Image via Rachel Pony Cassells
Sophie Steinberg reflects the ideals laid out in the Hackers manifesto.
About 48 hours after the 2024 election, Los Angeles-based harpist Mary Lattimore took the stage at Largo with her mother, harpist Leila Lattimore. As the country processed the ramifications of the election, an unnerved and solace-seeking audience gathered to watch the mother-daughter duo conjure tender sounds from their mythologically sanctified instruments.
“It seems like people need a balm right now,” Lattimore says. “A few people said that they cried.”
In Ireland, the harp is a political symbol, an instrument used to compose eulogies for clan leaders in traditional Gaelic society. But in this converted experimental theater that used to screen films from Kenneth Anger and Man Ray, Lattimore and her mother offered a mystical comfort to the numb crowd.
Even on Zoom, Lattimore’s calming aura shines through. She recalls a standout moment: her mother’s reimagined version of “The Swan,” or “Le cygne,” a 19th century, classical piece written by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns. Accompanied by the synthesizer of Chrome Sparks, the piece imagines a swan’s final lament before death. Balancing the fleeting and the eternal, “The Swan” reminds me of walking around a cemetery, the paths decorated by beautiful trees and gravestones.
As a child, Lattimore watched her mother play the harp in various orchestras before picking up the instrument at age 11. She received classical training at the Eastman School of Music and in the past dozen years, she has released 16 albums, including collaborations with Slowdive’s Neil Halstead. During this span, she’s opened for everyone from Mdou Moctar to Mitski.
Lattimore’s most recent release, Rain on the road, is a collaboration with her good friend, accordionist Walt McClements. Born from moments spent on the road together when Lattimore was opening for Beach House, the pair “immortalized” their friendship over the course of a rainy LA winter.
“We holed up, hung out and drank wine and played our instruments. This is what came from it,” Lattimore said. “It was just hitting record, seeing what happened.”
The five tracks total over 40 minutes, beginning with “Stolen Bells,” a call to the church of harp and accordion; it’s a song full of deep notes and ambient comfort. In sync, Lattimore and McClements welcome listeners through an imaginary candle-lit hallway. Together, they concoct a holy soundscape that penetrates every corner of the brain.
Rain falls on “The Poppies, the Wild Mustard, the Blue-Eyed Grass.” McClements takes his time with the accordion, letting the instrument lead him through imagined fields of wildflowers. “We Waited for the Bears to Leave,” opens with McClements and Lattimore encountering a family of bears on her family’s property in Asheville. Unbeknownst to Lattimore, McClements was recording their whispered anxieties about getting to their van safely in time for a sound check on the Asheville tour stop.
“You can hear us whispering, ‘They’re so cute. We shouldn’t go yet,’” Lattimore said. “He captured these little moments of us on tour together, and we incorporated that into the record. It is really a beautiful symbol of our friendship.”
In September, Lattimore’s hometown of Asheville, North Carolina was devastated by Hurricane Helene. Touring in Italy at the time, Lattimore watched the destruction of her city and her favorite places on the news from almost 5,000 miles away. Fortunately, Lattimore’s family was safe, but in Europe, Lattimore felt far from being able to help her community.
Soon after, music writer Grayson Haver Currin approached Lattimore about providing a song for a benefit album, Cardinals at the Window, healing her hometown in a different way. Still in Italy, Lattimore borrowed a friend’s tiny organ and worked with North Carolina-born engineer Clay Blair to create the album’s 47th track, “I’ll See You Tomorrow.” The project, featuring the likes of Angel Olsen, R.E.M., and Fleet Foxes, has raised over $300,000 those impacted by the hurricane.
“I’m very happy I was a part of it,” Lattimore said. “It was weird to be so far away geographically, but the album helped me feel closer to the situation.”
Three days after the election and twelve days before her California tour, I caught up with Lattimore, discussing Philadelphia versus Los Angeles, a run-in with a family of bears that made it to Rain on the Road, and how she turned her front porch into a stage during the pandemic.
First off, I know you played a special show with your mother, Leila Lattimore, last night [November 7th] at the Largo in Los Angeles. How was that? Was there a special moment from the night that stood out?
Mary Lattimore: When you see that your mom is nervous, then it makes you nervous too, but it went really well. She was opening for me, and she’s a classical musician, so she was playing some classical pieces that maybe were not so familiar to people. She’s a professional harpist so she had great stage presence and she really nailed it. Everyone liked listening to her play. Then she did a duet with a friend of mine, Jeremy, he plays under the name Chrome Sparks.
Jeremy got this really full, new synthesizer. He said he was on a waiting list for it for two years. It came, and it has this little thing where you slide your finger up and down, creating a Theremin-esque sound. Together, they played this classical piece called “The Swan,” and it’s usually played with cello and harp, but we did that strange, cool synthesizer and harp. It sounded really haunting. They played together, and then I played a small set, and then a friend of mine arranged two of my pieces for two harps, and so [my mom and I] played those. That was really fun. We were nervous at first, but it went really well. It’s fun to play for people who are really listening. It seems like people need a balm right now. A few people said that they cried.
I can imagine that your music, and especially hearing it live, is really helping people calm down and be present.
Mary Lattimore: I hope so and it helps me too. Playing is a calming thing for us too.
Before this performance, had you played with your mother before? When was the last time?
Mary Lattimore: My mom lives in North Carolina, so she lives far away, so I flew her in for this with her best friend. The two of them, it’s been funny hanging out with them. My mom and I played together when I was a teenager and in my 20s, just for money for Christmas. We used to play at a place called the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, where I’m from. It’s this big mansion that you can take a tour of, and it’s all decorated for Christmas. Every year we used to play Christmas songs there, but other than that, we’ve never played a show like this before.
Your latest work Rain on the Road is so wonderful. What was it like to collaborate with accordionist Walt McClements on the project and when did your relationship start?
Mary Lattimore: I adore Walt. He’s one of my very best friends in my lifetime. We’ve toured together, playing individual sets, and we decided that it was time to make a duo record. We have a similar aesthetic. He’s taking this instrument that’s not usually used in this context with lots of drones and effects pedals. He’s bringing [the accordion] into a different world and different context. I’m hoping to do that with the harp too: shift the perception of the instrument. It was really fun to experiment with sounds and to improvise and get in the zone with him and his studio.
I remember it was a very rainy winter when we were working on it, and we just kind of holed up, hung out and drank wine and played our instruments. This is what came from it. I love the accordion and how deep it gets. Walt has a way to really boost the base from the accordion, and lots of pedals that make it sparkle. I think it’s given me a new appreciation for this instrument, just because it has such a deep, rich base-y sound. I always think about colors when I hear it. Saturation and really strong, deep sounds that really hit you in the heart.
I think drinking wine, cozy in the California rain is the best way to record an album. Those front porch concerts sound so spectacular.
Mary Lattimore: It was really fun. We just created our own little world in the yard.
Looking at some of the songs you and Walt created on Rain on the Road, I think “The Poppies, the Wild Mustard, the Blue-Eyed Grass” is my favorite. In the beginning of the track, there are a lot of sounds taken from nature: a forest in the wind, running water, rain. How did you figure out which sounds you wanted to incorporate, or was it a more natural process of just hitting record and seeing what you hear?
Mary Lattimore: That’s what it was. It was just hitting record, seeing what happened. We both like to improvise a lot. I think it’s a pure translation of feeling into sound. Walt included some field recordings that he had taken of rain, and then you can hear our whispers in the bear song. He captured these little moments of us on tour together, and we incorporated that into the record. It is really a beautiful object that is a symbol of our friendship.
I love the spoken intros on “Nest of Earrings” and “We Waited for the Bears to Leave.” I was wondering how those intros set up the rest of the songs?
Mary Lattimore: I was on tour with a Beach House. I was opening for them and Walt came with me to tour manage, sell merch, and take a road trip together and help me drive. We were staying at my family’s cabin in Asheville when we played the Asheville show in North Carolina, and there have been a lot of bears on the property recently. In the past 10 years, they’ve really been coming through. We were late for a sound check, and we had to move some boxes to the van and stuff, but in our path, there was a mama bear and her little cubs. The cubs were up the tree and the mom was at the bottom of the tree. They were in our way to get to the car, and even though we were running late, we didn’t want to disturb them or get attacked, so we just had to wait for them to leave. I didn’t know it at the time, but Walt was recording our conversation. You can hear us whispering, ‘They’re so cute. We shouldn’t go yet.’ I thought it was cool that he captured that moment. Eventually they left and we went to the sound check. Everything was fine.
I know your 2023 album, Goodbye, Hotel Arkada, was centered around mourning, passage of time, and change around us, but your duo album with Walt has a slightly different tone. Is there one word or a phrase that captures the central theme of Rain on the Road?
Mary Lattimore: As corny as it sounds, I would say friendship, connection, freedom. We just went [to record] with no ideas, just having the pureness of our connection immortalized like that. I’ve had that with other collaborations too. My best friend Meg Baird, she and I have made a record together. It’s such an intimate and important thing to collaborate with your friends, to leave the world behind for a minute, and to make stuff that radiates out the people and to mark the place in time a little bit too.
Are there any other big differences you see between your two most recent projects?
Mary Lattimore: I think all the collaborations, the solo stuff, and the film scores and stuff, it’s all body of work. Everything feeds into another thing. It’s just a narrative of a life, and I think they all influence each other. If I come up with different textures for the first solo records, I’ll bring it into the duo stuff. I don’t really compartmentalize them that much. It’s just lots of layers that add to each other and bleed into each other.
I was reading about your journey with the harp and I know you’re a multi-instrumentalist, and took up the harp at the encouragement of your mom. What is it like to have these parallel paths with your mother that are very different, but also explore the same instrument?
Mary Lattimore: It’s cool. I definitely had a good role model with my mom being a harpist as a kid. It showed me that it is possible to have a creative career. You do have to sacrifice. My mom was definitely playing concerts and rehearsals when I was a kid, and my Dad would heat up the dinner. But it was always really cool to have a mom that played in the orchestra and get to go. I admire her career. I wouldn’t be a harpist otherwise. It’s fun to be able to talk about the instrument, ask advice from her. One time, I was on the cover of the harp magazine, Harp Column, and that was a very exciting day for my mom. If there’s any recognition in “harp world,” she’s my biggest cheerleader.
I want to spend a day in “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: You should! People are starting harp lessons every day.
I know! I also listen to a lot of shoegaze music also and they have some cool harp elements, so I’ve been enjoying that side of “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: Yeah! Neil [Halstead] from Slowdive produced one of my records. I was really happy that he wasn’t scared of producing a harp, even though he had never hung out with one before. I agree that there are parallels, emotionally and sonically.
I know you also lived in Philadelphia. and now you live in LA. Philly is a really incredible music city, so is Los Angeles. Do you feel like you are in different head spaces making music in those two cities?
Mary Lattimore: For sure, it was also the time in life. I was in Philly starting at age 25 pretty broke, working four jobs. Philly is so affordable that there were a lot of artists there at that point. There were a lot of people wanting to jam, make music, and go to shows. Everybody was really supportive. I think that place and time was very special, very vibrant. I’m sure that now, it’s equally as great, I just am not tapped into the new music scene in Philly right now. Back then, it was just really easy to hang out and play music for fun. [In LA], I know a lot of very successful, amazing musicians, and there’s not as much easy, ‘Come over, let’s play instruments.’ I do have some friends like that. But, ‘Come over after work and play instruments,’ – it doesn’t really feel like that as much as, ‘You are writing this beautiful film score. I can’t wait to see it on the screen,’ or ‘I’m gonna go to your concert at the Disney Hall.’
Maybe it has to do with my age and where my friends are, career-wise, too. Here, I feel like more people that I know are in the arts as their job, whereas, back then, it was like playing music, not as a profession in Philly. I love both. Both are the best. I love living in both cities. Music scene here is incredible. Also, LA being a huge city, I’ve seen a lot of shows and concerts that are really special that I might not have seen if I were living somewhere else. Exposure to music here is incredible.
On a different note, I know you talked about growing up in Asheville, North Carolina. I saw you’re featured on Cardinals at the Window, which is a benefit album, benefitting people that were impacted by Hurricane Helene. If you feel comfortable talking about it, I was wondering what being a part of that project meant to you?
Mary Lattimore: It’s really cool. I put it on shuffle and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s gonna come on next?’ It’s a really good compilation. I was honored to be a part of it. I got a message from my friend Grayson Haver Currin, who helped put it together. I was in Italy at the time, but was watching the horrors unfold in Asheville, where I’m from. Fortunately, our family is okay. My sister and her family, they’re okay, they’re living there now. My parents live on a farm an hour from Asheville, and they just got a lot of crazy flooding, a lot of trees down, but they’re okay. The structures are safe. But it’s weird to see streets that you are so familiar with, like the back of your hand, that you grew up driving on or walking on, totally just being in wreckage, just rubble. Hearing about all the historical stuff being underwater, it’s weird to be so far away and to see your hometown in the international news like that. I was really honored and grateful that Grayson included me in the compilation, because it’s very close to my heart.
On a different note, I saw you also played a show at Storm King Art Center, which is an incredible place. It made me think about the harp as the sculptural element too. I think your music is really well situated for that space. I was just wondering what that show was like? I know there was a bit of a rainstorm and your harp went on.
Mary Lattimore: That was a crazy show. That was the first time I had been there, and it was just so stunning and so green. It was in the summertime, so it was kind of muggy and the clouds were rolling in. It was a very dramatic place to play. It’s weird when the harp feels small. The harp is such a big instrument but it was dwarfed by all the sculptures. I look back at photos of that and the harp looks tiny compared to the huge vastness of the park, the grass, and the sculptures. It was fun.
It definitely started raining very hard though, but a lot of people stayed. That was an interesting [show] because several babies were there, infants with their parents. There were two babies in a row, where the parents talked about how the babies were in the hospital; they had had complications with the babies and that they were in the NICU, and they were playing my music for the babies. Two couples came up to me and this was the first live concert for these babies. It was just so sweet that these parents came up and told me that they could hear all the beeps in the hospital and my music was drowning out the beeping sound. It was so beautiful. I’m glad the babies are okay. Oh my gosh.
Do you have any visions or ideas for your next project?
Mary Lattimore: I have a couple of things coming up next year. I’m gonna make a record with Juliana Barwick, our duo record finally. We’re gonna make it in Paris. I think it’s gonna be a very interesting project. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it, but it’s gonna be I’m playing on some historical harps that are from the 1700s. I cannot wait to see what happens with this project. I did some recording with Laraaji earlier this year, and I need to edit that stuff and see if we want to make a duo record.
Then, I have a solo record I’m going to be working on in the summer. I want to tour less next year and really dig back into living [in LA] and also make stuff. I think next year is going to be just like making music, collaborating, playing a lot in my house, and just trying to drown out other voices that might be violent or trying to combat world stuff with some beauty.
Is there anything else you want to announce?
Mary Lattimore: I’m gonna have my residency at Zebulon coming up. I’ve been doing it for a couple years in a row. This year, it’s gonna be three Mondays in January. I’ve curated some really cool collaborations and some great DJs and openers. So look out for that!
Jeremy got this really full, new synthesizer. He said he was on a waiting list for it for two years. It came, and it has this little thing where you slide your finger up and down, creating a Theremin-esque sound. Together, they played this classical piece called “The Swan,” and it’s usually played with cello and harp, but we did that strange, cool synthesizer and harp. It sounded really haunting. They played together, and then I played a small set, and then a friend of mine arranged two of my pieces for two harps, and so [my mom and I] played those. That was really fun. We were nervous at first, but it went really well. It’s fun to play for people who are really listening. It seems like people need a balm right now. A few people said that they cried.
I can imagine that your music, and especially hearing it live, is really helping people calm down and be present.
Mary Lattimore: I hope so and it helps me too. Playing is a calming thing for us too.
Before this performance, had you played with your mother before? When was the last time?
Mary Lattimore: My mom lives in North Carolina, so she lives far away, so I flew her in for this with her best friend. The two of them, it’s been funny hanging out with them. My mom and I played together when I was a teenager and in my 20s, just for money for Christmas. We used to play at a place called the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, where I’m from. It’s this big mansion that you can take a tour of, and it’s all decorated for Christmas. Every year we used to play Christmas songs there, but other than that, we’ve never played a show like this before.
Your latest work Rain on the Road is so wonderful. What was it like to collaborate with accordionist Walt McClements on the project and when did your relationship start?
Mary Lattimore: I adore Walt. He’s one of my very best friends in my lifetime. We’ve toured together, playing individual sets, and we decided that it was time to make a duo record. We have a similar aesthetic. He’s taking this instrument that’s not usually used in this context with lots of drones and effects pedals. He’s bringing [the accordion] into a different world and different context. I’m hoping to do that with the harp too: shift the perception of the instrument. It was really fun to experiment with sounds and to improvise and get in the zone with him and his studio.
I remember it was a very rainy winter when we were working on it, and we just kind of holed up, hung out and drank wine and played our instruments. This is what came from it. I love the accordion and how deep it gets. Walt has a way to really boost the base from the accordion, and lots of pedals that make it sparkle. I think it’s given me a new appreciation for this instrument, just because it has such a deep, rich base-y sound. I always think about colors when I hear it. Saturation and really strong, deep sounds that really hit you in the heart.
I think drinking wine, cozy in the California rain is the best way to record an album. Those front porch concerts sound so spectacular.
Mary Lattimore: It was really fun. We just created our own little world in the yard.
Looking at some of the songs you and Walt created on Rain on the Road, I think “The Poppies, the Wild Mustard, the Blue-Eyed Grass” is my favorite. In the beginning of the track, there are a lot of sounds taken from nature: a forest in the wind, running water, rain. How did you figure out which sounds you wanted to incorporate, or was it a more natural process of just hitting record and seeing what you hear?
Mary Lattimore: That’s what it was. It was just hitting record, seeing what happened. We both like to improvise a lot. I think it’s a pure translation of feeling into sound. Walt included some field recordings that he had taken of rain, and then you can hear our whispers in the bear song. He captured these little moments of us on tour together, and we incorporated that into the record. It is really a beautiful object that is a symbol of our friendship.
I love the spoken intros on “Nest of Earrings” and “We Waited for the Bears to Leave.” I was wondering how those intros set up the rest of the songs?
Mary Lattimore: I was on tour with a Beach House. I was opening for them and Walt came with me to tour manage, sell merch, and take a road trip together and help me drive. We were staying at my family’s cabin in Asheville when we played the Asheville show in North Carolina, and there have been a lot of bears on the property recently. In the past 10 years, they’ve really been coming through. We were late for a sound check, and we had to move some boxes to the van and stuff, but in our path, there was a mama bear and her little cubs. The cubs were up the tree and the mom was at the bottom of the tree. They were in our way to get to the car, and even though we were running late, we didn’t want to disturb them or get attacked, so we just had to wait for them to leave. I didn’t know it at the time, but Walt was recording our conversation. You can hear us whispering, ‘They’re so cute. We shouldn’t go yet.’ I thought it was cool that he captured that moment. Eventually they left and we went to the sound check. Everything was fine.
I know your 2023 album, Goodbye, Hotel Arkada, was centered around mourning, passage of time, and change around us, but your duo album with Walt has a slightly different tone. Is there one word or a phrase that captures the central theme of Rain on the Road?
Mary Lattimore: As corny as it sounds, I would say friendship, connection, freedom. We just went [to record] with no ideas, just having the pureness of our connection immortalized like that. I’ve had that with other collaborations too. My best friend Meg Baird, she and I have made a record together. It’s such an intimate and important thing to collaborate with your friends, to leave the world behind for a minute, and to make stuff that radiates out the people and to mark the place in time a little bit too.
Are there any other big differences you see between your two most recent projects?
Mary Lattimore: I think all the collaborations, the solo stuff, and the film scores and stuff, it’s all body of work. Everything feeds into another thing. It’s just a narrative of a life, and I think they all influence each other. If I come up with different textures for the first solo records, I’ll bring it into the duo stuff. I don’t really compartmentalize them that much. It’s just lots of layers that add to each other and bleed into each other.
I was reading about your journey with the harp and I know you’re a multi-instrumentalist, and took up the harp at the encouragement of your mom. What is it like to have these parallel paths with your mother that are very different, but also explore the same instrument?
Mary Lattimore: It’s cool. I definitely had a good role model with my mom being a harpist as a kid. It showed me that it is possible to have a creative career. You do have to sacrifice. My mom was definitely playing concerts and rehearsals when I was a kid, and my Dad would heat up the dinner. But it was always really cool to have a mom that played in the orchestra and get to go. I admire her career. I wouldn’t be a harpist otherwise. It’s fun to be able to talk about the instrument, ask advice from her. One time, I was on the cover of the harp magazine, Harp Column, and that was a very exciting day for my mom. If there’s any recognition in “harp world,” she’s my biggest cheerleader.
I want to spend a day in “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: You should! People are starting harp lessons every day.
I know! I also listen to a lot of shoegaze music also and they have some cool harp elements, so I’ve been enjoying that side of “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: Yeah! Neil [Halstead] from Slowdive produced one of my records. I was really happy that he wasn’t scared of producing a harp, even though he had never hung out with one before. I agree that there are parallels, emotionally and sonically.
I know you also lived in Philadelphia. and now you live in LA. Philly is a really incredible music city, so is Los Angeles. Do you feel like you are in different head spaces making music in those two cities?
Mary Lattimore: For sure, it was also the time in life. I was in Philly starting at age 25 pretty broke, working four jobs. Philly is so affordable that there were a lot of artists there at that point. There were a lot of people wanting to jam, make music, and go to shows. Everybody was really supportive. I think that place and time was very special, very vibrant. I’m sure that now, it’s equally as great, I just am not tapped into the new music scene in Philly right now. Back then, it was just really easy to hang out and play music for fun. [In LA], I know a lot of very successful, amazing musicians, and there’s not as much easy, ‘Come over, let’s play instruments.’ I do have some friends like that. But, ‘Come over after work and play instruments,’ – it doesn’t really feel like that as much as, ‘You are writing this beautiful film score. I can’t wait to see it on the screen,’ or ‘I’m gonna go to your concert at the Disney Hall.’
Maybe it has to do with my age and where my friends are, career-wise, too. Here, I feel like more people that I know are in the arts as their job, whereas, back then, it was like playing music, not as a profession in Philly. I love both. Both are the best. I love living in both cities. Music scene here is incredible. Also, LA being a huge city, I’ve seen a lot of shows and concerts that are really special that I might not have seen if I were living somewhere else. Exposure to music here is incredible.
On a different note, I know you talked about growing up in Asheville, North Carolina. I saw you’re featured on Cardinals at the Window, which is a benefit album, benefitting people that were impacted by Hurricane Helene. If you feel comfortable talking about it, I was wondering what being a part of that project meant to you?
Mary Lattimore: It’s really cool. I put it on shuffle and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s gonna come on next?’ It’s a really good compilation. I was honored to be a part of it. I got a message from my friend Grayson Haver Currin, who helped put it together. I was in Italy at the time, but was watching the horrors unfold in Asheville, where I’m from. Fortunately, our family is okay. My sister and her family, they’re okay, they’re living there now. My parents live on a farm an hour from Asheville, and they just got a lot of crazy flooding, a lot of trees down, but they’re okay. The structures are safe. But it’s weird to see streets that you are so familiar with, like the back of your hand, that you grew up driving on or walking on, totally just being in wreckage, just rubble. Hearing about all the historical stuff being underwater, it’s weird to be so far away and to see your hometown in the international news like that. I was really honored and grateful that Grayson included me in the compilation, because it’s very close to my heart.
On a different note, I saw you also played a show at Storm King Art Center, which is an incredible place. It made me think about the harp as the sculptural element too. I think your music is really well situated for that space. I was just wondering what that show was like? I know there was a bit of a rainstorm and your harp went on.
Mary Lattimore: That was a crazy show. That was the first time I had been there, and it was just so stunning and so green. It was in the summertime, so it was kind of muggy and the clouds were rolling in. It was a very dramatic place to play. It’s weird when the harp feels small. The harp is such a big instrument but it was dwarfed by all the sculptures. I look back at photos of that and the harp looks tiny compared to the huge vastness of the park, the grass, and the sculptures. It was fun.
It definitely started raining very hard though, but a lot of people stayed. That was an interesting [show] because several babies were there, infants with their parents. There were two babies in a row, where the parents talked about how the babies were in the hospital; they had had complications with the babies and that they were in the NICU, and they were playing my music for the babies. Two couples came up to me and this was the first live concert for these babies. It was just so sweet that these parents came up and told me that they could hear all the beeps in the hospital and my music was drowning out the beeping sound. It was so beautiful. I’m glad the babies are okay. Oh my gosh.
Do you have any visions or ideas for your next project?
Mary Lattimore: I have a couple of things coming up next year. I’m gonna make a record with Juliana Barwick, our duo record finally. We’re gonna make it in Paris. I think it’s gonna be a very interesting project. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it, but it’s gonna be I’m playing on some historical harps that are from the 1700s. I cannot wait to see what happens with this project. I did some recording with Laraaji earlier this year, and I need to edit that stuff and see if we want to make a duo record.
Then, I have a solo record I’m going to be working on in the summer. I want to tour less next year and really dig back into living [in LA] and also make stuff. I think next year is going to be just like making music, collaborating, playing a lot in my house, and just trying to drown out other voices that might be violent or trying to combat world stuff with some beauty.
Is there anything else you want to announce?
Mary Lattimore: I’m gonna have my residency at Zebulon coming up. I’ve been doing it for a couple years in a row. This year, it’s gonna be three Mondays in January. I’ve curated some really cool collaborations and some great DJs and openers. So look out for that!
Before this performance, had you played with your mother before? When was the last time?
Mary Lattimore: My mom lives in North Carolina, so she lives far away, so I flew her in for this with her best friend. The two of them, it’s been funny hanging out with them. My mom and I played together when I was a teenager and in my 20s, just for money for Christmas. We used to play at a place called the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, where I’m from. It’s this big mansion that you can take a tour of, and it’s all decorated for Christmas. Every year we used to play Christmas songs there, but other than that, we’ve never played a show like this before.
Your latest work Rain on the Road is so wonderful. What was it like to collaborate with accordionist Walt McClements on the project and when did your relationship start?
Mary Lattimore: I adore Walt. He’s one of my very best friends in my lifetime. We’ve toured together, playing individual sets, and we decided that it was time to make a duo record. We have a similar aesthetic. He’s taking this instrument that’s not usually used in this context with lots of drones and effects pedals. He’s bringing [the accordion] into a different world and different context. I’m hoping to do that with the harp too: shift the perception of the instrument. It was really fun to experiment with sounds and to improvise and get in the zone with him and his studio.
I remember it was a very rainy winter when we were working on it, and we just kind of holed up, hung out and drank wine and played our instruments. This is what came from it. I love the accordion and how deep it gets. Walt has a way to really boost the base from the accordion, and lots of pedals that make it sparkle. I think it’s given me a new appreciation for this instrument, just because it has such a deep, rich base-y sound. I always think about colors when I hear it. Saturation and really strong, deep sounds that really hit you in the heart.
I think drinking wine, cozy in the California rain is the best way to record an album. Those front porch concerts sound so spectacular.
Mary Lattimore: It was really fun. We just created our own little world in the yard.
Looking at some of the songs you and Walt created on Rain on the Road, I think “The Poppies, the Wild Mustard, the Blue-Eyed Grass” is my favorite. In the beginning of the track, there are a lot of sounds taken from nature: a forest in the wind, running water, rain. How did you figure out which sounds you wanted to incorporate, or was it a more natural process of just hitting record and seeing what you hear?
Mary Lattimore: That’s what it was. It was just hitting record, seeing what happened. We both like to improvise a lot. I think it’s a pure translation of feeling into sound. Walt included some field recordings that he had taken of rain, and then you can hear our whispers in the bear song. He captured these little moments of us on tour together, and we incorporated that into the record. It is really a beautiful object that is a symbol of our friendship.
I love the spoken intros on “Nest of Earrings” and “We Waited for the Bears to Leave.” I was wondering how those intros set up the rest of the songs?
Mary Lattimore: I was on tour with a Beach House. I was opening for them and Walt came with me to tour manage, sell merch, and take a road trip together and help me drive. We were staying at my family’s cabin in Asheville when we played the Asheville show in North Carolina, and there have been a lot of bears on the property recently. In the past 10 years, they’ve really been coming through. We were late for a sound check, and we had to move some boxes to the van and stuff, but in our path, there was a mama bear and her little cubs. The cubs were up the tree and the mom was at the bottom of the tree. They were in our way to get to the car, and even though we were running late, we didn’t want to disturb them or get attacked, so we just had to wait for them to leave. I didn’t know it at the time, but Walt was recording our conversation. You can hear us whispering, ‘They’re so cute. We shouldn’t go yet.’ I thought it was cool that he captured that moment. Eventually they left and we went to the sound check. Everything was fine.
I know your 2023 album, Goodbye, Hotel Arkada, was centered around mourning, passage of time, and change around us, but your duo album with Walt has a slightly different tone. Is there one word or a phrase that captures the central theme of Rain on the Road?
Mary Lattimore: As corny as it sounds, I would say friendship, connection, freedom. We just went [to record] with no ideas, just having the pureness of our connection immortalized like that. I’ve had that with other collaborations too. My best friend Meg Baird, she and I have made a record together. It’s such an intimate and important thing to collaborate with your friends, to leave the world behind for a minute, and to make stuff that radiates out the people and to mark the place in time a little bit too.
Are there any other big differences you see between your two most recent projects?
Mary Lattimore: I think all the collaborations, the solo stuff, and the film scores and stuff, it’s all body of work. Everything feeds into another thing. It’s just a narrative of a life, and I think they all influence each other. If I come up with different textures for the first solo records, I’ll bring it into the duo stuff. I don’t really compartmentalize them that much. It’s just lots of layers that add to each other and bleed into each other.
I was reading about your journey with the harp and I know you’re a multi-instrumentalist, and took up the harp at the encouragement of your mom. What is it like to have these parallel paths with your mother that are very different, but also explore the same instrument?
Mary Lattimore: It’s cool. I definitely had a good role model with my mom being a harpist as a kid. It showed me that it is possible to have a creative career. You do have to sacrifice. My mom was definitely playing concerts and rehearsals when I was a kid, and my Dad would heat up the dinner. But it was always really cool to have a mom that played in the orchestra and get to go. I admire her career. I wouldn’t be a harpist otherwise. It’s fun to be able to talk about the instrument, ask advice from her. One time, I was on the cover of the harp magazine, Harp Column, and that was a very exciting day for my mom. If there’s any recognition in “harp world,” she’s my biggest cheerleader.
I want to spend a day in “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: You should! People are starting harp lessons every day.
I know! I also listen to a lot of shoegaze music also and they have some cool harp elements, so I’ve been enjoying that side of “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: Yeah! Neil [Halstead] from Slowdive produced one of my records. I was really happy that he wasn’t scared of producing a harp, even though he had never hung out with one before. I agree that there are parallels, emotionally and sonically.
I know you also lived in Philadelphia. and now you live in LA. Philly is a really incredible music city, so is Los Angeles. Do you feel like you are in different head spaces making music in those two cities?
Mary Lattimore: For sure, it was also the time in life. I was in Philly starting at age 25 pretty broke, working four jobs. Philly is so affordable that there were a lot of artists there at that point. There were a lot of people wanting to jam, make music, and go to shows. Everybody was really supportive. I think that place and time was very special, very vibrant. I’m sure that now, it’s equally as great, I just am not tapped into the new music scene in Philly right now. Back then, it was just really easy to hang out and play music for fun. [In LA], I know a lot of very successful, amazing musicians, and there’s not as much easy, ‘Come over, let’s play instruments.’ I do have some friends like that. But, ‘Come over after work and play instruments,’ – it doesn’t really feel like that as much as, ‘You are writing this beautiful film score. I can’t wait to see it on the screen,’ or ‘I’m gonna go to your concert at the Disney Hall.’
Maybe it has to do with my age and where my friends are, career-wise, too. Here, I feel like more people that I know are in the arts as their job, whereas, back then, it was like playing music, not as a profession in Philly. I love both. Both are the best. I love living in both cities. Music scene here is incredible. Also, LA being a huge city, I’ve seen a lot of shows and concerts that are really special that I might not have seen if I were living somewhere else. Exposure to music here is incredible.
On a different note, I know you talked about growing up in Asheville, North Carolina. I saw you’re featured on Cardinals at the Window, which is a benefit album, benefitting people that were impacted by Hurricane Helene. If you feel comfortable talking about it, I was wondering what being a part of that project meant to you?
Mary Lattimore: It’s really cool. I put it on shuffle and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s gonna come on next?’ It’s a really good compilation. I was honored to be a part of it. I got a message from my friend Grayson Haver Currin, who helped put it together. I was in Italy at the time, but was watching the horrors unfold in Asheville, where I’m from. Fortunately, our family is okay. My sister and her family, they’re okay, they’re living there now. My parents live on a farm an hour from Asheville, and they just got a lot of crazy flooding, a lot of trees down, but they’re okay. The structures are safe. But it’s weird to see streets that you are so familiar with, like the back of your hand, that you grew up driving on or walking on, totally just being in wreckage, just rubble. Hearing about all the historical stuff being underwater, it’s weird to be so far away and to see your hometown in the international news like that. I was really honored and grateful that Grayson included me in the compilation, because it’s very close to my heart.
On a different note, I saw you also played a show at Storm King Art Center, which is an incredible place. It made me think about the harp as the sculptural element too. I think your music is really well situated for that space. I was just wondering what that show was like? I know there was a bit of a rainstorm and your harp went on.
Mary Lattimore: That was a crazy show. That was the first time I had been there, and it was just so stunning and so green. It was in the summertime, so it was kind of muggy and the clouds were rolling in. It was a very dramatic place to play. It’s weird when the harp feels small. The harp is such a big instrument but it was dwarfed by all the sculptures. I look back at photos of that and the harp looks tiny compared to the huge vastness of the park, the grass, and the sculptures. It was fun.
It definitely started raining very hard though, but a lot of people stayed. That was an interesting [show] because several babies were there, infants with their parents. There were two babies in a row, where the parents talked about how the babies were in the hospital; they had had complications with the babies and that they were in the NICU, and they were playing my music for the babies. Two couples came up to me and this was the first live concert for these babies. It was just so sweet that these parents came up and told me that they could hear all the beeps in the hospital and my music was drowning out the beeping sound. It was so beautiful. I’m glad the babies are okay. Oh my gosh.
Do you have any visions or ideas for your next project?
Mary Lattimore: I have a couple of things coming up next year. I’m gonna make a record with Juliana Barwick, our duo record finally. We’re gonna make it in Paris. I think it’s gonna be a very interesting project. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it, but it’s gonna be I’m playing on some historical harps that are from the 1700s. I cannot wait to see what happens with this project. I did some recording with Laraaji earlier this year, and I need to edit that stuff and see if we want to make a duo record.
Then, I have a solo record I’m going to be working on in the summer. I want to tour less next year and really dig back into living [in LA] and also make stuff. I think next year is going to be just like making music, collaborating, playing a lot in my house, and just trying to drown out other voices that might be violent or trying to combat world stuff with some beauty.
Is there anything else you want to announce?
Mary Lattimore: I’m gonna have my residency at Zebulon coming up. I’ve been doing it for a couple years in a row. This year, it’s gonna be three Mondays in January. I’ve curated some really cool collaborations and some great DJs and openers. So look out for that!
Your latest work Rain on the Road is so wonderful. What was it like to collaborate with accordionist Walt McClements on the project and when did your relationship start?
Mary Lattimore: I adore Walt. He’s one of my very best friends in my lifetime. We’ve toured together, playing individual sets, and we decided that it was time to make a duo record. We have a similar aesthetic. He’s taking this instrument that’s not usually used in this context with lots of drones and effects pedals. He’s bringing [the accordion] into a different world and different context. I’m hoping to do that with the harp too: shift the perception of the instrument. It was really fun to experiment with sounds and to improvise and get in the zone with him and his studio.
I remember it was a very rainy winter when we were working on it, and we just kind of holed up, hung out and drank wine and played our instruments. This is what came from it. I love the accordion and how deep it gets. Walt has a way to really boost the base from the accordion, and lots of pedals that make it sparkle. I think it’s given me a new appreciation for this instrument, just because it has such a deep, rich base-y sound. I always think about colors when I hear it. Saturation and really strong, deep sounds that really hit you in the heart.
I think drinking wine, cozy in the California rain is the best way to record an album. Those front porch concerts sound so spectacular.
Mary Lattimore: It was really fun. We just created our own little world in the yard.
Looking at some of the songs you and Walt created on Rain on the Road, I think “The Poppies, the Wild Mustard, the Blue-Eyed Grass” is my favorite. In the beginning of the track, there are a lot of sounds taken from nature: a forest in the wind, running water, rain. How did you figure out which sounds you wanted to incorporate, or was it a more natural process of just hitting record and seeing what you hear?
Mary Lattimore: That’s what it was. It was just hitting record, seeing what happened. We both like to improvise a lot. I think it’s a pure translation of feeling into sound. Walt included some field recordings that he had taken of rain, and then you can hear our whispers in the bear song. He captured these little moments of us on tour together, and we incorporated that into the record. It is really a beautiful object that is a symbol of our friendship.
I love the spoken intros on “Nest of Earrings” and “We Waited for the Bears to Leave.” I was wondering how those intros set up the rest of the songs?
Mary Lattimore: I was on tour with a Beach House. I was opening for them and Walt came with me to tour manage, sell merch, and take a road trip together and help me drive. We were staying at my family’s cabin in Asheville when we played the Asheville show in North Carolina, and there have been a lot of bears on the property recently. In the past 10 years, they’ve really been coming through. We were late for a sound check, and we had to move some boxes to the van and stuff, but in our path, there was a mama bear and her little cubs. The cubs were up the tree and the mom was at the bottom of the tree. They were in our way to get to the car, and even though we were running late, we didn’t want to disturb them or get attacked, so we just had to wait for them to leave. I didn’t know it at the time, but Walt was recording our conversation. You can hear us whispering, ‘They’re so cute. We shouldn’t go yet.’ I thought it was cool that he captured that moment. Eventually they left and we went to the sound check. Everything was fine.
I know your 2023 album, Goodbye, Hotel Arkada, was centered around mourning, passage of time, and change around us, but your duo album with Walt has a slightly different tone. Is there one word or a phrase that captures the central theme of Rain on the Road?
Mary Lattimore: As corny as it sounds, I would say friendship, connection, freedom. We just went [to record] with no ideas, just having the pureness of our connection immortalized like that. I’ve had that with other collaborations too. My best friend Meg Baird, she and I have made a record together. It’s such an intimate and important thing to collaborate with your friends, to leave the world behind for a minute, and to make stuff that radiates out the people and to mark the place in time a little bit too.
Are there any other big differences you see between your two most recent projects?
Mary Lattimore: I think all the collaborations, the solo stuff, and the film scores and stuff, it’s all body of work. Everything feeds into another thing. It’s just a narrative of a life, and I think they all influence each other. If I come up with different textures for the first solo records, I’ll bring it into the duo stuff. I don’t really compartmentalize them that much. It’s just lots of layers that add to each other and bleed into each other.
I was reading about your journey with the harp and I know you’re a multi-instrumentalist, and took up the harp at the encouragement of your mom. What is it like to have these parallel paths with your mother that are very different, but also explore the same instrument?
Mary Lattimore: It’s cool. I definitely had a good role model with my mom being a harpist as a kid. It showed me that it is possible to have a creative career. You do have to sacrifice. My mom was definitely playing concerts and rehearsals when I was a kid, and my Dad would heat up the dinner. But it was always really cool to have a mom that played in the orchestra and get to go. I admire her career. I wouldn’t be a harpist otherwise. It’s fun to be able to talk about the instrument, ask advice from her. One time, I was on the cover of the harp magazine, Harp Column, and that was a very exciting day for my mom. If there’s any recognition in “harp world,” she’s my biggest cheerleader.
I want to spend a day in “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: You should! People are starting harp lessons every day.
I know! I also listen to a lot of shoegaze music also and they have some cool harp elements, so I’ve been enjoying that side of “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: Yeah! Neil [Halstead] from Slowdive produced one of my records. I was really happy that he wasn’t scared of producing a harp, even though he had never hung out with one before. I agree that there are parallels, emotionally and sonically.
I know you also lived in Philadelphia. and now you live in LA. Philly is a really incredible music city, so is Los Angeles. Do you feel like you are in different head spaces making music in those two cities?
Mary Lattimore: For sure, it was also the time in life. I was in Philly starting at age 25 pretty broke, working four jobs. Philly is so affordable that there were a lot of artists there at that point. There were a lot of people wanting to jam, make music, and go to shows. Everybody was really supportive. I think that place and time was very special, very vibrant. I’m sure that now, it’s equally as great, I just am not tapped into the new music scene in Philly right now. Back then, it was just really easy to hang out and play music for fun. [In LA], I know a lot of very successful, amazing musicians, and there’s not as much easy, ‘Come over, let’s play instruments.’ I do have some friends like that. But, ‘Come over after work and play instruments,’ – it doesn’t really feel like that as much as, ‘You are writing this beautiful film score. I can’t wait to see it on the screen,’ or ‘I’m gonna go to your concert at the Disney Hall.’
Maybe it has to do with my age and where my friends are, career-wise, too. Here, I feel like more people that I know are in the arts as their job, whereas, back then, it was like playing music, not as a profession in Philly. I love both. Both are the best. I love living in both cities. Music scene here is incredible. Also, LA being a huge city, I’ve seen a lot of shows and concerts that are really special that I might not have seen if I were living somewhere else. Exposure to music here is incredible.
On a different note, I know you talked about growing up in Asheville, North Carolina. I saw you’re featured on Cardinals at the Window, which is a benefit album, benefitting people that were impacted by Hurricane Helene. If you feel comfortable talking about it, I was wondering what being a part of that project meant to you?
Mary Lattimore: It’s really cool. I put it on shuffle and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s gonna come on next?’ It’s a really good compilation. I was honored to be a part of it. I got a message from my friend Grayson Haver Currin, who helped put it together. I was in Italy at the time, but was watching the horrors unfold in Asheville, where I’m from. Fortunately, our family is okay. My sister and her family, they’re okay, they’re living there now. My parents live on a farm an hour from Asheville, and they just got a lot of crazy flooding, a lot of trees down, but they’re okay. The structures are safe. But it’s weird to see streets that you are so familiar with, like the back of your hand, that you grew up driving on or walking on, totally just being in wreckage, just rubble. Hearing about all the historical stuff being underwater, it’s weird to be so far away and to see your hometown in the international news like that. I was really honored and grateful that Grayson included me in the compilation, because it’s very close to my heart.
On a different note, I saw you also played a show at Storm King Art Center, which is an incredible place. It made me think about the harp as the sculptural element too. I think your music is really well situated for that space. I was just wondering what that show was like? I know there was a bit of a rainstorm and your harp went on.
Mary Lattimore: That was a crazy show. That was the first time I had been there, and it was just so stunning and so green. It was in the summertime, so it was kind of muggy and the clouds were rolling in. It was a very dramatic place to play. It’s weird when the harp feels small. The harp is such a big instrument but it was dwarfed by all the sculptures. I look back at photos of that and the harp looks tiny compared to the huge vastness of the park, the grass, and the sculptures. It was fun.
It definitely started raining very hard though, but a lot of people stayed. That was an interesting [show] because several babies were there, infants with their parents. There were two babies in a row, where the parents talked about how the babies were in the hospital; they had had complications with the babies and that they were in the NICU, and they were playing my music for the babies. Two couples came up to me and this was the first live concert for these babies. It was just so sweet that these parents came up and told me that they could hear all the beeps in the hospital and my music was drowning out the beeping sound. It was so beautiful. I’m glad the babies are okay. Oh my gosh.
Do you have any visions or ideas for your next project?
Mary Lattimore: I have a couple of things coming up next year. I’m gonna make a record with Juliana Barwick, our duo record finally. We’re gonna make it in Paris. I think it’s gonna be a very interesting project. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it, but it’s gonna be I’m playing on some historical harps that are from the 1700s. I cannot wait to see what happens with this project. I did some recording with Laraaji earlier this year, and I need to edit that stuff and see if we want to make a duo record.
Then, I have a solo record I’m going to be working on in the summer. I want to tour less next year and really dig back into living [in LA] and also make stuff. I think next year is going to be just like making music, collaborating, playing a lot in my house, and just trying to drown out other voices that might be violent or trying to combat world stuff with some beauty.
Is there anything else you want to announce?
Mary Lattimore: I’m gonna have my residency at Zebulon coming up. I’ve been doing it for a couple years in a row. This year, it’s gonna be three Mondays in January. I’ve curated some really cool collaborations and some great DJs and openers. So look out for that!
I remember it was a very rainy winter when we were working on it, and we just kind of holed up, hung out and drank wine and played our instruments. This is what came from it. I love the accordion and how deep it gets. Walt has a way to really boost the base from the accordion, and lots of pedals that make it sparkle. I think it’s given me a new appreciation for this instrument, just because it has such a deep, rich base-y sound. I always think about colors when I hear it. Saturation and really strong, deep sounds that really hit you in the heart.
I think drinking wine, cozy in the California rain is the best way to record an album. Those front porch concerts sound so spectacular.
Mary Lattimore: It was really fun. We just created our own little world in the yard.
Looking at some of the songs you and Walt created on Rain on the Road, I think “The Poppies, the Wild Mustard, the Blue-Eyed Grass” is my favorite. In the beginning of the track, there are a lot of sounds taken from nature: a forest in the wind, running water, rain. How did you figure out which sounds you wanted to incorporate, or was it a more natural process of just hitting record and seeing what you hear?
Mary Lattimore: That’s what it was. It was just hitting record, seeing what happened. We both like to improvise a lot. I think it’s a pure translation of feeling into sound. Walt included some field recordings that he had taken of rain, and then you can hear our whispers in the bear song. He captured these little moments of us on tour together, and we incorporated that into the record. It is really a beautiful object that is a symbol of our friendship.
I love the spoken intros on “Nest of Earrings” and “We Waited for the Bears to Leave.” I was wondering how those intros set up the rest of the songs?
Mary Lattimore: I was on tour with a Beach House. I was opening for them and Walt came with me to tour manage, sell merch, and take a road trip together and help me drive. We were staying at my family’s cabin in Asheville when we played the Asheville show in North Carolina, and there have been a lot of bears on the property recently. In the past 10 years, they’ve really been coming through. We were late for a sound check, and we had to move some boxes to the van and stuff, but in our path, there was a mama bear and her little cubs. The cubs were up the tree and the mom was at the bottom of the tree. They were in our way to get to the car, and even though we were running late, we didn’t want to disturb them or get attacked, so we just had to wait for them to leave. I didn’t know it at the time, but Walt was recording our conversation. You can hear us whispering, ‘They’re so cute. We shouldn’t go yet.’ I thought it was cool that he captured that moment. Eventually they left and we went to the sound check. Everything was fine.
I know your 2023 album, Goodbye, Hotel Arkada, was centered around mourning, passage of time, and change around us, but your duo album with Walt has a slightly different tone. Is there one word or a phrase that captures the central theme of Rain on the Road?
Mary Lattimore: As corny as it sounds, I would say friendship, connection, freedom. We just went [to record] with no ideas, just having the pureness of our connection immortalized like that. I’ve had that with other collaborations too. My best friend Meg Baird, she and I have made a record together. It’s such an intimate and important thing to collaborate with your friends, to leave the world behind for a minute, and to make stuff that radiates out the people and to mark the place in time a little bit too.
Are there any other big differences you see between your two most recent projects?
Mary Lattimore: I think all the collaborations, the solo stuff, and the film scores and stuff, it’s all body of work. Everything feeds into another thing. It’s just a narrative of a life, and I think they all influence each other. If I come up with different textures for the first solo records, I’ll bring it into the duo stuff. I don’t really compartmentalize them that much. It’s just lots of layers that add to each other and bleed into each other.
I was reading about your journey with the harp and I know you’re a multi-instrumentalist, and took up the harp at the encouragement of your mom. What is it like to have these parallel paths with your mother that are very different, but also explore the same instrument?
Mary Lattimore: It’s cool. I definitely had a good role model with my mom being a harpist as a kid. It showed me that it is possible to have a creative career. You do have to sacrifice. My mom was definitely playing concerts and rehearsals when I was a kid, and my Dad would heat up the dinner. But it was always really cool to have a mom that played in the orchestra and get to go. I admire her career. I wouldn’t be a harpist otherwise. It’s fun to be able to talk about the instrument, ask advice from her. One time, I was on the cover of the harp magazine, Harp Column, and that was a very exciting day for my mom. If there’s any recognition in “harp world,” she’s my biggest cheerleader.
I want to spend a day in “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: You should! People are starting harp lessons every day.
I know! I also listen to a lot of shoegaze music also and they have some cool harp elements, so I’ve been enjoying that side of “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: Yeah! Neil [Halstead] from Slowdive produced one of my records. I was really happy that he wasn’t scared of producing a harp, even though he had never hung out with one before. I agree that there are parallels, emotionally and sonically.
I know you also lived in Philadelphia. and now you live in LA. Philly is a really incredible music city, so is Los Angeles. Do you feel like you are in different head spaces making music in those two cities?
Mary Lattimore: For sure, it was also the time in life. I was in Philly starting at age 25 pretty broke, working four jobs. Philly is so affordable that there were a lot of artists there at that point. There were a lot of people wanting to jam, make music, and go to shows. Everybody was really supportive. I think that place and time was very special, very vibrant. I’m sure that now, it’s equally as great, I just am not tapped into the new music scene in Philly right now. Back then, it was just really easy to hang out and play music for fun. [In LA], I know a lot of very successful, amazing musicians, and there’s not as much easy, ‘Come over, let’s play instruments.’ I do have some friends like that. But, ‘Come over after work and play instruments,’ – it doesn’t really feel like that as much as, ‘You are writing this beautiful film score. I can’t wait to see it on the screen,’ or ‘I’m gonna go to your concert at the Disney Hall.’
Maybe it has to do with my age and where my friends are, career-wise, too. Here, I feel like more people that I know are in the arts as their job, whereas, back then, it was like playing music, not as a profession in Philly. I love both. Both are the best. I love living in both cities. Music scene here is incredible. Also, LA being a huge city, I’ve seen a lot of shows and concerts that are really special that I might not have seen if I were living somewhere else. Exposure to music here is incredible.
On a different note, I know you talked about growing up in Asheville, North Carolina. I saw you’re featured on Cardinals at the Window, which is a benefit album, benefitting people that were impacted by Hurricane Helene. If you feel comfortable talking about it, I was wondering what being a part of that project meant to you?
Mary Lattimore: It’s really cool. I put it on shuffle and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s gonna come on next?’ It’s a really good compilation. I was honored to be a part of it. I got a message from my friend Grayson Haver Currin, who helped put it together. I was in Italy at the time, but was watching the horrors unfold in Asheville, where I’m from. Fortunately, our family is okay. My sister and her family, they’re okay, they’re living there now. My parents live on a farm an hour from Asheville, and they just got a lot of crazy flooding, a lot of trees down, but they’re okay. The structures are safe. But it’s weird to see streets that you are so familiar with, like the back of your hand, that you grew up driving on or walking on, totally just being in wreckage, just rubble. Hearing about all the historical stuff being underwater, it’s weird to be so far away and to see your hometown in the international news like that. I was really honored and grateful that Grayson included me in the compilation, because it’s very close to my heart.
On a different note, I saw you also played a show at Storm King Art Center, which is an incredible place. It made me think about the harp as the sculptural element too. I think your music is really well situated for that space. I was just wondering what that show was like? I know there was a bit of a rainstorm and your harp went on.
Mary Lattimore: That was a crazy show. That was the first time I had been there, and it was just so stunning and so green. It was in the summertime, so it was kind of muggy and the clouds were rolling in. It was a very dramatic place to play. It’s weird when the harp feels small. The harp is such a big instrument but it was dwarfed by all the sculptures. I look back at photos of that and the harp looks tiny compared to the huge vastness of the park, the grass, and the sculptures. It was fun.
It definitely started raining very hard though, but a lot of people stayed. That was an interesting [show] because several babies were there, infants with their parents. There were two babies in a row, where the parents talked about how the babies were in the hospital; they had had complications with the babies and that they were in the NICU, and they were playing my music for the babies. Two couples came up to me and this was the first live concert for these babies. It was just so sweet that these parents came up and told me that they could hear all the beeps in the hospital and my music was drowning out the beeping sound. It was so beautiful. I’m glad the babies are okay. Oh my gosh.
Do you have any visions or ideas for your next project?
Mary Lattimore: I have a couple of things coming up next year. I’m gonna make a record with Juliana Barwick, our duo record finally. We’re gonna make it in Paris. I think it’s gonna be a very interesting project. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it, but it’s gonna be I’m playing on some historical harps that are from the 1700s. I cannot wait to see what happens with this project. I did some recording with Laraaji earlier this year, and I need to edit that stuff and see if we want to make a duo record.
Then, I have a solo record I’m going to be working on in the summer. I want to tour less next year and really dig back into living [in LA] and also make stuff. I think next year is going to be just like making music, collaborating, playing a lot in my house, and just trying to drown out other voices that might be violent or trying to combat world stuff with some beauty.
Is there anything else you want to announce?
Mary Lattimore: I’m gonna have my residency at Zebulon coming up. I’ve been doing it for a couple years in a row. This year, it’s gonna be three Mondays in January. I’ve curated some really cool collaborations and some great DJs and openers. So look out for that!
Looking at some of the songs you and Walt created on Rain on the Road, I think “The Poppies, the Wild Mustard, the Blue-Eyed Grass” is my favorite. In the beginning of the track, there are a lot of sounds taken from nature: a forest in the wind, running water, rain. How did you figure out which sounds you wanted to incorporate, or was it a more natural process of just hitting record and seeing what you hear?
Mary Lattimore: That’s what it was. It was just hitting record, seeing what happened. We both like to improvise a lot. I think it’s a pure translation of feeling into sound. Walt included some field recordings that he had taken of rain, and then you can hear our whispers in the bear song. He captured these little moments of us on tour together, and we incorporated that into the record. It is really a beautiful object that is a symbol of our friendship.
I love the spoken intros on “Nest of Earrings” and “We Waited for the Bears to Leave.” I was wondering how those intros set up the rest of the songs?
Mary Lattimore: I was on tour with a Beach House. I was opening for them and Walt came with me to tour manage, sell merch, and take a road trip together and help me drive. We were staying at my family’s cabin in Asheville when we played the Asheville show in North Carolina, and there have been a lot of bears on the property recently. In the past 10 years, they’ve really been coming through. We were late for a sound check, and we had to move some boxes to the van and stuff, but in our path, there was a mama bear and her little cubs. The cubs were up the tree and the mom was at the bottom of the tree. They were in our way to get to the car, and even though we were running late, we didn’t want to disturb them or get attacked, so we just had to wait for them to leave. I didn’t know it at the time, but Walt was recording our conversation. You can hear us whispering, ‘They’re so cute. We shouldn’t go yet.’ I thought it was cool that he captured that moment. Eventually they left and we went to the sound check. Everything was fine.
I know your 2023 album, Goodbye, Hotel Arkada, was centered around mourning, passage of time, and change around us, but your duo album with Walt has a slightly different tone. Is there one word or a phrase that captures the central theme of Rain on the Road?
Mary Lattimore: As corny as it sounds, I would say friendship, connection, freedom. We just went [to record] with no ideas, just having the pureness of our connection immortalized like that. I’ve had that with other collaborations too. My best friend Meg Baird, she and I have made a record together. It’s such an intimate and important thing to collaborate with your friends, to leave the world behind for a minute, and to make stuff that radiates out the people and to mark the place in time a little bit too.
Are there any other big differences you see between your two most recent projects?
Mary Lattimore: I think all the collaborations, the solo stuff, and the film scores and stuff, it’s all body of work. Everything feeds into another thing. It’s just a narrative of a life, and I think they all influence each other. If I come up with different textures for the first solo records, I’ll bring it into the duo stuff. I don’t really compartmentalize them that much. It’s just lots of layers that add to each other and bleed into each other.
I was reading about your journey with the harp and I know you’re a multi-instrumentalist, and took up the harp at the encouragement of your mom. What is it like to have these parallel paths with your mother that are very different, but also explore the same instrument?
Mary Lattimore: It’s cool. I definitely had a good role model with my mom being a harpist as a kid. It showed me that it is possible to have a creative career. You do have to sacrifice. My mom was definitely playing concerts and rehearsals when I was a kid, and my Dad would heat up the dinner. But it was always really cool to have a mom that played in the orchestra and get to go. I admire her career. I wouldn’t be a harpist otherwise. It’s fun to be able to talk about the instrument, ask advice from her. One time, I was on the cover of the harp magazine, Harp Column, and that was a very exciting day for my mom. If there’s any recognition in “harp world,” she’s my biggest cheerleader.
I want to spend a day in “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: You should! People are starting harp lessons every day.
I know! I also listen to a lot of shoegaze music also and they have some cool harp elements, so I’ve been enjoying that side of “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: Yeah! Neil [Halstead] from Slowdive produced one of my records. I was really happy that he wasn’t scared of producing a harp, even though he had never hung out with one before. I agree that there are parallels, emotionally and sonically.
I know you also lived in Philadelphia. and now you live in LA. Philly is a really incredible music city, so is Los Angeles. Do you feel like you are in different head spaces making music in those two cities?
Mary Lattimore: For sure, it was also the time in life. I was in Philly starting at age 25 pretty broke, working four jobs. Philly is so affordable that there were a lot of artists there at that point. There were a lot of people wanting to jam, make music, and go to shows. Everybody was really supportive. I think that place and time was very special, very vibrant. I’m sure that now, it’s equally as great, I just am not tapped into the new music scene in Philly right now. Back then, it was just really easy to hang out and play music for fun. [In LA], I know a lot of very successful, amazing musicians, and there’s not as much easy, ‘Come over, let’s play instruments.’ I do have some friends like that. But, ‘Come over after work and play instruments,’ – it doesn’t really feel like that as much as, ‘You are writing this beautiful film score. I can’t wait to see it on the screen,’ or ‘I’m gonna go to your concert at the Disney Hall.’
Maybe it has to do with my age and where my friends are, career-wise, too. Here, I feel like more people that I know are in the arts as their job, whereas, back then, it was like playing music, not as a profession in Philly. I love both. Both are the best. I love living in both cities. Music scene here is incredible. Also, LA being a huge city, I’ve seen a lot of shows and concerts that are really special that I might not have seen if I were living somewhere else. Exposure to music here is incredible.
On a different note, I know you talked about growing up in Asheville, North Carolina. I saw you’re featured on Cardinals at the Window, which is a benefit album, benefitting people that were impacted by Hurricane Helene. If you feel comfortable talking about it, I was wondering what being a part of that project meant to you?
Mary Lattimore: It’s really cool. I put it on shuffle and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s gonna come on next?’ It’s a really good compilation. I was honored to be a part of it. I got a message from my friend Grayson Haver Currin, who helped put it together. I was in Italy at the time, but was watching the horrors unfold in Asheville, where I’m from. Fortunately, our family is okay. My sister and her family, they’re okay, they’re living there now. My parents live on a farm an hour from Asheville, and they just got a lot of crazy flooding, a lot of trees down, but they’re okay. The structures are safe. But it’s weird to see streets that you are so familiar with, like the back of your hand, that you grew up driving on or walking on, totally just being in wreckage, just rubble. Hearing about all the historical stuff being underwater, it’s weird to be so far away and to see your hometown in the international news like that. I was really honored and grateful that Grayson included me in the compilation, because it’s very close to my heart.
On a different note, I saw you also played a show at Storm King Art Center, which is an incredible place. It made me think about the harp as the sculptural element too. I think your music is really well situated for that space. I was just wondering what that show was like? I know there was a bit of a rainstorm and your harp went on.
Mary Lattimore: That was a crazy show. That was the first time I had been there, and it was just so stunning and so green. It was in the summertime, so it was kind of muggy and the clouds were rolling in. It was a very dramatic place to play. It’s weird when the harp feels small. The harp is such a big instrument but it was dwarfed by all the sculptures. I look back at photos of that and the harp looks tiny compared to the huge vastness of the park, the grass, and the sculptures. It was fun.
It definitely started raining very hard though, but a lot of people stayed. That was an interesting [show] because several babies were there, infants with their parents. There were two babies in a row, where the parents talked about how the babies were in the hospital; they had had complications with the babies and that they were in the NICU, and they were playing my music for the babies. Two couples came up to me and this was the first live concert for these babies. It was just so sweet that these parents came up and told me that they could hear all the beeps in the hospital and my music was drowning out the beeping sound. It was so beautiful. I’m glad the babies are okay. Oh my gosh.
Do you have any visions or ideas for your next project?
Mary Lattimore: I have a couple of things coming up next year. I’m gonna make a record with Juliana Barwick, our duo record finally. We’re gonna make it in Paris. I think it’s gonna be a very interesting project. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it, but it’s gonna be I’m playing on some historical harps that are from the 1700s. I cannot wait to see what happens with this project. I did some recording with Laraaji earlier this year, and I need to edit that stuff and see if we want to make a duo record.
Then, I have a solo record I’m going to be working on in the summer. I want to tour less next year and really dig back into living [in LA] and also make stuff. I think next year is going to be just like making music, collaborating, playing a lot in my house, and just trying to drown out other voices that might be violent or trying to combat world stuff with some beauty.
Is there anything else you want to announce?
Mary Lattimore: I’m gonna have my residency at Zebulon coming up. I’ve been doing it for a couple years in a row. This year, it’s gonna be three Mondays in January. I’ve curated some really cool collaborations and some great DJs and openers. So look out for that!
I love the spoken intros on “Nest of Earrings” and “We Waited for the Bears to Leave.” I was wondering how those intros set up the rest of the songs?
Mary Lattimore: I was on tour with a Beach House. I was opening for them and Walt came with me to tour manage, sell merch, and take a road trip together and help me drive. We were staying at my family’s cabin in Asheville when we played the Asheville show in North Carolina, and there have been a lot of bears on the property recently. In the past 10 years, they’ve really been coming through. We were late for a sound check, and we had to move some boxes to the van and stuff, but in our path, there was a mama bear and her little cubs. The cubs were up the tree and the mom was at the bottom of the tree. They were in our way to get to the car, and even though we were running late, we didn’t want to disturb them or get attacked, so we just had to wait for them to leave. I didn’t know it at the time, but Walt was recording our conversation. You can hear us whispering, ‘They’re so cute. We shouldn’t go yet.’ I thought it was cool that he captured that moment. Eventually they left and we went to the sound check. Everything was fine.
I know your 2023 album, Goodbye, Hotel Arkada, was centered around mourning, passage of time, and change around us, but your duo album with Walt has a slightly different tone. Is there one word or a phrase that captures the central theme of Rain on the Road?
Mary Lattimore: As corny as it sounds, I would say friendship, connection, freedom. We just went [to record] with no ideas, just having the pureness of our connection immortalized like that. I’ve had that with other collaborations too. My best friend Meg Baird, she and I have made a record together. It’s such an intimate and important thing to collaborate with your friends, to leave the world behind for a minute, and to make stuff that radiates out the people and to mark the place in time a little bit too.
Are there any other big differences you see between your two most recent projects?
Mary Lattimore: I think all the collaborations, the solo stuff, and the film scores and stuff, it’s all body of work. Everything feeds into another thing. It’s just a narrative of a life, and I think they all influence each other. If I come up with different textures for the first solo records, I’ll bring it into the duo stuff. I don’t really compartmentalize them that much. It’s just lots of layers that add to each other and bleed into each other.
I was reading about your journey with the harp and I know you’re a multi-instrumentalist, and took up the harp at the encouragement of your mom. What is it like to have these parallel paths with your mother that are very different, but also explore the same instrument?
Mary Lattimore: It’s cool. I definitely had a good role model with my mom being a harpist as a kid. It showed me that it is possible to have a creative career. You do have to sacrifice. My mom was definitely playing concerts and rehearsals when I was a kid, and my Dad would heat up the dinner. But it was always really cool to have a mom that played in the orchestra and get to go. I admire her career. I wouldn’t be a harpist otherwise. It’s fun to be able to talk about the instrument, ask advice from her. One time, I was on the cover of the harp magazine, Harp Column, and that was a very exciting day for my mom. If there’s any recognition in “harp world,” she’s my biggest cheerleader.
I want to spend a day in “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: You should! People are starting harp lessons every day.
I know! I also listen to a lot of shoegaze music also and they have some cool harp elements, so I’ve been enjoying that side of “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: Yeah! Neil [Halstead] from Slowdive produced one of my records. I was really happy that he wasn’t scared of producing a harp, even though he had never hung out with one before. I agree that there are parallels, emotionally and sonically.
I know you also lived in Philadelphia. and now you live in LA. Philly is a really incredible music city, so is Los Angeles. Do you feel like you are in different head spaces making music in those two cities?
Mary Lattimore: For sure, it was also the time in life. I was in Philly starting at age 25 pretty broke, working four jobs. Philly is so affordable that there were a lot of artists there at that point. There were a lot of people wanting to jam, make music, and go to shows. Everybody was really supportive. I think that place and time was very special, very vibrant. I’m sure that now, it’s equally as great, I just am not tapped into the new music scene in Philly right now. Back then, it was just really easy to hang out and play music for fun. [In LA], I know a lot of very successful, amazing musicians, and there’s not as much easy, ‘Come over, let’s play instruments.’ I do have some friends like that. But, ‘Come over after work and play instruments,’ – it doesn’t really feel like that as much as, ‘You are writing this beautiful film score. I can’t wait to see it on the screen,’ or ‘I’m gonna go to your concert at the Disney Hall.’
Maybe it has to do with my age and where my friends are, career-wise, too. Here, I feel like more people that I know are in the arts as their job, whereas, back then, it was like playing music, not as a profession in Philly. I love both. Both are the best. I love living in both cities. Music scene here is incredible. Also, LA being a huge city, I’ve seen a lot of shows and concerts that are really special that I might not have seen if I were living somewhere else. Exposure to music here is incredible.
On a different note, I know you talked about growing up in Asheville, North Carolina. I saw you’re featured on Cardinals at the Window, which is a benefit album, benefitting people that were impacted by Hurricane Helene. If you feel comfortable talking about it, I was wondering what being a part of that project meant to you?
Mary Lattimore: It’s really cool. I put it on shuffle and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s gonna come on next?’ It’s a really good compilation. I was honored to be a part of it. I got a message from my friend Grayson Haver Currin, who helped put it together. I was in Italy at the time, but was watching the horrors unfold in Asheville, where I’m from. Fortunately, our family is okay. My sister and her family, they’re okay, they’re living there now. My parents live on a farm an hour from Asheville, and they just got a lot of crazy flooding, a lot of trees down, but they’re okay. The structures are safe. But it’s weird to see streets that you are so familiar with, like the back of your hand, that you grew up driving on or walking on, totally just being in wreckage, just rubble. Hearing about all the historical stuff being underwater, it’s weird to be so far away and to see your hometown in the international news like that. I was really honored and grateful that Grayson included me in the compilation, because it’s very close to my heart.
On a different note, I saw you also played a show at Storm King Art Center, which is an incredible place. It made me think about the harp as the sculptural element too. I think your music is really well situated for that space. I was just wondering what that show was like? I know there was a bit of a rainstorm and your harp went on.
Mary Lattimore: That was a crazy show. That was the first time I had been there, and it was just so stunning and so green. It was in the summertime, so it was kind of muggy and the clouds were rolling in. It was a very dramatic place to play. It’s weird when the harp feels small. The harp is such a big instrument but it was dwarfed by all the sculptures. I look back at photos of that and the harp looks tiny compared to the huge vastness of the park, the grass, and the sculptures. It was fun.
It definitely started raining very hard though, but a lot of people stayed. That was an interesting [show] because several babies were there, infants with their parents. There were two babies in a row, where the parents talked about how the babies were in the hospital; they had had complications with the babies and that they were in the NICU, and they were playing my music for the babies. Two couples came up to me and this was the first live concert for these babies. It was just so sweet that these parents came up and told me that they could hear all the beeps in the hospital and my music was drowning out the beeping sound. It was so beautiful. I’m glad the babies are okay. Oh my gosh.
Do you have any visions or ideas for your next project?
Mary Lattimore: I have a couple of things coming up next year. I’m gonna make a record with Juliana Barwick, our duo record finally. We’re gonna make it in Paris. I think it’s gonna be a very interesting project. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it, but it’s gonna be I’m playing on some historical harps that are from the 1700s. I cannot wait to see what happens with this project. I did some recording with Laraaji earlier this year, and I need to edit that stuff and see if we want to make a duo record.
Then, I have a solo record I’m going to be working on in the summer. I want to tour less next year and really dig back into living [in LA] and also make stuff. I think next year is going to be just like making music, collaborating, playing a lot in my house, and just trying to drown out other voices that might be violent or trying to combat world stuff with some beauty.
Is there anything else you want to announce?
Mary Lattimore: I’m gonna have my residency at Zebulon coming up. I’ve been doing it for a couple years in a row. This year, it’s gonna be three Mondays in January. I’ve curated some really cool collaborations and some great DJs and openers. So look out for that!
I know your 2023 album, Goodbye, Hotel Arkada, was centered around mourning, passage of time, and change around us, but your duo album with Walt has a slightly different tone. Is there one word or a phrase that captures the central theme of Rain on the Road?
Mary Lattimore: As corny as it sounds, I would say friendship, connection, freedom. We just went [to record] with no ideas, just having the pureness of our connection immortalized like that. I’ve had that with other collaborations too. My best friend Meg Baird, she and I have made a record together. It’s such an intimate and important thing to collaborate with your friends, to leave the world behind for a minute, and to make stuff that radiates out the people and to mark the place in time a little bit too.
Are there any other big differences you see between your two most recent projects?
Mary Lattimore: I think all the collaborations, the solo stuff, and the film scores and stuff, it’s all body of work. Everything feeds into another thing. It’s just a narrative of a life, and I think they all influence each other. If I come up with different textures for the first solo records, I’ll bring it into the duo stuff. I don’t really compartmentalize them that much. It’s just lots of layers that add to each other and bleed into each other.
I was reading about your journey with the harp and I know you’re a multi-instrumentalist, and took up the harp at the encouragement of your mom. What is it like to have these parallel paths with your mother that are very different, but also explore the same instrument?
Mary Lattimore: It’s cool. I definitely had a good role model with my mom being a harpist as a kid. It showed me that it is possible to have a creative career. You do have to sacrifice. My mom was definitely playing concerts and rehearsals when I was a kid, and my Dad would heat up the dinner. But it was always really cool to have a mom that played in the orchestra and get to go. I admire her career. I wouldn’t be a harpist otherwise. It’s fun to be able to talk about the instrument, ask advice from her. One time, I was on the cover of the harp magazine, Harp Column, and that was a very exciting day for my mom. If there’s any recognition in “harp world,” she’s my biggest cheerleader.
I want to spend a day in “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: You should! People are starting harp lessons every day.
I know! I also listen to a lot of shoegaze music also and they have some cool harp elements, so I’ve been enjoying that side of “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: Yeah! Neil [Halstead] from Slowdive produced one of my records. I was really happy that he wasn’t scared of producing a harp, even though he had never hung out with one before. I agree that there are parallels, emotionally and sonically.
I know you also lived in Philadelphia. and now you live in LA. Philly is a really incredible music city, so is Los Angeles. Do you feel like you are in different head spaces making music in those two cities?
Mary Lattimore: For sure, it was also the time in life. I was in Philly starting at age 25 pretty broke, working four jobs. Philly is so affordable that there were a lot of artists there at that point. There were a lot of people wanting to jam, make music, and go to shows. Everybody was really supportive. I think that place and time was very special, very vibrant. I’m sure that now, it’s equally as great, I just am not tapped into the new music scene in Philly right now. Back then, it was just really easy to hang out and play music for fun. [In LA], I know a lot of very successful, amazing musicians, and there’s not as much easy, ‘Come over, let’s play instruments.’ I do have some friends like that. But, ‘Come over after work and play instruments,’ – it doesn’t really feel like that as much as, ‘You are writing this beautiful film score. I can’t wait to see it on the screen,’ or ‘I’m gonna go to your concert at the Disney Hall.’
Maybe it has to do with my age and where my friends are, career-wise, too. Here, I feel like more people that I know are in the arts as their job, whereas, back then, it was like playing music, not as a profession in Philly. I love both. Both are the best. I love living in both cities. Music scene here is incredible. Also, LA being a huge city, I’ve seen a lot of shows and concerts that are really special that I might not have seen if I were living somewhere else. Exposure to music here is incredible.
On a different note, I know you talked about growing up in Asheville, North Carolina. I saw you’re featured on Cardinals at the Window, which is a benefit album, benefitting people that were impacted by Hurricane Helene. If you feel comfortable talking about it, I was wondering what being a part of that project meant to you?
Mary Lattimore: It’s really cool. I put it on shuffle and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s gonna come on next?’ It’s a really good compilation. I was honored to be a part of it. I got a message from my friend Grayson Haver Currin, who helped put it together. I was in Italy at the time, but was watching the horrors unfold in Asheville, where I’m from. Fortunately, our family is okay. My sister and her family, they’re okay, they’re living there now. My parents live on a farm an hour from Asheville, and they just got a lot of crazy flooding, a lot of trees down, but they’re okay. The structures are safe. But it’s weird to see streets that you are so familiar with, like the back of your hand, that you grew up driving on or walking on, totally just being in wreckage, just rubble. Hearing about all the historical stuff being underwater, it’s weird to be so far away and to see your hometown in the international news like that. I was really honored and grateful that Grayson included me in the compilation, because it’s very close to my heart.
On a different note, I saw you also played a show at Storm King Art Center, which is an incredible place. It made me think about the harp as the sculptural element too. I think your music is really well situated for that space. I was just wondering what that show was like? I know there was a bit of a rainstorm and your harp went on.
Mary Lattimore: That was a crazy show. That was the first time I had been there, and it was just so stunning and so green. It was in the summertime, so it was kind of muggy and the clouds were rolling in. It was a very dramatic place to play. It’s weird when the harp feels small. The harp is such a big instrument but it was dwarfed by all the sculptures. I look back at photos of that and the harp looks tiny compared to the huge vastness of the park, the grass, and the sculptures. It was fun.
It definitely started raining very hard though, but a lot of people stayed. That was an interesting [show] because several babies were there, infants with their parents. There were two babies in a row, where the parents talked about how the babies were in the hospital; they had had complications with the babies and that they were in the NICU, and they were playing my music for the babies. Two couples came up to me and this was the first live concert for these babies. It was just so sweet that these parents came up and told me that they could hear all the beeps in the hospital and my music was drowning out the beeping sound. It was so beautiful. I’m glad the babies are okay. Oh my gosh.
Do you have any visions or ideas for your next project?
Mary Lattimore: I have a couple of things coming up next year. I’m gonna make a record with Juliana Barwick, our duo record finally. We’re gonna make it in Paris. I think it’s gonna be a very interesting project. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it, but it’s gonna be I’m playing on some historical harps that are from the 1700s. I cannot wait to see what happens with this project. I did some recording with Laraaji earlier this year, and I need to edit that stuff and see if we want to make a duo record.
Then, I have a solo record I’m going to be working on in the summer. I want to tour less next year and really dig back into living [in LA] and also make stuff. I think next year is going to be just like making music, collaborating, playing a lot in my house, and just trying to drown out other voices that might be violent or trying to combat world stuff with some beauty.
Is there anything else you want to announce?
Mary Lattimore: I’m gonna have my residency at Zebulon coming up. I’ve been doing it for a couple years in a row. This year, it’s gonna be three Mondays in January. I’ve curated some really cool collaborations and some great DJs and openers. So look out for that!
Are there any other big differences you see between your two most recent projects?
Mary Lattimore: I think all the collaborations, the solo stuff, and the film scores and stuff, it’s all body of work. Everything feeds into another thing. It’s just a narrative of a life, and I think they all influence each other. If I come up with different textures for the first solo records, I’ll bring it into the duo stuff. I don’t really compartmentalize them that much. It’s just lots of layers that add to each other and bleed into each other.
I was reading about your journey with the harp and I know you’re a multi-instrumentalist, and took up the harp at the encouragement of your mom. What is it like to have these parallel paths with your mother that are very different, but also explore the same instrument?
Mary Lattimore: It’s cool. I definitely had a good role model with my mom being a harpist as a kid. It showed me that it is possible to have a creative career. You do have to sacrifice. My mom was definitely playing concerts and rehearsals when I was a kid, and my Dad would heat up the dinner. But it was always really cool to have a mom that played in the orchestra and get to go. I admire her career. I wouldn’t be a harpist otherwise. It’s fun to be able to talk about the instrument, ask advice from her. One time, I was on the cover of the harp magazine, Harp Column, and that was a very exciting day for my mom. If there’s any recognition in “harp world,” she’s my biggest cheerleader.
I want to spend a day in “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: You should! People are starting harp lessons every day.
I know! I also listen to a lot of shoegaze music also and they have some cool harp elements, so I’ve been enjoying that side of “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: Yeah! Neil [Halstead] from Slowdive produced one of my records. I was really happy that he wasn’t scared of producing a harp, even though he had never hung out with one before. I agree that there are parallels, emotionally and sonically.
I know you also lived in Philadelphia. and now you live in LA. Philly is a really incredible music city, so is Los Angeles. Do you feel like you are in different head spaces making music in those two cities?
Mary Lattimore: For sure, it was also the time in life. I was in Philly starting at age 25 pretty broke, working four jobs. Philly is so affordable that there were a lot of artists there at that point. There were a lot of people wanting to jam, make music, and go to shows. Everybody was really supportive. I think that place and time was very special, very vibrant. I’m sure that now, it’s equally as great, I just am not tapped into the new music scene in Philly right now. Back then, it was just really easy to hang out and play music for fun. [In LA], I know a lot of very successful, amazing musicians, and there’s not as much easy, ‘Come over, let’s play instruments.’ I do have some friends like that. But, ‘Come over after work and play instruments,’ – it doesn’t really feel like that as much as, ‘You are writing this beautiful film score. I can’t wait to see it on the screen,’ or ‘I’m gonna go to your concert at the Disney Hall.’
Maybe it has to do with my age and where my friends are, career-wise, too. Here, I feel like more people that I know are in the arts as their job, whereas, back then, it was like playing music, not as a profession in Philly. I love both. Both are the best. I love living in both cities. Music scene here is incredible. Also, LA being a huge city, I’ve seen a lot of shows and concerts that are really special that I might not have seen if I were living somewhere else. Exposure to music here is incredible.
On a different note, I know you talked about growing up in Asheville, North Carolina. I saw you’re featured on Cardinals at the Window, which is a benefit album, benefitting people that were impacted by Hurricane Helene. If you feel comfortable talking about it, I was wondering what being a part of that project meant to you?
Mary Lattimore: It’s really cool. I put it on shuffle and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s gonna come on next?’ It’s a really good compilation. I was honored to be a part of it. I got a message from my friend Grayson Haver Currin, who helped put it together. I was in Italy at the time, but was watching the horrors unfold in Asheville, where I’m from. Fortunately, our family is okay. My sister and her family, they’re okay, they’re living there now. My parents live on a farm an hour from Asheville, and they just got a lot of crazy flooding, a lot of trees down, but they’re okay. The structures are safe. But it’s weird to see streets that you are so familiar with, like the back of your hand, that you grew up driving on or walking on, totally just being in wreckage, just rubble. Hearing about all the historical stuff being underwater, it’s weird to be so far away and to see your hometown in the international news like that. I was really honored and grateful that Grayson included me in the compilation, because it’s very close to my heart.
On a different note, I saw you also played a show at Storm King Art Center, which is an incredible place. It made me think about the harp as the sculptural element too. I think your music is really well situated for that space. I was just wondering what that show was like? I know there was a bit of a rainstorm and your harp went on.
Mary Lattimore: That was a crazy show. That was the first time I had been there, and it was just so stunning and so green. It was in the summertime, so it was kind of muggy and the clouds were rolling in. It was a very dramatic place to play. It’s weird when the harp feels small. The harp is such a big instrument but it was dwarfed by all the sculptures. I look back at photos of that and the harp looks tiny compared to the huge vastness of the park, the grass, and the sculptures. It was fun.
It definitely started raining very hard though, but a lot of people stayed. That was an interesting [show] because several babies were there, infants with their parents. There were two babies in a row, where the parents talked about how the babies were in the hospital; they had had complications with the babies and that they were in the NICU, and they were playing my music for the babies. Two couples came up to me and this was the first live concert for these babies. It was just so sweet that these parents came up and told me that they could hear all the beeps in the hospital and my music was drowning out the beeping sound. It was so beautiful. I’m glad the babies are okay. Oh my gosh.
Do you have any visions or ideas for your next project?
Mary Lattimore: I have a couple of things coming up next year. I’m gonna make a record with Juliana Barwick, our duo record finally. We’re gonna make it in Paris. I think it’s gonna be a very interesting project. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it, but it’s gonna be I’m playing on some historical harps that are from the 1700s. I cannot wait to see what happens with this project. I did some recording with Laraaji earlier this year, and I need to edit that stuff and see if we want to make a duo record.
Then, I have a solo record I’m going to be working on in the summer. I want to tour less next year and really dig back into living [in LA] and also make stuff. I think next year is going to be just like making music, collaborating, playing a lot in my house, and just trying to drown out other voices that might be violent or trying to combat world stuff with some beauty.
Is there anything else you want to announce?
Mary Lattimore: I’m gonna have my residency at Zebulon coming up. I’ve been doing it for a couple years in a row. This year, it’s gonna be three Mondays in January. I’ve curated some really cool collaborations and some great DJs and openers. So look out for that!
I was reading about your journey with the harp and I know you’re a multi-instrumentalist, and took up the harp at the encouragement of your mom. What is it like to have these parallel paths with your mother that are very different, but also explore the same instrument?
Mary Lattimore: It’s cool. I definitely had a good role model with my mom being a harpist as a kid. It showed me that it is possible to have a creative career. You do have to sacrifice. My mom was definitely playing concerts and rehearsals when I was a kid, and my Dad would heat up the dinner. But it was always really cool to have a mom that played in the orchestra and get to go. I admire her career. I wouldn’t be a harpist otherwise. It’s fun to be able to talk about the instrument, ask advice from her. One time, I was on the cover of the harp magazine, Harp Column, and that was a very exciting day for my mom. If there’s any recognition in “harp world,” she’s my biggest cheerleader.
I want to spend a day in “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: You should! People are starting harp lessons every day.
I know! I also listen to a lot of shoegaze music also and they have some cool harp elements, so I’ve been enjoying that side of “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: Yeah! Neil [Halstead] from Slowdive produced one of my records. I was really happy that he wasn’t scared of producing a harp, even though he had never hung out with one before. I agree that there are parallels, emotionally and sonically.
I know you also lived in Philadelphia. and now you live in LA. Philly is a really incredible music city, so is Los Angeles. Do you feel like you are in different head spaces making music in those two cities?
Mary Lattimore: For sure, it was also the time in life. I was in Philly starting at age 25 pretty broke, working four jobs. Philly is so affordable that there were a lot of artists there at that point. There were a lot of people wanting to jam, make music, and go to shows. Everybody was really supportive. I think that place and time was very special, very vibrant. I’m sure that now, it’s equally as great, I just am not tapped into the new music scene in Philly right now. Back then, it was just really easy to hang out and play music for fun. [In LA], I know a lot of very successful, amazing musicians, and there’s not as much easy, ‘Come over, let’s play instruments.’ I do have some friends like that. But, ‘Come over after work and play instruments,’ – it doesn’t really feel like that as much as, ‘You are writing this beautiful film score. I can’t wait to see it on the screen,’ or ‘I’m gonna go to your concert at the Disney Hall.’
Maybe it has to do with my age and where my friends are, career-wise, too. Here, I feel like more people that I know are in the arts as their job, whereas, back then, it was like playing music, not as a profession in Philly. I love both. Both are the best. I love living in both cities. Music scene here is incredible. Also, LA being a huge city, I’ve seen a lot of shows and concerts that are really special that I might not have seen if I were living somewhere else. Exposure to music here is incredible.
On a different note, I know you talked about growing up in Asheville, North Carolina. I saw you’re featured on Cardinals at the Window, which is a benefit album, benefitting people that were impacted by Hurricane Helene. If you feel comfortable talking about it, I was wondering what being a part of that project meant to you?
Mary Lattimore: It’s really cool. I put it on shuffle and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s gonna come on next?’ It’s a really good compilation. I was honored to be a part of it. I got a message from my friend Grayson Haver Currin, who helped put it together. I was in Italy at the time, but was watching the horrors unfold in Asheville, where I’m from. Fortunately, our family is okay. My sister and her family, they’re okay, they’re living there now. My parents live on a farm an hour from Asheville, and they just got a lot of crazy flooding, a lot of trees down, but they’re okay. The structures are safe. But it’s weird to see streets that you are so familiar with, like the back of your hand, that you grew up driving on or walking on, totally just being in wreckage, just rubble. Hearing about all the historical stuff being underwater, it’s weird to be so far away and to see your hometown in the international news like that. I was really honored and grateful that Grayson included me in the compilation, because it’s very close to my heart.
On a different note, I saw you also played a show at Storm King Art Center, which is an incredible place. It made me think about the harp as the sculptural element too. I think your music is really well situated for that space. I was just wondering what that show was like? I know there was a bit of a rainstorm and your harp went on.
Mary Lattimore: That was a crazy show. That was the first time I had been there, and it was just so stunning and so green. It was in the summertime, so it was kind of muggy and the clouds were rolling in. It was a very dramatic place to play. It’s weird when the harp feels small. The harp is such a big instrument but it was dwarfed by all the sculptures. I look back at photos of that and the harp looks tiny compared to the huge vastness of the park, the grass, and the sculptures. It was fun.
It definitely started raining very hard though, but a lot of people stayed. That was an interesting [show] because several babies were there, infants with their parents. There were two babies in a row, where the parents talked about how the babies were in the hospital; they had had complications with the babies and that they were in the NICU, and they were playing my music for the babies. Two couples came up to me and this was the first live concert for these babies. It was just so sweet that these parents came up and told me that they could hear all the beeps in the hospital and my music was drowning out the beeping sound. It was so beautiful. I’m glad the babies are okay. Oh my gosh.
Do you have any visions or ideas for your next project?
Mary Lattimore: I have a couple of things coming up next year. I’m gonna make a record with Juliana Barwick, our duo record finally. We’re gonna make it in Paris. I think it’s gonna be a very interesting project. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it, but it’s gonna be I’m playing on some historical harps that are from the 1700s. I cannot wait to see what happens with this project. I did some recording with Laraaji earlier this year, and I need to edit that stuff and see if we want to make a duo record.
Then, I have a solo record I’m going to be working on in the summer. I want to tour less next year and really dig back into living [in LA] and also make stuff. I think next year is going to be just like making music, collaborating, playing a lot in my house, and just trying to drown out other voices that might be violent or trying to combat world stuff with some beauty.
Is there anything else you want to announce?
Mary Lattimore: I’m gonna have my residency at Zebulon coming up. I’ve been doing it for a couple years in a row. This year, it’s gonna be three Mondays in January. I’ve curated some really cool collaborations and some great DJs and openers. So look out for that!
I want to spend a day in “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: You should! People are starting harp lessons every day.
I know! I also listen to a lot of shoegaze music also and they have some cool harp elements, so I’ve been enjoying that side of “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: Yeah! Neil [Halstead] from Slowdive produced one of my records. I was really happy that he wasn’t scared of producing a harp, even though he had never hung out with one before. I agree that there are parallels, emotionally and sonically.
I know you also lived in Philadelphia. and now you live in LA. Philly is a really incredible music city, so is Los Angeles. Do you feel like you are in different head spaces making music in those two cities?
Mary Lattimore: For sure, it was also the time in life. I was in Philly starting at age 25 pretty broke, working four jobs. Philly is so affordable that there were a lot of artists there at that point. There were a lot of people wanting to jam, make music, and go to shows. Everybody was really supportive. I think that place and time was very special, very vibrant. I’m sure that now, it’s equally as great, I just am not tapped into the new music scene in Philly right now. Back then, it was just really easy to hang out and play music for fun. [In LA], I know a lot of very successful, amazing musicians, and there’s not as much easy, ‘Come over, let’s play instruments.’ I do have some friends like that. But, ‘Come over after work and play instruments,’ – it doesn’t really feel like that as much as, ‘You are writing this beautiful film score. I can’t wait to see it on the screen,’ or ‘I’m gonna go to your concert at the Disney Hall.’
Maybe it has to do with my age and where my friends are, career-wise, too. Here, I feel like more people that I know are in the arts as their job, whereas, back then, it was like playing music, not as a profession in Philly. I love both. Both are the best. I love living in both cities. Music scene here is incredible. Also, LA being a huge city, I’ve seen a lot of shows and concerts that are really special that I might not have seen if I were living somewhere else. Exposure to music here is incredible.
On a different note, I know you talked about growing up in Asheville, North Carolina. I saw you’re featured on Cardinals at the Window, which is a benefit album, benefitting people that were impacted by Hurricane Helene. If you feel comfortable talking about it, I was wondering what being a part of that project meant to you?
Mary Lattimore: It’s really cool. I put it on shuffle and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s gonna come on next?’ It’s a really good compilation. I was honored to be a part of it. I got a message from my friend Grayson Haver Currin, who helped put it together. I was in Italy at the time, but was watching the horrors unfold in Asheville, where I’m from. Fortunately, our family is okay. My sister and her family, they’re okay, they’re living there now. My parents live on a farm an hour from Asheville, and they just got a lot of crazy flooding, a lot of trees down, but they’re okay. The structures are safe. But it’s weird to see streets that you are so familiar with, like the back of your hand, that you grew up driving on or walking on, totally just being in wreckage, just rubble. Hearing about all the historical stuff being underwater, it’s weird to be so far away and to see your hometown in the international news like that. I was really honored and grateful that Grayson included me in the compilation, because it’s very close to my heart.
On a different note, I saw you also played a show at Storm King Art Center, which is an incredible place. It made me think about the harp as the sculptural element too. I think your music is really well situated for that space. I was just wondering what that show was like? I know there was a bit of a rainstorm and your harp went on.
Mary Lattimore: That was a crazy show. That was the first time I had been there, and it was just so stunning and so green. It was in the summertime, so it was kind of muggy and the clouds were rolling in. It was a very dramatic place to play. It’s weird when the harp feels small. The harp is such a big instrument but it was dwarfed by all the sculptures. I look back at photos of that and the harp looks tiny compared to the huge vastness of the park, the grass, and the sculptures. It was fun.
It definitely started raining very hard though, but a lot of people stayed. That was an interesting [show] because several babies were there, infants with their parents. There were two babies in a row, where the parents talked about how the babies were in the hospital; they had had complications with the babies and that they were in the NICU, and they were playing my music for the babies. Two couples came up to me and this was the first live concert for these babies. It was just so sweet that these parents came up and told me that they could hear all the beeps in the hospital and my music was drowning out the beeping sound. It was so beautiful. I’m glad the babies are okay. Oh my gosh.
Do you have any visions or ideas for your next project?
Mary Lattimore: I have a couple of things coming up next year. I’m gonna make a record with Juliana Barwick, our duo record finally. We’re gonna make it in Paris. I think it’s gonna be a very interesting project. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it, but it’s gonna be I’m playing on some historical harps that are from the 1700s. I cannot wait to see what happens with this project. I did some recording with Laraaji earlier this year, and I need to edit that stuff and see if we want to make a duo record.
Then, I have a solo record I’m going to be working on in the summer. I want to tour less next year and really dig back into living [in LA] and also make stuff. I think next year is going to be just like making music, collaborating, playing a lot in my house, and just trying to drown out other voices that might be violent or trying to combat world stuff with some beauty.
Is there anything else you want to announce?
Mary Lattimore: I’m gonna have my residency at Zebulon coming up. I’ve been doing it for a couple years in a row. This year, it’s gonna be three Mondays in January. I’ve curated some really cool collaborations and some great DJs and openers. So look out for that!
I know! I also listen to a lot of shoegaze music also and they have some cool harp elements, so I’ve been enjoying that side of “harp world.”
Mary Lattimore: Yeah! Neil [Halstead] from Slowdive produced one of my records. I was really happy that he wasn’t scared of producing a harp, even though he had never hung out with one before. I agree that there are parallels, emotionally and sonically.
I know you also lived in Philadelphia. and now you live in LA. Philly is a really incredible music city, so is Los Angeles. Do you feel like you are in different head spaces making music in those two cities?
Mary Lattimore: For sure, it was also the time in life. I was in Philly starting at age 25 pretty broke, working four jobs. Philly is so affordable that there were a lot of artists there at that point. There were a lot of people wanting to jam, make music, and go to shows. Everybody was really supportive. I think that place and time was very special, very vibrant. I’m sure that now, it’s equally as great, I just am not tapped into the new music scene in Philly right now. Back then, it was just really easy to hang out and play music for fun. [In LA], I know a lot of very successful, amazing musicians, and there’s not as much easy, ‘Come over, let’s play instruments.’ I do have some friends like that. But, ‘Come over after work and play instruments,’ – it doesn’t really feel like that as much as, ‘You are writing this beautiful film score. I can’t wait to see it on the screen,’ or ‘I’m gonna go to your concert at the Disney Hall.’
Maybe it has to do with my age and where my friends are, career-wise, too. Here, I feel like more people that I know are in the arts as their job, whereas, back then, it was like playing music, not as a profession in Philly. I love both. Both are the best. I love living in both cities. Music scene here is incredible. Also, LA being a huge city, I’ve seen a lot of shows and concerts that are really special that I might not have seen if I were living somewhere else. Exposure to music here is incredible.
On a different note, I know you talked about growing up in Asheville, North Carolina. I saw you’re featured on Cardinals at the Window, which is a benefit album, benefitting people that were impacted by Hurricane Helene. If you feel comfortable talking about it, I was wondering what being a part of that project meant to you?
Mary Lattimore: It’s really cool. I put it on shuffle and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s gonna come on next?’ It’s a really good compilation. I was honored to be a part of it. I got a message from my friend Grayson Haver Currin, who helped put it together. I was in Italy at the time, but was watching the horrors unfold in Asheville, where I’m from. Fortunately, our family is okay. My sister and her family, they’re okay, they’re living there now. My parents live on a farm an hour from Asheville, and they just got a lot of crazy flooding, a lot of trees down, but they’re okay. The structures are safe. But it’s weird to see streets that you are so familiar with, like the back of your hand, that you grew up driving on or walking on, totally just being in wreckage, just rubble. Hearing about all the historical stuff being underwater, it’s weird to be so far away and to see your hometown in the international news like that. I was really honored and grateful that Grayson included me in the compilation, because it’s very close to my heart.
On a different note, I saw you also played a show at Storm King Art Center, which is an incredible place. It made me think about the harp as the sculptural element too. I think your music is really well situated for that space. I was just wondering what that show was like? I know there was a bit of a rainstorm and your harp went on.
Mary Lattimore: That was a crazy show. That was the first time I had been there, and it was just so stunning and so green. It was in the summertime, so it was kind of muggy and the clouds were rolling in. It was a very dramatic place to play. It’s weird when the harp feels small. The harp is such a big instrument but it was dwarfed by all the sculptures. I look back at photos of that and the harp looks tiny compared to the huge vastness of the park, the grass, and the sculptures. It was fun.
It definitely started raining very hard though, but a lot of people stayed. That was an interesting [show] because several babies were there, infants with their parents. There were two babies in a row, where the parents talked about how the babies were in the hospital; they had had complications with the babies and that they were in the NICU, and they were playing my music for the babies. Two couples came up to me and this was the first live concert for these babies. It was just so sweet that these parents came up and told me that they could hear all the beeps in the hospital and my music was drowning out the beeping sound. It was so beautiful. I’m glad the babies are okay. Oh my gosh.
Do you have any visions or ideas for your next project?
Mary Lattimore: I have a couple of things coming up next year. I’m gonna make a record with Juliana Barwick, our duo record finally. We’re gonna make it in Paris. I think it’s gonna be a very interesting project. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it, but it’s gonna be I’m playing on some historical harps that are from the 1700s. I cannot wait to see what happens with this project. I did some recording with Laraaji earlier this year, and I need to edit that stuff and see if we want to make a duo record.
Then, I have a solo record I’m going to be working on in the summer. I want to tour less next year and really dig back into living [in LA] and also make stuff. I think next year is going to be just like making music, collaborating, playing a lot in my house, and just trying to drown out other voices that might be violent or trying to combat world stuff with some beauty.
Is there anything else you want to announce?
Mary Lattimore: I’m gonna have my residency at Zebulon coming up. I’ve been doing it for a couple years in a row. This year, it’s gonna be three Mondays in January. I’ve curated some really cool collaborations and some great DJs and openers. So look out for that!
I know you also lived in Philadelphia. and now you live in LA. Philly is a really incredible music city, so is Los Angeles. Do you feel like you are in different head spaces making music in those two cities?
Mary Lattimore: For sure, it was also the time in life. I was in Philly starting at age 25 pretty broke, working four jobs. Philly is so affordable that there were a lot of artists there at that point. There were a lot of people wanting to jam, make music, and go to shows. Everybody was really supportive. I think that place and time was very special, very vibrant. I’m sure that now, it’s equally as great, I just am not tapped into the new music scene in Philly right now. Back then, it was just really easy to hang out and play music for fun. [In LA], I know a lot of very successful, amazing musicians, and there’s not as much easy, ‘Come over, let’s play instruments.’ I do have some friends like that. But, ‘Come over after work and play instruments,’ – it doesn’t really feel like that as much as, ‘You are writing this beautiful film score. I can’t wait to see it on the screen,’ or ‘I’m gonna go to your concert at the Disney Hall.’
Maybe it has to do with my age and where my friends are, career-wise, too. Here, I feel like more people that I know are in the arts as their job, whereas, back then, it was like playing music, not as a profession in Philly. I love both. Both are the best. I love living in both cities. Music scene here is incredible. Also, LA being a huge city, I’ve seen a lot of shows and concerts that are really special that I might not have seen if I were living somewhere else. Exposure to music here is incredible.
On a different note, I know you talked about growing up in Asheville, North Carolina. I saw you’re featured on Cardinals at the Window, which is a benefit album, benefitting people that were impacted by Hurricane Helene. If you feel comfortable talking about it, I was wondering what being a part of that project meant to you?
Mary Lattimore: It’s really cool. I put it on shuffle and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s gonna come on next?’ It’s a really good compilation. I was honored to be a part of it. I got a message from my friend Grayson Haver Currin, who helped put it together. I was in Italy at the time, but was watching the horrors unfold in Asheville, where I’m from. Fortunately, our family is okay. My sister and her family, they’re okay, they’re living there now. My parents live on a farm an hour from Asheville, and they just got a lot of crazy flooding, a lot of trees down, but they’re okay. The structures are safe. But it’s weird to see streets that you are so familiar with, like the back of your hand, that you grew up driving on or walking on, totally just being in wreckage, just rubble. Hearing about all the historical stuff being underwater, it’s weird to be so far away and to see your hometown in the international news like that. I was really honored and grateful that Grayson included me in the compilation, because it’s very close to my heart.
On a different note, I saw you also played a show at Storm King Art Center, which is an incredible place. It made me think about the harp as the sculptural element too. I think your music is really well situated for that space. I was just wondering what that show was like? I know there was a bit of a rainstorm and your harp went on.
Mary Lattimore: That was a crazy show. That was the first time I had been there, and it was just so stunning and so green. It was in the summertime, so it was kind of muggy and the clouds were rolling in. It was a very dramatic place to play. It’s weird when the harp feels small. The harp is such a big instrument but it was dwarfed by all the sculptures. I look back at photos of that and the harp looks tiny compared to the huge vastness of the park, the grass, and the sculptures. It was fun.
It definitely started raining very hard though, but a lot of people stayed. That was an interesting [show] because several babies were there, infants with their parents. There were two babies in a row, where the parents talked about how the babies were in the hospital; they had had complications with the babies and that they were in the NICU, and they were playing my music for the babies. Two couples came up to me and this was the first live concert for these babies. It was just so sweet that these parents came up and told me that they could hear all the beeps in the hospital and my music was drowning out the beeping sound. It was so beautiful. I’m glad the babies are okay. Oh my gosh.
Do you have any visions or ideas for your next project?
Mary Lattimore: I have a couple of things coming up next year. I’m gonna make a record with Juliana Barwick, our duo record finally. We’re gonna make it in Paris. I think it’s gonna be a very interesting project. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it, but it’s gonna be I’m playing on some historical harps that are from the 1700s. I cannot wait to see what happens with this project. I did some recording with Laraaji earlier this year, and I need to edit that stuff and see if we want to make a duo record.
Then, I have a solo record I’m going to be working on in the summer. I want to tour less next year and really dig back into living [in LA] and also make stuff. I think next year is going to be just like making music, collaborating, playing a lot in my house, and just trying to drown out other voices that might be violent or trying to combat world stuff with some beauty.
Is there anything else you want to announce?
Mary Lattimore: I’m gonna have my residency at Zebulon coming up. I’ve been doing it for a couple years in a row. This year, it’s gonna be three Mondays in January. I’ve curated some really cool collaborations and some great DJs and openers. So look out for that!
Maybe it has to do with my age and where my friends are, career-wise, too. Here, I feel like more people that I know are in the arts as their job, whereas, back then, it was like playing music, not as a profession in Philly. I love both. Both are the best. I love living in both cities. Music scene here is incredible. Also, LA being a huge city, I’ve seen a lot of shows and concerts that are really special that I might not have seen if I were living somewhere else. Exposure to music here is incredible.
On a different note, I know you talked about growing up in Asheville, North Carolina. I saw you’re featured on Cardinals at the Window, which is a benefit album, benefitting people that were impacted by Hurricane Helene. If you feel comfortable talking about it, I was wondering what being a part of that project meant to you?
Mary Lattimore: It’s really cool. I put it on shuffle and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s gonna come on next?’ It’s a really good compilation. I was honored to be a part of it. I got a message from my friend Grayson Haver Currin, who helped put it together. I was in Italy at the time, but was watching the horrors unfold in Asheville, where I’m from. Fortunately, our family is okay. My sister and her family, they’re okay, they’re living there now. My parents live on a farm an hour from Asheville, and they just got a lot of crazy flooding, a lot of trees down, but they’re okay. The structures are safe. But it’s weird to see streets that you are so familiar with, like the back of your hand, that you grew up driving on or walking on, totally just being in wreckage, just rubble. Hearing about all the historical stuff being underwater, it’s weird to be so far away and to see your hometown in the international news like that. I was really honored and grateful that Grayson included me in the compilation, because it’s very close to my heart.
On a different note, I saw you also played a show at Storm King Art Center, which is an incredible place. It made me think about the harp as the sculptural element too. I think your music is really well situated for that space. I was just wondering what that show was like? I know there was a bit of a rainstorm and your harp went on.
Mary Lattimore: That was a crazy show. That was the first time I had been there, and it was just so stunning and so green. It was in the summertime, so it was kind of muggy and the clouds were rolling in. It was a very dramatic place to play. It’s weird when the harp feels small. The harp is such a big instrument but it was dwarfed by all the sculptures. I look back at photos of that and the harp looks tiny compared to the huge vastness of the park, the grass, and the sculptures. It was fun.
It definitely started raining very hard though, but a lot of people stayed. That was an interesting [show] because several babies were there, infants with their parents. There were two babies in a row, where the parents talked about how the babies were in the hospital; they had had complications with the babies and that they were in the NICU, and they were playing my music for the babies. Two couples came up to me and this was the first live concert for these babies. It was just so sweet that these parents came up and told me that they could hear all the beeps in the hospital and my music was drowning out the beeping sound. It was so beautiful. I’m glad the babies are okay. Oh my gosh.
Do you have any visions or ideas for your next project?
Mary Lattimore: I have a couple of things coming up next year. I’m gonna make a record with Juliana Barwick, our duo record finally. We’re gonna make it in Paris. I think it’s gonna be a very interesting project. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it, but it’s gonna be I’m playing on some historical harps that are from the 1700s. I cannot wait to see what happens with this project. I did some recording with Laraaji earlier this year, and I need to edit that stuff and see if we want to make a duo record.
Then, I have a solo record I’m going to be working on in the summer. I want to tour less next year and really dig back into living [in LA] and also make stuff. I think next year is going to be just like making music, collaborating, playing a lot in my house, and just trying to drown out other voices that might be violent or trying to combat world stuff with some beauty.
Is there anything else you want to announce?
Mary Lattimore: I’m gonna have my residency at Zebulon coming up. I’ve been doing it for a couple years in a row. This year, it’s gonna be three Mondays in January. I’ve curated some really cool collaborations and some great DJs and openers. So look out for that!
On a different note, I saw you also played a show at Storm King Art Center, which is an incredible place. It made me think about the harp as the sculptural element too. I think your music is really well situated for that space. I was just wondering what that show was like? I know there was a bit of a rainstorm and your harp went on.
Mary Lattimore: That was a crazy show. That was the first time I had been there, and it was just so stunning and so green. It was in the summertime, so it was kind of muggy and the clouds were rolling in. It was a very dramatic place to play. It’s weird when the harp feels small. The harp is such a big instrument but it was dwarfed by all the sculptures. I look back at photos of that and the harp looks tiny compared to the huge vastness of the park, the grass, and the sculptures. It was fun.
It definitely started raining very hard though, but a lot of people stayed. That was an interesting [show] because several babies were there, infants with their parents. There were two babies in a row, where the parents talked about how the babies were in the hospital; they had had complications with the babies and that they were in the NICU, and they were playing my music for the babies. Two couples came up to me and this was the first live concert for these babies. It was just so sweet that these parents came up and told me that they could hear all the beeps in the hospital and my music was drowning out the beeping sound. It was so beautiful. I’m glad the babies are okay. Oh my gosh.
Do you have any visions or ideas for your next project?
Mary Lattimore: I have a couple of things coming up next year. I’m gonna make a record with Juliana Barwick, our duo record finally. We’re gonna make it in Paris. I think it’s gonna be a very interesting project. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it, but it’s gonna be I’m playing on some historical harps that are from the 1700s. I cannot wait to see what happens with this project. I did some recording with Laraaji earlier this year, and I need to edit that stuff and see if we want to make a duo record.
Then, I have a solo record I’m going to be working on in the summer. I want to tour less next year and really dig back into living [in LA] and also make stuff. I think next year is going to be just like making music, collaborating, playing a lot in my house, and just trying to drown out other voices that might be violent or trying to combat world stuff with some beauty.
Is there anything else you want to announce?
Mary Lattimore: I’m gonna have my residency at Zebulon coming up. I’ve been doing it for a couple years in a row. This year, it’s gonna be three Mondays in January. I’ve curated some really cool collaborations and some great DJs and openers. So look out for that!
It definitely started raining very hard though, but a lot of people stayed. That was an interesting [show] because several babies were there, infants with their parents. There were two babies in a row, where the parents talked about how the babies were in the hospital; they had had complications with the babies and that they were in the NICU, and they were playing my music for the babies. Two couples came up to me and this was the first live concert for these babies. It was just so sweet that these parents came up and told me that they could hear all the beeps in the hospital and my music was drowning out the beeping sound. It was so beautiful. I’m glad the babies are okay. Oh my gosh.
Do you have any visions or ideas for your next project?
Mary Lattimore: I have a couple of things coming up next year. I’m gonna make a record with Juliana Barwick, our duo record finally. We’re gonna make it in Paris. I think it’s gonna be a very interesting project. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it, but it’s gonna be I’m playing on some historical harps that are from the 1700s. I cannot wait to see what happens with this project. I did some recording with Laraaji earlier this year, and I need to edit that stuff and see if we want to make a duo record.
Then, I have a solo record I’m going to be working on in the summer. I want to tour less next year and really dig back into living [in LA] and also make stuff. I think next year is going to be just like making music, collaborating, playing a lot in my house, and just trying to drown out other voices that might be violent or trying to combat world stuff with some beauty.
Is there anything else you want to announce?
Mary Lattimore: I’m gonna have my residency at Zebulon coming up. I’ve been doing it for a couple years in a row. This year, it’s gonna be three Mondays in January. I’ve curated some really cool collaborations and some great DJs and openers. So look out for that!
Then, I have a solo record I’m going to be working on in the summer. I want to tour less next year and really dig back into living [in LA] and also make stuff. I think next year is going to be just like making music, collaborating, playing a lot in my house, and just trying to drown out other voices that might be violent or trying to combat world stuff with some beauty.
Is there anything else you want to announce?
Mary Lattimore: I’m gonna have my residency at Zebulon coming up. I’ve been doing it for a couple years in a row. This year, it’s gonna be three Mondays in January. I’ve curated some really cool collaborations and some great DJs and openers. So look out for that!