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New EP: Daniel McClelland

‘New EP’ is where a band or artist answers some questions about their latest release. Up next is Daniel McClelland, whose debut album Anxious Heart opened at #2 on the NZ Heatseeker Album Charts. Nominated for Best Independent Debut award at NZ’s Taite Music prizes. He has followed up his excellent ‘one-man-band’ debut album with a new 4 track EP that takes on perfectionism; an aversion to happiness; bigotry; parenthood; and the impact of emigration on families. All in the style of ‘pocket symphonies’ amalgamating various genres from hip hop to grunge, 90s dance to 60s symphonic pop, and glam rock.

When/where was the new EP recorded?
I’m gonna go with 65% Lower Hutt, 30% New York, 5% Aro Valley. I make music in a modular way that’s quite close to what The Beach Boys were aiming for in their Smile sessions. I record snippets of a song in fits and bursts, and slowly the song gathers a life of its own over time. In one case, a song’s been in the works in some shape or form for 6 years! But the vast majority have all come together in the last 2 years since the release of my debut Anxious Heart, at home.

Who produced/engineered the EP? How did the tracks come together in the studio, or at home?
I have a sort of ‘home studio’ of sorts (well, really a glorified spare bedroom) set up to record my instruments at a moment’s notice. I’m a full one-man band, playing, arranging, and producing everything myself. Which is insane, given that every track has dozens of vocal parts, and generally about 3 versions of every instrument. It’s A Lot. I take that Beach Boys-influenced sound seriously! My room backs onto a hallway with wooden floors, so if I ever need a lot of echo and space in a recording I can simply open the door to let some atmosphere. The trick is to not then let my 2 year old son in, in the process. He tends to distract a little from the recording process, or add a few layers of “Daddy, guitar!” somewhere in the background of the recording. Ha. The perils of home recording!

Did the shorter format of an EP give you the option to experiment in any way with your sound or with different forms of song-writing?
A couple years ago I wrote a blog post asking ‘What is an ‘album’ anyway’? I was surprised to find a stat: “only 19% of its [Spotify] listeners bothered to finish 2010’s best album.” My own stats from Anxious Heart bore this out too. On average, people just don’t listen to 40+ minutes of music, while using streaming services. Doesn’t matter if they’re a super fan, or if it’s fantastic music. It’s not how most people listen to music these days. Which is sad for me, as someone who adores albums, and owns literally thousands of physical records/CDs/tapes.

Armed with that info, I decided to make a mini-album. So it’s 5 songs, around 16 minutes in length. No song longer than 3 minutes and 45 seconds. Music for the attention-deficit generation. I can listen to it in its completion on my walk to work in the morning, literally timed so if I start playing as I leave the train… it finishes playing as I walk into the office’s lobby. Haha. No song needs to be skipped! I also set myself an ambitious goal; dont allow a single verse or chorus to sound the same as the rest of the verses and choruses of that song. Switch up the instruments, the lyrics, the arrangement, the mic depths, etc etc! Keep things interesting throughout and keep the listener on edge. Which is pretty close to what The Beach Boys were doing in the late-60s really!

Was there any specific gear you used to capture that?
To really keep things interesting throughout, I played around with using delays, pitch-shifts, static, samples and early-2000s style stuttering effects (remember songs like this?). In my first record I wanted to make pop rock again. This time around, I was OK with just making pop that rocked. Subtle difference. That empowered me to skew more digitally when it suited. Which meant that all those warping tricks were either done with my AKAI MPD-26 pad controller, or virtually with software like Stutter Edit, PrimalTap, and Trash 2.

Is there a particular track or theme that the EP was formed around?
Probably everything stemmed from I’m Going Home, the EP’s closer. It’s a song about being homesick while living overseas. Something many young Kiwis are probably familiar with. At the beginning of the track, I’m thinking I’ll go home back to NZ to be with my family. But by the end I realise my family’s actually proud I’m having a crack at life away from Godzone, and maybe I should lean into that; conquering my fears and anxieties. So yeah, each song on the record sees me (or a character) Swallow Fear and try to then overcome that fear.

Where do you see the EPs place in growing an audience online? Do you see it as a progression towards an album or a separate entity?
You know what’s really weird? When you release new things these days, your fans check it out, and then go back and listen to your old stuff too. It’s like, while you’re top of mind, they make the most of it. I’ve certainly found that with this EP and single release. Spotify tells me my streams are 303% increased month over month, and the majority of that is my first record having a mini-revival! In that regard, it seems advantageous to most artists to release more frequently, rather than take 2 years out between big bang type releases. In some situations, that might be an EP, and in others that might be something more like what Lawrence Arabia did in 2018; releasing a single per month throughout the whole year. The influence of all-you-can-eat streaming is going to have some huge ramifications on the industry, the likes of which we are only just starting to see now.

Which digital platforms is it available on?
All of them… I think! I can’t get my Alexa to recognise my Kiwi accent and play it, ha, but aside from that it’s on the usual suspects: Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Google Play, YouTube, TikTok even, etc etc.! Check Swallow Fear out from November 24th wherever you normally play music.

Are you doing any gigs or promotion for its release?
I need to figure out how to clone myself, or hire a barbershop choir / finally get over my aversion to playing along with a backing track first! In all seriousness, that’s sort of why we went so hard on the music video for Blotted Out The Background; we wanted to show what a live gig would be like where I play all the instruments and sing all the parts simultaneously. That video’s the closest you can get to a one-man band!


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