We/Or/Me is Bahhaj Taherzadeh, a Chicago-based, Irish-born artist whose music has quietly and gradually been attracting the attention of critics over recent years. Jon Martin calls it “the soundtrack to your most quiet moments”, Sean Michaels says, it’s a salve and a peace, and Robin Hilton at NPR has been a consistent advocate of the “wise and slightly weary voice, strolling through delicate melodies and heartbreaking narratives.” He’s been compared to Bert Jansch and Leonard Cohen and he’s about to release his second full-length album, The Walking Hour.
If you’re looking for loud, this is not the place. Everything about Taherzadeh is understated. Not just the music, which often has reviewers talking about intimate, pre-dawn moments or the curtains of color that accompany a sunset; it’s the man himself, who lives with his wife and twin daughters in a modest apartment on a quiet, tree-lined street in Chicago’s Rogers Park, a few blocks from Lake Michigan. He works by day as an editor for a not-for-profit publisher, work he describes as meaningful, and has a soft-spoken voice and accent that still carries more of Dublin than Chicago, although you may not detect it in his singing. He moved to the US in 2002.
Despite the critical attention and the loyalty of a respectable following on the indie scene, he confesses to never having been a natural musician. In fact, it was six or seven years before he could even sing and play guitar at the same time. The idea that only certain people can play music is a myth, he says. Certain people have an advantage but anyone can do it. Having a bit of imagination is far more valuable than being a virtuoso.
And imagination is certainly something that comes to mind when listening to We/Or/Me. The music is spare, the instrumentation subdued, and it is often the lyrics, and the writing process itself, that come to the fore. Although he says it was not entirely conscious, the title of each of his works, Ghostwriter from 2008, Sleeping City in 2011, and most recently The Walking Hour, each refers in its own way to the writing process and the state of mind of the songwriter when performing his work. I caught up with Bahhaj via email recently and asked about his process.
I don’t do any premeditated writing. I rarely sit down and decide to write a song about a certain subject. I don’t often even write the lyrics down until after the song is finished. For me the process is very primitive and always feels like fumbling around in the dark.
Ghostwriter refers to this process of fumbling then, of waiting for the song to come by itself, and the feeling that sometimes it is the songs of others, of ghosts, that are being discovered through the process?
I can’t really remember writing the songs. Tell Sarah, for instance, really came out of nowhere and I don’t know what or who it is about. It’s not from my life, and it’s not based on any kind of story that I conjured up in my head. It feels to me as though I tuned into something that belonged to someone else. I like the idea that I might have somehow stumbled into someone else’s song–maybe someone who had passed away and never got to compose the song themselves. That’s where the title Ghostwriter came from–the idea of stealing songs from ghosts.
Sleeping City was written during your first year of fatherhood, late at night, as the girls (and the city) literally slept.
I would record myself messing around and coming up with things, and if I fell upon something I liked I would follow it and see where it took me. I then spent hours experimenting with sounds and textures and tried to build really intricate arrangements around these spontaneously captured moments. It feels very much like a document of my life, not because of the lyrics, which often don’t relate directly to me, but more for the mood and atmosphere of the record and the specific circumstances of my life when I made it.
Likewise, The Walking Hour is another reference to the writing process.
Walking can be kind of a meditative experience. It leads very naturally to a state of introspection. Since having children, I think I’ve become slightly obsessed with the creative process and with using my time in a way that is conducive to creating art. It is difficult to find a balance. I have a full-time job as an editor and I am the father of four-year-old twins so I don’t have a lot of free time. My father was a writer but it wasn’t his livelihood. He always found a way to do it though, and that has been a source of inspiration for me. He worked as an engineer and he always found a way to take a nap everyday no matter what the circumstances. Before he had an office, he would nap in his car, and when he had an office he would arrange cushions on the floor and sleep for an hour. This gave him the energy to stay up late writing every night at home. In the end his writing was his true legacy, and it’s something he did in his spare time. He wrote some of the most widely read books about the Baha’i Faith. I’ve also thought a lot about Frank O’Hara, who wrote poems while walking around on his lunch break in New York City. I’ve always liked those poems because there is a very casual intimacy with the reader and because he turned something as routine and mundane as a lunch break into a portal for his art. So, I started taking walks on my lunch break, and I walk as part of my commute to and from my office, and I found I could write songs in my head if I got into the right kind of headspace.
Neither The Walking Hour nor its predecessors are simply collections of songs though. They’re each intended as cohesive works, statements on a period of your life.
A lot of artists tend to have their first full-length record be a collection of all the best songs they’ve written so far in their lives, but I’ve never liked that approach. Especially now that the album feels like a threatened, less relevant medium. A lot of my favorite records have an atmosphere that runs through them, and they feel like a document of a particular moment in the artist’s life–a group of songs that were written at a particular time. There are a lot of older songs that I’ve never recorded that I could have put on Sleeping City but I didn’t want to do that. I like the idea of a document of a certain time that has a certain atmosphere and contains threads that run through it and bind the songs together in some way.
Your process, like your music, is quiet and introspective, and until recently was also very solitary.
The first two records were recorded entirely at home and with virtually no input or collaboration with anyone. My wife Marie sang on some of the songs but otherwise it was all me right up until it was passed on to the mastering engineer. I think I had to make some recordings this way before I felt ready to collaborate with other people. I’ve been learning how to make records by making records, and I feel as though I am still learning, but with this new record I felt strongly that I had to collaborate with others. I had to get out of the internal, self-contained world that I was inhabiting musically. It was kind of a dark place because you can get lost in there. You can get too close to the work to the point that you have no idea what it is in any kind of subjective way. It stops sounding like music, it stops making sense. And when you have to do everything yourself, from writing, recording, mixing, figuring out who is going to do the artwork, coordinating the artwork and the manufacturing, all in your spare time, you actually have to become obsessed with it. Otherwise there is no way to see it through to completion. So, for my sanity, and in order to be present in the other aspects of my life, I had to change the way I was doing things.
The new record sees a lot more collaboration. There’s the award winning spoken-word artist, Anis Mojgani, and also Vashti Bunyan, who has collaborated with Piano Magic, Devendra Banhart and Animal Collective in recent years.
I feel incredibly lucky to have collaborated with Vashti. I was always drawn to her for her story and the haunting, ethereal nature of her music. She made this record in 1970 called Another Diamond Day, which didn’t really sell and she had some bad experiences and just moved on from music. But then the internet came along and she discovered 35 years later that she had quite a following and that the record was a collector’s item. So, she kind of came back to music and made another amazing record 6 or 7 years ago. At that point everyone was ready for her and she’s become a bit of a legend in the folk music world.
How did it come about?
I had a song, which I wrote after Bert Jansch died last year. I discovered Bert years ago through Nick Drake. There was this tape of Nick playing songs in his bedroom, which has now been officially released on CD, but for years it was something that got passed around on cassette tapes and I just treasured my copy of it. Nick’s records had this untouchable, almost too perfect feel to them but this tape of him in his bedroom playing other people’s songs and traditional songs was so real and so imperfect and just beautiful. He did a couple of Bert Jansch songs and that’s what I was thinking about when I wrote the song Time. I wanted to conjure something of the atmosphere of the recordings on that tape. And it felt almost like a throwaway song. It’s so simple and has so few words, but I liked it and I knew I wanted to send it to Vashti as soon as I had finished it. She, in many ways, is a living link to those guys as she was a contemporary of theirs but she has her own thing going on and is still doing it. I just felt that she would get it and would know what I was trying to do. And, she did. She couldn’t have been more humble and easy to work with. It was really a joy to correspond with her and work on the song.
How does collaboration affect the creative process?
Collaboration certainly can bring a song to life in a different way. It is challenging though. It’s a strange balance to strike because it’s my thing, it’s my music but I’m asking someone else to interpret it and add to it, and it has to be the right person. One of my favorite things on the new record is the collaboration with Anis Mojgani, who is an incredible poet and someone who inspires me continually with his work.
And candidates for future collaboration?
I’d love to work more with Anis, actually. There is a French singer called Soko, who I like a lot and would love to collaborate with. There are a lot of producers and musicians that it would be a dream to work with, but I’ve already been incredibly lucky in that regard.
You’re referring to Brian Deck, who has worked with Iron and Wine, and Modest Mouse.
Brian (who is an incredible producer) mixed The Walking Hour. When he came on board, all of the recording and composing had already been done. We’d recorded it in a bunch of studios around Chicago and at home, and people had recorded parts in various places and sent me the tracks. I needed to find someone to mix it and help me figure it all out, and Brian happened to get in touch with me out of the blue to tell me that he liked my music, and so we got together and ended up working together. He has produced a lot of fantastic records and has an aesthetic that aligned with mine very naturally. He played a big role in shaping the sound of the record and gave me valuable advice about what he felt should be left out, kept in, etc. Often, parts that I envisioned as being very much in the background ended up being pushed forward in the mix because Brian gravitated toward them and heard something in them.
Your music is very intimate, the instrumentation is minimal, and that brings a focus on the lyrics. Is that something intentional?
Words have always come more naturally to me than music, so I think the lyrics have always been at the center of what I do. Gradually over the past few years, though, I feel I’ve grown more confident as a guitarist and have started to compose music in such a way that the music is catching up with the words a bit and they’re just about equals now.
So do you write the lyrics to fit the music?
I don’t write the lyrics and music separately, they are always intertwined and become inseparable from one another. Having said that, I am more likely to edit the music than the lyrics when I return to something that was written very spontaneously.
Your lyrics are very intimate. You have songs speaking to Sarah and Amy for example.
Sarah and Amy are just names. I like songs with names, and I know people with those names, but the songs are not written to them, it just seems to be a vehicle for expressing something in a very personal, intimate way.
And you have a song called My Father.
It’s about my father, yes.
So are your lyrics literal, or are you externalizing internal, gut feelings?
I like the phrase you’ve used here “externalizing internal, gut feelings.” This seems an accurate way of describing the process.
And what are you saying through your music?
I think many of my songs touch on the impermanence of life and the idea that there is another dimension to our lives beyond the physical. The meaning is often apparent to me only after writing the song, and sometimes it’s never really clear. On The Walking Hour, there are a few songs that are a bit more intentional in their meaning, and the writing was not quite as stream-of-consciousness as with previous records. Old Joy is an example of this. The chorus came to me one day while I was walking through an airport, and I have to give credit to the film of the same name by Kelly Reichardt, which is a beautiful film. It contains the line “sorrow is worn out joy.” I think that kind of stuck with me and rattled around in my head and came out as “sorrow is just old joy… old joy that’s lost its way.” When that chorus came to me, I felt really strongly that I wanted to write a hopeful song about grief. The song is based around the idea that our joys and sorrows come from the same place, that the sorrow we feel over the loss of a loved one or relationship is felt because of the joy they once gave us, and that if the two emotions come from the same place, then maybe the sorrow can find its way back to the light. I’ve written a lot of sad songs over the years and I felt it would really be something if I could write a hopeful, upbeat song about grief. I don’t know how successful I was, but it feels like I got close.
Musically, who are your peers?
There are other musicians I feel a real kinship with, and often it is similarly unknown artists who are also trying to make their art while holding down jobs and dealing with all the other aspects of their daily lives. I love Will Stratton. I think his records are amazing and impossibly good. Quintin Nadig, who now records as “Waterhens” is another one. Andrew Malo, who I play with a lot, and who plays on my record, is a great songwriter. Angel Olsen, Niall Connolly.
And your inspirations?
A big inspiration has always been Glen Hansard of the Frames and the Swell Season. He was a real hero of mine when I was younger and I got to know him a bit and we’ve stayed in touch over the years. He always seems to give me just what I need as far as encouragement and inspiration.
And your influences?
In recent years Bert Jansch has been a big influence, particularly as a guitar player. I’ve also listened a lot to more ambient, atmospheric music–Brian Eno, Max Richter, Phillip Glass. The big ones are always there in the background–Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, Tom Waits, Dylan–also Will Oldham, Bill Callahan, Damien Jurado, Nina Nastasia,…. I could go on a long time. I love Sam Amidon and Doveman. I think they are among the most exciting artists around at the moment. I’ve also found a lot of inspiration from non-musical sources in recent years. I love Terrance Malick films for their ethereal atmosphere.
What do you take from his films?
He achieves something in the way he combines the voiceover and the music and the light. It’s not something that necessarily has any one tangible meaning but it evokes something beyond what you are seeing and hearing. When the story is only vaguely defined, it invites the viewer to experience it in a less cerebral, more spiritual way and that is something I feel has influenced me.
Who have you been compared to?
People often jump to Nick Drake, but that’s the case with anyone who does fingerpicking and sings quietly. I do love Nick Drake with a devotion but it always feels like a slightly lazy comparison.
Who would you choose then?
One reviewer compared me to Bert Jansch and Leonard Cohen, and they are certainly very close to my heart. Comparisons can be nice and are inevitable in any review, but it’s not something I think about much.
I saw you racked up over $6000 on Kickstarter for this album. What was that like?
It’s an interesting time, and for someone like me, the changing landscape of the music industry is almost all positive. I operate on such a small scale that as far as the music industry is concerned, I don’t even exist. Kickstarter provided me with a way of reaching out to the people who have been following my music and asking them to be a part of my record and help me put it out. It was a very empowering experience and gave me a very hopeful outlook for the future. I feel I can continue to do this on some scale regardless of whether or not it ever becomes a source of livelihood for me.
Your family is supportive?
They’re extremely supportive and patient with it. Without their support and understanding, I just couldn’t make records the way I have been. I work as an editor for a non-profit book publisher so we live a pretty simple life on a limited budget, but it’s meaningful work and I do have enough energy left over to follow my own vision in my spare time.
And your hopes for this album?
I don’t have too many big plans for the album. I’m self-releasing it, and will be sending it out to various blogs and media outlets. I might pursue licensing opportunities if and when they come up.
Best case scenario for the future?
Just to keep making records that feel true to where I’m at, and to keep performing. I’d like the audience to grow but I don’t have any marketing machinery behind me, so the music will have to speak for itself.
The Walking Hour will be available on Bandcamp on May 28th.
