Wow & Flutter 001 | Blue Moons, Pink Sun
Laura Shumate on LA shows, pop music for metal boxes, drones, and dublab
Laura Shumate often feels like a familiar figure. Ever have that cousin who took you to a Tower Records in the 1990s while your parents were traveling? Every cinematic figure who left their vinyl collection in a suitcase, slid it under your bed and promised to come back? Despite the familiarity, there is a mystery in their own human circuitry, translating to a metal box, and out a PA in someone’s LA garage. Laura is good at spotting coyotes on solo walks, droning you into a deep brain pocket, and this summer will open for Muscle Beach while keeping dublab’s Avant -Garde and experimental ambient Indoor Cats running. We let the mystery ride a little longer, but we are also going to leave you with some good early summer feelings and sounds.
W&F: Hi Laura, I am going to be vulnerable and admit I've never been to LA. Describe Laura's LA— where are you drinking coffee and buying records?
Laura: Never having been to LA is a super power. Answering your question though— my LA is not so much coffee and record buying. My LA is actually a lot of solo walking in my neighborhood drinking coffee that I make at home (but I do drink a lot of that coffee) and take a lot of neighborhood walks. I’ve lived in the same place for over 10 years - I think we actually all do that now to avoid a rent hike from moving - but I also just live in a place that’s really hard for me to leave. I live at the base of Griffith Park and take regular three to five mile walks around hills and trees, while also seeing more coyotes and deer than people. I listen to a lot of music and sounds and just disappear within my headphones and wandering on a regular basis. Yah. So. That’s where I’m drinking coffee and buying records. But I’m also seeing shows. After my walks, I get out and go see a lot of music. Thank you performers and the LA promoters that try to give us so much. There’s a lot of live music to be seen here. Coaxial, 2220 Arts and Archives, and then the exploration of DIY spaces, both indoors and outdoors. You just wait for the next announcement and make it out to wherever they send you.
W&F: I've seen footage of you playing your modular synth at house shows. I love a good house show, how's that going?
Laura: That’s part of my “Thank you performers and LA promoters”. My god. There is so much to choose from in LA and the people who put it on just want to share the experience of it. So there are house shows, barn yards, parking lots and diners. I’m being a little facetious but also it’s true. It’s beautiful, participatory and inclusive. The show I have up is Fastblastbonanza. KTown’s finest. Parking is shit but I have a tip. Housemates with friends that have a great PA. Bless the neighbors and freeways that live adjacent to all of these spots that just want to get down regardless of sound, sex, gender, color, or age.
W&F: Blue Moons, Pink Sun is your second album, what inspired the title?
Laura: It comes from thinking that life, presence, existence is all abstract. We create the definition to every bit of our world so we can exist. One step further, nothing is real. But our human need to communicate brings us to an agreement. (Or so I think?) Anyway— it seems we contextualize our abstract experiences into something tangible. Then we have understandings. So with that, Blue Moons, Pink Sun. Blue Moons don’t really exist, but humans have defined what a Blue Moon is, so the concept exists now. Pink Suns don’t exist, but next to a Blue Moon, we can give it context. A moment in the universe. So maybe these sounds are not music, but together they become songs. Pop music for metal boxes, generated by the language of electricity.
W&F: I noticed you used your real name for the album and not the Laurita moniker— is the name a shift in sound, or feeling more like yourself?
Laura: Nothing extraordinary. No shifts in sound. I think my work will always be fluid in that I make with what strikes me to be made or challenge to myself to build. I think I decided to use my name mostly because there’s no persona behind it. It’s me, heart and soul.
W&F: Blue Moons, Pink Sun darts between harsh noise and drones, and spoken word and pop— who is speaking on Olive Ripples? What's the story behind the closing track?
Laura: It’s me speaking. Both the actual speaker and the idea behind the words. I just want to be the truth, of which I do see in nature - as the lyrics go on to describe. I just want to be a chill dragonfly, making ripples with its body, over rocks and stones, and the colors and the shapes in the water are the colors and the shapes in the sky. Truth. The music is the same trail and mix of confusion to peace that I lean towards that being in experience also creates.
W&F: I think you're incredible at modular drones, what goes into your drone recipe?
Laura: You mellifluous songstress of pop and electronics, bless you. My drone recipe— resonance and its effects on my brain is probably my biggest guide. So for that, of course one of my main routes is to process through Rings. Backing it up however, I start with an Erica Synths Black Wavetable VCO, and then after that goes through Rings, I send everything into different reverbs and delays to enhance and peak. Right now those main tools are Mimeophone and a 4ms Dual Looping Delay. I have a lot of LFOs for gentle rolls and a couple 2hp Vrbs to really smooth things out - but then I also love to pull the Vrbs back and let the sounds punch it out. I bring in some dark and harsh with filters and am using the Roucha Legio from Noise Engineering right now. I also have a Rat module for some unwieldy distortion for when I choose. Salt it all to taste and spoon it out.
(Photo: Neil "cloaca" Young, yeah that Neil Young.)
W&F: Something I am eternally grateful for, is you put Suzanne Kraft into my ears-- what are you listening to these days particularly as a dublab DJ?
Laura: Music selection is a day-by-day journey! MUSCLE BEACH. Raucous and divine. Inspirational and emotional. Environmental and sustainable. Cataclysmic and pillow soft. Jane, Bennett, Neil and Maisy. They get together and figure it out. They love you.
Klara Lewis. One of my absolute favorites. I love her dark sources and the creative dynamics she gets into with it all. Modular and field sounds from a seventh ring or blustery windstorm. Not sure. But I love her. Hoping she comes to this west coast someday. I know it’s a lot. But I really love her work so much.
Additionally, Jessica Pratt is a genius.
W&F: What's coming up for you as we head into summer and autumn?
Laura: I have a couple shows coming up in July and August. Opening for Muscle Beach. They’ll be doing an acoustic set— our minds wander. I will not; Performing in Breakdancing Ronald Reagan’s 20th Anniversary Cotillion. (There will be nudity. Not mine). Also opening for Bastard Collective (new project surrounding Man is the Bastard) with my Crystalline Morphologies label and noise bestie, Gabie Strong in Cuntry Wimmin. Shredding things— and some nutmeg, and some drone collaborations.
But for the long haul, somewhat planning for less reverb. ➿
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Go get a tape:
Title: Blue Moons, Pink Sun
Run: Limited to 100
Date: March 2024
Label: Crystalline Morphologies