kSea: What is the story behind the art design for the new album?

Imagery in the CD booklet for The Bittersweet Constrain –much of it is actually a tea party. If you see some of the full frame shots, I'm having a grand tea party with all these taxidermied animals. I wanted to attain a lovely but eerie, storybook quality with the images, that is so synonymous with my music. It was shot in the private garden of taxidermist and collector (Tia Resleure). She has a lot of Walter Potter pieces from the 1800s.

kSea: And do the images have anything to do with the theme of the new album?

The theme of The Bittersweet Constrain is how we, of our own free will, put ourselves into cages-- so quickly and thoughtlessly imprison ourselves in these cages. Then, once getting in there, it's all about longing to get OUT-- the bittersweet constrain. We're trapped and held by our own desires–but yearning to have freedom—but remain in the familiar cage of complacency. I wanted to utilize birdcages and animals in the graphic elements. Photographer Michael Garlington and I got some great shots. Some of the full tea party images are on my MySpace page. We ended up cropping them quite close for the actual disc art.

kSea: So what are some of the things, you mentioned, that you seldom get to touch upon in interviews - things that you'd like to? I'm very interested in that.

JT: Most journalists always ask you the same questions. They either don't ask you interesting questions, and then I'll try to steer the questions into something I really want to talk about--and they either don't get it, or it's off-putting-- then they don't know how to respond to it. (laughs)

kSea: Yeah, they just go to the next question on their page.

JT: Right. 'At what age did you study the piano?' Uggh. So I thought you and I could delve deeper…explore some uncharted waters…

kSea: Yes! So let’s do it! Who was Jill Tracy before the 'Jill Tracy' we know now?

JT: Well, she's quite the same person, and that's what's interesting. The thing is, I never wanted to take up the piano. It was never a decision I made. It all stemmed from – as a child, just always feeling really out of touch with the world. I always felt like I was an old soul, coming from a different place-- I really just wanted to get someplace else. I'm an only child, so I studied and explored alone. Immersed myself in Ray Bradbury and H.G. Wells. I really didn't understand a lot about it, but I was obsessed with time travel, quantum physics--the constellations and planets. I would set my stuffed animals on my bed in little rows and lecture to them about time travel and science. I so desperately wanted to leave the doldrums of 'The Everyday' and find these other worlds. That's the basis of what I still do! As a child, I attempted to build a time machine in my bedroom closet. I thought-- if I just had the things that I needed in there – I had a little lamp-- the shade was zebra-striped with red tassels--and a tiny wooden chair, and pencils and journals. I built this time machine.

kSea: Ahhh, I love it!

JT: I would sit in there endlessly with my books, writing ideas and stories. I was about 6 years old. Opening the closet door again and again, hoping it would reveal a different place, but alas—I had to find another way to “get there.”

About the same time, I discovered certain books, movies and shows--and music used as film scores. I discovered the Bernard Herrmann film scores to the Alfred Hitchcock movies. A huge influence was when I discovered Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone.

kSea: Oh, yeah.

JT: It was like, 'Oh my God, this is just --' It's smart. ‘ It wasn't something silly or trying to scare you, but it was unnerving -- it really took you out of your head and you learned something from it. As a kid, I was voracious, and still am, of just learning and discovering. What I figured out was-- that the music was what conjured an emotional response. On The Twilight Zone there might be a guy sitting in a roadside diner, and that's not really scary, but it was the music. How fascinating that was!! What was it about certain notes or scales? Why does a certain scale make us feel scared, or aroused, and then a certain scale or chord is jaunty and happy? I didn't know anything about music but I knew that -- it was really powerful. I used to turn the sound down on the TV, and think, 'Gee, now it's not scary.' Then I'd turn it back up… it was like magic.

About this time, they started ‘Chiller Theatre’ – old scary movies all night long on Saturday nights. My Dad said, 'Yeah, you can stay up all night and watch these films.' My Mom didn't like that idea-- 'She's going to have nightmares.' I never had nightmares. I just loved it. I discovered the old film noir, and classic horror like “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”

At the same time --there was an elderly widow who lived next door--she had ALL of this cool ephemera, bric-a-brac--Siamese cats with jewels for eyes—crocheted afghans--and she would let me come over and play amidst all the things. In her basement was a piano--this ancient monstrosity painted gold. Some of the paint was flecked off -- it sat down by the washer and dryer. It had a golden bench with ornate little legs. And it smelled of mildew. It beckoned me.

I didn't know anything about the piano. I had never taken a lesson, didn't know the notes--but I would just sit there and let the energy channel through my fingertips-- I called it "thinking.” And all of a sudden this music came out. I had no idea that I was composing music, but knew I found a portal or the “way in”—I could conjure these other worlds and transport myself to them through this golden piano.

kSea: I love that story, it sounds very familiar. – almost an anthem to those who prefer solitude. We all search for different worlds inside of our minds.

JT: The neighbor said to my mother, "Jill Tracy is really showing an interest in the piano!" So, of course it was taken into the “real” world where my mother bought a used piano and signed up for lessons. …And then I hated it. Of course, the instructor had NO interest in my so-called “thinking” or composing my own music -- it was like "Do these wrist exercises."

kSea: Right. “Play these notes over and over again” until it's completely devoid of feeling.

JT: And then you realize, sadly, in the world they want you to become the assembly line pianist—“learn these things and sound like everyone else.” You play compositions by other people and you're a lemming and I didn't want to do that. And my poor mom didn't know, and she's like "you've got to practice that piano" and I would sit there and cry. Finally, after a year or so of this-- this was like seven, eight, years old --I raised such a fuss about hating the piano that she let me quit. I would sit there and bang on the piano. She'd put an hourglass on top of the piano-- "I want you to practice until all the sand is at the bottom".

kSea: I love the hourglass image. Wow, that's fantastic. Not a timer, but an hour glass.

JT: It wasn't until I quit the lessons that I went back to the piano and discovered I could not only write music, but also pick things up by ear. I couldn’t read or write music on paper, but I could intuit it. And, so to this day I don't read or write music – barely. If I had gone the traditional route and studied at Julliard or whatever, I would never have created the music I have-- I would have just become another classical pianist.

kSea: Yeah. Another robot.

JT: Another robot. Exactly.

kSea: Very well trained and you know all the chords. I did some of the same things. I took piano when I was a kid just because my parents thought I should take music lessons, and we had a piano in our living room. I loved creating my own things, creating my own sound but when I went to lessons, it just took all of me out of it. Lessons actually caused me loose all interest in the piano when I was a child.

JT: Yeah, there's no passion. No self-expression.

kSea: I learned how to play the Vangelis theme from ‘Chariots of Fire’, but apparently the instructor wasn't happy with my “technique” so I kept playing and playing and playing the same damn song over & over. Finally, I said "no, this isn't working". I was probably around the same age.

JT: Yes, it's like "well, if you want to learn how to play a modern song, what about a Billy Joel song or something? I don't want to play that! And even to this day, it's funny because Paul Mercer, the violinist I work with…

kSea: Yes, he's amazing.

JT: He has a similar story of how he started composing work on the violin as a child—and how I composed work on the piano. You’re so conditioned as a kid that you're supposed to be schooled--supposed to read music-- that people would come up and say "Oh, what are you playing? Is that Chopin?" and then you were embarrassed to say, "oh no, I made this up". You did not want them to think you were stupid because you weren't playing someone else’s piece.

Paul would say the same thing. He would play violin and people would say "Oh, what's that? Is it a Mozart piece?" And he would be embarrassed! Isn’t that completely absurd? Now we are proud of that! We’re composers, we write our own music. But, as a child, he would say "Oh yeah, it's a Mozart piece" just because he thought that was the only way to get any validation from people.

kSea: It's funny, the very first tune I taught myself on the piano, I think I must have been around five years old - but it was a funeral dirge [kSea imitates the tune and JT joins in].

JT: That's such a strong statement that even at a young age we knew we were individuals and wanted to celebrate our uniqueness and discover self-expression. And then society shoots you down--, "No, you gotta play like everyone else". It infuriates me.

kSea: Have you ever seen the movie, "Mahler" by Ken Russell?

JT: No.

kSea: I think you'd really enjoy it cause it kind of depicts what we're talking about. Gustav Mahler, who's probably one of my favorite composers... him growing up, taking lessons, and just what we're talking about. The instructor saying "bad, bad, bad". Meanwhile, he's composing his own symphonies. It's a twisted story, a beautifully strange film. Mahler was perhaps the first who brought poetry into his symphonies, escaping the prescribed dictation of the 'march'...

JT: Oh, I would love to see that.

kSea: It's somewhat hard to find, but it's a beautiful movie.

JT: About the same time when I had come back to the piano in junior high and quit the lessons-- I started discovering The Doors and "Riders on the Storm" figured out that "ta da da da da" [hums the Doors] and sitting there thinking, "wow, that's so cool - the piano and the keyboardist Ray Manzarek" and I felt like I came full circle because last year I met and did a performance with Ray Manzarek..

kSea: Really?

JT: We sat on the bench together. I had tears in my eyes --and I didn't want him to know-- and he played "Riders on the Storm.” If someone had told me when I was eight that someday, this person who really helped inspire me -- you were going to be sitting on a bench, and he would play this song for you. Wow, that was a really moving moment.

I think it's absolutely ridiculous when people say, "when did you sit down and make a decision to do this style of music that you do?" like it's some kind of conscious choice? Like I drew straws. It’s just always been who I am -- right out of high school, writing songs and doing demos and shopping them around. This was 1989-1990. I lived in New York City and there was nothing. And the record labels would say "you're playing a piano?? - it's like, what is this, Kate Bush meets the Cure?"
kSea: Really?

JT: There was no one else to compare it to. But if you listen to those old demos, it's pretty much the seed of what I'm doing now. I laugh when people go "dark cabaret? When did you decide to be part of the dark cabaret? It just blows my mind. I had not even heard of that term until Projekt contacted me about being part of their compilation. I don’t understand the bandwagon mentality. Maybe for marketing, but not for manifesting. My first marketed CD, Quintessentially Unreal, came out in 1995. There are even earlier demos and recordings.

kSea: With your music, I don't know… I've seen reviews where people put the ‘goth’ box around you, and it seems so inaccurate, so limiting. Your music is like a playful melancholy where there are these dissonant chords which make the listener feel a bit uneasy and it's got a beautiful, delicious darkness to it. But then the lyrics to some of your songs, such as “Evil Night Together”, are so much fun!

JT: Well, some songs are very different. The Bittersweet Constrain is a lot more serious—heavier and cinematic. It's very raw and emotional ---there's no ‘Evil Night Together’ much less of that kind of playful jazzy stuff.

kSea: Is that a direction where you intended to go, or is it just that your art was pointed that way?

JT: It kind of floated that way--Diabolical Streak was more of a concept album. It was jazz, it was all brushes and upright bass, cellos and violin-- and the way it was recorded was like an old jazz record, because I was really into the film noir, film score composers.

kSea: Yeah, absolutely.

JT: It's funny because people always throw me into the ‘dark cabaret’ thing. But to me that was never the impetus. I never listened to Kurt Weill. That was never an inspiration. For me it was more of the Noir aspect. When I wrote Diabolical Streak, which came out in 1999, it was jazz-inspired, melded with my fascination for the mysterious netherworld.

I loved a lot of the old Blue Note recordings-- or you'd hear old Charlie Parker, Mingus--it was warm and fuzzy-- all the musicians were playing live in a studio. So, that's how we recorded Diabolical Streak--that's why it has that feel to it. Because it was recorded live, recorded analog. Purely vintage gear.

The Bittersweet Constrain employs a lot more work done piecemeal in the studio--with a lot of different musicians. It's got the strings-- but I wanted to utilize some more exotic instruments … harmonium, sarod, bassoon—it has some incredible drumming by my long-time collaborator Randy Odell. It’s a very seductive record.

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kSea: What are some recording and mixing techniques that you use to create such a specific sound?

JT: I really love enhancing low-mids and low-end-- and then having that space in the middle where the vocal just floats. For me, it's all about the vocal-- the piano inhabits the mid-range place. And there's a hole for the vocal to hover. I also master my work like classical music. We just do a really light compression to bump it, because I just treasure the SPACE between instruments. That’s where the mood lives!

What I dislike about modern music is that they squash everything. Then it goes to the radio station and is squashed again, and then it's just like... [squash sound effect] - you don't hear the AIR. To me, the silence is just as much an integral part of the arrangement. That’s what makes it compelling. I love fragility and sparseness and then you hit that one perfect note on the piano and there's just a visceral reaction. It's all about the silence.

kSea: Where the listener has time to absorb the music, to feel it.

JT: Exactly. Keeping the dynamics of your frequencies. When they compress things, it's squashing not only the space between the instruments but you're also not getting a dynamic range. So if something's really quiet and then it kicks in-- I want someone to feel that kick-in. If you feel listen to Live 105 or these whiny jangle-jangle guitar bands, they'll sing a verse and then the chorus kicks in and there's absolutely NO dynamics. And I hate that. Because if you listen to a symphony--you're going to hear that timpani when it comes in, the cymbals crash-- and you're going to feel it, -- that's what's exciting about it! Why squash it and lose that? What’s the point? Record labels are all in a competition for loudness these days---forsaking any quality of music. It’s asinine.

I love Pink Floyd and Talk Talk, -- the older Talk Talk, where it's just getting very experimental. The sophisticated art of Roxy Music, Bowie, early Genesis, Gabriel. I started to work with a Chapman Stick player (Alex Nahas, who ended up producing The Bittersweet Constrain). The beauty is that it's a stringed instrument but it sounds nothing like a guitar. I don't like guitar in my work --I've never used guitar.

kSea: A friend of mine had one - this was years and years ago, when I was living in Emeryville, and we had a little recording studio in our space. We had a little Tascam 4 and I used to love that thing! Running it through effects – I used to experiment with sounds for hours.

JT: It can sound harsh and you can stab it. Or create feathery textures and it can glisten. So we did all this beautiful delicate arranging with the Stick.

I'm very influenced by Middle Eastern, Arabian scales-- which is why I think belly dancers have embraced my work. There is sarod on the new album.

kSea: What's a sarod?

JT: It's a Northern Indian lute-type instrument.

kSea: How do you know when a song is finished?

When I began writing my own music, it became my catharsis, and still is. But for the longest time I didn't want to play my songs in front of people-- I didn't want to taint them or give that up. I wanted to hold on to it. This still happens - where once a song is finished, and you play it for an audience, you have to let it go. There are a lot of songs that I don't know that I would ever play in front of people, because I'm possessive--they're still mine.

But once you let it go ---it makes a lovely transition into something else that exists in the world. What's beautiful is that it comes back to you, because it moves someone or it helps them. I've had emails --like my song ‘Just the Other Side of Pain’-- this person was going to commit suicide and heard that song, and it helped them realize they needed to hold on. I realize it's a full circle. I give that energy out and then it will come back and manifest itself in a larger way.

I feel like - my duty, my purpose is to find those worm holes, those trap doors and allow myself to live there completely—and provide others evidence that it exists. Pry up the floorboards. Allow others a way in…

kSea: Without question.

JT: I find divination in found objects. If you see me perform, you'll see playing cards taped to my keyboard. For the last twenty or more years, I’ve collected stray playing cards I find on the streets --I've got boxes and boxes, hundreds of them displayed in my apartment, they're some of my most precious belongings. I've learned to interpret the cards, almost like Tarot. And I always have all my talismans that have to be with me at all times. But the playing cards are a big thing for me. (I often laugh to myself, in the next big earthquake—everyone will be scrambling for flashlights, batteries and radios—and I will be grabbing velvet boxes of old playing cards!)

Also, jigsaw puzzle pieces. You find a piece, and then you're like, [whispers], "ahhh-- another piece of the puzzle.” You hold on to those. The Universe is giving you these little gifts, little signs.

So always on my keyboard, there are cards. Fans from all over the world have started sending me cards and the shared energy in that is incredible. A letter will read--"I found this three of clubs in Minneapolis outside of a restaurant.’ I cherish that intimacy with my fans.

When I met violinist Paul Mercer (who thought I was crazy when I told him about finding cards), it was such an epiphany-- following our very first show together, he found a stray two of hearts lying outside of the venue.

kSea: Oh, wow!

JT: And Paul's like, "oh my god, oh my god! I can’t believe this.”

I now display that two of hearts on my keyboard. It’s beautiful. If you just open yourself up to it, it truly exists. Most people stand in their own way. You hold the reins to your Destiny. No one else does. It blows my mind how people live with the blinders on—in the cage. The world is so much bigger than that…

kSea: It is. It seems sometimes though that if a person can’t put something in a specific category, if it can’t be explained... then it doesn’t exist – but it most certainly does…

JT: And it's out there for you. And once you allow it in, set fears aside, and just be observant enough to recognize it--it's everywhere. Everywhere. It’s intoxicating.

Get your Jill Tracy fix here.

The Bittersweet Constrain:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/jilltracy4

Diabolical Streak:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/jilltracy