Cornelia Murr was born in London and resides in California as a dual citizen, but spent much of her childhood moving through the United States, from Colorado to Massachusetts, California to New York City and upstate New York. Working with producer Jim James of My Morning Jacket on her debut album Lake Tear of the Clouds, Murr conjures a hazy blend of folk and cosmic soul music, and taps into the bucolic spirit of the Hudson Valley.
My favorite record this year was Cate Le Bon’s Michelangelo Dying. It came out in September, so it hasn’t been with me all year, but she did start rolling out singles a few months ago and I’ve loved her music for a while. I don’t actually listen to that much music; I feel sort of overwhelmed by how much is always coming out all the time. But when I really love something, I kind of latch on and listen to only that for a while. So that’s been one for me that I’ve been really sitting with it.
When she teased it initially, she put out an image that was just this pink draped fabric. I really respect when artists go quiet and retreat and you don’t know what’s going on, and then they come back with a whole new aesthetic world to offer, and she really does that. With that first image of this new chapter, I was just like, What is going on? It was so magnetizing to me, warm and mysterious. Then she teased the first single, called “Heaven Is No Feeling,” and put out a few seconds of the music video that involve the fabric but develop this world further of course. It seemed both kind of frantic and vulnerable and like a healing space or something, like an interior world. Again, I just respect so much how she builds a whole world musically and visually.
I love the second single, “Is It Worth It (Happy Birthday)?,” and I loved that first single, too. I also love the first track on the album, called “Jerome.” I think it’s just a whole work unto itself like all good albums. Every song works so well. Including the one featuring John Cale, “Ride” — their voices are great together. But “Is it Worth it (Happy Birthday)?,” is my favorite, and I got really attached to it. It came out in August, and I was recording myself at that time. I happened to be in Paris, and was in a really feverish few days of recording, which can be kind of maddening. It was fun, but you’re obsessively analyzing your own music, you’re building it, so you’re hearing little parts of it over and over. And the song became this soothing balm away from my own music. As soon as I left the studio, I would just listen to that song on repeat. It’s a slow, warm, kind of kaleidoscopic song. But it’s also just such a good song in songwriting terms, to me, anyway. It has this quality that most of the best songs have, which is that it sounds like it’s always existed. You know what I mean? You’re like, Oh, there it is. That song. Almost like you know it already.
She is so unique to me. And I think because she produces everything herself, it’s even more so. Her touch is just so unlike anyone else. The sound of her guitar, the sound of her voice, is completely singular. She has an iciness to her that I like, and technically she’s so good and strange, and the strangeness is something I love about her stuff. But this record, to me, is just as much warm and emotionally available. She’s not afraid to be beautiful and vulnerable on this record in a way that I think stands out compared to her earlier work.
I know the record is partly about a breakup for her, from what I’ve read, and that theme is in there. But the title, Michelangelo Dying, for me brings to mind the importance of art in apocalyptic times. Or it brought to mind the image of a falling civilization. And maybe that’s not even her intention with it, but that feels pertinent to the times we’re living in. I’m not speaking of doomsday or anything, but… it feels important, and it also can feel absurd, to be putting your energy into trying to make art or anything that’s beautiful in a time like this. For instance, being on the road and promoting shows and being like, “Come check me out,” or reposting a story of fans being like, “Oh, my god, so great!”— it’s hard for me to do that and hold what’s going on in the news. It can feel ridiculous and like the last thing that one should be doing. But I think when I zoom out, I know that it’s all the more necessary in some ways — just the sharing of music. Music and art can be a lot of things, it can make for all kinds of experiences. But it can also just be a soothing, healing break from the rest of the world for people. So I know that’s important too. Also, the health of a society, I think, is somewhat reflected by the level of art being made, the amount of creativity happening. So I know it’s important for the world, but it can feel hard to continue. In this time, we’re all kind of wondering what’s going to become of us in this world, in this country… So, that title brings all that up to me.
From what I gather, she had the artist H. Hawkline do all of the visuals. That’s inspiring to me too, to find one person you trust in this way so the end result is cohesive. I don’t feel like I’ve pulled that off yet in my career, such a succinct visual world around an album. But I would like to do more of that. I also like producing myself, and would like to do more of that too. So in a few ways, I just look up to how she does things and greatly enjoy the work.
As told to Annie Fell.
Cornelia’s own record, Run to the Center, is out now on 22Twenty.
