“Don’t worry, it’s going to turn out better than you could have imagined.”
Musical weirdo and visionary” (Vice) Beatie Wolfe is an artist who has beamed her music into space, been appointed a UN role model for innovation and held a solo exhibition of her ‘world first’ album designs at the V&A Museum. Named by WIRED as one of “22 people changing the world,” Beatie Wolfe is at the forefront of pioneering new formats for music that bridge the physical and digital, which include: a 3D theatre for the palm of your hand; a wearable record jacket – cut by Bowie and Hendrix’s tailor out of fabric woven with Wolfe’s music – and most recently an ‘anti-stream’ from the quietest room on earth. Wolfe is also the co-founder of a “profound” (The Times) research project looking at the power of music for people living with dementia. The Barbican recently commissioned a documentary about Beatie Wolfe’s pioneering work titled “Orange Juice for the Ears: From Space Beams to Anti-Streams.
Thanks so much for taking the time to answer the questions. Talk to me about your current mood and emotions… It’s my pleasure Heather. I’m feeling a lot of spaciousness right now, which I’ve been feeling throughout the lockdown. It feels as if both time and space have expanded and everything is exhaling. So my mood/emotions have become a lot less defined by day-to-day happenings and more about a state of being that is no longer so attached to external factors.
I adore our conversations, when we last spoke it was the beginning of the pandemic. Despite the media frenzy, we had this sense of calmness. You’re very wise, and spiritual – where does this derive from? I loved our chat too, that was one of my favorite lockdown conversations. I have always just had this sense of consciousness beyond form. I do have a prenatal memory and I remember being in my mum’s stomach, being born, being a baby in my cot staring at the clock and wondering when time was going to hurry up. It sounds very out there but I’ve come to realize there is no sense in hiding that side of myself as it makes up who I am and how I see the world. And I was very lucky to have a mum who was light years ahead of most in a lot of areas.
“It feels as if both time and space have expanded and everything is exhaling.”
Tell me about your early life, discovering music, and your journey to where you are at present… I’ve always loved the stories of albums, the tangibility of records and the ceremony of listening. From the time I started writing songs (age 7/8) and discovered my parents’ record collection, I saw records as musical books, with the artwork providing the perfect backdrop for the story, and I loved opening them up and entering into the world of the album. There was also a ritual to the whole experience. I started imagining what my album could look like, what it could feel like, what worlds I could create. When it was time for my first album to be released, it was a very different era with the digital replacing the physical. So I thought about how to connect the two and that’s what my work became centered around: reimagining the vinyl experience, but for today.
Moving from the UK to US, what spurred the decision? It was just this feeling that I needed to be in the US. It wasn’t a specific project or person or any one thing, more a sense of that’s where I needed to be. I’d always felt a pull towards the US since the time I was a kid (4 or 5) and my dad, who’s American, took us on this long road trip across Colorado, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. Those were some of my earliest, and happiest, memories of feeling truly free (which is perhaps the most important feeling for me) and being so stirred by that great evocative and somehow nostalgic expanse. We would stay with friends in Colorado (in an artist’s commune in the Huerfano Valley, the oldest still functioning commune) and have Christmas in this big geodescent dome built by our friend Dean and then visit my grandparents in Arizona where I saw my first scorpion. It all felt so wild and exciting and as if possibilities and explorations were endless. So, the U.S. was always where my heart and spirit were, it just took a while to work out how to physically get there when I was older.
“My work became centered around reimagining the vinyl experience, but for today.”
Do you feel completely free to create the music and work that you desire? When it comes to the projects, yes absolutely and sometimes beyond my wildest dreams. When it comes to music, I’m not sure. The music I have created up until now has been 100% what I wanted to say at the time, in every way from the writing to production, but I do wonder sometimes if I would have made more records if we didn’t have the kind of industry we’ve had in recent years. I ended up going down an unusual path for an artist because I felt something fundamental was broken and as a result I’ve enjoyed a really incredible journey into new fields and having my work be realized and celebrated in very humbling ways but if there wasn’t something broken to begin with could I have just made a load more records? I think so but I also wouldn’t change anything. It has been the most wonderful adventure.
What has been a pivotal moment in your career? I don’t really look back in that way and analyze and I really see every step as being what it’s about rather than any big defining moments, but I do feel everything became more fully realized with the Raw Space “anti-stream” and then having the space broadcast, V&A exhibition, Barbican documentary…all of those have been some of my favorite life experiences to date.
What stopped you from choosing the major record label route? Death by suffocation of the imagination. Major record labels are the definition of anti-innovation, anti-creativity, anti-art. I would sooner leave this planet than make art or music in even a semi compromised fashion.
What’s your favorite part of the process? I really like all stages of the process but there is something wonderful about both the first forming of the idea in your mind’s eye and then the final realization. There is something very special about those two points in time; seeing something you first imagined come to be.
“I’ve enjoyed a really incredible journey into new fields and having my work be realized and celebrated in very humbling ways”
How did technology come to be such a large part of what you do? When I realized that everything that I had grown up (and loved!) regarding the physical listening experience had been replaced with an intangible and, to me, unsatisfying one. So instead of rejecting the digital world I wanted to think beyond it and combine the best of the old with the best of the new; presenting something that would exist in its own time and space, that people hadn’t experienced before and that still had tangibility, ceremony, storytelling at its core and as a result still had the ability to imprint. In essence, reimagining the vinyl experience for today. So, I have used technology (perhaps contradictorily) to re-present a more tangible, ceremonial and old school listening experience but in a way that facilitates a sense of magic and makes people feel like they’re seeing music in a new way.
What emotions do you aim to evoke when people experience your work? I feel that whatever people feel when experiencing my work is great rather than specifying what I want them to feel. I’m so led by what inspires me, what I get excited by, that I do it all based on that and then whatever people experience is a wonderful added dimension. There is definitely a central intention of reminding people of the magic of music and art, that’s definitely a core theme.
“I would sooner leave this planet than make art or music in even a semi compromised fashion.”
Who’s your biggest influence? So many things inspire me, little things, things we often don’t have time for. That’s what I’ve been enjoying most in this lockdown, reconnecting with a lot of the little things often overlooked in all of our busy-ness. So, in that way nature and life itself are constant sources of inspiration. In terms of people, Jim Henson for his intention, William Blake for being a multimedia visionary out of time, my dear friend Allee Willis (pictured below) for being the greatest source of pure love and joy here in LA, Hafiz for transmitting the highest love and consciousness through every word he wrote, Oliver Sacks for grounding what a lot of us know intuitively about music’s power in science. So many musicians… The Beatles, Elliott Smith, Leonard Cohen, Otis Redding… too much to say here but all connected by creating beautiful, original, timeless music. Anyone and everyone who is leaving this world a little better.
Tell me more about ‘the mysterious sounds of the sea’ I was one of Calm’s first content creators – I think actually the first to do original material – and one of my sleep stories called “The Mysterious Sound of the Sea” was inspired by and recorded on Jacques Cousteau’s old boat (thank you captain Blake!), which we recorded out at sea for extra magic. So that story, and my other sleep stories / soundtracks on Calm, have sent a lot of people to sleep!
You’re a UN role model for innovation, and were named as one of the people changing the world by Wired…What’s your driving force within you that leads you to create? Passion, curiosity, excitement, imagination… adding some color and magic to my world and hopefully others’.
“…reminding people of the magic of music and art”
Do you have a routine? I really don’t. I’m not so good with routines haha! And because my work and life are completely integrated, they really are one of the same, I guess I don’t have the usual parameters of work / life balance. Every day is different, I see where it takes me. Sometimes it’s very specific to finishing up a project, sometimes it’s entirely free to explore whatever feels interesting. But I usually get out in nature daily, that’s perhaps my number one in terms of something to do every day.
What rules do you live by? Intention is everything.
How do you get into creative flow? Go where the energy is.
Talk to me about feeling ‘stuck’… I believe that you don’t get truly creative until you hit an obstacle. And as with any block, I think it’s about looking at it from a different angle, finding a different way in.
We’ve spoken previously about distractions, and the enjoyment of ‘switching off’ and enjoying nature…
I think “switching off” is often when we switch on.
What do you foresee for the future for the music industry? I have no idea, but I do see an entire collapse coming, a complete overhaul and paradigm shift. It has to happen; there is nothing inspiring or enlightening about the current state of the industry. It really has devolved art as far as it can.
Can you share more about your dementia research project? After experiencing the incredible impact of music for family members living with dementia, I began the ‘Power of Music and Dementia’ research project in 2014 with the Utley Foundation. The project got picked up by some of the world’s top research institutes and went onto establish the charity Music For Dementia 2020, which is now actively getting music in all care homes in the UK. It’s been an incredible journey so far, which has reaffirmed a lot of what I know to be true about the power of music and how deep it really goes. I recently gave a TEDMED talk about it which comes out in September.
“If you’re making music to make money, don’t! If you’re making music to uplift, do!”
What can we expect to see from you in the coming year? ‘From Green to Red’ – the environmental protest art piece – will be at the London Design Biennale in September so that will be wonderful to have it physically installed there at Somerset House. From Green to Red was going to be at SXSW, Cannes Lion, Wall Street Journal festival and a number of places this summer but those got cancelled due to the virus and I actually feel like the Biennale is the perfect place to premiere it at. Then there are few other exciting secret projects whirring away, but I also like to leave space for when inspiration strikes. Every one of the projects I’m most proud of, that make up my life’s work so far, were not part of any plan, they came as magnificent detours so I like to keep things open.
What advice can you share with musicians and artists with regards to making their practice profitable? Some of the best advice I had early on was from my friend and early mentor Wynton Marsalis quoting his father: “If you’re making music to make money, don’t! If you’re making music to uplift, do!”
What’s the most interesting fact that you discovered recently? That my dad was trying to sleep in the next room while Led Zeppelin recorded “Stairway to Heaven” at Stargroves (where my dad lived for a while) and that he was just waiting for them to shut up hahaha.
What’s your philosophy for life? Hmm… probably this: “What is now proved was once only imagined” (William Blake).
What advice would you give to your younger self? Don’t worry, it’s going to turn out better than you could have imagined.
Tell me about your biggest failure? There hasn’t really been one significant failure that had that kind of effect on me. Of course, there have been a tonne of setbacks over the years but I don’t see them as failures, more of ways to sharpen the vision, expand your creativity or strengthen one’s resolve. And it’s also amazing how something that appeared to be a mistake at the time, with time isn’t, and something that you really wanted at the time, with time, you realize wasn’t quite right. So, I am a big believer in there being a certain “perfection” to what unfolds, which often you can only see with time.
What does success look like for you? Everything that currently is.
What do you want to be known for? Leaving this world a little better for being here.
Photo Credits:
Ross Harris
Theo Watson