NPR’s Camila Domonoske talks with indie rock musician Indigo De Souza about her newest album, “All of This Will Finish.”
CAMILA DOMONOSKE, HOST:
The identify of Indigo De Souza’s new album is a warning and a promise – “All Of This Will Finish.” Adolescence. Regrets. Life itself. The 25-year-old artist’s third album is a group of songs that preserve you transferring ahead as they appear again.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “SMOG”)
INDIGO DE SOUZA: (Singing) Alive within the nighttime, when everyone else is finished. Come alive…
DOMONOSKE: Indigo De Souza joins us now. Welcome. Thanks a lot for coming right here, Indigo, and speaking with us.
DE SOUZA: Hey, thanks for having me.
DOMONOSKE: So I needed to start out by asking about locations as a result of I really feel like all through this album, the songs are so grounded in areas, whether or not it is sand within the desert or a parking zone – a really vivid parking zone; I used to be so there with you in that parking zone – or flowing water. Like, that is the track – your track “The Water.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THE WATER”)
DE SOUZA: (Singing) I movement right down to the parking zone. I movement right down to the parking zone.
I really feel like locations are essential to me as a result of they create up lots of ideas concerning the world. I imply, that is form of, like, a given. However I keep in mind listening to that track about paving a parking zone after I was younger.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BIG YELLOW TAXI”)
JONI MITCHELL: (Singing) They paved paradise and put up a parking zone.
DE SOUZA: I feel that was form of the primary time I form of realized that each one parking heaps weren’t simply there from the start. As a result of whenever you’re a baby, you form of simply assume all the things is the way in which it’s. After which I began realizing that the parking heaps had really been paved and that beneath the parking heaps, there was nature.
DOMONOSKE: Yeah, so Joni Mitchell chatting with you and also you type of carrying that very same theme by means of and seeing it in your life round you, proper?
DE SOUZA: Yeah, or simply in a – on the planet round us.
DOMONOSKE: Are you able to inform me about your own home? I feel it is Spruce Pine, N.C. Is that proper?
DE SOUZA: I grew up in Spruce Pine principally. I positively did not like it there (laughter). It was very small and closed-minded, and it form of felt like me and my mother had been the one individuals like us. And that felt very apparent. And due to how apparent it was, we had been additionally focused because the butt of individuals’s jokes. I feel as a result of that was all I knew rising up, I really did not understand that there was anything till I moved away.
DOMONOSKE: This can be a totally different track referred to as “Parking Lot,” additionally about parking heaps.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “PARKING LOT”)
DE SOUZA: (Singing) Within the parking zone, I really feel like I’m some place else. I textual content my ideas and say that I am not feeling effectively. And I am unsure what’s flawed with me, but it surely’s in all probability simply arduous to be an individual feeling something.
DOMONOSKE: I am unsure what’s flawed with me, but it surely’s in all probability simply arduous to be an individual feeling something. That’s so relatable.
(LAUGHTER)
DOMONOSKE: I really feel like that is – we have all felt that in some unspecified time in the future, proper?
DE SOUZA: Yeah, the way in which that we form of simply stroll round in society, having to outlive every single day, and we simply go to work and do the issues we have to do. However it’s really, like, arduous to be part of all the things. However we form of must act prefer it’s not as a result of we’ve to outlive. Yeah.
DOMONOSKE: Yeah. I needed to ask about whether or not there’s some sense wherein this can be a breakup album. I learn that you just had cut up up along with your band earlier than making this album. Is that proper?
DE SOUZA: I positively had a selected group after I recorded my earlier album. And when writing and recording this album, it felt like I had actually shifted away from that group. And it felt like so many issues about myself had modified. And so, yeah, it may very well be referred to as a breakup album, or it may very well be referred to as an album that introduced me right into a extra true self as effectively.
DOMONOSKE: Let’s take heed to a bit of little bit of “Youthful And Dumber.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “YOUNGER AND DUMBER”)
DE SOUZA: (Singing) After I was youthful, youthful and dumber, felt like a flower, you got here to select me from out of the town. You turned me bitter.
DOMONOSKE: I needed to ask you – ‘trigger you get lots out of reflecting on the previous in a few of these songs, proper? What do you discover in taking a look at your previous, at the same time as you are type of recognizing the necessity to let issues blow away?
DE SOUZA: Completely. I imply, I feel it is essential to mirror on issues in an effort to allow them to movement away. And I feel that that is all the time been a part of my course of as a songwriter. It appears like I usually write songs after the actual fact, like, after I’m wanting again at issues that I have been by means of. And it provides me a chance to form of have closure and to really let it go into the universe and form of have appreciation for the issues that I’ve discovered. Yeah.
DOMONOSKE: So it is a wiser you wanting again on the previous, in some methods.
DE SOUZA: Yeah.
DOMONOSKE: No offense to your youthful self – to your youthful and dumber self. All of us have youthful and dumber selves.
(LAUGHTER)
DE SOUZA: Yeah, a wiser self not directly – all the time studying. As a result of I have been writing songs since I used to be 9, it’s a very particular method of processing that does not all the time really feel very aware. And, yeah, it simply occurs naturally and finally ends up doing the work that it must do in my physique.
DOMONOSKE: Yeah. Can I ask you concerning the songs that you just wrote whenever you had been 9? Do you – are you able to keep in mind any of them now?
DE SOUZA: Yeah, effectively, I positively can. And I even have recordings of them, which is loopy. I’ve thought of placing them out in some unspecified time in the future, however after I was…
DOMONOSKE: Indigo, it’s best to completely launch your 9-year-old self’s songs.
DE SOUZA: Yeah, it is actually hilarious. It seems like a munchkin singing songs. To be trustworthy, the topic issues will not be very totally different from what they’re now. And it is simply actually superior that I’ve them. My mother bought me a four-track tape recorder after I was actually little, so I’ve been attempting to report music since I used to be a tiny being.
DOMONOSKE: I really like the continuity that – like, 9-year-old and 25-year-old you, like, working by means of among the identical stuff in the identical medium. That is superior.
DE SOUZA: Yeah, I’ve all the time been heartbroken (laughter).
DOMONOSKE: That was Indigo De Souza. Her new album, “All Of This Will Finish,” is out now. Thanks once more.
DE SOUZA: Thanks for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “YOUNGER AND DUMBER”)
DE SOUZA: (Singing) Which method will I run after I need…
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