I have a love/hate relationship with writing and recording on the road. It always seems like such a great idea from home, like some miracle answer to all of my writer's block woes. Exploring new cities, field-recording as you wander through the streets, and churning out your best songs from cramped seats on planes, trains, and automobiles…
Kate Ellwanger’s career is the stuff young music nerds dream of: She interned for Daddy Kev and partied at Low End Theory, runs her own label Unspeakable Records, records and produces as a solo artist and is a member of artist collective Team Supreme. The Olympia-born, LA-based Ellwanger, AKA DOT, calls into the studio to discuss her latest single “So Far Away,” a whimsical pop tune that takes you to the hazy summers of yesteryear. Written, recorded, mixed and mastered entirely by Ellwanger, the track is exactly what people have to come to expect from this rising west coast multi-hyphenate.
It’s 3:28 AM on one of those restless nights, and your chattering mind doesn’t seem to care about the fact that you have to be awake in a few hours. Just as you finally begin to slip through the edges of consciousness into dreamland, BAM. You’re hit with an idea for the most epic song hook of all time (or at least of the past few weeks of writing attempts). Now you find yourself facing the age-old decision...
Form and arrangement are two closely related aspects of a song that can be the most challenging to come up with during the writing process. To help with this, I like to imagine the final song as the experience of going on a drive, where form and arrangement come together to create a moving journey for the listener...
