Priscilla Hernández interviewed by Pierre-Jean Henrottin You can read the interview in french published in LE FANTASTIQUE
This is an english translation, the original interview is in french and you can read it online in LE FANTASTIQUE webzine so you can see the entire featured with pictures. You can also read a review of Ancient Shadows album
1) Who are you ? What is your artistic course ?
Me? Another struggling independent artist, that’s all! My name is Priscilla Hernández, I was born in the Canary Islands, Spain, though now I live in Barcelona. I started drawing and composing since early age but left it to study science (Molecular Biology) then to understand (sadly a few years later) I had to get back and devote my life to the only thing that really makes me feel complete: creating. So now I’m a full-time musician and illustrator, and the owner of my self publishing company YIDNETH which takes name of an illustrated comic that I did many years ago but never managed to released (maybe now I can consider to do it in the near future along with new music). I also co-run a platform for the promotion of independent artists in Spain www.nuevasmusicas.org, to teach them how to take the free advantages of Internet to explore other posibilities just like self-releasing. I had the greatest of lucks regarding Internet promotion, since 2002 when I first uploaded “I steal the leaves” (in a hideous lofi version). Response was so warm and nice that I went on and rescued all those songs that I had been hiding during the years, and also put myself to write new material after ages. I’ve been featured in press, radio, and I have had a wealth of downloads of my music, all of this promotion at zero cost. While the number of artists in Internet grew, it started to be more complicated, its power maybe more diluted, but still I think is one of the greatest promotional tools available for all those ones with a project to defend (music, art, video or whatever). As a musician I play keyboards, piano, flute and vocals mostly. I’ve collaborated as a vocalist in several released cds and soundtracks, sometimes with my own themes as well, but I had not a solo album, except for a home-made demo in mp3.com which was discontinued when this well known Internet side closed its doors a while back. I thought of making Ancient Shadows then, when mp3.com closed, starting around the idea of polishing “Ancient Shadow” a song written in 1998 based in the male carácter of my comic “The Ancient”, but in the cd I have featured songs I wrote with nine years old… and also songs I wrote during the production of the cd like Haunted or Nightmare. I would say that my actual trend is to move to a darker blend though I consider myself a romantic gothic in nature (nothing regarding what the concept jeans in actual terms but due to my tastes). As an illustrator it’s obvious I have had influence from artists like Arthur Rakham, Edmund Dulac, john bauer and Brian Froud, i’m so grateful to them all for being sun an inspiring source!
2) You write all your songs, you illustrate it, you are your own producer, you create your own label... Is it so important for you to keep the control ?
The reason is that I really had no other option to do it, and not exactly because that I’m so controlling. I underwent up to nine record deal offers befote taking the decision of doing it myself. I really do not consider myself a business woman, I love creating, so handling with all the label business to make a full legal self-release has been a titanic task for me alone, and there have been moments of doubts because It’s a hard task for one person alone. I’ve produced, arranged, mixed, planned, recorded, edited, designed and almost everything you can imagine on my own (with the unconditional help of my partner Héctor Corcín as well, who is responsible of the mastering as well). The cd was about to be released early last year, but it went through different delays and problems. Though it’s actually possible and I recommend it as an option, the reason that I went on my own is that I consider myself a writer not a vocalist, in fact when I started out I went on looking for a singer for a while till I realize I do actually love doing it myself. I had the luck or “bad” luck of having been offered several deals, then the golden dream broke, the reality abruptly showed itself, the deals were compromising, some really wonderful in economical terms, but absolutely against what I wanted to do for a rather long time. I admit there’s a good thing in signing with them, and it is they can offer a bigger promotion and distribution. But sometimes the “easy” way is not the way. I want to perform my own material, and I even of course would sing for others even if it’s not my first option if it still would allow me to go on fighting for my self-project, but this wasn’t the case. Thus, after some time of discouraging (after all when you say no to a major you don’t expect a greater thing to happen) surprisingly my listeners and friends started to support my decision just when I was starting to be full of doubts, my will and hope mailing (thank you my friends, love you!). I understood then, that it doesn’t matter if good or bad, I really felt like an artist, I could say “no” due to artistic integrity after all. People started to donate and even it did not cover the expenses, at least that encouraged me to think it was worth the fight. So unfortunately for me, in the actual situation, the lack of resources forces me to work more, and learn in broader fields than I expected, from arranging, recording to production and business. We spent two complete years in the production of this album, even if most of the songs were previously released and written through the years. We even had some factory problems at a very late time that put the release “on hold” but what matters is that I manages at the end. And I’ve learnt a lot in the process, hopefully it will be easier next time.
3. Where find you your inspiration ? Books, dreams, personal experience... ? Well, you won’t find much light in my music if you read the lyrics. It’s all eerie, maybe somehow ethereal, soft, romantic, but never uplifting but sad and melancholic. If you were a ghostly creature trying to lure an unfortunate to give you company, if you were such completely desesperate because of bitterness of loneliness, I would try to use a sweet sound to do it, just like a siren chant I guess. Mine is the realm of twilight..Thus the meaning of the lyrics in most of the themes moves it away from the canon of new age and actually if it sounds closer to this genre, it’s generaly more widely accepted within the gothic community which unexpectedly resulted to have less prejudices in genre definitions. I don’t believe in music genres, I just flow with the creation process where it leads me, so if next album is going to be closer to one, another or a new exploring branch is still unknown for me.
4) Your music seems to run between two musical ways : New-age music and gothic music. How can you conciliate such different musical worlds ? (it's not the same public, the moods are very different : New-age is often sweet, shiny and soothing , Gothic is more sad, dark and disturbing)
Well to be honest I consider myself more on the “ghost” side than on the “fairy” side. As an illustrator and an avid reader of romantic eerie spectral stories I’ve always been fascinated by them, in many senses the music is just made as an another illustration to my stories. I started as a writer, alter all. For me, it’s storytelling just like in the books I enjoy but with the perpetual satín of my most conflictive trauma, severe sleep paralysis and hypnagogia, an sleep disorder who really explains much of the darkness that . I admit I nourished from film scores and actually I’m not very familiar nor with new age or gothic music itself, even if my music is considered in a bridge of both was not nourished in inspiration by music which can be considered “closer” in sound to the final result. I’ve been claimed to do new things (not all of them good as breaking in purpose the songwriting standard structure) or mixing eastern and celtic motifs in the same song, but I think every artist in many senes is genuinely unique if you really are showing what is inside your spirit with no other ties. 5
. Other musicians explore the fairy world and its dark side (I think about Louisa John-Krol, Caprice, The Moon and the Night Spirit, Maple Bee... ).Do you know their works ? I what is yours different ?
Actually it’s been recently I know of Louisa John-Krol because I’ve been in touch with her label Prikosnovenie. I run a platform for the promotion of independent new age artists in spain nuevasmusicas.org, and thus it happened we got in touch with Prikosnovenie who gently recommended some acts under their label like Louisa and Pinknruby.. I guess they are more popular in france but I had no notice of them till early 2006 with Ancient Shadows scheduled for the release. My impression of their work is the most positive, and to change a label taking risks to innovate which is really complimenting, happy and delighted as I am in my actual situation which things starting to trigger nicely ahead, I admit that instead of the “lions” that came my way, specially being aware of their love for art, fairy and special packages LOL. I wish I had found a label like this when I was looking for a deal, because it is really nice to see a company with a criteria not devoted to mere commercialism as an option. I think the entire label as a selection of the greatest taste and quality, from the samples provided sounded wonderful and unique but I don’t think so close to my concept. Ancient Shadows is a compilation of songs written during two decades so I think even it shows different subgenres in it, that maybe goes through my childhood and teenagerhood. It’s my musical life, and all lives are different, the entire cd is in honour to Kira, a dog I lost three years ago, weird or not, this creature was the most loyal and best of friends and when she left I felt I had to do something in her memory. Thus “lament” and “ahora que te has ido” where written the moment she left, in 2003 when the production of the cd started really. As an individual artist I don’t know If I’m different or not, guess every artist is, but in the entire development of Ancient Shadows has gathered many factors from my learning inmature moments till the recent ones I really defied myself to create something from my own soul. I guess that comparisons and convergences are always something you have to cope with but other times not entirely fair. I don’t know the others but I will take your recommendation. To point something out I am never compared to the people who inspired me like Roland Orzábal from Tears for Fears (seriously), Cyndi Lauper or Liz Fraser from Cocteau Twins, dream pop and of course, soundtracks. Now I take comparisons to enya complimenting but I cannot point her as a pivotal influence (do not misunderstand me I think she has the most beautiful voice, but to be fair maybe I’ve listened more to the less known and equally talented Miriam Stockley). Same with the often mentioned Tori Amos or Kate Bush who actually I discovered through the comparison themselves to find out they were great innovative artists. Convergences, similarities, comparisons, curiously most of the time have pointed a wrong direction of the music I really nourish from. Unfortunately I don’t seem to succeed to show it efficientely either ;-P hahah. It doesn’t really stress me. While you move to another type of music in some themes new acts will be on the “similar to”, that is something you cannot really control or help.
6. How do you play on stage ? Alone or with other musicians ? Do you use visual elements in your shows ? I love playing live and I wish I could play more (from my behalf I could do it on a daily basis, I love the exprience) but unfortunately due to its symphonic and neoclassical arrangements it’s not a music easy to bring into the stage, unless I have an orchestra or twenty keybordists.Also, even trying less complicated and simpler formula and though I perform the keyboards in the album, I don’t feel so confortable or free singing and playing at the same time. Of course I’ve managed to do it sometimes that way, even alone in the piano. So about playing live, I really love to do it, but the type of performance depends on where, how and the conditions offered. It’s been me alone singing in the simplest of stages with just a mic, or a mic and a keyboard, or with a chamber group in a big auditorium, and all the possible in-betweens. When I perform in another country, it depends on the organization of the event. As I don’t have a regular band I do hire collaborator musicians for the events and sometimes is not so easy for the pocket to move them along with you if there’s no payment back for them, which is pretty logical. In this initial struggling stages this happen more often that we would like to. But we trust to grow the project and we’re focusing to grow a more solid and stable group of accoustic instruments and also looking for sponsors, that’s one of the most important tasks to archieve in the 2007. Most often the basic set is me at the vocals and keyboards, an addtional dj and keyboardist, a cellist and a guitar player. Yes, I often project the lyrics (for me they carry 50% of the importance of the composition) in the backdrop along with some videos, images and illustrations. I’ll be performing next 30th of December in Sala Apolo, Barcelona, as we’ll repeat this formula along with some fog, light effects and videos and drawings on the backdrop. Of course I’m fond of wearing wings and fantasy gowns which I know may be a topic in this genres, I really cannot help, I guess it’s in every fantasy-lover .
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