Conn Thornton: Living In The City
I’ve spoken about tracing a path before, how you find somebody. In some cases I’m able to pinpoint exactly how somebody who is flung into outer-space and races like a comet takes a left-turn and somehow finds themselves in the world of Moths and Giraffes. However, in this case, I can only trace it back so far. Then it becomes a mystery to me. All in all it doesn’t really matter, but every story has a beginning. Conn Thornton’s story began long before, and will continue long after their 2020 EP release ‘Abraham’s Daughter’.
You could say I am somewhat late to the Conn Thornton party, being that Abraham’s Daughter was released in May 2020, and Thornton has since begun to promote their debut album including lead single ‘City Song’. But any good music scholar knows that jumping in mid-way through a career means you aren’t seeing the bigger picture. You won’t know how an artist got to where they are without seeing where they have come from.
Conn Thornton is a pianist and composer hailing from Belfast in Northern Ireland. Their inspiration draws from a huge musical palette with styles ranging from jazz, folk, indie and impressionist. More specifically, Thornton is inspired by artists such as Mitski, Sufjan Stevens, David Bowie, St. Vincent, Bob Dylan, Fiona Apple and turn of the century French composer Claude Debussy. A regular feature on Thornton’s Twitter account are brief discussions on new albums they’ve heard, where they will score them out of ten to one decimal place. Occasionally they’ll summarise a lot of the albums they’ve heard which further shows how wide their taste in music is. It’s this colliding of styles that makes Abraham’s Daughter such an interesting compositional piece.
You know you’re onto something special with the first striking chords of ‘Prologue’, with that full-bodied piano sound, warm and natural. Not to mention Thornton’s smooth playing, effortlessly gliding across the keys like you’re listening in slow motion. I’m reminded of a more optimistic telling of Lou Reed’s ‘Berlin’, the title track opening with piano similar in delivery to this. However, Conn Thornton’s voice is much more pleasing on the ear than Reed’s. The lyrics of Prologue are the beginning of a story, bare, but Thornton’s voice sounding just as warm as their piano playing; ‘There’s not a God in the sky, only pieces of paper floating down, bearing words of things I don’t yet understand, so I’ll travel through this land without a guiding hand to lead me through the dust of the songs that I wrote years ago.’ Words like this are so thoroughly interesting, this is when lyrics deserve to be in print.
The pace is different for ‘Down By Writer’s Square’, Conn’s playing conjuring up a bustling outdoor scene, full of the university students who partly inspired this work. Thornton’s rhythmic playing has less of a lead role about it which may benefit from other instrumentation, though only in the form of a rhythm section. ‘Your song’s not written yet, it’s gonna take a few years, but once it’s finished, make sure that everyone hears.’ Thornton’s universal lyric could refer both to the people in their story, and could be a comfort for the people who hear it too. It’s this thoughtful lyric writing that means it’s neither pointless to the writer, drawing from non-existent subject matter as writers often do, or to the listener as it encourages them to think hard about what they’re hearing, if the listener enjoys to dissect such works.
By ‘Sacramento Hymn’, you can appreciate that this EP will all be vocal and piano, which certainly means one thing – what you’re hearing are complete takes of the songs. When recording a single instrument, it is that much harder to drop in for parts as the flow is difficult to capture a second time. Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Songbird’ famously took many hours to record in this same configuration. Though Sacramento Hymn is the shortest piece on the Abraham’s Daughter EP, and is entirely instrumental, it shows off more of what Conn Thornton can do at the piano and as a composer, creating a mood in their piece that is more than just chord progressions and ambience.
‘Wednesday Night Bar Scene’ is the only song on Abraham’s Daughter with a co-writing credit to somebody else. Though Emma Buckley’s contribution can more accurately be described as an inspiration for Thornton’s complete lyric, she’s listed as a co-writer nonetheless, see our Q&A with Thornton for more information! Here, Conn’s piano playing is at their most assertive yet, with a return to piano providing more of a lead role, equally as important as the lyric. There is a Brian Wilson song called ‘Midnight’s Another Day’, which this playing reminds me of. The lyric is like poetry, placing you firmly in the scene. I wonder who Thornton is talking about? ‘She stands transfixed by a cobweb in the doorway. She sits on her stool breathing fantasias in her beret. She’s dreaming she’s bathed in a veil of light like a starlight.’ It’s just another Wednesday night.
Abraham’s Daughter finishes with ‘Class Of 2020’, a reflective track about Conn Thornton’s time at university. This is another track that could benefit from extra instrumentation as Thornton eases off of the more solo playing. Even the purely instrumental section that closes out the song would do well to have a rhythm ensemble behind it. That being said, the arrangement in no way diminishes the quality of the composition, a consistent factor throughout Abraham’s Daughter. I can’t wait to see what Conn Thornton’s debut album sounds like.
1. Your EP 'Abraham's Daughter' came out in 2020, where does the title for this collection of songs come from?
The title comes from an unreleased track called ‘Something in the Water’, which I initially intended to record for the ‘Abraham’s Daughter’ album, had COVID not gotten in the way of the recording sessions. ‘Something in the Water’ was definitely a highlight of my unreleased songs catalogue and I really hope I can fully realise it in the way I want to some day – the demo version is currently buried somewhere on Bandcamp on my free ‘Abraham’s Daughter’ demos album, along with some other unreleased cuts and covers.
2. What was the inspiration for the five tracks included here?
The inspiration was just little fragments of experiences I’d had living in the city in the year I was writing/formulating the concept of the album. ‘Prologue’ recounts the atmosphere of the walks I used to take late at night through the empty city, ‘Writer’s Square’ was written after I attended the Marriage Equality March in Belfast in May 2019, ‘Sacramento Hymn’ was written as an ode to my favourite film, ‘Lady Bird’. ‘Wednesday Night Bar Scene’ was just a cinematic glance at a lonely person I spied in a bar one Wednesday night, and ‘Class of 2020’ is a dedication to the friends I’ve made over the past few years, and the ‘Sacramento Hymn’ reprise tied everything together because that, in my opinion, is the best melody I’ve ever written.
3. Tell me about the recording of this EP, it sounds beautiful!
The EP was recorded in mid-March in the main performance hall of the Music building at Queen’s University, and was recorded on an old Steinway concert-sized grand piano from around the 1950s. The entire EP was cut in about 3 hours and Lewis Murray, one of my best friends and a phenomenal audio guru, recorded the entire thing and spent the next while mixing it. The EP was recorded the day before Queen’s shut because of COVID, so any plans of doing more recordings for the other songs were dashed, but I am still very happy with the way the EP turned out.
4. You worked with Emma Buckley on 'Wednesday Night Bar Scene', how did the writing process develop between you both?
I actually didn’t know Emma personally when I wrote the song – Emma is a phenomenal poet who is currently studying at Queen’s, and one night in January 2019 I happened to see one of her poems in the comments section of a Florence Welch Instagram post. She used the phrase ‘prelude to running’ and those three words stuck out to me so much that I wrote the lyric to ‘Wednesday Night’ in about 5 minutes following this. I found out it was actually her about 18 months later, and out of courtesy I gave her a writing credit. If it weren’t for her beautiful words ‘Wednesday Night’ wouldn’t carry the same gravitas.
5. You've since released the demos you made for 'Abraham's Daughter' including songs that didn't make it onto the EP, is there no chance of professional recordings being made for those songs?
I would very much like to record these songs professionally – maybe some day I will record them myself, but I think they really need polishing up as they seem too half-baked. They’re products of their time and represent how my writing ability has grown so much, but while I have the chance I still want to make some tweaks.
6. I know you love music pressed on vinyl, can fans expect this EP to be pressed up someday?
God, I hope so! If ever I get signed to a label and they acquire the rights to the EP I would love to see a physical release, but if I ever have the funds I’ll find a way to make some limited copies.
7. Your piano playing is gorgeous. When did you start learning to play?
I started learning when I was about 5 or 6 but I had been messing around on the piano since I was about 2 or 3 when my sister started learning. The style I’ve studied the most would probably be late 19th-century Romantic music by Rachmaninoff and the Impressionist stuff by Ravel and Debussy, which I’ve tried to incorporate into my own work.
8. If you were going to perform your music live the way you want to without budget or time constraints, what would that concert look like?
I’ve always had this really cinematic vision in my head of me standing alone on the stage with my guitar or keyboard lit up by a spotlight – that was the vision Mitski had in mind for her album ‘Be the Cowboy’ and that’s the kind of thing I want to realise. I’ve also been really inspired by the minimalist presence of Beach House when they perform live, because despite the stage being so empty they dominate every part of it and produce an appropriately massive, cinematic sound. When I have the means to produce sounds like that I’m gonna use their concerts as an inspiration and make them unique to my image.
9. On Twitter you've been rating albums out of ten for a while now, has anything ever received a ten?
It takes a while for some albums to get a 10 from me – some really grew on me a lot and acquired that status, such as Sufjan Stevens’ ‘Carrie & Lowell’ (which was a big influence on the album I’ve been making), Fiona Apple’s ‘The Idler Wheel’, Phoebe Bridgers’ ‘Punisher’ and The Cure’s ‘Disintegration’. Out of the maybe 250 albums I’ve listened to about 20 have been given a ten.
10. You've been putting together an album intended to follow up 'Abraham's Daughter', what more can you tell us about that?
The album is called ‘Destroyer’ and over half the songs were written about someone deeply close to me, a different person each time. ‘Down by Writer’s Square’ and ‘Wednesday Night’ have made it on in their original forms, as well as eight new tracks. It follows a kind of loose narrative about wandering through the city and experiencing different visions. I made the album mostly in my bedroom and at the time of writing I’m literally about to finish recording and start the final mixing and mastering process for its (potential) release in February. The lead single, ‘City Song’, will be coming out on January 8th, 2021 and I can’t wait for everyone to hear it!
--------
To purchase Conn Thornton’s compositions, including their new single ‘City Song’, visit their bandcamp here.
Follow Conn Thornton on Twitter @carrymeoutt, on Instagram @conn_thornton and on Facebook @connthorntonmusic.
