Blackwater Holylight have many sounds and have been described in many ways. Metal? Yes! Doom? Yes! Shoegaze? Yes! Even psychedelic. But one thing they are not is a band afraid to take chances, trusting their instincts both in their sound and in following what feels right. Sometimes in life you have to make moves, which is what their new album Not Here, Not Gone, out now via Suicide Squeeze Records, has done. The record moves beautifully through the dark and light realms, exploring loss, letting go, and rebirth, sung and performed like an apocalyptic lullaby
“It’s been good! (It’s been) over four years now, which is crazy to think about,” guitarist Mikayla Mayhew notes, recalling their move from Portland to Los Angeles, “but I feel like Los Angeles is pretty much home now. It was kind of a hard transition at first going from a small-town vibe with lots of friends and knowing everyone to a big city with a smaller community. But, you know, the community has grown for us over the time. I’m liking it. Everything kinda fell into place before we even moved down here, so it just felt like a sign.”
Vocalist/bassist Sunny Faris adds, “Yeah man, Los Angeles is a huge fucking city, and Portland is very tiny. I think the adjustment of being in a place where there’s far more options of things to do and explore all the time is a really big difference to me. I may drive around a lot more now, but being in a place that is sprawling compared to those small-town vibes, there’s more opportunity for sure. I’ll say, too, LA is far more expensive, so whenever we leave to go somewhere, I get stoked on the prices of things, like ‘Yo, this shit is cheap as fuck!’
“Shit doesn’t just fall into your lap. You have to bust your ass to make the connections and work for it. (There has been) some time and trial and error with trying to make all that stuff happen with us. But shit has been happening more and more since we’ve sunk in here. It took time to build those connections. It takes time just like with everything. For me personally, when we moved down here, it was like a trusting process kinda moment almost where you have to let things kinda come and not be attached to anything, even not being attached to ideas until you feel like something is gonna stick.
“You kinda feel out if it’s right to work with certain people. So in the sense of working, you have to put yourself out there. But also, we were all very willing to be like, let’s trust the process, you know? All those cliches are so true ‘cuz once you’re in it, you’re in it, you know? We were willing to just let all this unfold, which is how I feel a lot of this new record was made. I feel like the hustle is just working your ass off and being patient.”
And their patience and hard work bleed through their new record. It even shows on the blood-soaked cover, depicting someone being submerged and resurfacing in a pool of blood.
When asked about the title and theme behind the new album, Sunny explains,
“It’s about how you lose people in life but still have their presence and energy all around you. I think that there’s a lot of representation of transition in this record. It’s like yes it’s about going from Portland to Los Angeles but it’s also just, like, the transition of people in and out of our lives and the transitions that the songs naturally took as their own thing. The title Not Here, Not Gone really encompasses our time of writing and what the songs represent.”
And the transition from tracks “Giraffe” to “Spades” completely took me by surprise in a way the band have never done before but executed very well.
Mikalyla explains, “I don’t know what made us want that kind of interlude on the album, but we know we wanted something completely different for the transition of the physical record going from side A to side B. We wanted a moment of contrast there. We ended up getting that beat from Dave Sitek, a producer that was working in the studio next to us. We messed around with a lot of different options for the order of songs, but hearing the way ‘Giraffe’ went into the second half of the record with the drum beat of ‘Spades,’ there was no other way for sure!” Sunny and Mikayla simultaneously look at each other and grin as Sunny adds, “Yeah, we knew in that moment it had to happen!”
Divine timing, you might say to David Sitek—who has recorded with the likes of TV on the Radio, Solange, and Run the Jewels—was there to help some pieces fit.
“David was recording at Sonic Ranch which is where we recorded this record.” Sunny continues, “And that place is like a compound where there’s a bunch of studios spread throughout. He was in a separate building but the one next to the one we were in. He came over to our studio one day and knocked on our door.” With a stern face, Sunny clears her throat and gives her best impression of Sitek, “’I need a drummer!’ He was working on some live music over at his studio and just needed some live stuff. So we went with our drummer Eliese over there so she could track some drums with him. While we were over there, we kinda proposed a little trade. We needed an interlude. We had ideas on what we wanted, but we thought it’d be cool if he could give us the foundations. We went through a list of what he had,” she pauses, big eyed pointing down, “Oh we’ll take that one!”
“We then immediately took it over to our studio to layer the guitars on it. So the way all that happened was a funny studio moment of trading musicians and trading stuff. Just one of those moments that wouldn’t have happened if we all weren’t there at the same time. All the pieces fit. It’s also just a great mark in time of us being in the studio”
“‘Heavy, Why?’ was one of the first songs we did for this new record. It started with Sunny and Eliese going into the practice space with a drum beat Eliese had. They started to explore stuff over the drum beat, and it kinda came together quickly structurally. The track is about life being extremely heavy and the contrast of the light also in life. The music video explores a lot of that as well.”
As Sunny leans in closer, she adds, “Yeah totally, and all the themes of red came from our talk with our manager Candice as we were coming up with the ideas of visuals. Originally, we were thinking we’d do blues. But as soon as we started shooting the album cover we all started gravitating towards red. Red just made sense for everything, even the campaign for the album. When Candice asked us what we wanted to do for the video we all said we wanted a boat! We didn’t care if it was a little or big boat, we just wanted a boat!”
Mikayla explains the theme to their music video for the single “Heavy, Why?” which has a visually apocalyptic vibe, “We all sat down and asked what we envisioned when we listened to the track. We all agreed upon water! The song feels like being lost at sea and the heaviness of the ocean. The expansive and unknown that come with the tides. The cover feels like an image of fire, water and rebirth. The tides of life.”
Not Here, Not Gone is out now and you can order it from Suicide Squeeze Records. Follow Blackwater Holylight on Instagram for future updates.
Photo courtesy of social media
