Claire Rousay Breaks Down 7 Perfectly Produced Songs
The ambient experimentalist dissects records by faves including Elliott Smith and Charli XCX, and details the process behind her twilit new album, ‘A Little Death.’
The Producers is an interview series where our favorite artists discuss their favorite music production.
For Claire Rousay, almost any sound—any moment—can be the start of a song. She usually begins new tracks by creating a collage out of intimate field recordings from her everyday life before adding tonal elements like guitar, strings, and drones. The result is disarming—ambient music suffused with heart-wrenching feelings more often associated with hushed singer-songwriters. “What makes good ambient music is that the creator of it does not think of it as ambient music,” she says. “They think of it as something much grander—something that you would not want on a playlist that somebody falls asleep to.”
The producer, composer, and songwriter’s latest album, A Little Death, evokes the fading hours when day turns to night, and many of its foundational field recordings were taken during twilight. Rousay is always attuned to the sounds around her, like a cat twitching its ears toward a strange new noise, and she recalls finding inspiration for the song “Night One” while taking the trash out of her Los Angeles home. “I noticed this disorienting phasing effect that happens in the back of my apartment, where there are two open garages that act as amplifiers for the cars that are coming from both sides,” she explains. So she ran back inside to get her recorder to document this weird pocket of sound, eventually intertwining the lonely whooshes of passing SUVs with contemplative acoustic guitar plucks and piano melodies. I tell her I wish my own trips to take the garbage down were that inspiring. “It was a rare moment,” she offers in her typical deadpan tone. “I’ve taken the trash out many times after that and got no inspiration.” The track ends with Rousay’s footsteps walking back into the apartment and the humble clang of her girlfriend doing dishes.
Even though A Little Death explores a variety of nighttime atmospheres and emotions, from the eeriness of the dark to the soul-tugging regret of wasting yet another day, Rousay admits she’s far from a night owl. Her best work happens when she’s sitting at her computer between 8 a.m. and noon. And up until about six months ago, she spent a year going to bed at 8:30 p.m. and waking up at 5 every morning. “I wasn’t really comfortable being out at night for a long time,” she says, adding that being on tour, drinking, and drugs were taking a toll. “Going to bed early saves you from making a bad choice. Now I can keep it together. I’m OK at night again.” This month marks a year and a half of sobriety for Rousay.
As we talk about some of her all-time favorite music productions, Rousay repeatedly emphasizes the idea that a piece of music is only as good as the person making it—regardless of what equipment or plugins they own. It’s a point that’s increasingly relevant amid our era of fake bands and AI slop, when anyone can pump out a constant stream of drivel without putting their own humanity on the line. So while Rousay is hardly a luddite—she puts all of her tracks together on her computer, which is often running the music-making programs Ableton, Max, and GRM Tools simultaneously—her work is literally embedded with her lived experiences. She makes taking the trash out sound as poignant as a 2 a.m. hug from a friend you haven’t seen in far too long. Her music is inimitable, so it makes sense that the music she’s drawn to is extraordinarily human, too.
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Elliott Smith: “St. Idles Heaven” (1995)
Producer: Elliott Smith
Claire Rousay: When I was 19, I was listening to less-hip music, and one of those artists recommended Elliott Smith. When I first heard it I didn’t think it was as catchy as the less-hip artist’s music, but later on I realized there’s so much more integrity to Elliott Smith’s music and it goes so much deeper and it’s super fucking catchy. I heard it passively for so long and was like, “I don’t get it.” And then I was listening to this song one day and it just clicked.
Why did you choose this spare early song rather than one of Elliott’s more lavishly produced records from later in his career?
This was recorded by him, not somebody else. And as a fan, I’m like, How close to the source can I get? Just the whole ethos of this album: using borrowed gear and instruments, recording at home. That’s exactly what I do, even if I don’t make this kind of music. If you have a lack of funding and the limitations of a domestic environment, you make choices that you wouldn’t make in a big studio. Later on he had orchestral arrangements, but on this album he would double his voice and then pan it super hard to make a part as powerful as it could be. Or record things quietly and then really gain it up. Or making things slightly out of tune, giving it more body. The production was very important.
Generally speaking, what does being a music producer mean to you?
Production is something that’s super intuitive, and that’s what gives it value. I tie production to people rather than gear, because there’s so much shit that comes out where one person uses a piece of gear, and the record does super well, and then everybody wants that thing. I’ve even done that. It often turns out that you can recreate a sound to an extent, but it’s not the same because there’s so many other things in that signal chain. And this other person’s way of using something is never going to be exactly the same as yours.
For example, there’s a plugin called Lossy that was really popular because it was like a Phoebe Bridgers kind of thing. But the musical material I’m putting through Lossy is not like a Phoebe Bridgers song, so it comes out sounding pretty fucked up. This plugin is actually more useful than I thought it was. But on the flip side, I have a microphone that’s on my cassette player. I have an old telephone. I could just use the actual thing rather than a plugin.
I’m self-taught and I just learned by getting lent something and then figuring out how it works. More often than not, my results with that piece of equipment are very different than what the person who lent it to me would make. I don’t have any money to buy expensive stuff, so when I do record with nicer equipment, it’s always on a loan situation, or I’m rushing to get it done—and I rarely use that stuff because I don’t have the time to sit with it and actually make it my own.
Tomoyoshi Date: “A Daily Conversation Between Strings and a Finger’s Stomach” (2008)
Producer: Tomoyoshi Date
It’s easy to draw a through line between this bittersweet track by the Japanese electroacoustic artist Tomoyoshi Date and your own music. When did you first hear it?
It was a couple of years ago, when I was heading to a campsite in the Sequoia area. This is the perfect music for driving up a mountain for 10 hours: It’s so organic, and everything’s recorded so close—and then I was looking out the window, and everything was so big and far away. So it’s about the way it’s recorded and also the musical ideas on it, like how almost everything is looped, which took me four or five listens to realize. And then I looked at the date it was released, and I was like, Oh, this when everybody got a fucking looping pedal. But it doesn’t sound like everything else that people made during the looping pedal extravaganza of the 2000s. It stands the test of time. It shows that you can make good music with minimal tech.
Charli XCX: “Lucky” (2017)
Producers: A. G. Cook and Nömak
Pop 2 and the Number 1 Angel mixtape are some of the best pop music ever—crazy shit, especially at that time. My friend Mari [Rubio, aka More Eaze] and I have a record called Never Stop Texting Me, and there’s a track on there called “Arms,” which is basically a “Lucky” rip-off. It’s all the same production choices. I was like, I want to do a song that’s just like this song... but not as good. [laughs]
“Lucky” sounds like it was made intuitively, like somebody said, “It’d be cool if I did this,” rather than, “We’re supposed to do this.” It feels like friends making music together without any kind of expectation, which is something I relate to. A. G. Cook is a good and unique producer, but I’ve heard tracks he’s done with other singers, and it’s not the same. He doesn’t need Charli, but together, they make way better music.
Olivia Block: “Opening Night” (ft. Chicago Composers’ Orchestra) (2013)
Producer: Olivia Block
What’s your personal history with the veteran experimental composer Olivia Block’s work?
There are few records that you hear and you’re like, This is my ideal music. The album that this song’s from, Karren, is one of those records for me. Everything on it is part of the music that I like. When I first got it, I had a volunteer position at a radio station, and I would get these long chunks of time overnight to play weird shit. I was like, This is amazing music and everybody in San Antonio, Texas with access to FM radio would probably want to hear this thing in full multiple times a month. There were so many complaints, and eventually I was nudged off of the air.
This piece is a great use of space that magnifies small sounds and makes huge sounds small, from sampling a whole fucking orchestra tuning up to these tiny underwater popping sounds. It’s all exactly what I’m interested in. When I heard this record, it was the first time I was like, I would love to make music like that if I ever could. Legendary artist.
The Antlers: “Kettering” (2009)
Producer: The Antlers
There’s such a quiet, eerie power to this track from the New York band’s album Hospice, which has become an indie touchstone across the last decade and a half. What’s your connection to it?
I first heard this record on tour when I was a teenager. We were driving through the night from California to Texas, and a person in the band I was in put it on. The first thing that caught me was the varying amounts of different fucked-up instruments and pieces through the album, like having stuff that sounds super out-there combined with a really nicely recorded vocal. I was like, These choices were so intentional. It’s a very dynamic and fluid record, and the whole thing is really tied together sonically. It was one of the earliest examples I have of hearing an album with varying fidelities, before I got into more experimental music and learned that that is something people do all the time. It’s also about the idea that the production can have an emotional aspect: People can write really emotional songs, but if the production doesn’t match that emotional arc or contribute to it in a major way, it will fall flat.
Labradford: “Wien” (2001)
Producer: Steve Albini
Does the fact that Steve Albini recorded this song by the ’90s post-rock band Labradford have anything to do with you picking it?
I do not care about Steve Albini at all. I’m just a fucking massive Labradford fan. This is one of those records that I listen to at night. The parts are layered in this way where it’s like everything is a building block, but there’s still space. You could add more parts, but the amount that’s there is totally doing the job. The fidelity on this is really nice compared to the other stuff I picked for this list, and it’s because of how well they captured the tonal qualities of the instruments. It speaks to how dialed in the band is.
What are you doing in your life while listening to a song like this?
A lot of the time I’m driving. I love listening to music in the car. It’s one of the things I will never do enough. When I’m dying, I’ll be like, Man, I wish I could listen to music in the car again. I’ll also listen to it with headphones on, walking around or doing the dishes. I need it to be an isolated experience, like it’s just for me. I’m not doing it for anybody else. I’m not trying to set the mood. I’m not trying to fucking have a vibe. I’m not listening to it at home on speakers. I have a fucking huge unit with a bajillion records, and those things are on the shelf for fucking ever. I’m not playing that shit at home.
The Microphones: “I Want Wind to Blow” (2001)
Producer: Phil Elverum
I picked this song because of one sound. You can hear it a lot around the 1:30 mark. In the drum beat you get the kick and the snare, but between them is this stretching sound that connects them. [She attempts to recreate the unusual sound, which makes me think of a thousand-year-old man trying to touch his toes.] The first time I heard it, that sound was the only part I thought about. I was like, I want that sound in all music I make forever. That feeling of being moved by a piece of music, regardless of the cause, is so special. And for me, with this song, that sound is what moved me. I’m like, Oh my God, my life is so easy. If that can move me, I’m fucking set. I’m never gonna be in a horrible place if I can hear that sound and feel really good.
This was early on, when I was in the middle of a band practice with this ’90s-worship fucking alt-rock band I was in when I was in when I was 16. I heard this song playing from the other room between rehearsals. I was not making experimental music at that time, but when I heard that sound I was like, Whoa. I’ve never wanted to know exactly what the sound is. I’ve never looked it up. I’ve just listened to it. Nothing beats that fucking sound. It’s not something that somebody built with technology. It’s just a captured sound being placed in such a perfect way, which is what good production is.
Listen to a playlist of Claire Rousay’s picks at Apple Music or Tidal
