Sweet Whirl's Esther Edquist Wants You To Understand Where Your Music Comes From

Melbourne-based songwriter and performer Esther Edquist has released her first LP as Sweet Whirl, titled How Much Works, building on her EP Love Songs and Poetry. Both of those efforts reveal her wealth of experience in other musical collaborations like Superstar. 

Singles released ahead of the album have garnered plenty of attention, primarily commenting on what a strong sense of identity the album conveys. Particularly through the reexamination of vocal approaches from classic Blues and R&B traditions. This album is all that, but it's also something that feels very 21st century in its sense of freedom, combining and weaving elements of musical composition from many times and places, but yes, with a strong sense of identity.

Esther Edquist took the time this week to talk to Tower about How Much Works, her composition process, her thoughts on live performance, why cassettes are excellent, and much more.

Hannah Means-Shannon: Congratulations on the new album! I read that you did a launch by Instagram with some different record stores recently. What was that like?

Esther Edquist: It was really good. The first one was at my studio, and I think I was a bit overwhelmed, I made so many mistakes. It was one of those Live Instagram things. It was fun, definitely better than not playing. The other one was in a Melbourne record store on Saturday morning, and that was really nice because I haven’t played in a space for months. So, it was nice to get out, and use a PA, and perform, though the audience was like—three people. But it was nice.

HMS: Oh, wow. Well, that’s the weird new paradigm. Getting to play, but to the other side of a screen. I guess it would have been sad not to have any kind of event for the release, given all the hard work and the build up. Presumably, you would have had some live events under other circumstances.

EE: Yes. For sure. I had a festival cancelled just at the start of lockdown. The whole pattern of living has changed. I’m use to having gigs to work toward, and there’s also a certain kind of energy that playing live music brings. All that’s sort of gone. In Australia, we’re going to open up pretty soon, so it’s not long. But playing—I had forgotten even how kind of exhausting it is, in a physical way. It has such a physical impact on you and when you’re not doing it all the time, you forget.

HMS: I was going to ask about that, because from what I’ve heard, you’ve had quite a vigorous live performance history. I wanted to ask, for you, what the appeal of live performance is, since presumably you wouldn’t have done so much of it unless you like it. Or felt it benefited your music in some way.

EE: Yes, I think it’s a few things. I think it’s really that in Melbourne is all about the different scenes. And you earn a lot of respect, as well as it being good for your process, to be in them. I went to University and did classical music. And didn’t like it, and really hated performing in that.

HMS: Oh, wow!

EE: It was very strict and I kind of introduced myself to the DIY scene and did a lot of gigs. Performance was like—the moment you stepped on stage, it was on. And if something went wrong, you just kept going. And playing with lots of people who were not professionally trained musicians, but were so much more musical and intuitive. That made more sense to me. Performance in itself is definitely part of the craft. Historically, before we had recording technology, this is about how people heard songs. It’s definitely about how you perform.

It’s all about reading an audience and wondering, “Do they really want to hear this chorus four times? Maybe I should cut it down to two.” It’s about road testing your stuff. At the end of the day, you are writing for people. That’s the most important thing. Well, I am writing for other people. I don’t know what other people do. It is about workshopping that with an audience and seeing how they respond to it.

HMS: It does often seem like musicians are one or the other in their approach. I don’t want to be restrictive in saying it like that. It does seem like there’s the camp who think the way that you are thinking about live performance as workshop, watching reactions. And then there’s the camp who seem to go away and purely record and perform by themselves. And then really only do live performance if they have to, or in support of the release. It’s not that they necessarily hate live performance, but it’s not as much the process of composition, if that makes sense.

EE: Yes.

HMS: Now, for your new album, did you get a chance to do that with any of these songs, or is that still in the future?

EE: Some of them are songs that I have played in different arrangements live before recording them. Actually, all of them. Some of them became more realized, more definite after recording them. All the songs that I play on bass on the album, that’s how I played them live before. Before that, there might have been a little bit of variance. I don’t feel compelled to play things exactly the same way every time. Which is why I don’t like a lot of backing tracks and stuff like that, because I don’t like to be locked down to any one way.

I started putting together an eight piece band of people, friends, to do the album live with me.

HMS: Great!

EE: Yes, I actually have a smaller version of that, too, so I could do it with a smaller number. Eight pieces was really fun. This is the thing—they are different. Especially that song, “Sweetness”. I was talking to my label, and they said, “You should really try to get a live version of that that’s really close to the recording.” I tried and it just sounded terrible with the band. It was just off. So that’s the thing, it’s recorded one way.

I could replicate all that with backing tracks and things, but I refuse to because that’s not what being a musician’s about for me. So, when I play “Sweetness”, I play it with a drum machine I’ve got, which has the same kind of sound. But then I just keep it really simple, because I think it still stands up as a good song in whatever arrangement it is, whether simple or big.

I don’t think people are so stupid that they can’t enjoy a song if it sounds a little bit different, you know? Or, they can just learn. Either way.

HMS: It’s a good test as a song. When you say that a good song will still be a good song regardless of how it’s translated, that reminds me of early Blues music, and some Folk music which can be interpreted in many ways, but it’s still the same song.

EE: Totally.

HMS: Do you look back toward those genres at all? Early Blues, Folk, or Country? I can kind of hear it, but I don’t want to assume that.

EE: No, you’re totally right. I grew up listening to a whole bunch of different stuff. My mum liked classical music, so I listened to a lot of Western Classical music through her, and then my Dad had Australian parents but grew up in America. And came out to American in his 20’s, so he went through that whole 60s, 70’s, Rolling Stones, though that’s British. He listened to American music. I didn’t grow up listening to many Australian Rock ‘n Roll bands, or any of that Australian pub music. I listened to what American kids listened to, because that’s what my Dad liked.

But I did listen to Triple J, our National Radio. But yes, the Blues. Because of that, there’s a pretty strong American influence on my music. I’m a music nerd, so I’ve done a lot of reading. There’s a really great book I’ve read, though I’ve forgotten who it’s by, about the different times and eras of recording black American Blues artists. And the influence they had. I didn’t realize how many songs The Rolling Stones had actually stolen.

HMS: Oh, yes! So true.

EE: So, I started listening to a lot of those early recordings of Blues artists. But I listened to a lot of Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Nina Simone when I was a kid, too. I was kind of a miserable child. I don’t know what my problem is, I must have a melancholy streak, but I loved those singers. I did a lot of reading and listening to early Blues music, since I think it’s really important to understand where your music comes from. Luckily, there’s a lot information about it and recordings. Access is easy.

Same with Folk music as well, though not as intensely. I’m not a Folk-head. A lot of people are. I kind of stopped at that British Folk revival from the 60’s, like Fairport Convention. The Incredible String Band. Those sorts of people interested me. I didn’t really do any American Folk stuff aside from Joni Mitchell and that sort of stuff. I’m less versed in Folk.

HMS: That’s a great answer. You started to talk about The Rolling Stones, and as you said, they’re British, not American, but you’re totally right. They had probably totally taken over American by the time that your Dad was growing up there. They were Americana, that was their thing. I feel like they kind of washed over an entire continent and took over America in an astonishing way.

EE: It’s so weird, yeah.

HMS: Anyway, something in common between what we’ve just been talking about and your new album is being vocally driven. Using vocals as a really big, important part of composition. Rather than voice following the music, it plays a bigger role, like an instrument.

I wouldn’t say this is true of every song or every bit of your new album, but it does seem vocally-driven on the whole. Do you think that that’s true?

EE: Yes, I think that’s really true. I’m trying to think why. Maybe because another batch of music I’ve always liked were the classic songwriters from, possibly, the 1930’s. Gershwin, Cole Porter. I grew up playing the piano, and I used to sing those accompaniments to them. And I did singing all through school. They are just such well-constructed songs. But again, it’s about the mutability. It’s not about the recording. It’s about, “Can you sing this song?” If you didn’t have guitar backing and stuff, could you sing it? If it’s catchy, and vocally-driven, and if it has a melody which the words fit with, you can sing it without instruments. That’s a real song to me.

Recording is an amazing thing, and I do like music with more composed elements. But I’ve never been much of a tech-head. Because I don’t spend a lot of time on how to record stuff and all that sort of technology, I had to focus on what I was good at. What made sense to me. And what makes sense to me is that a song is an idea that you can do in a number of ways as long as you have a melody with a kind of sonic identity to it.

But it’s purely because using logic and shit like that just drives me nuts. [Laughs] All that stuff about making an exact recording drives me crazy. Oh my god, it’s so much pressure! It’s more like, “Well, this is a moment in time. We recorded this moment.” You gotta play to your strengths, I guess.

I think it’s vocally-driven because I didn’t want to cut any corners. If I didn’t think that this was a song that I didn’t think I could sing properly, confidently, with my vocals at the front, then was it necessary? Did I need to put it out there? I only have songs here that I felt very strongly about. I wasn’t filling in space on the album, or thinking, “This is a cool vibe.” No, this was an actual song.

HMS: Right, sure.

Well, you say you’re not a tech-head and you don’t want to apply pressure, but it seems incredibly stressful to me to do what you did on this album, which was recording so many of the tracks yourself. You did have some help, I know. But still!

EE: Yes, I did have a sound engineer.

HMS: But it was an awful lot to take on. What made you feel like it was the right move to put so much together?

EE: I’m really opinionated and because I have done a lot of work, a lot of research, I knew… Whenever I record with other people, there have been moments where I felt it wouldn’t go deep enough. It wouldn’t discuss exactly what the drums should sound like. Or I’d have a problem with something, but there wouldn’t be time to go back and fix it, so I’d have to go, “Okay.” But knew from years of working it out, that my gut instinct is often right. I can have an emotional reaction, which is often wrong. So, sometimes I can react emotionally to stuff, and sometimes it could be because I’m being insecure, or too vulnerable, or being overly critical.

But then I have this other reaction, this gut reaction, that’s pretty sure that something is not working for me. I guess I was just sick of having to compromise. And the only person working with me on this, the sound engineer, Casey Hartnett, was totally dedicated to my vision, to the job, to getting it done. He had contributions, and I’d always get his opinion on things. I didn’t run over what he’d said or anything. But it was being sick of having to compromise on stuff.

So, it was like, “No, if I think it needs to be two beats faster, that’s what it needs to be. If I feel like I need to go away and rewrite this, that’s what needs to happen.” I think I was really sick of having to do the social part of music, where you have to look after everyone’s feelings.

And I can be really brutal, though I try not to be brutal to other musicians that I work with. But it was like, “If I want to be brutal to myself, I need to be allowed to do that.” It was a lot of work, and not for everyone. I totally understand that. But for me, I needed to do this to prove to myself that I was right. [Laughs]

HMS: Yes, I definitely get that. I have a technical question for you that might be boring. Did you have to get in a bunch of instruments to record this album, or did you just already have a tremendous range of things?

EE: Yeah! Well, you know how people always travel overseas? Well, especially in Australia, they say, “I’m going to Europe.” Or, “I’m off to New York.” I say, “Well, that’s cool. I’m going to buy another synth.”

So I have one, two, three, four proper keyboards. One’s an organ, two are synths, and one’s a stage piano.

HMS: That explains it! I kept seeing references to different ones, and I was wondering, “She did this all herself? Was she in a studio?”

EE: Yes, well in the studio, Casey had two. A Yamaha. When I was in my 20s, I got this crazy Rawlings Jupiter, which was this weird synth. So I love messing around on them. Casey had this Yamaha from the 80’s, so we did a little work on that. The studio also had an upright piano. I’ve got one in my studio, which was my grandma’s and it’s totally out of tune. In the studio we used, there was an upright piano we moved.

We didn’t want to do anything “out of the box” but wanted it to be all actual synth instruments that we had access to. And we had access to like seven synths. It’s a bit of a luxury, but also part of being a nerd. You just have all of this equipment.

HMS: It really worked out for you.

I wanted to ask you about your feelings about vinyl or cassettes since that’s mostly what Tower is selling at the moment. I noticed that in Superstar, you all had put out some cassettes. Are you discriminating about the media through which you listen to music?

EE: It’s funny because my car, which is fucked at the moment, is a bomb from the 90’s, so it has a tape deck. I’ve always had cars with tapes in them. Tape sound when you’re driving is so good. Well, any sound when you’re driving is good, but I’ve always had tapes. So, tapes weren’t too wild for me. It made me release stuff from Superstar and even for Sweet Whirl on tape, because it was the only way for me to listen to music in cars. And I think there are probably a lot of people in the scene who don’t drive new cars. It wasn’t just a twee little affectation, like, “Oooh, I made a tape!”. It was like, “Yes! I can play this in my car. Sick.” I like tapes.

Vinyl is funny because I have a record player, but I haven’t connected it for like five years. I don’t know what that’s about. It’s some kind of blockage. I’m really glad that what I do is on vinyl. When I played that record store gig on Saturday, the owner said, “I can’t pay you, but you can pick a vinyl.” And I was like, “Cool!”. And I ended up picking Tom Waits’ Blue Valentine. Which is a record I do love, and I don’t have.

But I also realized, I think, that I only like to listen to old music on vinyl. Stuff that was recorded and released on vinyl. I think listening to current music, even my own, even though it’s nice and I love having the visual, to me I’m too ratty. I don’t have a nice set up, and I have friends round, and I drop a record. I’m not like that. I use Spotify, or Apple music, or Youtube, god!

But that’s because I make music. I need to access anything all the time. I’m not the ideal consumer. The ideal consumer has time to listen, has a stereo system, and likes to sit down and enjoy it after their job doing something else.

Whereas I’m doing music all the time. I’m not going to sit down and listen to someone’s latest album. I’m going to stream it on something, consume it quickly, work out what I like about it, add it to a playlist. I think it depends on how you use music.

Because I have a lot of friends who love to sit and put on vinyl. And I always want to make records for that listener, you know? But I am not one of those listeners. I think it’s just because that’s my industry, or whatever.

HMS: I think that what you described about using Spotify, Apple, YouTube, is exactly normal and the reflex of so many of us. That’s our reality now. It’s what I end up doing half the time. Also, because you’re researching, you’re looking for this and that. The internet is such a tremendous tool for that, why would you not do that?

The other thing is that if you collect vinyl it can be very hard to have the room for it and to store it. That’s another reason I often hear from friends who don’t collect. You have to have the space for it.

EE: Yeah, totally. In my old sharehouse, which I shared with a DJ, he had about half his work on vinyl and about half on USB. But he had walls, just walls of stuff. When we finally had to move out of that house, it was days of packing. I didn’t help him! Yeah, they are beautiful, but for people who are more permanent.

I’m not a permanent person. I don’t travel overseas, but I do live in sharehouses. I’m not yet. I think that work in music tend to focus on transitory lives rather than more stable ones, saying, “Well, I’m going to build a bookcase because I am going to live in this house for the next 50 years.” That’s not what a musician is. A musician is more like, “I don’t know what I’m doing.” It’s a big investment having a big vinyl collection, but more power to people who do.

HMS: Yeah. I had to dig out a cassette player recently. I don’t have a cassette player in my car anymore, but I did until recently. But I still have a lot of cassettes, and I didn’t like having them and not being able to play them.

EE: Did you get like a Walkman or an actual stereo?

HMS: It’s a kind of squarish, rectangular one that you can record on if you want to. I guess you could make mix tapes if you want to. Maybe I should’ve just gotten a Walkman.

EE: Well, a Walkman is pretty engaged listening. It’s great technology, but it’s also like, “Really?” It’s pretty intense.

HMS: Oh, one more thing about the album. A lot of the songwriting, and a lot of the lyrics, turn on the use of the first person, “I”. It feels like the singer is speaking to the audience. Is that something you chose to do, or is it just a natural thing for you, or do you think that’s a good strategy for talking to the audience?

EE: I think it’s natural. I think, because music is about getting things off my chest, or saying things how I want to say them, it’s always about talking “to”, even if it’s about talking to me. Or talking to an ex. Or talking to the world. It’s definitely about “me talking to”.

For example, I was a huge Neko Case fan, and she spent years writing about other people and not herself, because she thought that she was boring.

HMS: Oh, wow.

EE: But she would always write these songs about these characters in America. Like there would be a young girl who gets killed, etc. I would feel so uncomfortable talking about anyone else’s story but my own. Maybe because of where I’m from. It’s not really part of Australian dominant culture to story-tell in that way about other people, especially not in white Australian culture.

And even in my generation, everyone does semi-autobiographical fiction, semi-autobiographical essays. Talking about yourself is one of those things that is safer, in a way. You know you’re not going to misrepresent. You’re probably not going to romanticize shit, though you might. It was easier for me to stick to the events. For it to be about me working out what I wanted to say. Doing it in the third person would be…I think it would sound off. I would hate to hear my voice talking about other people and their shit. Unless it was just about me all along and I was like the audience. I wouldn’t want to hear that from myself.

HMS: There is kind of a danger, immediately, when you’re talking about someone else’s story of assuming a pose or a stance on their lives, without even realizing it. Even if you think you don’t, you probably do. I hadn’t really thought about it.

Tower Records still has its original motto, going back to the 1960s, which is “Know Music, Know Life” but also, “No Music, No Life.” We usually ask people what they think that phrase might mean in their lives.

EE: I have to say that, “Know Music, Know Life” is fucking genius. Definitely “No Music, No Life” too, but that’s more like a scientific equation. Every culture on Earth has music. If it doesn’t make music, is it even a human lifeform? But in the sense of, “to know music is to know life”, I think that’s true. I think we, as a species, record so much knowledge, like knowledge of how to be human. It’s not recipes for cakes and shit. It’s knowledge of how to get through stuff.

Yeah, I think that’s so true. When you go a real hard time, whether it’s grief or whatever it is, it’s always music that you turn to. It has this knowledge that is kinda essential. It’s not so much that it’s timeless, but that it crosses all these timelines and boundaries to reach you now. So that you can feel these things that lots of people have felt before and feel strength from them. Because a lot of great songs are written out of really hard times, and hardship, and heartbreak and stuff. If you want to know about life, so much of it is recorded in music. You can learn about it from music.

HMS: It seems more and more like a teacher to me…It can teach you tremendous amount.

EE: Yeah. But you can choose not to listen as well. You can choose to have a good time. It’s one of those weird things where you can tune out, but later be like, “Oh my god! That had actual meaning?” It’s funny like that.

HMS: Or misunderstanding the lyrics, and then understanding them years later?

EE: Yes. So true.