RACHEL TAYLOR OF SPINNING COIN

Hi Rachel and thank you for taking the time out to speak with us at Musicology. Firstly congratulations on the new record Hyacinth. An amazing album and one that is so richly textured with its compositional sophistication and finesse. Every album tells a tale to the world and what is this album saying through its 13 beautiful tracks?

I suppose it’s saying many things- don’t despair, find joy, face change…

There were some considerable adjustments to Spinning Coin including personnel changes, and geographical changes. In what ways did these alterations impact on the band and what was ultimately delivered via Hyacinth?

Everything is changing all the time. These past years have involved lots of adaptation, and we’ve become comfortable with that.

In terms of the writing and lyrical content, was there an overarching narrative tying the album together or an assortment of topics and inspirations that zig zag throughout the record?

The themes that are present throughout the record came together naturally, there was no intentional overarching narrative, and the themes that are there will probably continue to reveal themselves to us as time passes.

There is some exquisitely written pieces on Hyacinth and one such philosophical poetic line off The Long Heights is “when I recognise that my dream life is my real one, I've got nothing to prove” and is one that speaks of maturity and comfortableness in one’s own skin that is rarely attained or acknowledged. Can you elaborate on the background to this track and what was happening in your life around this time?

Thanks! It’s just about when I was younger always feeling I had something to prove, or wanting to impress people, and thinking I needed to sort my life out. Nowadays I don’t compare myself to other people so much, and it feels quite liberating, ha! I realized I am playing music and have a good quality of life and learned not to worry.

There is a political streak that features throughout the album as well and is a direct causal link to what you are currently experiencing in the world or an ongoing deep understanding and frustration with what governs our lives?

The songs are an expression of what we live through, what we see, what we feel, and whatever the album expresses politically is connected to that. Maybe it comes from a longing for peace and equality, for all beans.

How considered was your approach in positioning the track order on Hyacinth so as to maintain the beautifully meandering sonic journey and narrative that the album has from start to finish?

We each came up with our own idea of a track order and then decided as a group. I think we ultimately decided through intuition.

One of the most striking features on the record is that of a diversity and masterful arrangement of instrumentation and structure. There is a tremendous range throughout this album as a true testament to your collective prowess. Each track feels like an album in and of itself. Was there a conscious decision to try and make each track as unique as the next?

Not many conscious decisions happening in that respect. I guess the songs that we selected were ones that seemed to fit together well, and the contrast between them is a part of that.

Merging the musical and lyrical sentiment into the visual medium through video clips is no small feat and the monochrome video for Ghosting with its colour splash it as simple as it is effective. Was this something you had in mind for the video right from the start as it mirrored the tracks motive or was it a much more organic process that evolved into what we see?

Our friend Sean Nicholas Savage made the Ghosting video! You’ll have to ask him. He likes to play with colours and make them trippy, I think.

As a philosophical extension to the album, what does music give you that nothing else does?

Joy and freedom.