It’s hard to imagine a sound more dreamlike and lush than this: warmly saturated, beautifully detuned, pure magic! Discover the secrets behind this signature sound in our interview below.
Describe your sound in 3 words
Timeless, analog, dreamlike
The song starts as a traditional love song before revealing its true subject is music itself. Tell us a few things about it.
Around the time we were recording some songs in our studio, I (Laura) had a terrible crush on someone I knew I really didn’t want to be with in any sort of way. In a fever dream of not being able to stop thinking about them, and improvising on different instruments, this song came out and turned out to be a strategy to distract myself, to look at my languor from a mock, ironic distance. I remember being quite excited about it when the other two came and we jammed on the ideas, almost as if my crush moved on to our trio. it was a wonderful revelation: i’m in love with playing music! sharing this love felt really healthy.
Mixtapes are inherently nostalgic and curated. The production itself has a strong nostalgic vibe too, the detuned synths, the mellow piano, the soft delivery. What was your creative starting point for building that specific sound?
Our drummer, who also produces our music, really loves these old machines, so that nostalgia comes as no surprise. The heart of the production is a single live take, everyone in the same space, breathing together. We didn’t fight the mic bleed or the amp hum; that was the point. Recording through an old East German console and old mics baked in a specific, gritty vintage warmth from the very beginning. We then wrapped it with the final vocals and some synth overdubs, mainly from a Juno 106 and this beautifully unstable Yamaha electric piano, we call it ‘the Beach House synth.’ Mixing was essentially an archaeology of ambiance: combining the rooms and verbs, then binding it all together with the subtle saturation of tape and tape emulations.
Your most honest and personal lyric?
i feel all our lyrics come from an honest and personal place, but we both love to tweak and twist and tinker with them so they end up sounding more abstract. does that still count? mixtape for example, the story and feeling behind it is really honest and personal, but then there’s the distance that makes it possible for us to sing it for many other people. another very personal song is „Mildly“ from our Album „The Velvet Fair“. It starts very personal and becomes more and more abstract.
Artists and people that have influenced you?
That every random encounter in our everyday life can play a huge role in how we move through the (musical) world is one way to answer, the other side of the same coin is that we’ve all went through phases of intense musical obsessions.
Lo’s recent obessions: Clarissa Connelly, Cindy Lee, Bark Psychosis. Ama is really into Saya Gray’s music right now. And Laura: georgian folk songs, for example „ensemble gurna – nana“ on repeat
What is the story behind your name?
East Sister is an island, only inhabited by birds. which amazed us enough to choose it as our name. also to have a sister is great and we all have at least one.
If you were arrested, what would it be for?
It better be for a good reason: because we stood up for what is right, not for what the law said.
If the music of East Sister was a film, which film would that be?
Something intimate and contemplative, with vibrant colours, the grainy dust of analog shoot. The mood would matter more than the story, navigating seamlessly between dream and reality. for example Lynne Sachs’s wonderful short movie “a month of single frames”.
Thank you!
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