Netherworld is the new album from Louise Patricia Crane, and it finds the Belfast-born singer-songwriter and visual artist in the company of King Crimson’s Jakko Jakszyk, together creating one of the dreamiest guitar-driven albums of the year so far.
Here, Crane checks in with Guitarist to share some of the approaches the pair used in the studio, and how they managed to bring special guests from the world of prog-rock into their twilight sound.
The album feels like a journey into another realm – full of dreamlike stories and folkloric elements. How did you begin to weave that together?
Louise Patricia Crane: “I think I knew from the off that I wanted it to have an overarching storybook feel to it. Magical realism is a big favourite thing of mine, Pan’s Labyrinth and the works of Angela Carter and stuff… I also knew that I wanted it to be autobiographical, go back and revisit memories, specific moments in time throughout my life from childhood to adulthood. I wanted a real sense of going somewhere – of a journey.
“I would always start out with guitar – or for pretty much 90% of the tracks on the album – and then I would work piano in. I used a little PRS parlour guitar. I tend to find that starting off with acoustic guitar invites all these different ideas and it’s a good foundation to begin with. I always feel like whatever you start on will dictate where the song stylistically moves to.
“I would say it’s a game of two halves, this album, because the first half’s quite folk-orientated and the latter half would be a bit more progressive, with jazz elements coming in as well. And that was largely dictated by how the songs were started, so if it was started on the acoustic it went in that more folky direction.
“There were also some songs on the album, Celestial Dust being one of them, where I wrote the melody and recorded the vocals just a cappella [and then went from there]. So I had the whole big structure laid out for Celestial Dust, then Jakko built the song around that, so that was one where he created the music on the back of it.”
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There are some incredible guitar parts on the album, both from you and producer Jakko Jakszyk. What players shaped your approach to the instrument?
Louise: “Yeah, actually starting out it would have been Steve Vai. I was a huge fan of Vai when I was a teenager, and then probably my next guitar hero would have been Allan Holdsworth. I think I was about 19 or 20 when I first heard IOU and it just rewrote my understanding of guitar. It was like, ‘Right, clearly there is so much more here to discover and this is extremely exciting.’
“And so, Holdsworth… obviously from that point that’s the bar, then you discover other things from that. I’m a huge fan of King Crimson as well and I really liked a lot of the Frippertronics stuff – I would say I’m quite influenced by sound creation. Again, that’s a different approach to playing the guitar and there’s some [parts] on my album where I play things like that.
“So I think Netherworld is a guitar-lover’s record masquerading as this full-bodied [stylistically diverse] thing. But my love of guitar is very much first and foremost. Typically – and Jakko will attest to this – guitars are never loud enough for me [in a mix], I want them louder than my vocals.”
Jakko Jakszyk: “Whenever I’ve played stuff to people they’ve immediately gone, ‘Oh, I see you’ve put a solo in there,’ and I go, ‘Hang on, it was Louise who asked for the solos!’ And every solo [I did] she said, ‘It’s got to be longer than that and louder than that.’ But everybody thinks it’s me taking my opportunity to piss all over it! [laughs] But it’s all driven by her.”
Louise: “I’m a huge fan of Ollie Halsall’s playing and of Patto as well. So the SG thing for me comes from that, from Ollie and Allan, really.”
Jakko: “You know there was a period where both Allan and Ollie were in…”
Louise: “Tempest?”
Jakko: “Yeah, Tempest. And they were both playing white SGs – and, of course, Ollie was left-handed so [they looked symmetrical when playing on either side of the stage]. It was so cool…”
We understand Rory Gallagher is a big touchstone as well.
Louise: “Massive influence. I really love Rory; he’s a saint in my house. And, of course, there’s the saintly painting of him above [where I hang] my guitar, which is like a shrine to Rory Gallagher! But he’s been a massive influence… his work with Taste and then particularly those first four or five solo records of his. Untouchable, absolutely untouchable.”
I think what was great is that Louise’s references are part of my childhood – there’s a whole Genesis Trespass thing… It allowed me to do a load of things I don’t normally do on my own records
Jakko Jakszyk
The arrangements and production are gorgeous – there’s a wide and rich array of instrumentation and vocals at times. Jakko, how do you organise complex, layered parts into a harmonious, orderly mix?
Jakko: “Well, it’s finding a sonic space for everything and sometimes I think that affects how you record something to start with, or even what the parts are. I think what was great is that Louise’s [musical] references are part of my childhood – there’s a whole Genesis Trespass thing… It allowed me to do a load of things I don’t normally do on my own records.
“But I do spend a long time with the mixing aspect of it and it’s all to do with placement and creating the sonic space. At times, that means removing things and there were moments where you think, ‘Actually, I’m going to get rid of that part because otherwise it clouds this.’
“Plus, I think we both drove each other on – because Louise has got amazingly good ears, so I would do quite a subtle thing and she’d pick up on it immediately. And that encourages you to think, ‘Oh, I’ll do this one thing. I wonder if she’ll spot that?’ And she always did. I think our voices really work together, too.”
Louise: “Close friends of mine whose ears I really can trust have said Jakko’s stereo mix of the album – even just his stereo mix – was an absolute masterclass. I think it’s incredible. It’s so meticulous; like [the work of] a fine jeweller, it’s got just absolutely perfect little details.”
There are some seriously top-notch musicians on the album, from Tony Levin on bass to Gary Husband. Ian Anderson of Tull even makes an appearance.
Louise: “Ian’s actually played on both solo records I’ve released, so he played on my first album [Deep Blue] as well. I met him in the box at the Royal Albert Hall at a King Crimson show, which is a good story…”
Jakko: “I deliberately got the tour manager to put her in a box with Bill Bruford and Ian Anderson to freak her out [laughs].”
I’m on my own and I’m sitting there with a glass of white wine and you can see people starting to shuffle in. And then the door behind me opens and it’s Ian Anderson
Louise Patricia Crane
Louise: “There were like eight seats and I’m on my own and I’m sitting there with a glass of white wine and you can see people starting to shuffle in. And then the door behind me opens and it’s Ian Anderson and I’m like, ‘Oh my God,’ because I’m a huge Tull fan, and he sits down and he’s so charming – he has a presence.
“He just started chatting to me about when Jethro Tull played in the Albert Hall in the ’70s and he’s like, ‘It’s a bit too big, though, isn’t it?’ That kind of stuff. And then the door opens again and we both turn round and it’s Bill Bruford and I’m just like, ‘This is crazy, I’m dreaming.’ [laughs]”
There are some lovely acoustic parts on the album. They’re quite airy and light and many sound like they were capo’d fairly high. Were there alternative tunings, too?
Jakko: “Yeah, there was one tune, I can’t remember, it might have been Celestial Dust. Anyway, my guitars keep going missing and it’s usually my son who’s borrowed them. They’re all in his room, right? So I retrieved this acoustic from him and I picked it up and I thought, ‘What the fuck’s this tuning?’ and I thought, ‘Oh, okay.’”
Louise: “I also used to capo on the stuff that I was doing – on Spirit Of The Forest I used a capo on the 5th fret with regular tuning, but I just loved it.”
Moving to the electric side of things, what was your guitar rig for the album, Louise?
Louise: “For the SG, typically I was using an EBow, and Jakko actually gave me an old pedalboard that he used to tour with in Crimson. It still had some of the Crimson presets for some of the songs. It took me a while to learn how to use it, because it wasn’t obvious how to get under the hood of it, but I created my own effects and sounds and saved them as presets. And I also used the Devin Townsend [signature Mooer] Ocean Machine.
“Then I would run those through Logic and just record that way. That was me, good to go… The capo just lived on either the 3rd fret or 5th fret, really. I’ve also got a Fender 12-string acoustic – I used that loads on The Red Room, Bête Noir and Spirit Of The Forest as well. The thing about a nice 12-string is you sit down with it and you end up writing a song whether you like it or not because it sounds so gorgeous – it just brings ideas to the fore.”
The cover is a work of art in itself. Apparently someone accused you of generating it with AI, but that couldn’t be further from the truth…
Louise: “Well, yes, so I had this concept in my head that the cover art was going to be like a [picture from a] storybook. I wanted to be this character, this storyteller, but dressed in decayed finery, like a fairytale ballgown sort of thing or a bit like Elizabeth Bathory kind of vibes as well – there’s a kind of Hammer horror thing that I love as well.
“So I spent ages researching and trying to find a designer, someone who would really be able to do this thing that I had in my head and create this costume for the photos, for the cover. And I found this amazing Italian designer, Grimilde Malatesta, who makes these really elaborate gowns – usually for Carnevale in Venice. It took her a year to make the dress, more or less.”
“It was very expensive and I saw the photos of the finished result and I thought, ‘Who better to photograph this than the woman who made it?’ So I asked her, ‘Would you mind?’ And she said, ‘Yeah, I’m up for that,’ so I flew to Italy and we drove for hours and hours into the Dolomite mountains. I got my makeup and hair done, and we raced to be there for golden hour [of soft morning or evening light].
“The place [Grimilde wanted to shoot me] was down in a deep, deep ravine, a small but stunning location by a stream. So we’re literally walking through a forest and we get to this sheer drop, where I could almost touch the tops of the trees [beyond the precipice].
“And I look down and I looked at Grimilde and I said, ‘So where are we getting the photos done?” Thinking, ‘Don’t say it…’ And she said, ‘Down there – that’s where we’re going.’ And I’m like, ‘How the fuck are we going down there?’ So I’m in this dress and then there’s a rope and I abseil down into a ravine…”
- Netherworld is out now via Peculiar Doll.
