Pop music has rapidly grown into niche areas of the today's musical ecosystem and thrives in avoiding cliches by expanding and adapting other genres. As the traditional idea of the pop star dissolves, the climate created the space for pop duos and soulful instrumentation.
All of this built the platform for Marian Hill to grab the attention of pop enthusiasts looking for alternatives in the music scene.
The Philadelphia duo, which consists of producer Jeremy Lloyd and singer Samantha Gongol, sprang into the public eye with songs like “Whiskey” and “One Time” of the debut EP “Sway.” Each cut slides between jazz and hip-hop, but is kept minimalist to allow the vocals to do immense work.
Ahead of the group’s performance at the band’s performance at Valley Bar on Wednesday, the group stopped to chat with me about producing "sexy music" and the "peaks and valleys" in their songwriting.
What was the mentality going into “Sway"?
Lloyd: It was really about finding our sound and fleshing it out and writing focused songs. We listen to a beginning of a beat idea and ask, “What’s this song about?” and then we want to inform the rest of the song, whether it's the lyric or the melody to all fit that direction.
One of the words attached to the record is “sexy.” How do you feel about that?
Lloyd: From our first song “Whiskey” and starting from that template, it was sexy music. It’s partially the tempo we like to work in and the hip-hop beats I like to make so it’s not us necessarily trying to make that style of music, as it is something that just happened.
Is it fair to call what you are doing pop and do you compare yourselves to other artists?
Lloyd: I don’t think we sound like anything else. A lot of pop music these days just involves a wall of sound relentlessly assaulting you and we prefer to be very minimal. We like the peaks and valleys in our music and giving it space to breathe.
Which is really refreshing.
Gongol: I had experience singing on more traditional big, deep, pop records, and I felt like my voice was more interchangeable and so that was the exciting thing about working with Jeremy, and it was really nice because I had found something that really suited my voice that I hadn’t found till that point.
Are you working on any music that deviates from the formula you’ve established?
Lloyd: We just finished writing our album and it’s definitely looking at the different directions we could go.
Gongol: I’d say it’s a departure from “Sway.”
Lloyd: I’m hesitant to say it’s a departure because it’s very much still us, but just a broadening of our sound. There’s definitely more emotional variety in the songs than before.
Can you talk about that a little more?
Lloyd: Early in our songs, we had a little bit of vulnerability and we’ve dug into that a lot more. There are more songs that have a vulnerable edge and some of them are strong minded and secure and human.
Are we going to hear a shift towards more live instrumentation like the live show?
Lloyd: There’s a bit more live piano but we tried to keep it like how we wrote the EP, which was in my bedroom. We really like the idea of maintaining the feel of how recorded the EP for this album that was producing it in my room and Sam singing over it and us being together in the room. That’s how it’s always been and that’s how we wanted to finish our first big product.
Is that because working in that space is very comfortable for you two?
Lloyd: I think it’s because we made such good stuff from that and we wanted to maintain that success and a bit of it is about the control. It’s just Sam and I and no one else and we can do whatever we want.
That seems to be a good way to sum up your music. Bedroom music. Sexy. Comfortable. Does that seem about right?
Lloyd: I think that’s a good way of putting it although I’m hesitant to say that because while we have an edge of sexy to our music that’s not all we want to stick to. I think people that come see our live show are going to get something completely different than bedroom music because of the performance and the explosiveness.
Marian Hill will be performing live at Valley Bar on Oct 14. Grab tickets here or buy them at the door.
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Reach the reporter at dloche@asu.edu or follow @DMLoche on Twitter.
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