Calva Louise take us to the edge with upcoming album release.

steveharrison35
2 days ago
5 min read

Interview by Steve Harrison

If you’re not yet familiar with Calva Louise, then you definitely need to get out more!

The three piece band comprising singer Jess Allanic , bassist Alizon Taho and drummer Ben Parker, based in the UK, are set to release their fourth album Edge Of The Abyss on July 11th via Mascot Records .

Already tearing up stages worldwide, bringing a sonic and visual experience that captures their diverse cultural facets and melts them into the most energetic musical performance, Calva Louise bring a whole new modern meaning to the term ‘power trio’.

Blending storytelling across a range of medium, through their music, video and a series of graphic novels, Calva Louise continue expanding their universe on the new album Edge Of The Abyss .

We caught up with bassist Alizon Taho and drummer Ben Parker to find out more.

‘The whole Calva Louise project has an underlying story to it, you know, with different characters and different time periods and different eras and worlds. There's a lot to it, the whole band is always going through that story. All the albums are going through that story in different ways.’ Alizon tells us.

It is evident the band aims to explore characters and bring the focus of their storyline with each release, fostering a deeper connection with listeners.

He goes on ‘It's all part of the same universe…Jess started working on the story since she was young, way before the band. And then she brought that to the music. And so the lyrics have always been a window into the story, like characters, dialogues…..Jess made a comic book and then we released it with the first album. And that was already that story, albeit a bit more abstract than it is now. And so I feel like a lot of the work has been getting the story told in a much clearer way each time. And I feel like we've finally, now it's like to a point with this album and the previous, the mixtape, it's getting clearer, you can see the character, you can recognise, thanks to our friends who feature in the video, you can recognise the character, there's dialogue, so Jess has been able to put that out in a much clearer way than before.’

‘So in the life of Calva Louise….I'm finding a horse and a drone’

The ever evolving Calva Louise sound is a beautiful layered musicscape, that is as eloquent with simple melody as with a paradoxical complexity.

Ben explains their involvement in enhancing Jess’ ideas that she brings, and the importance of stepping outside their comfort zones to grow musically.

‘I look at the draft of the drums. And sometimes there's a bass draft, sometimes not or some synths.... we kind of throw ideas here and there and then she (Jess) sees what she thinks could fit out of that, or we both offer suggestions for tweaks. So we get involved more at that stage and that place in the songwriting.'

‘It's funny because sometimes there are multiple drum tracks or layers and it's my job to figure out what I can play out of all of that, you know, taking parts of all of those tracks and how to play the most accurate representation of all of them with what I can do. So, you know, there might be an instance where there's some percussion that, Alizon plays on his pads, like samples, if there's no bass going on or something, so we share the responsibility in that sense. There have definitely been challenging moments, but we've got there. We've always got there. Each new song makes us grow as musicians. I like that.’

Ben continues ‘In terms of the story, I feel like our involvement is into making things happen in a way where Jess will write a script and she'll have a vision for a video. And then we go through the script and okay, we need this prop, and this location, and a character that wears this. Then we just kind of work together to figure it out, you know, how to build things or to find things’

Alizon steps in and laughs ‘ you know, you're really good at finding things’ he says to Ben ‘like, ages ago for the second album, you go out to get a horse.’ They both laugh.

‘So in the life of Calva Louise’ says Ben ‘I'm finding a horse and a drone’

Without a doubt, Calva Louise are ardent ‘DIY’ers’ in the musical sense and proactive nature of their creative projects, particularly Jess's venture into video production. The collaborative effort of the entire band in video-making, reflects their shared passion for visuals.

I asked about the collaboration with Gareth McGrillen from Pendulum, who co-wrote two songs on the album and co-produced and co mixed the album providing valuable advice on optimising their recording setup.

Ben tells us ‘Gareth got in touch, he saw one of Jess's videos that she posted out on TikTok and he got in touch and it kind of just went from there, the first message was pretty surreal. It's like, I love your stuff and he invited us to have dinner with him.’ they both laugh, ‘ Yeah, that was a funny story because he's based around London and we're based up north near Blackpool. So he was kind of like, well, let us know when you're down and we can meet. But obviously he's extremely busy touring and producing and doing all sorts of things.’

There have definitely been challenging moments, but we've got there. We've always got there. Each new song makes us grow as musicians. I like that.’

‘We were in London for an event. And we texted him like, oh, we'll be in London for this day and stuff, but he didn't go back to us. And we were driving out of London. Everything was finished. It was the end of the day. And we text him one more time being like, hey, we're going to go soon, but let us know or whatever. And then we drive out of London. We got out of London. And as we got on the motorway, he replied being like, are you still around?’ we all laugh and Alizon remarks ‘Oh yeah, so we just turn the car around and we spent the evening with him’

‘And from there, he just wanted to get involved and help us out. And then he became involved on the record. So he co-wrote two songs with Jess, Under The Skin and Hate In Me. And then he co-produced and co-mixed the album. Which was absolutely amazing to have him on board. He was giving us loads of advice, helping us out. Because we record everything at home, we do everything at home, the album. And we've got like, okay-ish gear, he was helping us getting the most out of it, which is really, really useful’