(Türkçe için tıklayın)
British singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jacob Allen a.k.a Puma Blue will be at Blind stage as part of Garanti BBVA concerts on 29 May for his first concert in Turkey.
Allen, who started his musical journey by sharing the recordings he made in his bedroom on SoundCloud, is sure to make a name for himself in the coming years with his dynamic and emotional voice, bold lo-fi sound and R&B, jazz and hip hop influences in his music.
We talked to the artist, who released his latest album Holy Waters last September, about his story of moving to the United States, his musical evolution, his first Istanbul concert and much more.
Hello Jacob. Thanks for accepting this interview. How are you? What are you dealing with these days?
Hello. I am well, thank you. I hope the same for you. What a question. The turning of the wheel I suppose. I feel it happening. Sometimes too quickly, sometimes all too slowly.
How did you come up with the idea of moving from England to Atlanta, U.S?
I was living with my partner in London during the 2020 pandemic, she was getting a masters degree and I was working on the first album ‘In Praise Of Shadows’. Towards the end of the year, her student visa expired and there was no way to renew it because the world was more or less shut down. So we made a pros and cons list for her moving back to Atlanta and we wanted to stay together, so it was an easy decision to move with her. I love Atlanta and had been visiting her there as much as possible when we were long-distance, before. The hardest part was telling my family and moving far from friends. But these days with the airways open again, Christmas and work takes me home often enough that it never gets to be an ache. Just a little pang sometimes.
"Home is not a physical place. Home is establishing a strong sense of self that you can take with you." you said once, did you ever establish that sense of self in Atlanta?
I think what I meant was, one doesn’t need to. That sense of self must already be established. Home resides within that. It’s like when you fall in love. Of course, this person you’re falling for provokes these amazing feelings within you, but those feelings are you, they don’t come from outside of you. My sense of who I am has grown and evolved whilst I’ve been here, of course, but I went into the move knowing I was taking home with me, not leaving it behind.
You'll be in Istanbul on 29 May to give your first concert. How do you feel?
I’m just so excited to play in Turkey. I’ve never been, even as a visitor. One of the most special things about this job I’ve pursued is that it takes you places. In my early twenties I felt like Luke Skywalker, escaping the farm on Tatooine aboard the Millennium Falcon. I still feel like that.
Probably many of your fans will be seeing you on stage for the first time. What kind of a concert awaits us?
The music takes a less fixed form when we play together live. There is a vulnerability to the records, but I feel like there’s something more palpable when it’s front of you. There is a lot of improvisation between the boys in the band & I, and the music takes us to bigger and more colourful places. We often play a mixture of songs we think fans want to hear and songs that we think only we want to play. Ultimately though, the focus I think is on feeling.
Do you know anything about Turkish music scene? Any musicians or bands?
To my shame, I can’t say I do. It’s probably high time I asked one of my Turkish friends for some recommendations.
How and why did you choose the moniker "Puma Blue"?
Around the time I was turning 20, I was fed up with being booked for singer/songwriter shows alongside Ed Sheeran type singers. Coming up with a moniker was an attempt to reframe my music for others, to give people an impression before they’d even heard anything. I was inspired to go right back to the start, Delta Blues musicians such as Leadbelly, Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters serving as reference points. I wanted my own mythic double-barrelled name, one that could be interpreted broadly yet distinctly. ‘Blue’ came first, it just seemed to describe what I was searching for best, as well as having a little bit of myself inside it. I’m a water sign, and the eyes I see in the mirror are blue. ‘Puma’ came later, a word chosen to provide contrast to it’s companion. It was what was missing. The physical element bringing balance.
Is your other project under the name Ruby Bliels continuing? If so, can you give some details about this project?
I write music not meant for Puma Blue all the time. But recently these worlds have actually started to cross over as part of my process. That’s all I should really say for now, but I’m working on something. It’s on the horizon.
Can you please tell us how did your musical journey start and is it going on the way just as you want?
Well, I never meant to get here. I was always a drummer, that’s what I set out to do with my life from the age of 7. I got distracted by guitar and songwriting, and I’m still distracted by it.
And which bands/musicians are you listening on these days?
A lot of ambient music, Basinski, Stars Of The Lid... a lot of jungle and dub music. Mostly, classical music. Which is honestly a bit of a redundant term, like if I called all guitar music ‘rock’ music. But, at the moment, Scriabin, Chopin, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Ravel.
Your first album released in 2021 and the last one in 2023. How do you think your musical sense evolved or changed among those years?
I think I was too busy trying to prove some things on the first album for the music to be truly great. I wanted to prove I could do everything myself, like with the previous EPs but on a larger scale. I was also reacting against the pigeonhole I was finding myself in, trying to prove I was more. All that was too distracting and I would do-over parts of that album if I could. The second album was free, I was just enjoying music again, focusing on the transcendental aspects of it. I involved the members of the live band much more in certain parts of the process and we would jam an hour at a time, recording the entire hour. I was also prepared to write more honestly, and wear my influences on my sleeve even more than before. Over time I think I’m just getting closer to what music is again, at it’s heart. Back to what it was to me as a child. Abstract and boundless.
How was the experience of collaborating with a live band on recording process?
Really beautiful, but hard work. We were sleeping above the studio, rolling in early each morning and working ’til late, only breaking to eat or swim in the cold sea a 5 minute walk away. It was the first time I’d made a studio album and not on the laptop. I still took the stems home and produced on the laptop but this time the studio was the vessel. Working with the band broadened the possibilities of the project for me, we could all work together on something or separate whilst some of us worked on one thing and others on something else, or I could take some time alone on lyrics whilst the guys jammed. Really it was the interplay and chemistry I think that expanded the process the most.
This is what you say about the Holy Waters album on your Instagram page: "The first half of the album is about acceptance of the pain of life, and the second half is about acceptance of death" Should we think that your musical journey will continue in darker waters?
I just let the process take me where it takes me.
I read it in one of your interviews. The intimate and stunning song Mirage on your last album is actually a poem written after you wanted to raise your arm to wave to your friend who you lost in a traffic accident a long time ago, thinking that you saw her at a railway station. Are all of your songs based on such individual experiences?
A lot of my songs start as poems but actually that one was always lyrics. The rest is true though. Yeah, I suppose... I write from an introspective and personally expressive place, it’s rare that I will come up with an imagined story. My songs are usually just expressions of myself.
Can you recall your first major breakthrough in your career? How did it make you feel?
I still think of when I put out the demo version of Only Trying To Tell You, under my real name. I had written, recorded and released it the same day, which is not something I’m even at the liberty to do now. It started picking up attention immediately and it was genuinely the first time I believed that maybe I could find the success in music that I daydreamed about and not just chase it on the side with all these jobs I was working. It was still years until I was able to quit working jobs outside of music, but it was a mental breakthrough just as much as anything else.
What do you enjoy the most about performing live concerts?
I think just how elevated music makes me feel, when we’re all vibrating together and the music hits a particular dissonance or chord or syncopated rhythm, or I sing an old lyric that strikes a nerve in me, or I notice someone reacting emotionally or closing their eyes and letting it wash over them, and I let it wash over me too... It’s just the closest thing to pure expression that I know.
Is there anything that you are so passionate about except music?
I love films. I spend a lot of time thinking about them and watching them, learning about how they’re made and the hidden meanings and metaphors. I dream about making them.
What are your plans for the near future? What's on your agenda?
I have this tour in Europe and then I have some projects to finish at home. Probably my favourite so far.
Thank you very much, is there anything that you want to add for your Turkish listeners?
Just, thank you, and please send me Turkish music and films.
Yorumlar
Yorum Gönder