: Yeah. There were many reasons we asked Laurie to add to that track. I think it is very cool, especially when you have an established group, to throw a wild card in there, like a new person, a guest, who might bring something different to it.

I’m also a huge Laurie Anderson fan and have been for a long time. She is one of my heroes, and I love everything that she does. I was thrilled that she was willing to do it. I’d gotten a chance to play with her a couple of times, but most recently we’d gotten to improvise together on a John Zorn improv night, where she was playing violin through effects. It was so cool.

I wrote “Incarnadine” with Laurie in mind, with no idea if she would want to do it. Still, I wrote it thinking about her sound within the piece, but I composed it in a way that if she didn’t play on it, it would still be a complete piece without her. And we do play that piece on the road just as a sextet. I was thrilled that Laurie was willing to play on the recording, and I love what she did on it. She has this crazy effect on the violin, where it almost sounds like three instruments – a low sound, a medium register sound, and a higher sound- in delay. It’s really beautiful.

PG: Did you give her much direction for the piece? Did you request she play only violin and not sing? Or did you leave things more open-ended for her?

MH: I didn’t give her any direction at all. I only told her that it would be amazing if she heard something on it and wanted to add something. She didn’t seem like someone I would want to tell what to do. I assumed whatever she came up with, I would be thrilled with. And I am. I liked not knowing what she would do with the track. I didn’t suggest violin. I didn’t suggest anything. I just said, “Would you like to do something?”

PG: You actually sent her two tracks, correct?

MH: Yeah, I wanted to give her options. I thought she could add something to the other piece too, but again, it was a piece that could also stand alone. She ended up doing the one that I had written with her in mind, but I didn’t tell her that. I thought it was interesting that she chose that one. 

PG: And in terms of your own performance, it feels like on each track of the album you use the guitar differently. Each emphasizes something different about the guitar.

MH: One thing I enjoy about the guitar is that it can take on so many different roles within an ensemble. It can be a comping instrument. It can be a melodic soloing instrument or a more sonic instrument. And then there is the sound of the guitar itself. With my guitar, there’s an element where there’s a strong acoustic sound. Or it can be electric, possibly with effects. On this album, I used a lot of different effects settings, mostly with my line six. I probably used more varied effects on this album than I usually do, because I had recently programmed in some new things. In general, I often think about the shape-shifting nature of the guitar and how it can be used in so many different ways. Especially with this ensemble.

‘Cloudward’ will be available on Nonesuch Records on January 19, 2024. It can be purchased on Bandcamp. More information Halvorson can be found on her website.

Photo credit: Amy Touchette