Interview: Leila Abdul-Rauf
Well, it certainly is raising awareness. For instance, until everyone started hearing about the performance I did at the Arab-American Museum, no one interviewing me has ever asked about my Arab background, so already that performance is creating awareness in people who wouldn’t otherwise think or talk about it.
Calls From A Seething Edge is the latest mesmerising solo album from multi-instrumentalist and composer Leila Abdul-Rauf and it sees her reach even more aspects of sound with her vast music and the results are both hypnotic and ethereal in equal measures. Gavin Brown had the pleasure of talking to Leila about Calls From A Seething Edge and its creation, sound and influences as well as talking about the evocative music videos she has made for tracks from the album, playing her solo material in a live setting, raising awareness of Arab American culture and what other music she is currently working on.
As well as the interview, Echoes and Dust is proud to present an exclusive stream of Calls From A Seething Edge that you can find below and revel in its majestic nature.
E&D: Your new solo album Calls From A Seething Edge is about to be released. Can you tell us about the albums and its sound?
Leila: This is the fifth album in my solo catalogue. It’s probably the biggest departure sonically among all of the albums: less ambient, more active and rhythmic, with a more diverse range of instruments and six guest musicians.
E&D: How excited are you to be hearing the next part of your solo music journey?
Leila: It’s pretty exciting and the response has been enthusiastic so far. I think this album has been surprising a lot of people because it’s so different from what I’ve done before.
E&D: Does the album follow on from your last solo album Phantasiai or is it its own separate entity?
Leila: Both, in a way. It kind of does pick up where Phantasiai left off. The intro to the first track ‘Summon’ sounds like it could belong on that album, but then the rest of the song takes you somewhere completely different. The themes on the other hand are quite different and separate from the previous albums.
E&D: Can you tell us about the creation of the record and how the process went?
Leila: I tried a lot of new things. Different vocal styles, even a bit of throat singing. I learned some basic drum programming in Ableton Live. I knew I wanted the contributions of several guests to make something more epic sounding, so I wrote songs with all of them in mind. As I gathered all of the many many tracks over the months, I realised I was getting in over my head and that I lacked the engineering skills to mix the whole thing myself as I had done with all of the past albums. So, I hired my friend Sammy Fielding (Ancient Owl Audio) to mix it. I’ve always had a lot of respect for him musically over the past decade or more, and knew he would be the best fit aesthetically for helping to realise my vision. The whole process took longer than I expected but we eventually got there!
E&D: What have been some of the biggest musical influences on this album?
Leila: There are so many. There is still a large neoclassical influence and a bit of jazz noir that weaves through my whole discography but this time, the influences are more diverse. There are folk elements from various European, African and Eastern traditions, post-punk and industrial influences that harken back to my youth. Several years ago, I enrolled in an Eastern European folk singing class here in Oakland with the local singing group Kitka. I also took part in a community singing event they hosted last year. These classes/events helped me find different parts of my voice I hadn’t used before, and to be able to project it more powerfully.
E&D: Did you want this to be your boldest and most ambitious album to date?
Leila: I think so. I wanted to leave my comfort zone and try something new for myself. A big part of the decision to go bolder was a practical one: I perform in a wide range of spaces, from galleries and cultural centres to loud metal clubs and fests. The latter kinds of shows were the most challenging because when performing my older material, I was always the quietest act on a largely metal bill. I got tired of hearing drunk people talk over my set, or the sound of glasses clinking at the bar next to the stage, etc. I figured if I can be louder that wouldn’t be a problem anymore, so I experimented with heavier synth sounds, electronic drums, hand percussion, bigger horn sections and a louder singing style. Well, I can say that solved that problem! But beyond the live aspect, I knew I had it in me to do something more challenging compositionally, drawing from a wider range of influences and textures. I am one to get bored if I’m not being challenged enough.
E&D: What does the title of Calls From A Seething Edge refer to?
Leila: Last winter, I was struck by a vision of someone – me? or possibly humanity as a whole? – walking along a sharp-edged blade of indefinite length where on one side of it is the “safe” concrete world of the known, and on the other side, a realm of death, infinity and the spiritual unknown, continuing to seethe and beckon to us. It came to me as I was writing the lyrics to the first track, ‘Summon’. Growing edge will now appear / To draw me towards its hungry void / Space-time gaps close / Only black holes / Is it approaching me? Or am I the only one moving?
E&D: Members of Tomb Mold, Weakling, and Saros appear on the album. Can you tell us about the tracks they play on and what they bring to the songs?
Leila: Sam Foster who was in Saros with me, and also the drummer for Weakling, is probably one of my longest time collaborators, on and off for over two decades at this point. He has a solo project Stellar Void that I did some guest work for on the debut. He even had a brief stint as a touring drummer for Vastum. We have a lot of diverse musical history together, and we’re good friends, and on top of being a fantastic drummer and hand percussionist, he has a similar and compatible aesthetic mindset to mine. I knew I wanted more rhythm on this album. So, if there were going to be drums on the album, it had to be him playing them. He does hand percussion on ‘Summon’, ‘Mukhalafat’ and some of the drum sampling on ‘Crimes of the Soul’. Derrick Vella from Tomb Mold invited me to play a trumpet solo on the second Dream Unending album. Since then we’ve exchanged a lot of music back and forth, including his acoustic solo debut. I really resonated with some of that material and thought the style of some of the guitar solos would work really well on ‘Summon’. I asked him to throw down whatever he wanted for a guitar solo in a particular scale over the drone section at the end of the song, and it was just perfect, overlapping and coming out of my partner Gregory Hagan’s viola solo. Ryan Honaker (violin) who is my bandmate in Ionophore, Ed Lloyd Grey (acoustic upright bass) and Vincent van Veen (electric cello and upright bass) all contributed beautiful string work to some of the songs.
E&D: Can you tell us about the evocative music videos you have done for the albums lead single ‘Crimes Of The Soul’ and the album’s opening track ‘Summon’ and the themes they deal with?
Leila: Sam and I collaborated on the video for ‘Summon’ which was a thrilling experience. He did all of the filming and editing, and I came up with ideas for some of the scenes. Since he studied eastern style percussion, he’s been immersed in the belly-dancing scene, so was able to hire a couple of his friends to perform in the video, which was amazing. The theme for ‘Summon’ is the one that’s most closely linked to the album’s theme of humanity being on edge, teetering on the brink between life and death.
David Brenner of Earsplit PR and Gridfailure created the ‘Crimes of the Soul’ video. Gregory, who also plays viola on the album, did the filming of the shots I’m in, and Dave compiled all of the bleak and harrowing war footage. The concept of this song confronts the darkest sides of humanity and its ability to perpetually commit, deny and repeat genocide to maintain economic and geopolitical power and control by manipulating the public and their belief systems. It’s simultaneously cynical and hopeful that humanity, while never seeming to be able to extract itself from domination through violence since the beginning of time, may actually have the evolved capacity for alternative methods of conflict resolution, but also that evolution may happen when it’s too late because the planet will be fully destroyed by then.
E&D: How does working on your solo material compare to working on a band like Vastum or Hammers Of Misfortune for example?
Leila: I haven’t been in Hammers of Misfortune since 2018 but my duties in that band were simple: just play the guitar and sing the vocal parts as written. In Vastum, I’m a founding member so I play a bigger role as a main songwriter and lyricist, and am more involved with the conceptual, aesthetic, and business aspects of the band. But with my solo work I have a lot more freedom to explore any avenue at will, make any decisions I want regarding writing, recording and performing. I can also ask anyone to join as a guest for a recording or performance or change up the arrangement at any time without having to consult with bandmates. I get to improvise which I don’t get to do as much in my bands. And with that freedom to explore comes more responsibility, which can be daunting since there’s no one else in the project to bounce ideas off of when working on new material and I have to make everything happen on my own to see releases to their completion. It’s a lot more work but overall more rewarding in the end.
E&D: Will you be performing this new material live at any point?
Leila: Yes, in fact I just debuted this material at the Arab-American Museum a couple of weeks ago. There’s another show booked at the Hart Bar in Brooklyn, December 18 with Gridfailure and Compactor, which will be my east coast record release show. More to come in 2025.
E&D: How did that show at the Arab American National Museum go?
Leila: Considering how challenging this new material is to perform, especially by myself, I think I pulled it off better than I expected to. It was a great learning experience and something to keep building from. Everyone involved with hosting the event was incredibly gracious and the audience seemed in rapture through the whole set, you could practically hear a pin drop. I made some new, interesting friends as well, some of whom are local to the Bay Area.
E&D: How important is it for you to play shows like that and raise awareness of the Arab American culture?
Leila: Well, it certainly is raising awareness. For instance, until everyone started hearing about the performance I did at the Arab-American Museum, no one interviewing me has ever asked about my Arab background, so already that performance is creating awareness in people who wouldn’t otherwise think or talk about it. But beyond the importance of creating more visibility of people within the SWANA diaspora, performing in these spaces gives me something deeper on a personal level. I meet people from similar backgrounds who went through similar struggles as I did growing up. We can have conversations with each other we can’t have with anyone outside of those backgrounds, and there’s an immediate connection and bond that is unique, in addition to the fact that we’re all artists of some kind. It’s quite powerful on many levels.
E&D: Are you working on any other music at the moment that you can tell us about?
Leila: There are several very exciting collaborations, both complete and in the works, that I can’t give all the details for just yet but will be announced soon. Also just starting to work on some new Vastum material with our new guitarist, which is proving to be a lot more collaborative than it has in the past.
E&D: What have been some of the highlights of this year for you so far?
Leila: Working on this album for sure, and also collaborating on the videos for it was a great eye-opening experience. Getting a new Vastum line-up together has also been a great breath of fresh air. Aside from music, getting a free stay in Maui for a few weeks last summer and going on some outdoor adventures there was quite stunning.
E&D: What albums have you been listening to the most this year?
Leila: Gregory gifted me with a compilation CD of the Women of Egypt 1924-1931, and Mdou Moctar’s Afrique Victime, both are fantastic. I tend to listen to music the most during my morning work-outs, but the music I usually listen to in these moments is limited to genres that have a consistent rhythm in order to motivate me to keep working out, so I haven’t been listening to a lot of stuff I lately that I had been for many years like ambient and drone music. I’ve also revisited a lot of old music like the first five Talking Heads albums, Killing Joke, 80s King Crimson (I just saw a show of the BEAT tour with Adrian Belew with Steve Vai replacing Robert Fripp which was amazing). The recent Judas Priest LP Firepower was better than I expected too.
E&D: What are your musical plans for next year as we head closer to 2025?
Lelia: Besides the record release show in Brooklyn on December 18, A Vastum tour is starting to come together for late March/early April 2025, as well as writing a new Vastum album. A solo tour will eventually be in the works.
