Interview: Carmody on Debut Album Imperfect Constellations, Poetry, and Grief

It's a dream come true to talk to artists whose music you've loved & admired for years, so today's interview is a truly special one.

I found out about Carmody from her collaborations with Tom Misch - "The Last Song" (which was, ironically, their first one) and Out To Sea, her debut EP.

We did a short interview with both of them (funny selfie included) back in 2014 and 8 years later, I'm delighted to have the opportunity to speak to Carmody face to face for our new Artist Stories episode of Fox Tales.

She just released the Deluxe version of her debut album Imperfect Constellations, which had an amazing rollout for almost a year, a mind-blowing storyline, and touched on a number of personal topics like grief, family, and memory.

Dive into the episode below, it's one of the most stunning conversations I've had. And definitely check Imperfect Constellations (Deluxe).

Here are some parts of the interview I transcribed to tease you to check it in full:

[02:58] On the most random places for song ideas

Generally, in my dreams I have song ideas and then I have to record them when I wake up. Or when I'm out dancing, when I'm on the dancefloor, you just think of an idea and suddenly, you're on your phone , jotting down ideas. They always say - when you get an idea, you're kind of channeling something otherworldly. And if you don't take it when it's gifted to you, then it flies off to someone else. So I'm always there to try to catch the idea, no matter what the situation is.

[03:52] On the name of Imperfect Constellations

I got more & more interested in the sky. There's this book called "The Human Cosmos: Secret History of the Stars" - it's really interesting, it's about how we've lost connection with the sky and how hundreds of years ago they used to look up the sky and use it as a way to build buildings, etc. But now, we've kind of lost touch with the sky, so I wanted to have more of a relationship with the cosmos. I also got really interested in family constellations, which I'll probably end up talking about later - but yeah, I'm really interested in the things we pass down to each other. And your family & friends, we all make up a constellation and we're all interconnected and interweaving. But they're imperfect constellations, we're all struggling with light & darkness. And that's kind of why I wanted to put those two words together.

[22:10] On grief & "Morning"

When you're grieving, you're like a new person, really - you're forced into this new identity, you have to grow new roots and find a new ground in yourself. Tom helped me see another side to my grief which felt like a gift because I was in a quite dark place. This song ("Morning") is hopeful, yeah. I guess that's when I started to understand that in everyone's journey there's gonna be this balance between dark & light and you can learn from the darkness & turn it into light.

[37:55] On her creative process

I try to be a magpie for everything around me - they're birds who always look for the shiny things everywhere. I'm trying to be very aware of things that could be turned into poetry because I feel there's so much that could be lyrical but often we miss it. So it's like being awake to that.