Co-Producing An Album With Fran & Flora

What does it really mean to be a producer, and why do so many women hesitate to claim the title?

In this episode of Girls Twiddling Knobs, we sit down with Fran & Flora—an innovative violin and cello duo blending Yiddish, Romanian, and Transylvanian folk music with improvisation, electronics, and sound experimentation. We dive into their co-production journey on Precious Collection, navigating self-perception as producers, and the evolving landscape for independent artists. Expect candid insights on gender in music, creative collaboration, and the art of crafting immersive soundscapes. A must-listen for musicians, producers, and folk music lovers!

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Girls Twiddling Knobs is hosted by Isobel Anderson and produced by Isobel Anderson and Jade Bailey.

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Transcript

00:00:00.00
Francesca Ter_Berg
it.

00:00:00.97
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
So welcome Fran and Flora to Girls' Twiddling Knobs.

00:00:04.66
Flora
Thank you so much for having us

00:00:06.63
Francesca Ter_Berg
Hello.

00:00:07.62
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yes, I'm so excited to talk to you about your process of making precious collection, which is your most recent album. And we're going to be talking all about co-producing, which we've never done on the podcast. um So I'm really looking forward to getting into that. But first, could you, in your own words, tell our listeners, who are you and what do you do? I know it's a difficult question sometimes.

00:00:33.85
Flora
difficult to be succinct.

00:00:34.92
Francesca Ter_Berg
Do you want us to say about ourselves, each, and then talk about the project?

00:00:36.05
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:00:35.69
Flora
Do you want to go for it Francesca?

00:00:41.44
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
um Yeah, why don't you tell us a bit about yourselves ah individually and then what the project Fran and Flora is as well.

00:00:47.72
Francesca Ter_Berg
Okay. Well, okay. Hi, everyone. My name is Francesca Taburg. I'm here in Margate right now, um where I've been living for the last five years. ah I played cello.

00:01:03.58
Francesca Ter_Berg
and I compose and experiment, work with folk music and field recordings and I make sonic arts, weird sounds, um collaborate with lots of different people and um I have at times called myself a producer and then I changed my mind because I'm not quite sure what a producer is anymore which I think we're going to talk about. So I could say I'm a producer too and yeah and I'm one half of Fran and Flora

00:01:33.34
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Excellent. And Flora, can you talk a bit about ah yourself?

00:01:38.21
Flora
Yeah, i'm I'm Flora. I live in London and I play ah play the violin and do all sorts of different kinds of projects from our duo, which you'll hear about more in a minute, um to some larger scale works like with dance companies or theatre, more theatrical ah companies. And I mainly focus on the live, but in recent years, I've also been getting into ah composing a little bit.

00:02:07.06
Flora
And I use that word very tentatively because I've always struggled with understanding myself as on the more creative end of music making and have thought of myself generally as somebody who learns the parts and plays and does the job in that in that sense.

00:02:25.94
Flora
But through this duo and some other projects I've been doing recently, and a little solo thing I made a couple of years ago, I've been uncovering a bit more of myself in the creative on the more creative end of things. But where that line is, I don't quite know.

00:02:43.89
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
who yeah so So already I feel like we're getting into some really interesting territory about what you call yourself, the terminology, what these different words mean. Before we get into that though, can you tell us what what is Fran and Flora then, because you have your own practices, your own backgrounds, and now you also have a project together?

00:03:03.90
Flora
Yeah um so we're a violin and cello duo and we work with traditional music ah mainly traditional Yiddish music but also traditional Romanian and Transylvanian music as well um and we've been working together for 10 years and our way of working with the music is to involve a lot of improvisation and experimenting and electronics and taking the music in a direction that feels like a very authentic overlap between our our worlds.

00:03:39.53
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Excellent.

00:03:40.07
Francesca Ter_Berg
Yeah.

00:03:41.10
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah. Is there anything you want to add to that Fran?

00:03:44.50
Francesca Ter_Berg
Well, just that it's me and Flora have known each other a long time, so the collaboration is about research and music and it's about friendship and that's continually, all of those things are evolving continually.

00:03:58.98
Francesca Ter_Berg
Um, so it's a very much alive, present project. And that's what I think is really interesting for us, both that we, there's a lot of space to explore and, um, there's not really a sense of like what is right and what is wrong or anything like that, which is very empowering, um, to experience in like a real life situation rather than just like in an existential kind of late night thought process.

00:04:27.98
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Hmm. Yeah. And so how long have you been playing together?

00:04:33.74
Francesca Ter_Berg
Ooh.

00:04:33.31
Flora
playing together. um Well, so we met doing a lot of gigs for other people. And so we've actually known each other for probably about 15 years now. And our duo kind of got started probably more like 2016. So we've been playing together longer than that, but in different contexts. And then we discovered in that time that we had a lot of shared interests and that we wanted to work together like on things that we were both passionate about equally. So yeah, that's how the the duo kind of came to be.

00:05:11.25
Francesca Ter_Berg
yeah Yeah, that's pretty much that's pretty much it.

00:05:11.37
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:05:14.51
Francesca Ter_Berg
i mean Neither of us came from um a production or a pop music background so we didn't have a sense of like what that could mean on any level. um When I say pop music I just mean in the wider kind of commercial music sense. we We were both quite sort of kindred spirits in our wanting to just experience as much music as possible, play in like a bazillion bands and there wasn't really a sense of like direction or shape or um an understanding of dynamics and like the music industry or anything like that. So as we came together and decided it would be fun to do our own thing it's also been a process of learning about all of that as well.

00:05:58.35
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, that's really interesting. like ah Because yeah, in kind of setting yourself up as Fran and Flora, you become um something that is, like you say, kind of stepping into that more traditional mould, at least in pop music, of you are an artist that has a brand that does gigs together, that releases work under that name. um And how how has that transition been for you?

00:06:27.00
Flora
um How has it been? been but I feel like I've spent a long time like... understanding what that means um and ah like I think when we first got into it we were just so so full of excitement and joy for the music and just like we wanted to play together all the time and um just try try stuff and then as time's gone on it's become like well how do we make this work like you know if we want to do it more

00:06:57.75
Flora
um how do we make it sustainable and how all the other elements of having a project that I think I naively didn't realize that you kind of had to take charge of like suddenly you also have to be a videographer and you have to you have to ah design things and think about what you wear on stage and all of this all the stuff which I'd sort of gone into without really realizing what it was so all all about that was for me anyway

00:07:00.01
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm hmm.

00:07:27.59
Flora
but

00:07:28.30
Francesca Ter_Berg
But also I think the landscape has massively changed since we started because what is an independent musician or artist now, what what makes that be a real thing or not and what it was is very different because partly because of social media and partly because of the climate with funding and with saturation and streaming all the things like in the tent last 10 to 15 years it's literally like a different

00:07:44.94
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Hmm.

00:07:51.24
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm-hmm.

00:07:53.53
Francesca Ter_Berg
kind of environment that we're finding ourselves in. So, and you know, obviously one of the main topics with independent artists is the workload, but obviously we're not alone there. um So it's nice to know that we're not alone, but it is very different for sure.

00:08:10.87
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah. Yeah, so it sounds like um there's a lot of um navigating coming to terms with how the music, the actual making and performing the music part is, um well, I don't know, for a lot of people, if they're lucky, it's like 50%.

00:08:28.28
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
you know, and then there's all this other stuff around how do you fundraise to make the project happen? How do you, you know, liaise with all the different venues to do the gigs and just so much that goes into it and then the pressure of social media and having, you know, healthy sort of boundaries with that and, you know, and and also this, I think, um I don't know what you think about this, but I think that ah for a lot of women um being on stage,

00:08:58.30
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
There, yeah, there's a different, maybe slightly different expectations or projections that are put onto women who are on stage as artists under their name.

00:09:10.60
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
um And there can be, yeah.

00:09:11.96
Francesca Ter_Berg
i think project I think projections, yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off there.

00:09:15.75
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
No, no, go for it.

00:09:16.30
Francesca Ter_Berg
um

00:09:16.59
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, projections.

00:09:19.34
Francesca Ter_Berg
At the moment, I think it's projections rather than expectations because ah expectations is kind of presumptuous, but I i feel that, I mean, a presumptuous in terms of um like one can spend a long time trying to figure out

00:09:21.90
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Oh.

00:09:35.82
Francesca Ter_Berg
what someone else is thinking or supposing. But I think um projection it resonated with me because I've noticed more and more that when I say what I do to people, they always seem surprised.

00:09:49.88
Francesca Ter_Berg
which to me has nothing to do with me and everything to do with them.

00:09:50.13
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Hmm.

00:09:53.58
Francesca Ter_Berg
And they're like subconscious closed mindedness essentially. And there are some environments in which I find myself in where that's no one's surprised and everyone's just like, yeah, of course you do all those things.

00:09:58.23
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
and Yeah.

00:10:04.39
Francesca Ter_Berg
But um I'm used to people being like, oh, I didn't know you do that. um For example, like I just started teaching at Guildhall in the electronic and produced music department and I know that I have the experience to do that job and I got the job and you can teach a whole swathe of things within that as a massive bracket and there's like popular music students and there's all kinds of people um in there doing all kinds of different things and there have been a few times already in the like I literally started a week ago where you know I've mentioned it to a couple of folks who maybe they don't know everything about my life and they're like oh I thought you just played cello and I'm like okay well

00:10:46.80
Francesca Ter_Berg
If it's very clear in my biography and in all the reviews that, for example, that me and Flora produced our last record, which got really well received, why is that not something that goes into their subconscious that they think, oh, they produced it as well. That's super cool. I wonder how they did that. It just, cross it crosses my mind that it doesn't cross their mind.

00:11:10.27
Francesca Ter_Berg
And I don't know why. Is it because they just don't know how you make a record? Or is it because I'm a woman and I play cello? And that's, if you do that, then you look pretty on stage and you, you know, ah who knows what they think. I really don't know, but it just kind of happens quite a lot.

00:11:28.09
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah. Do you resonate with that flora?

00:11:33.81
Flora
Definitely. um I think that I struggle to see myself as as a producer or as as a creative in general.

00:11:45.66
Flora
And so I am less surprised when other people don't see me like that.

00:11:53.02
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Hmm.

00:11:52.91
Flora
um So it's it's totally different when Francesca spent so much time. um Oh, my screen froze. Sorry. i Did you catch that?

00:12:02.74
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, no, it's okay. and Yeah, yeah, it it it will probably look like it, but because it uploads it from your computer, it will not freeze in the real thing, if that makes sense.

00:12:12.22
Flora
Okay, yeah.

00:12:13.60
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And we can edit all this out, so, yeah.

00:12:15.12
Flora
Okay, cool. Yeah, so like, you know, when and Francesca's been studying ah electronic music and is now a professor of electronic music herself, I i feel like people should see her like that.

00:12:28.72
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm-hmm.

00:12:28.45
Flora
And there's, this I don't understand why people wouldn't, except for just expectations. ah Yeah, and and also the maybe more visible site, like if you're a performer with an instrument, and like a an acoustic instrument, then um that might be like what people see mostly. But yeah, so as Francesca says, it's very clear that that's really just like part of a much bigger picture of what she does.

00:13:00.18
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, yeah. um Yeah, so I think there's a lot of really interesting stuff we could talk about in terms of these terms, because already when you were both introducing yourselves, um there was almost like a bit of a friction around, you know, Flora, you were saying, I don't know if I can really, am I a composer? I feel a bit, you know, funny about owning that. And then Fran, you're like, I don't know, I'm a producer, like, what even is that? I think it's changed so much now.

00:13:26.51
Flora
Hmm.

00:13:27.51
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
um Maybe just thinking about, you know, obviously you both coming to produce your most recent album, Precious Collection, which is your second album.

00:13:39.36
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
um And and just just on a slight tangent, but it's not really, it's important, you know, you made the album Unfurl and that's released in 2019. Did you produce that or was that produced by somebody else?

00:13:55.33
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
just to get a sense for what the development is for you as a duo in terms of the recording side of it.

00:14:02.27
Francesca Ter_Berg
we did well We technically co-produced it, but I think on that album we credited Sam Best as the producer, didn't we?

00:14:11.39
Flora
I think so, yeah.

00:14:12.77
Francesca Ter_Berg
To have to look at one.

00:14:13.39
Flora
Yeah, I don't think we're technically co-producers of it, even though we were always in the room and working on it as the three of us.

00:14:22.80
Francesca Ter_Berg
It was more like a three-person collaboration in many ways.

00:14:22.35
Flora
um

00:14:24.97
Flora
Mm-hmm.

00:14:26.41
Francesca Ter_Berg
that first one. um It really was the first time that either of us had been in the studio in our own right, do you know what I mean? Like rather than being in there to sort of facilitate someone else's creative vision or to record some string parts or just wasn't our name on the um on the project. um And at the time I was studying kind of popular music production at Goldsmith's Flora definitely was, I think, a little bit less familiar with this setup in terms of like the format and how we could do things.

00:15:00.08
Francesca Ter_Berg
But it was, a I mean, just saying that because we you can talk about it more, Flora, like where you were coming from.

00:15:04.19
Flora
Mm.

00:15:05.41
Francesca Ter_Berg
But um both of us were new to it being our thing. And Sam was at the beginning of his producer journey and he was really up for being in that role also having come from a background of like collaborating and being in a lot of bands and he I think he kind of wanted to put a stamp on it as well like subconsciously maybe and so he would just like we'd record something and he'd start kind of playing around with with the sound and ideas in the space.

00:15:37.01
Francesca Ter_Berg
And then we had to kind of find ways of communicating what we wanted as well. it was It was an interesting dynamic and it was quite a long term recording process.

00:15:47.59
Francesca Ter_Berg
Like we made it over three years and all of our lives changed quite a lot in that time.

00:15:51.15
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Wow, yeah.

00:15:52.52
Francesca Ter_Berg
So, and it was really the first foray into this kind of thing for all of us in a way. It was quite a special experience. um Yeah.

00:16:00.29
Flora
Definitely and I think one of the key things that he it brought to the project was that we felt like maybe a bit boxed in by the way we were approaching traditional music and but also wanting to kind of be a bit more free with it and he was coming from a jazz background and really encouraged us to to experiment and he would just record everything and then we'd listen back to what had happened and then add more things in and um just like work work on it in a way that was much more open-minded and he definitely unlocked unlocked that for for for me um in that in that process.

00:16:42.24
Flora
which was really really great and also just to see up close how the studio works because we were basically in one we were recording in one space and then and kind of in his studio space as well so we could see everything that he was doing and talk about the technical things that were happening and stuff

00:16:59.45
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Hmm.

00:16:58.92
Flora
um But yeah, there was there was also a language barrier. like i I just didn't quite know what was possible or how to ask for things.

00:17:07.87
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:17:07.30
Flora
so um But then I guess what it takes being in that place to then go away and try try and figure it out and think, oh, what can we do next time? and um Yeah and so I guess the progression then went from that to ah then it was the pandemic and during that time I got into you home recording um and started to learn more about it for myself and then when we reconnected to make the second album I i definitely felt more equipped to be like well actually i I know what I want to do with this sound here and you know what what could we add here and how does this work and that work and

00:17:45.47
Flora
felt much more um like yeah equipped to to be and like a meaningful presence in the room in that in that way.

00:17:55.56
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Hmm. Yeah.

00:17:56.68
Francesca Ter_Berg
Also, I think like much as like the material itself is really important to us. um We have, not just like within the project, but just in our lives, we've been exploring sort sound and...

00:18:07.86
Francesca Ter_Berg
kind of orchestration and creativity in loads of different ways for a long time. So when we come together to make both the records, we always kind of make a massive playlist and do like quite a long period of listening sessions, not to like necessarily like rip off ideas, but to say like what kind of textures or speeds or aesthetics are calling to us right now. And then we can kind of whittle it down as a starting point.

00:18:33.25
Francesca Ter_Berg
like it's quite because it can be quite hard to know where to start when you're making a record. So um for the first one we did a lot of listening and mind mapping stuff before we went in the studio with Sam and then every time we we arrived at studio we always do like an hour of listening like you know, it'd be like, oh my God, that's just a COVID thing, really reminds me of this D'Angelo track. And then, oh, this D'Angelo track really reminds me of this Beatles track or whatever, not Beatles. Why did I say Beatles? No, be maybe Beach Boys, I can't remember, but we would just, whatever, all like whatever, we just have a listen and then it just sparks something sometimes. We did that for the second one as well. um But with more of a blank canvas and a very like yes attitude because it was just us. And that was really,

00:19:16.23
Francesca Ter_Berg
great, but we did learn some some good things from making the first record with Sam because he comes from an improvisation background and we both have a background in improvisation too.

00:19:21.03
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:19:26.93
Francesca Ter_Berg
Even when we'd record like a folk tune, then we'd just listen back and be like, cool, that sounds like a folk tune. And then like, I remember like once putting down like a bass line underneath one of the tracks and it was like technically the wrong notes for that bit, but it just sounded cool.

00:19:41.28
Francesca Ter_Berg
And then Sam was like, oh yeah, but that chord really makes sense there and we could add this. And then, you know, like that kind of attitude, which I think comes from also a certain level of like, musical understanding and openness is something that we really carried with us and that was really inspiring to work in that way, you know?

00:19:51.14
Flora
Mm hmm.

00:19:57.74
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:19:57.93
Francesca Ter_Berg
Like there's no right answer, you know?

00:20:00.06
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah. And I'm thinking kind of from what you were describing um when you were first starting to talk about that first album, it sounds like your idea of what a producer is has maybe changed since that time.

00:20:15.66
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Like there's a sense of looking back to that time and thinking, actually, we were producing. but at the time it wasn't framed, at least for you, or at least articulated. Can you tell me a little bit about how your understanding of that role of producer has changed since this the first album moving into now?

00:20:38.40
Flora
Yeah, for me, it feels like the role of producer and ah composer slash arranger slash performer, all of those things are one, they can be one thing like where where do you draw the line between composing and producing because this's it's it's part of the composition in a way in the studio where if you're messing around with with you know different ways to make the sound speak and um yeah adding different sounds and things like that so um yeah I think that's that's for me where I'm at

00:21:18.64
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Thanks.

00:21:18.66
Francesca Ter_Berg
Depending on what like um like background you're coming from, in terms of like what how you came to being in the studio in the first place, I mean studio composition is quite is technically, or like the way they so of taught me, of course, but anyway, it's like thinking about it, it's like a thing within itself and then you have composition like a classical composition where you would notate it, or a jazz composition where you would make a chart and then kind of find a melody that fits and we I was very inspired when I found out about this concept of studio composition that the studio is your space to compose and you know the choices you make with sound and and production techniques is composition too you know it's like it is just ah such a broad spectrum so why then is

00:22:03.69
Francesca Ter_Berg
is kind of making choices about um reverb or delay, not also composition. Like what is it that even makes you a composer? I think like for me and Flora, because we don't have conventional lineages in this way, I think we both feel like there aren't really specific rules about which is which. um And it does seem to depend, but like without sounding like a bit I don't know what to say. ah Not judgmental, but like without being mean, like i I do think gender does come into it in the sense that if if I say I'm a composer, ah very rarely does someone go, oh yeah, you are. Or if I say I'm a producer, very rarely does someone say, yeah, you are. And you know it takes a lot of strength to stand up, like you know shoulders relaxed, chest high, head high, and say, I am those things.

00:22:57.99
Francesca Ter_Berg
and hear it back from other people that you're seeing that way and like generally speaking I think if a man said oh yeah I play with synths and I play violin and I'm a composer and I produce people probably just go like yeah cool because it's sort of like you're just sort of like sticking yourself in that position and that's more expected but if a woman does it like in a very self-righteous way it's not always received in the same way unless perhaps you're in like a sort of queer circle where like the rules are different and people are more aware of these things. So I think that also causes me to constantly question what these things are because I don't feel that whatever I say is accepted. It seems to always be challenged rather than accepted. I mean I'm generalising but this does happen a lot and

00:23:45.72
Francesca Ter_Berg
You know, I'd love it if so if I arrived in somewhere and someone just patted me on the back and was like, come into my little club, producer, composer, string player, Francesca. That would be so nice. But I i mean, I can name on like many fingers when that hasn't happened.

00:23:59.82
Francesca Ter_Berg
And when I have seen that happen with my male colleagues, for example, it's it's tough.

00:24:01.94
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

00:24:05.11
Francesca Ter_Berg
Like, yeah, I don't know, Flora, have you seen this, experienced this?

00:24:06.94
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:24:09.26
Flora
Definitely. like Sexism in the music industry is is still everywhere. like Despite there being more more women in the industry, i i really it's just like the rest of the world in lots of ways. um Yeah, just thinking to like recent projects I've been involved with and how like if, if um say, the director or whatever is is a woman, they're often they're not, they're just clearly not taken as seriously, like for whatever reason that is, they're just talked down or there's this attention in the room ah around a woman being in charge of something.

00:24:39.71
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm-hmm.

00:24:49.64
Flora
um Yeah, lots of work to do.

00:24:51.15
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
a Yeah. Yeah. And so it sounds like, you know, this first this first album, um there was a lot that kind of opened up both through your own exploration together, through being it but being in that process,

00:25:13.22
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
where it's your baby like you're the artist you know which it makes you kind of invest in it in a different way right when it's your name your name's going on this record you know and and it sounds like um in hindsight you probably were producing it as much as performing writing

00:25:23.17
Flora
Mm.

00:25:34.34
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
um But maybe that idea of what a producer is or what production is um was a bit murky. or I often find that a lot of the time people think that music production is all ah is actually, that people get get mixed up. they they What they say music production is is actually ah audio engineering.

00:25:55.52
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
So it's all the, you know, choosing the mics and positioning the mics and then making sure that's coming through the desk and then making sure that the outboard gear is, you know, talking to everything and you've got the, the echo delay rigged up and, and actually that's, that's what an engineer does. And you can be a producer and you can be a very, very well played producer.

00:26:19.61
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
and not touch a single piece of technology through a whole session. And I've heard, um I've talked to some women engineers, um you know, in relation to the podcast who said, some some male producers, you know, not not that it has to be gendered, but just FYI, some really well paid male producers will come in and they will do pretty much nothing. And maybe have a couple of ideas that day and then leave and they have no problem.

00:26:48.04
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
saying that they're a producer.

00:26:49.06
Flora
Mm hmm.

00:26:49.99
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
and Whereas for a lot of women they've they they've really ingest and it's that kind of internalised patriarchy of I must know how every single piece of technology works.

00:27:01.19
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
I must know all of the spaceship if I'm ever going to be able to call myself a producer in any shape or form and it's just not true and it's that getting mixed up with

00:27:06.68
Flora
Hmm.

00:27:13.08
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
and also that these roles have evolved but also traditionally it would have been the engineer that would have been doing all the technology pretty much and the producer is the person that makes the record happen. They come across an artist as a very traditional you know they come across an artist they want to turn that artist they've seen on a stage into a recording that they can sell reproduce and profit from um And they bring that recording together and an engineer is the person that is pushing the buttons potentially. And then obviously as technologies evolved, like you were saying Flora, you've been home recording, those those roles have become so blurred and messy. And then Francesca, you were also mentioning about studio composition, electro acoustic composition, all of those traditions where the actual

00:27:58.57
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
technology, the use of recording or the the making of sound is the composition practice. And it's sort of, it's wonderful that all those things have got mixed up, but I think it's really interesting where women have often found themselves falling through the cracks, confidence wise, or not even, I don't like confidence. so I've said this a lot on the podcast. I think it's too much pressure on women as individuals and it does not put enough responsibility on the collective culture of recording technologies and studios.

00:28:29.16
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Women fall through the cracks in terms of their perceived abilities, their credits, their, you know, their roles because I think sometimes because of these roles getting messy as well.

00:28:40.64
Flora
Mm-hmm.

00:28:42.53
Francesca Ter_Berg
Definitely.

00:28:42.10
Flora
Definitely.

00:28:44.22
Francesca Ter_Berg
Yeah, like the more I think about it as I get older, the more obvious it all is, to be honest.

00:28:43.58
Flora
100%.

00:28:51.01
Francesca Ter_Berg
And um like, you know, to walk into a space and For me, to to walk into space and feel good about what I can offer, do my best, and be heard, I i often have to kind of prepare myself in a certain way to arrive to a space and be be ready to not be heard, you know, and then have to be really careful that I'm clear about what I'm offering and maybe everyone should do that because that's good professional practice but i feel that that way i know that i am doing my best or like that i'm offering my best and i know that my best can be fantastic when it's the right environment you know i mean and i think like i find myself having to be more firm with what i say more clear more succinct and kind of

00:29:44.79
Francesca Ter_Berg
really trust that if someone doesn't listen to me or that I feel disrespected that that is real and that I that I'm not just like oh maybe my idea was rubbish you know what I mean that and it's because a whole like mental mentality that I'm working on that I shouldn't have to work on but I do because it's better for me that way and then if people don't like it that I know what I want or what I think it's really not my problem like it's their problem and then that's starting to help the work that I do

00:29:49.80
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm.

00:30:09.91
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:30:15.48
Francesca Ter_Berg
be more reflective of what I actually want to be doing. I think it's very slow. It's a very slow process. um But I'm feeling like that's worth working on or that's worth bringing to the table um for me professionally.

00:30:26.95
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm.

00:30:29.23
Francesca Ter_Berg
I definitely, that's taken a long time to build. you know

00:30:34.15
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
I think what you've just described, there Fran, is I feel is like the kind of musical equivalent of the emotional labor that people talk about to do with gender in other parts of our lives. I think for a lot of women walking through their music career, they're doing so much emotional labor of, right, how do I how do i you know bring an assertive tone without seeming bossy, without offending anyone, but also without being ah you know overlooked and it's it's exhausting.

00:31:06.44
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And and i we're going to cover this hopefully in another episode of the podcast, but I think that's one of the biggest things that leads to burnout for women in music, because it is exhausting and you're always showing up to spaces having to be on the one hand prepared for the worst, but on the other hand, ready to bring your best.

00:31:14.24
Flora
Hmm.

00:31:26.63
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And God, it's really difficult. It's really complicated.

00:31:29.61
Flora
It's a minefield.

00:31:31.54
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:31:30.86
Flora
Yeah.

00:31:31.66
Francesca Ter_Berg
You know, also, it's just like a massive waste of our time.

00:31:34.86
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yes, it is.

00:31:34.37
Flora
Yeah.

00:31:35.29
Francesca Ter_Berg
Like, it's such a such a waste of time and energy.

00:31:35.50
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:31:35.11
Flora
Massive waste of energy.

00:31:39.20
Francesca Ter_Berg
Like, if I think how much energy I've spent trying to like build my confidence up because of the number of people that have been mean to me, said horrible things, put me down, not create a space.

00:31:47.84
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:31:51.09
Francesca Ter_Berg
um I mean, it's it's really depressing, actually. like And I've let go of most of that now. I'm really, like, Again, had to work on that. Why do we have to do all this work? like it shouldn't You shouldn't have to do this.

00:32:01.61
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:32:04.26
Francesca Ter_Berg
It's so silly.

00:32:03.99
Flora
Mm.

00:32:05.64
Francesca Ter_Berg
like You should be able to turn up, be good at what you do, and go home. like It should should be that simple, but it isn't.

00:32:14.62
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Well, conscious that we're half an hour in and we haven't listened to any of your music yet. So let's listen to, um I'd love to listen to um Romanian Fantasies 2.

00:32:18.43
Francesca Ter_Berg
Oh!

00:32:26.03
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And then that can help us segue into talking about how you co-produced your album Precious Collections. So this is a little excerpt from Romanian Fantasies 2.

00:32:38.96
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Okay, so and that gave us a little taste of what is to come or what what people can expect from Precious Collection. um So maybe you could tell us, maybe we'll start by just talking a little bit about the sound world in this album. We can draw from what's going on in that track, but um just tell us a little bit about what was the sound world that you're wanting to kind of work with? What's the palette that you're wanting to work with with Precious Collection?

00:33:07.88
Flora
um Well our starting point is always acoustic instruments and acoustic voices um but then beyond that we really want to be able to explore like a full a wide wide range of sounds so like whether that's with our instruments or whether it's actually using processing the instruments in particular ways but we want to really be able to get into like dark darker sounds and then also much more ah like lighter and warmer sounds so like the whole range and we for this particular track ah we actually we were ah we recorded it in a studio in Ramsgate and we just recorded it two instruments

00:33:51.92
Flora
um acoustically but then we recorded tons of ideas but not over the top because we didn't quite know how it was going to work as a studio recorded track and then in the post-production we got all these files and kind of chopped them up and found a composition within everything that we'd recorded around the concept of this piece, Romanian Fantasies 2, which had its challenges because there was actually quite a lot of bleed when um when we did do a tiny bit of layering so some of the stuff wasn't usable um and some of the stuff was usable but only in a very specific way and that was kind of a cool limitation in a way. um And then I think we also added some stuff later on um like out of the studio that we felt the track needed um just to to make it sparkle and

00:34:44.90
Flora
Yeah, that was the process with that. It was a really nonlinear sort of wayward process that I think like for me was really enjoyable. Like I absolutely loved working on that track.

00:34:57.69
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mmm.

00:34:58.33
Francesca Ter_Berg
Yeah I found that track the most challenging one I think because um it needed a few things in it to develop it and I remember we like we got almost to the end and like Flora, well we had ideas about um some ideas about structure and then Flora did some really cool stuff with all these like extra recorded bits that she talked about like looping and

00:34:57.69
Flora
So yeah.

00:35:21.30
Francesca Ter_Berg
um sort of layering them up and then I think I felt that it just didn't have a strong ending or they didn't have much counter melody and the original recording that we learned that off is like an archival recording of a violinist playing with a hammer dulcimer musician um and there's not that many chords in it or anything um and my uh the sort of collenio bow sound you hear is sort of like you know in a slight way like impersonating the cymbalom like the kind of so we looped that but then yeah ah structurally I felt like it needed something at the end so I

00:36:01.03
Francesca Ter_Berg
like added some quite like weird we had extra bits and like kind of processed some cello-y bits just to give it like a bit more of a dramatic ending added a counter melody um and then we had to figure out how to play this one live as well which was that was really difficult we can do it now um yeah

00:36:19.26
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, I was gonna say like, because because I think also listening to the track, you wouldn't necessarily know that it had things that were kind of looped or cut up in that way that you're describing, um even though it feels very layered.

00:36:32.94
Francesca Ter_Berg
Hmm.

00:36:36.01
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
But um it's really interesting hearing that it's more of a process of like, playing with things and then bringing all of that stuff together and like collaging it almost and cutting it and sort of building it back up because it doesn't sound like that.

00:36:49.14
Flora
Yeah.

00:36:52.51
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
But then also, yeah, like you're saying, then a lot of people struggle with, right, how do I play this live then? This sort of collaged almost Frankenstein like cut and sewn together different takes.

00:37:03.33
Flora
Yeah well

00:37:05.74
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
So what was your approach to that?

00:37:08.04
Flora
we we used to play it live before we recorded it but then when we got in studio we just sort of realized that that wouldn't it wouldn't quite work like somehow as a studio piece um so that's so then we it we sort of mashed it up as I said and then uh on the other end it was like well we can't go back to how we used to play it so we need to find a way And we play with different live electronics and tried so trying to try to find a way to sort of recreate the feeling of it.

00:37:39.73
Flora
But actually the live version even is quite different and involves much more improvisation, especially at the end, where we tend to to do a kind of outro that has like the same kind of dark colors in it, but um is is created differently.

00:37:58.66
Francesca Ter_Berg
I think that's partially as well because of the limitations of what we have for the live set up.

00:37:58.06
Flora
So yeah, it's fun.

00:38:04.19
Francesca Ter_Berg
So we have different pedals and um I have spent quite a lot of time performing live with Ableton, but we're not using that on our set because it it would just add a whole other like stress level and tech.

00:38:16.09
Flora
Hmm.

00:38:17.70
Francesca Ter_Berg
level that we don't really want at the moment. it like We want to be quite analog and quite like direct with what we're offering. And I really like how analog play will sound with strings. It's amazing. and You can do a lot with very little, but and I think to perfectly recreate what we did, we'd need like two loopers each. um I'd need another like reverse-y delay pedal that's different to my other delay pedal. It would it be just doubling the gear, you know, and there's really no need when you can figure out something else to offer that sort of reflects what the track is but and is a bit different and that's beautiful like the live version does not have to be exactly the same as the studio version like I think we both really feel strongly about that and that that comes from like partially just having a really strong live performance practice and background you know that's actually where we come from so um we can we can deal with a lot on stage slightly by winging it and like kind of going with the

00:39:16.38
Francesca Ter_Berg
the vibe and when I have listened to that track performed live back from like, you know, footage, it actually does sound like the album track pretty much, like a lot of the elements of it do.

00:39:19.19
Flora
Hmm. Hmm.

00:39:29.05
Francesca Ter_Berg
um Because we picked the main bits to loop up and kind of play together. um Yeah, but it was it was one of the most challenging tracks definitely to bring to the live setting.

00:39:42.13
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

00:39:45.13
Francesca Ter_Berg
Yeah, and it's our main kind of soundscapey collage track, definitely on the album. Yeah.

00:39:51.44
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, so so it's the one that you've kind of done the most editing and composing together with all the different recordings, is that right?

00:39:58.85
Flora
I think there's a couple of others on the record like that.

00:40:02.03
Francesca Ter_Berg
There was a lot of editing.

00:40:02.92
Flora
um

00:40:03.80
Francesca Ter_Berg
ah Yeah, what, um yes, similar.

00:40:04.75
Flora
Yeah, ah I'm thinking hold me close, which is with the same situation where we recorded it in Ramsgate and then had the files and basically just like dived in to logic ourselves and chopped it up and made something out of it.

00:40:19.87
Francesca Ter_Berg
yeah just want to say about that track there's still some some bits on that track but i don't know how flora because flora again like played with the snickety soundy bits on that track called me close and she won't tell me how she made one of the sounds but i still don't know i don't know how she did it

00:40:20.01
Flora
um And then the other one, Batter's lead,

00:40:41.36
Flora
I think probably forgotten as well, so yeah.

00:40:44.39
Francesca Ter_Berg
Yeah, but yeah but um I think what we both like allow each other to be like, oh, I've got an idea on that. I'm going to try it. And and then we're also both allowed to be like, I don't like that.

00:40:51.46
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And then.

00:40:50.96
Flora
Yeah.

00:40:54.01
Flora
yeah

00:40:55.39
Francesca Ter_Berg
It's nice to be not too precious. And then if if one of us really likes it and the other one doesn't, then we'll discuss it over food.

00:41:01.20
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm hmm.

00:41:01.79
Flora
Yeah. And it's it's quite fun, like with the co-producing in this particular project is like we can work together in the same room, of course, like in the studio or when we're doing edits together. But then, as Francesca said, like there is space for us to go away and work on things separately and and bring them to the table, um which was really nice because it it just, I don't know, I guess you get,

00:41:28.11
Flora
more of a chance to see what you you think on your own about something and then see what the other person thinks.

00:41:33.56
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Hmm.

00:41:34.66
Francesca Ter_Berg
Yeah. Well, like, though I just think there's another track that's on the record that um we didn't give you because it's like, yeah, it's more acoustic, but we decided to add piano and things.

00:41:45.25
Francesca Ter_Berg
We actually added Flora's Piano, which you can see in the background there. um Yeah, we um added extra instruments afterwards that we thought was would be great, including, um you know, drums, different drums, different samples.

00:41:58.48
Flora
And the little clinking glasses with ah knives i would just be like.

00:42:03.87
Francesca Ter_Berg
Yeah.

00:42:04.21
Flora
tinling um

00:42:06.52
Francesca Ter_Berg
Romania Fantasies is like 100% strings and process strings.

00:42:08.32
Flora
Mm hmm.

00:42:10.67
Francesca Ter_Berg
And there's some of the other ones there's other instruments on, yeah.

00:42:13.28
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
ha Yeah and so with Romanian fantasies and you're saying you know some of it is processed strings, what is the processing that you have done on that track in particular?

00:42:25.36
Francesca Ter_Berg
o No on the bits I added, reversing, pitching down, um obviously different reverbs and delays, the the main kind of looped thing, which you you don't, maybe you don't think it's loop because there's sometimes you lose a sense of like time within the track, but there is this loop that's going on basically through the whole thing and that's, that was recorded to click, wasn't it, Blore?

00:42:51.21
Flora
Mm-hmm.

00:42:52.06
Francesca Ter_Berg
And that that's basically there, that is the click, that's the click, the loop is the click. And we bring it in and out so you kind of lose a sense of where you're at sometimes as a listener, but it's actually,

00:43:03.67
Francesca Ter_Berg
It's, you know, we just took it out. this It was still, the whole thing is structured to that. What else have I missed?

00:43:10.40
Flora
um oh my god i can't remember any of the terms this is it's so funny because when you initially got in touch sisabelle i was like well i can't do this podcast because i can't remember any of it but like when i was in the thick of it i i definitely like learned a lot of terminology that was new to me just because

00:43:11.19
Francesca Ter_Berg
Flora's magical tricks.

00:43:29.83
Flora
there were sounds that I wanted to hear and I didn't or like I didn't quite understand why one of our instruments was sounding the way it was and that it wasn't quite sounding its best so like I looked into how how do you communicate that to so when we went in for the for the mixing sessions with the the mix engineer we were very much in the driving seat so we really had to come prepared And so at that time, I knew a lot of these words and now they've just completely gone out of my hair because it's been several years since I've needed to use them.

00:44:01.23
Flora
But um yeah, just trying to think what else we did.

00:44:07.22
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
oh Well, ah another question is, what is it that this these processes have added to the track? what would you know What does it add in terms of the story you're trying to tell through this track or the atmosphere you're trying to create?

00:44:22.83
Flora
Mm.

00:44:24.22
Francesca Ter_Berg
they do they add personality or like sort of mood but when the time is right I guess? um Like you don't have to add anything you could just record um you know straight up strings and you don't have to add anything but um it really works well to add the right especially delay and reverb which I think are the two like most key tools the right delay and the right reverb and the right time is magic and you might not even know it's there sometimes and sometimes it's really obvious and actually part of our production role in this album was about making those choices and we both learned a hell of a lot that way. um How do we want the strings to sound and why and where you know and there are other tracks where there's no reverb or there's no

00:45:11.49
Francesca Ter_Berg
They might be a little bit, but it's not like, you know, it's not that was part of a mixing process, but they're kind of very clean or like folky tracks. And um thinking about the mix process, which was also very special because we worked with this amazing engineer in Hove called um Julian Tadeau. He was super open to experimenting in the mix process and to like um receiving instruction from us like in fact like along the whole way of making the record we worked with like excellent engineers they happen to all be men and I don't think that's a problem at all like you know there are more men doing this it's more available that

00:45:47.62
Francesca Ter_Berg
ah it's more likely you're going to be working with with men but none of them had a problem with us coming in and saying what we wanted and they were all super excited to work with us and it was like an absolute pleasure to work with them all um and Julian was just amazing he was so excited to work on the record he gave it so much time and energy and was totally open to like helping us get the sound we wanted and I do remember there was one particular terminology Flora that you specifically had figured out it was a really cool terminology that I hadn't even heard

00:46:14.16
Flora
I'm trying to remember what it was.

00:46:18.38
Francesca Ter_Berg
And it was because that that it was four Romanian fancies. There was one sound you wanted for the violin. You couldn't you weren't happy with the sound. Like we are perfectionists and also we've spent like a bazillion years learning how to play instruments.

00:46:24.13
Flora
Yeah.

00:46:28.83
Francesca Ter_Berg
So we want them to sound right. And you had a term and the and Julian was up for doing the thing that you asked him to do and it worked. I can't remember what it was.

00:46:37.16
Flora
I can't remember what it was, but i I know exactly the thing you're talking about.

00:46:38.12
Francesca Ter_Berg
And that we yeah.

00:46:41.51
Flora
But I think all of this like helps to create the album as like a sonic experience. I think that was like one of our main goals, because we could we could just record a live set um with or without electronics.

00:46:56.00
Flora
We have different versions that we do. But I think the whole point of recording in a studio was to was to create like ah an experience for the listener. So we, yeah, especially with tracks like Romanian Fantasies, we wanted to dive into that.

00:47:09.53
Flora
Like, what does it what do we need to do to actually turn this into like a world that you can go into when you're listening?

00:47:16.78
Francesca Ter_Berg
Yeah, yes, a world.

00:47:18.10
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:47:19.45
Francesca Ter_Berg
Yeah, that's what it was, the whole thing, yeah.

00:47:22.48
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
I've just realised this um link that I didn't know was there. So you were saying that Julian Tardo mixed this album with you.

00:47:31.72
Francesca Ter_Berg
Mm-hmm.

00:47:31.65
Flora
Mm-hmm.

00:47:33.10
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
he recorded the first recording that I ever made um under my name when I was 16 at Church Road Studios in Hove, um yeah with with someone who I collaborated with a lot, um Bob Taylor.

00:47:40.36
Francesca Ter_Berg
Whoa, really?

00:47:40.19
Flora
No! No!

00:47:44.39
Francesca Ter_Berg
Oh.

00:47:44.61
Flora
Yes!

00:47:47.19
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
But then when I made my third album that Ruby plays violin on, ah Ruby Collie, our kind of mutual

00:47:53.96
Flora
yeah

00:47:54.83
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
um friend. and Ruby plays violin on, I don't know, at least like more than half of that album. It's called In My Garden, made that in 2013, recorded at Church Road with Paul Pascoe, who co-runs Church Road Studios with Julian.

00:48:05.13
Flora
No.

00:48:09.29
Francesca Ter_Berg
Whoo!

00:48:10.92
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
I think one of the days I worked with Julian on it, but it was mainly with Paul Pascoe. And I remember when I was making that record. So ah the whole album was like massively my own kind of vision and I brought in lots of field recordings and was very kind of directional about how I wanted it to sound. And at the end of the process, I sort of sat with Paul and I was like, right, so I need to write the credits. So I'll put you as producer and mixer. And he he's like, well, hang on a minute, you produced this.

00:48:42.63
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
So it really kind of connects as well with what we're talking about. That was a really fundamental experience for me to be sat in front of a very experienced male producer engineer and for him to say, no Isabella, you produced this, like all of these decisions were yours.

00:48:57.73
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
You did so much of the crafting of this sound, you know, you did all of the crafting of the sound.

00:49:00.80
Flora
That's great. Yeah.

00:49:04.64
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
I engineered it um And again, I was very involved in the mixing and he was completely down for that. I love Julian and Paul at but ah Church Road. I think they're awesome.

00:49:13.31
Flora
Yeah, that's so great.

00:49:14.66
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
and And everything I've done since I've had Paul master it.

00:49:15.52
Francesca Ter_Berg
their dreams.

00:49:20.42
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
I always send my students to if they would need mastering at the very least to like do it with um Church Road. So that's so funny that there's that connection.

00:49:26.96
Flora
That's cool. Yeah.

00:49:29.86
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
But it's just a really good example, your experience, my experience of how how important it is to have male allies who who want to collaborate, genuinely collaborate and share you know share the experience.

00:49:36.43
Flora
Mmm.

00:49:41.05
Flora
Yep.

00:49:45.70
Francesca Ter_Berg
who

00:49:45.51
Flora
Yep, yep.

00:49:47.38
Francesca Ter_Berg
Also like in these situations we made it clear because we decided we were producing it this was like a big thing that we decided kind of quite near the beginning once we got really stuck in with it that when we got in touch with the people we wanted to work with in the studios we made it clear that we were producing from day one and um with the ah the recording um kind of element of it we always say if you If it ends up being a bit more collaborative and they feel that they have contributed something creatively we can talk about it and we've learned to do that through like a plethora of not great studio experiences where that hasn't been said and um you know it it it turned out we didn't need to have that conversation because

00:50:32.14
Francesca Ter_Berg
we really were you know at the helm. But let's say we were like, oh, I'm so stuck. I need help. What can we add here or something like that? And they felt that that was worthy of a writing credit or a producer credit, then we could have had that conversation.

00:50:46.48
Francesca Ter_Berg
ah I mean, there obviously were things that some of the engineers added um sometimes or made suggestions about, but they none of them ever said, oh, yeah, I wrote i wrote that.

00:50:51.21
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:50:57.44
Francesca Ter_Berg
you know And that was that was really empowering for us. um Yeah, we could talk about the other track as well because that was very different process actually.

00:51:03.91
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

00:51:06.40
Francesca Ter_Berg
um Yeah.

00:51:07.85
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
um So the other track that you've shared, can you tell us a little bit about this one?

00:51:13.05
Flora
So this is called Nigen, which means wordless melody. And there are tons of these wordless melodies in the Yiddish folk music tradition. And this is one that we found in a massive collection of music, and we just really loved it and thought, I know what we should do.

00:51:30.28
Flora
We should put it in B flat minor, because that's nice. um It's 10.

00:51:35.38
Francesca Ter_Berg
because that's really easy to play on string instruments.

00:51:36.39
Flora
yeah Yeah, so we we we ah we did that and um We're trying to find a way similar to remaining fantasies of making a shape with it that that would actually and Make it into a composition because it's very easy with these melodies just the enjoyable thing about them is that they just go round and round and round but that doesn't quite translate onto a record. So what we did was we we recorded it. This is when we were both in the States working with Colin Fleming. He was engineering for us and he had these incredible mics that could pick up the the quietest

00:52:13.73
Flora
Sounds and we really worked with him to try and to try and get the So i'm I'm plucking right at the beginning and it's super super super quiet and somehow there's like he makes that work very well and um yeah Anyway, so we we recorded like the the two instruments together and then we came back to the UK and added a whole bunch of stuff and then Francesca um created that amazing vocal solo in the middle.

00:52:44.77
Flora
um

00:52:45.54
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
great well what i'm going to do is i'll i'll go stop you there and we're going to take a little listen to some of niggin now and um we'll just listen to a few seconds so people get a sense for what you're talking about okay so that was an excerpt from nigg and ah but feel like i'm not saying that but right at all

00:53:03.36
Francesca Ter_Berg
ni niin

00:53:03.42
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
the

00:53:02.75
Flora
doing great

00:53:04.70
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
niggum

00:53:04.94
Francesca Ter_Berg
digging It's quite hard to say.

00:53:06.40
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
is

00:53:06.46
Francesca Ter_Berg
nigging dig It's like it's from the German ah kind of sound.

00:53:07.64
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
ling niton

00:53:15.19
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
yeah

00:53:15.23
Francesca Ter_Berg
um Yeah, so it's, they, these tunes come from the, well, Nigunum is the plural, they come from the Hasidic tradition, that like spiritual chants.

00:53:28.71
Francesca Ter_Berg
um So even though we we found this in sort of a folkloric collection book, um you know, they could also be melodies that were played instrumentally, like there's that crossover.

00:53:39.49
Francesca Ter_Berg
And we decided, um I mean, like, to give this track a sort of cloud-like energy, and some of the other tracks in the album are also a bit cloud-like, but we wanted to feel like

00:53:47.69
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
and

00:53:51.52
Francesca Ter_Berg
you know, the clouds are floating around and we used, yeah, yeah, Dreamy, yeah, ah like Dreamscape, actually.

00:53:53.43
Flora
You're very tricky.

00:54:00.48
Francesca Ter_Berg
we We used that as one of our like, you know, tags on Spotify, because you have to make tags, it's ridiculous.

00:54:04.95
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
no

00:54:04.35
Flora
but

00:54:07.57
Francesca Ter_Berg
um It's a Dreamscape and basically we decided that, this is a good example of our process actually, we decided that the repetitive plucked tune and us singing and so you sing and these niggas they're sung usually so you sing them with these like yiddish syllables and we were singing we we put those two elements down the pizzicato tune and the singing tune and it just sounded a bit i think i put some some nice pits chords underneath as well um which the which really worked and i brought it out of it sounding traditionally

00:54:46.06
Francesca Ter_Berg
dey like like with the Yiddish-y typical chord structures that you might have underneath a tune like that ah made it a little bit more like unusual, poppy-jazzy, whatever. But it just sounded a bit flat. And then I think we we took it back to the UK and then decided it needed some kind of light drums like toms and things like that. So we started thinking about who we could work with to put drums down. We never worked with like We worked with percussion, but we'd never worked with drums on our project. And then I think I was like at home with COVID, like that' classic, classic. I was locked in my parents' basement basically. And um I was just listening round and round to it and then... decided that it needed like a vocal. Well, it would be fun to add a vocal kind of improvised melody. I've never done that before. But um I think I was listening to like a lot of Esperanza Spalding's like songwriters apothecary tracks and just I was like, it's just so inspiring. And some like these melodies kind of came to me. And then we did go and but we went, we

00:55:54.09
Francesca Ter_Berg
figured out which drummer we wanted to work with. It was Ursula Russell and we asked her and she said yes. And then she had a studio at the time at Total Refreshment Center. I don't think we have time to open that can of worms. But anyway, basically we we were we went, and there's a really great producer there that she was very good friends with. And and we asked if she would be up for recording it and he said, yeah.

00:56:16.36
Francesca Ter_Berg
so we had like two amazing days there working with Jordan Parry and Ursula and we actually recorded the third like section like we end up quo recording a whole third of the album there actually because we decided to redo a couple of tracks and then we tracked all the drums and then we also put down and the top the to track nudity that's the first one which is We almost picked that for this podcast, but then decided not to use.

00:56:46.52
Francesca Ter_Berg
Yeah, so was the process was just continually rolling, you know?

00:56:50.51
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
yeah sounds like it was like evolving and

00:56:50.64
Flora
Mm.

00:56:51.48
Francesca Ter_Berg
Yeah.

00:56:54.03
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
it was happening in lots of different locations

00:56:57.36
Flora
Mm.

00:56:58.24
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
because you know like there's different ways that you can approach that obviously you could go into a studio for ah two three-week period and just bunker down and just you know work in the same place with the same people um is that something that you feel is quite um indicative of how you work that you that it does go in all these different directions and bring you to lots of different places and different people

00:57:26.42
Flora
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And also it was a product of that particular time, um partly COVID and partly Francesca studying in the States. And then, um yeah, we just, yeah, it was a sort of needs must situation, but in a way, because our intention was, well, we we're in charge of this and we want we want to see where it goes when we're um in the producer role.

00:57:51.60
Flora
um It kind of lent itself to a lot of flexibility and um and also like curious limitations that were were interesting to work with.

00:58:04.43
Flora
So it was it was kind of natural, but also a product of the time that we were in.

00:58:11.87
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
and and thinking about how you you know working together producing this together were there any moments of attention or how did you navigate maybe where there was a difference of opinion or did you have very like um clearly defined roles in terms of what you would produce

00:58:34.98
Francesca Ter_Berg
We do both have strengths and weaknesses and I think we know what those are by this point.

00:58:39.36
Flora
Mm hmm.

00:58:41.18
Francesca Ter_Berg
I don't see that we like, we didn't have any fights.

00:58:43.54
Flora
No fights. There were some there were some big discussions like particularly about this track. Dizaposhkalukh, which I can't remember what we called it in the end. um It's one of the is the song that I sing.

00:58:55.30
Francesca Ter_Berg
Oh, Little Bird, Feigler, yeah.

00:58:54.74
Flora
um Little Bird. Yeah, we we helpfully we called all the tunes different names from what we refer to them, which is great. um But

00:59:04.48
Francesca Ter_Berg
because they they' tradition We them just because we thought we could do that, it's nice.

00:59:07.50
Flora
yeah um and then probably forgot what the new names were but with that one like I really felt like I just wasn't sure about the whole track and could have left it off the record but then um yeah following encouragement from Francesca and various other people that we played it to as well like it seemed to be a

00:59:13.14
Francesca Ter_Berg
Yeah.

00:59:29.26
Flora
um one that was going down well so I conceded and we left it on the record but it was like definitely that was probably the most difference that we had in the whole process and I would say it wasn't even you know make or break sort of situation.

00:59:34.43
Francesca Ter_Berg
ah

00:59:41.31
Francesca Ter_Berg
o but

00:59:46.94
Francesca Ter_Berg
Yeah I remember that because we we spent quite a lot of time on that one with Julian because it actually had this massive extended outro um and when we got to the end of the mixing process that we listened to the whole thing and I was like that just doesn't it's just a bit lame just the ending doesn't work and then we decided I don't know I think I and was listening to something else a friend of ours did I think like one of Michael Winograd's like

01:00:01.96
Flora
It just doesn't work.

01:00:11.13
Francesca Ter_Berg
a crazy big band plays my tracks or something. And it's just got a really abrupt end. And there can be this real temptation when you play strings to do like long dronie intros and long dronie outros or like, it will get a bit epic.

01:00:18.10
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
ah

01:00:20.93
Francesca Ter_Berg
Like it's a eight part Mozart concerto or so like concerto grossie. You know what I mean? Like we've got so many musical influences, it can be hard quite hard to know when something's enough. And I think I ah felt inspired to just like snip the end off basically.

01:00:32.43
Flora
too much

01:00:36.86
Francesca Ter_Berg
We just like circumcised it.

01:00:39.69
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
h

01:00:40.38
Francesca Ter_Berg
and like Julian was like yeah cool let's do it and he's so precise you know and and he's so musical the way that he mixes so he has you know he had that like he has this really cool pad that he does it all with his hands so it's like anyway I just remember he was just like really feeling the end and then just kind of snipped it off and gave it a nice like little fade out and that that was really great because ah I especially remember when Flora said she didn't want to include that track that he got really upset

01:01:07.62
Flora
Yeah.

01:01:09.15
Francesca Ter_Berg
And I really love, it's one of my, I think it's one of the most bold tracks, so I'm really glad we included it. um Yeah, but yeah, Flora's still not happy about it.

01:01:16.81
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
and then just thinking um

01:01:20.44
Flora
sir

01:01:21.32
Francesca Ter_Berg
Yeah.

01:01:22.19
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
i i just think just being mindful of time there's just something i really want to ask both of you before we finish up so

01:01:22.74
Francesca Ter_Berg
yeah

01:01:29.24
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
thinking about co-producing this together and you've said you know it really felt like you were you were kind of steering it together how do you now feel about the role of production or the experience of production having gone through that process together what does producing a record now mean to you

01:01:50.44
Flora
Mm.

01:01:53.70
Flora
um I'll jump in. um Well, I would say I now feel open to working with and independent ah ah like a party producer again for our next record. um Partly because I feel like this experience were like really helped both of us kind of grow in confidence like artistically and technically um when it comes to the creative process.

01:02:21.25
Flora
and And there's also a part of me that's like curious to explore that dynamic again um with somebody else. And it has obviously would have to be the right person. um But um yeah, I feel like I could i i could go for that again. Francesca?

01:02:44.11
Francesca Ter_Berg
Yeah, i I would as well. ah Yeah, again, it depends on time and the right person. And I still think me and Flora want to basically, right, we're going to make a new a new record, hopefully soon.

01:02:57.87
Francesca Ter_Berg
We kind of just want to like keep the momentum going. And we want to try and get that all together as much as we can and have an idea of the sound we're looking for before we even go into the studio. And then my preference this time, if we can, is actually would be

01:03:06.67
Flora
Definitely.

01:03:10.84
Francesca Ter_Berg
to book one studio for like seven days. We've never done this, like lots of our friends have done this, but we've we've just always done it in really bitty ways. But I would really like to just go into a studio for like seven days and just but literally just get it all out, like crash course it out. um And then, um ah and actually I think a good challenge for us would be to try and make it quite quickly.

01:03:36.85
Francesca Ter_Berg
and like make the choices quickly, not be precious about chucking things.

01:03:36.24
Flora
v

01:03:41.57
Francesca Ter_Berg
And yeah,

01:03:42.46
Flora
And also maybe embrace like a co-producing role with with a third ear. Like, I think that would be kind of cool.

01:03:48.06
Francesca Ter_Berg
yeah we haven't figured out who that might be yet. i'm I'm open to that as well, but we might decide that we don't need that. We just not sure yet. You know, I think we're both very open.

01:03:55.53
Flora
Yeah. See how it goes. See who's available. and Yeah.

01:04:02.12
Francesca Ter_Berg
Yeah.

01:04:02.75
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
and what do you think producing together has given you

01:04:09.18
Flora
Hmm.

01:04:10.25
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
as opposed to if you had gone and produced something just yourself alone

01:04:18.20
Flora
I'm always glad of the conversation because I feel like I learned so much in this collaboration and I'm like pushed to really dig deep. um So yeah, I'm always glad of that. I think we we bring quite different things and we both want each other to bring our different things.

01:04:40.37
Flora
so

01:04:42.90
Francesca Ter_Berg
Collaborating is really fun when it's in the right situation. um some Some ways I think we both find it more fun than working alone.

01:04:45.60
Flora
Yeah.

01:04:49.94
Francesca Ter_Berg
And if if I'm working on my own, it's such a different process. I don't have anyone to bounce off. you know and You've got to make all those decisions yourself.

01:04:55.13
Flora
Mm.

01:04:56.98
Francesca Ter_Berg
And like there's some things that I can't do that Flora can do. you know And that's why our collaboration is special, because we can bring both of our best bits together.

01:05:08.00
Francesca Ter_Berg
And that that's great. That's something to celebrate, I think.

01:05:12.93
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
excellent so before we finish up um can you tell us what's on the horizon for fran and flora now obviously people can check out precious precious collection it's out and but what are you working on

01:05:27.08
Flora
The next big thing is we are going on a residency. and We've been invited to a place we built a relationship with in Transylvania, and we've got 10 days to just like work on new material, basically, um which will be such a joy, I'm sure.

01:05:39.82
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
wow

01:05:43.63
Flora
um And then then the next stage will be to record it. and look at the whole kind of album cycle if that still exists, you know, how we're going to tour it and um how we keep the momentum for for what we're doing. And also um like continuing the research and ah aspect as well. So there's like the creative side and then there's the more research-based aspect of this project. um Yeah, just keeping going with that basically.

01:06:13.87
Francesca Ter_Berg
Yeah, we really want to um keep the momentum going. So I don't know, like, for example, if we do an album or we might do like see a series of singles as they're ready, because that's something you can release over like space of a year and then, you know, keep people interested and keep it flowing, let's say.

01:06:22.00
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
ah

01:06:30.91
Flora
So many different models now.

01:06:31.87
Francesca Ter_Berg
And um yeah, there's so many models. And ah yeah, we've got a few shows coming up. um but I'm not sure when this podcast comes out. and

01:06:40.98
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
yeah we don't have to schedule firmed up yet

01:06:44.26
Francesca Ter_Berg
Is it going to be before the end of this year?

01:06:46.01
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
yes ye

01:06:47.17
Francesca Ter_Berg
Okay. Well, we can just mention that we have a show and at ARC in Margate in November, 16th November, and we are supporting Tikdran Hamyasan.

01:06:58.88
Francesca Ter_Berg
Is that how you say it? Have I said it right?

01:07:00.22
Flora
I think so, yeah.

01:07:01.73
Francesca Ter_Berg
um At the London Jazz Festival, but that's sold out.

01:07:04.74
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
okay awesome oh

01:07:07.87
Francesca Ter_Berg
Yeah.

01:07:07.50
Flora
And then we're also playing in Hastings and in Dorset at the Square Encompass in February next year, 2025.

01:07:08.79
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
oh

01:07:13.49
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
excellent oh good

01:07:13.63
Francesca Ter_Berg
That's right, coming to coming to a place near you.

01:07:15.63
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
oh good well i can come and see you in hastings then yeah that sex but

01:07:19.27
Francesca Ter_Berg
Yes.

01:07:18.65
Flora
Great.

01:07:20.81
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
okay great well

01:07:20.98
Flora
Cool.

01:07:22.47
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
thank you so much we could have talked about so many more things and

01:07:25.47
Flora
I know.

01:07:26.72
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
but time flies and it's been fascinating so thank you so much for sharing everything that we've heard today and um yeah been awesome

01:07:36.96
Flora
Thank you so much for having us and for facilitating this chat because I feel like it's very it's all very important stuff to dig into and yeah we're really really grateful for the opportunity.

01:07:47.93
Francesca Ter_Berg
Yeah, thanks so much for having us. It's been really, really fun. I agree we could talk about this for a whole week and not have covered everything.

01:07:52.92
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
yeah i know oh well it's been my total pleasure

01:07:54.04
Flora
yeah

01:07:55.42
Francesca Ter_Berg
Yeah.