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Archive for Harry Eastlack

Terror Trax: Jill Tracy Interview in HorrorAddicts

By jilltracy
Monday, August 22nd, 2016


This interview with Jill Tracy appeared on HorrorAddicts.net August 2016.
Interview by Emerian Rich.
(photo by Audrey Penven)

 

HA: Do you write your own lyrics/where does your inspiration come from?

JT: Yes, I write both the lyrics and music. Although the music always comes first for me. That’s the “way in.” The vocal melody will reveal itself early on, then words begin to emerge. I am a meticulous wordsmith to a fault. Some songs lay frozen in notebooks for years because I was never happy with one particular line. But then the perfect line may come to me, pop in my head, at a random time. The process of letting it go will often bring it back to you.

As far as what inspires—it’s never any one thing specifically; that’s the beauty of it, the sheer randomness. It’s more of a sensory response to the immediate; a word or phrase, an image, a story, a mood, a fragrance, textures, colors, the allure of the unknown, the forbidden, anything that enables me to ‘slip into the cracks.’ It’s a process of being alive in that place, allowing the flame. My music is like a portal, a transport into another realm. When I write, I’m conjuring a magic place, getting out of this world for a while. It’s the grand escape hatch.

 

HA: What singers or bands inspired you growing up?

JT: As far as bands go—most definitely Pink Floyd. They captured that cinematic mood, that dark, mournful beautiful devastation that transported you completely.
Also Led Zeppelin, The Cure, David Bowie, T. Rex, early Elton John, The Doors, Japan, later period Talk Talk, The Pretenders, Gang of 4, Psychedelic Furs, The Cult, Roxy Music, The Who, early Peter Gabriel, old Moody Blues, early Aerosmith and Black Sabbath, ahhh, so many!
It was only after I began performing live that I became acquainted with more of the classical composers, oddly enough because I was always getting compared to them. My very first-ever review in the 1990s (Bay Guardian) described me as “Erik Satie meets The Cure.” And later it was a fan who compared my mysticism to Alexander Scriabin. I am forever honored that my work is resonating with people in that realm.

 

HA: When did you first know you wanted to be a musician and how did you start out?

JT: I have always been drawn to the mysterious— fantastical, otherworldly imagery. Worlds sans-time. I was obsessed with Alfred Hitchcock, Bernard Herrmann, Ray Bradbury, Rod Serling, Jean Cocteau. As a child, I tried to build a time machine in my bedroom closet. I thought one could travel through the shadows. I just wanted to live in those worlds.

I read about time travel, the belief in other dimensions, spirits, ghosts—I would lecture to my stuffed animals about the solar system and constellations. All I wanted to do was to discover or manifest hidden worlds. I knew they existed. My mission was to figure out how to find them.

I began making frequent visits to an elderly widow who lived next door. Her home was encrusted with bric-a-brac, old photos and dolls—porcelain-painted Siamese cats with jewels for eyes. In the basement was an ancient upright piano, covered entirely in beige and gold-flecked paint. It sat next to the washer and dryer, under buzzing fluorescent lights.
There was something atrocious, yet reverent about this thing. It kept calling me. I knew nothing about the instrument, but I kept venturing next door, poised on the golden bench for hours, letting thoughts and spectres rush through my fingertips, as it transported me far away. I didn’t know what I was doing– but didn’t want to do anything else. This became my portal. It still is.

To this day, I don’t read or write music, it’s all intuited.

 

HA: Can you tell us about your Musical Seance work?

JT: I’ve learned to channel music spontaneously via various energy sources, whether found objects, environments, etc. The Musical Séance is a live travelling show, my long-time collaboration with violinist Paul Mercer. It’s a collective summoning driven by beloved objects the audience brings with them. Items of personal significance—such as a photo, talisman, jewelry, toy. This is a very crucial part of manifesting the music. Every object holds its story, its spirit— energy, resonance, impressions from anyone who has ever held the object, to the experiences and emotions passed through it.

These compositions are delicate living things. They materialize, transport, and in the same second— they vanish. That’s the amazing thing about The Musical Seance— you never know what to expect, and each experience is entirely different, extremely emotional, for us, as well as the audience. It creates this rare synergy with everyone in the entire room.

Often, the curiosities themselves are just as compelling as the music they inspire. We’ve encountered everything from cremated cats, dentures, haunted paintings, 16th century swords, antlers, x-rays, gingerbread man, a lock of hair from a drowned boy.

But one thing I’ve learned is––everyone in the world has a story to tell that will break your heart.

SONY DSC
(Photo by Neil Girling)

 

HA: What is “clairaudience?”

JT: It literally translates in “clear-hearing.” As with clairvoyance, which means “clear-vision,” being clairaudient means the ability to hear things not of this world. I have always heard strange unexplained music. Often heavy and harsh, but compellingly exquisite, alluring, complex. I can’t even begin to describe it! It maddens me that there is no way that I could ever harness it to compose or record. It’s beyond anyone’s grasp. For the past few years, I have begun to hear people’s voices talking, it’s usually very urgent and fast, like they need to relay a message. I do believe in simultaneous realms, and that we have the ability to share a frequency, be an antenna, if sometimes only for a second. It’s a mingling of Time.

I’m learning more about harnessing this gift, it plays such a key role in my ability to find hidden musical scores when I compose in unusual locales. I used to be leary of it, but now find it strangely comforting.

 

HA: What non-musical things inspire your music? Is there a place where you go to be inspired?

JT: It’s really about finding the quiet, so I can be fully receptive, like an antenna as I mentioned before. The Soul lives in the silence. You must be able to tune out to to truly tune in.

Unfortunately, these days of on-demand, constant world-at-our-fingertips connection has destroyed our sense of mystery and childlike wonder. That breaks my heart. Monsters, marvels, lore, and legend—these are the things that make us feel most alive. Now there is so much constant NOISE—we think it enriches us, adds something, but really it is soul-stifling. We’ve lost our own identities inside the din.

The Internet is a blessing and a curse. The ease to obtain information and connect with the world is glorious. But at the same time it’s destroying our individuality. Everyone is getting their news/views from the same sources and absurd algorithms, not looking outside, or challenging themselves to think further. We’re trapped in a giant echo chamber. There has never been a greater need to venture outside the cage, to seize our truth and authenticity.
To be an individual now takes a great deal of effort. But so vital!

 

HA: What’s been your favorite achievement so far?

JT: My life’s work is about honoring the mystery…One of my greatest pleasures of late has been immersing myself alone in unusual locations, or a place with a strange story, and composing music as a reaction to that environment. The intense purity and immediacy is so exciting. You are hearing my raw emotional response at the piano.

I’ve found myself conjuring the hidden score in decrepit gardens and cemeteries, on the antique Steinways of the (supposedly haunted) Victoria B.C. 1890 Craigdarroch Castle, an abandoned 1800s San Francisco medical asylum, and the Los Angeles mansion of a 19th century murderer.

The lovely and difficult thing about this work is that I can’t prepare for it, as I never know what to expect. I must allow myself to be completely vulnerable; simply feel, and react. It’s not about me anymore; it’s about the music, the story. It becomes so much bigger than any of us. That’s the beauty of it.

My huge dream-come-true is that I am first musician in history to ever be awarded a grant from Philadelphia’s famed Mütter Museum, to create a series of work inspired by its spellbinding collection of medical oddities. I spent nights alone at a piano amidst the Mütter’s grotesque cabinet of curiosities, which includes the death cast and conjoined liver of original Siamese twins Chang and Eng, the skeleton of the Harry Eastlack “the Ossified Man,” Einstein’s brain, The American Giant, books bound in human skin, and the Mermaid Baby. It was vital for me to be in the presence of these long-lost souls, as I composed and recorded. They become an actual part of the work and not just the subject matter.

The project will include not only a music album based on the Mütter collection, but also an art book and memoir of my chilling experiences inside the museum after dark.
All of my work will be factual. I’m done extensive research at the museum, even utilizing excerpts from letters and doctors’ records. I began this project in 2012, and have become completely swept up in the research!

enumen_jilltracy_ph3 copy
(Jill Tracy composing after-hours inside Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum. Photo by Evil Numen)

 

HA: What was the scariest night of your life?

JT: This is a great question! People always ask me if I got scared inside the Mütter Museum alone in the dark, or if I get frightened when channeling music in a cemetery, asylum, etc. The answer is no. I am completely immersed in that moment— it is a feeling of hyper-realism. Being fully alive. Super-charged.
It’s that same feeling when I’ve acted in classic Grand Guignol plays (famed Paris Horror Theatre 1897-1962.) Letting yourself be completely terrified onstage is a strange, exhilarating catharsis. Screaming at the top of your lungs in front of an audience is profoundly liberating.

I’ve died onstage in many bizarre ways: Torn apart by a savage wolf boy, killed in a violent train crash, leapt off a balcony to my death, hypnotized by a mad scientist, locked in a castle tower with a demon, etc— The underlying thing is you know in your soul, underneath the fake blood and the layers of prosthetics and costumes, that you are going to be okay.

BUT—I have been in some quite scary REAL-LIFE situations. I was in a near plane crash, as the airplane’s brakes went out. We had to prepare for an emergency landing on a foam-covered runway, hoping to slow down the plane. We had to remove all jewelry, belts, sharp objects, hold a pillow over our head, eyes closed, as we bent over our lap awaiting possible impact. I remember passengers screaming and sobbing.

I was also mugged at knifepoint in a New York City subway alone at night. I instinctively ran after the mugger shouting within the empty concrete labyrinth. As I rounded a corner, he grabbed me.
I was almost kidnapped in Paris by a strange man with pink hair and his two accomplices who locked me in the back room of a restaurant.

I have discovered 3 dead bodies in my lifetime, in 3 different situations.
In the midst of this real terror, your brain locks into that fight or flight mode— no time to feel afraid, you just do what you need to to think clearly and get through it!

 

HA: What are your favorite horror movies?

JT: I prefer the chilling, classic psychological horror, over the slasher-gore fest. For me, it’s all about the story, getting drawn in, and the fear of the unknown. (Our imagination is truly the scariest component of it all.) There are many great movies, but these come to mind:
Eyes Without A Face (1960), The Birds (1963), Rosemary’s Baby (1968)—also Mia Farrow in the great lesser-known thriller The Haunting of Julia (1977), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (original 1956), Mad Love (with Peter Lorre 1935), The Sentinel (1977), The Shining (1980).

 

HA: What are you working on now?

JT: I’m currently writing — resuming work on the Mütter Museum book and music project, as well as other new songs. I just began a lovely hibernation from live gigs to focus on creating again. I am also designing what will be a subscription-only series called The Noctuary (inspired by my love and lore of the Night,) which will feature exclusive music, videos, stories, private concerts, behind-the-scenes interviews, and more for subscribers only. I am excited to reveal the details!
Please sign up to my inner email circle at JILLTRACY.com and you’ll be first to be invited to join The Noctuary!

 

enumen_jilltracy_72
(Jill Tracy composing alongside the Hyrtl Skull Collection at Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum. Photo by Evi Numen)

 

HA: What is available now that the listeners can download or buy?

JT: I have 5 full length albums, plus various film scores, and singles, even a Christmas album— my dark classical interpretation of some of the more haunting old carols. Definitely the holiday collection for people who prefer The Dark Season.
As an intro to my work, I would start with albums The Bittersweet Constrain and Diabolical Streak.

 

HA: What is the website they can find it on?

JT: JILLTRACY.com is best.
I offer some exclusive titles on my site unavailable on iTunes, Amazon, and other corporate shops. Plus no middlemen taking money for nothing.

 

HA: What is the best social media site for listeners to connect with you?

JT: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jilltracymusic
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jilltracymusic
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jilltracymusic/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/jilltracymusic
Bandcamp: http://jilltracy.bandcamp.com/

Categories : Albums, books, Concerts, History, Interviews, Memoir, Projects, Uncategorized
Tags : audrey penven, bernard herrmann, Chang and Eng, claireaudience, claireaudient, Dexter, Diabolical Streak, Erik Satie, Harry Eastlack, Hitchcock, horror, horror movies, inspiration, Jean Cocteau, Jill Tracy, medical oddities, musical seance, Mutter Museum, Noctuary, occult, paul mercer, Ray Bradbury, Rod Serling, Scriabin, Seance, shadows, spirits, time travel, Twilight Zone, writing

The Ecstasy of Melancholy: Jill Tracy talks with Gothic Beauty Magazine

By jilltracy
Thursday, September 4th, 2014

 

 A woman of many, many talents. Jill Tracy has spent nearly all her life channeling the melancholic and macabre to weave a sonic web as delicate as it is strong. We caught up with the enchanting artist to chat about all the delicious projects she has happening, and some of the stories behind her singular vision. — by Jessika Hulse

Jill Tracy/Lace Shadows 2

Archived from Gothic Beauty Magazine Issue 41.  (Photo of Jill Tracy by Audrey Penven)

 

At what point in your life did you begin to manifest your artistic visions?

JT: My mother tells the story of me at 3 years old, unplugging the long retractable cord of the tank vacuum cleaner to use as a microphone. I knew at a young age I didn’t want the conventional life of marriage and family. And like most artistic souls, I always felt out-of-step with the ”normal” world, a misfit, looking for directions from elsewhere.

I would lecture to my stuffed animals about time travel and the solar system (as much as a seven year old could fathom such things.) All I wanted to do was to discover or manifest hidden worlds. I transformed my bedroom closet into a make-shift Time Machine, adorned with my favorite zebra lamp and a tiny wooden chair. I sat in the darkness and felt strangely relieved and inspired.

I began making frequent visits to an elderly widow who lived next door. Her home was encrusted with bric-a-brac, old photos and dolls—porcelain-painted Siamese cats with jewels for eyes. In the basement was an ancient upright piano, covered entirely in beige and gold-flecked paint. It sat next to the washer and dryer, under buzzing fluorescent lights.

There was something atrocious, yet reverent about this thing. It kept calling me. I knew nothing about the instrument, but I kept venturing next door, poised on the golden bench for hours, letting thoughts and spectres rush through my fingertips, as it transported me far away. I didn’t know what I was doing– but didn’t want to do anything else.
This became my portal. It still is.
 
 

What experiences have been most emboldening and/or encouraging to you along the way?

JT: At first, it was anything but encouraging. The industry constantly told me (and still tells me to this day) that my work is “too unique, dark, and sophisticated” to ever have an audience.
But the best thing I ever did was not to listen to any of them. They were wrong.

But, I realized I couldn’t go in the front door, not even the back door–so I built TRAP doors—I went directly to my audience. My great fans have been the most encouraging thing in my life.
 
 

For the uninitiated, how would you describe your elegant netherworld of work?

JT: Well, that’s the phrase I have coined over the years—”elegant netherworld.” It paints a perfect picture.  My work is about honoring the mystery, finding allure and seduction with the dark side, the ecstasy of melancholy— La Douleur Exquise “the exquisite pain.”
My music is indeed dark, but devastatingly beautiful. It was recently described as “musical morphine.” I rather like that. I am the mistress of aural opiates.

Dexter_New_Poster_5_3_13

Your song, Evil Night Together, was selected by Showtime Networks to promote the final season of hit show Dexter. What do you think made it such a good fit, and is this the first time your music has been featured on television?

JT: It’s been a tremendous honor and a thrill to be Dexter’s “Demonic Requiem.” Showtime used my music in a trailer called “The Final Symphony,” highlighting the darkest, alluring, and bloodiest moments from the last seven seasons. It’s brilliant. It fits like a severed hand in glove!

My songs and instrumentals have been in several independent and feature films, TV: NBC, PBS,— the CBS show Navy NCIS featured my songs as themes for sultry goth forensic scientist Abby Sciuto (Pauley Perrette.)
 
 

With such a dramatic and cinematic quality, would you like to see your music in more film and television? How has film influenced your work?

JT: Absolutely.  My work is all essentially a score— of the Mind’s Eye. I strive to be a gatekeeper to emotions. That’s the magic music allows —like a trap door or portal, it accompanies us—to a place we never knew existed, but wish to go.

One of my greatest pleasures right now is immersing myself in unusual locations laden with mysterious history, and manifesting music from my reaction to the environment. The intensity and immediacy is fascinating. I call it “spontaneous musical combustion” (as homage to “spontaneous human combustion,” and my affinity for peculiar history and science tales.) I’ve found myself conjuring the hidden score inside haunted castles, abandoned asylums, decrepit mansions, gardens, and graveyards..

As a child, when I discovered the classic horror/film noir composers— Bernard Herrmann’s scores to Alfred Hitchcock films, “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” Franz Waxman, Hans J. Salter, among others —it was a watershed moment. I realized that the MUSIC completely dictated the emotion of whatever you were watching. It was utterly subliminal, primal. 
I wanted to figure out how to conjure dark and enchanting imaginary worlds of my own. 
Not to mention the dreamlike, mysterious, sensual look to those films. I just wanted to live in those worlds. I still do.
 

 
 

You’ve also got some new music and film projects?

JT: My song “Pulling Your Insides Out” was used as the end title in director Jeremy Carr’s award-winning surreal thriller Ice Cream Ants. (I also star in the film as the evil seductress Mona!) To accompany the film’s new director’s cut, we have just released a new music video for the song.

I also recorded a new song “The Colour of the Flame,” commissioned by Swedish publishing company Malört, to accompany their upcoming book, an homage to 19th century Polish writer/occultist Stanislaw Przybyszewski’s gorgeously terrifying tales.

The song will be released on a limited edition collectible 7″ vinyl to accompany the book, alongside a new track by Blixa Bargeld (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds/ Einstürzende Neubauten) and Stephen O’Malley (Sunn O)))).

David J (Bauhaus/ Love and Rockets) asked me to create a dark classical piano version of his iconic song “Bela Lugosi’s Dead.” We’ve been in the studio currently resurrecting this glorious vampire. Stay tuned! (Since this interview was published, the David J/Jill Tracy dark classical piano version of Bela Lugosi’s Dead has been released!) You can listen and download it HERE.

Jill-Tracy-promo-video-image-530x250

You’ve recently made history as the first musician to be given a grant by Philadelphia’s legendary Mutter Museum— for a project we’re dying to hear all about – what can we expect to see and hear, and how did this lovely venture come about?

JT: Yes, I’m the first musician to be awarded a grant which is enabling me to compose music inside the Mütter Museum, a series of compositions directly inspired by pieces in the collection. It was vital for me to be in the presence of these long-lost souls, as I composed. I needed to immerse myself in their world and make them a real part of the creation. This is my gift to them.

I spent nights amidst the Mütter’s spellbinding collection of curiosities, which includes the death cast and conjoined liver of original Siamese twins Chang and Eng, the skeleton of Harry Eastlack— the Ossified Man, Einstein’s brain, the Mermaid Baby. and the Hyrtl Skull Collection. The project will include not only a music album based on the Mütter collection, but also an art book, film, and memoir of my chilling experiences inside the museum after dark.

 

***This interview archived from Gothic Beauty Magazine Issue 41.  Order a back issue HERE.

Categories : History, Interviews, Memoir, New Music, Projects, TV, Uncategorized, Video
Tags : alfred hitchcock, audrey penven, bauhaus, bela lugosi, bernard herrmann, blixa bargeld, Chang and Eng, david j, Dexter, film, film noir, Final Symphony, Harry Eastlack, horror movies, Ice Cream Ants, Jeremy Carr, Jill Tracy, medical oddities, melancholy, Mutter Museum, nick cave, Showtime, spontaneous musical combustion, Vampire

JILL TRACY Interview in Nocturne Magazine: “On Mystery, Music, and the Mütter Museum”

By jilltracy
Saturday, March 16th, 2013

 

NOTE: This interview was originally printed as a beautiful 6-page spread in New Zealand’s Nocturne Magazine, Issue #5. We are proud to present it online for you here!


JILL TRACY: On Mystery, Music, and the Mütter Museum

by Fiona McKechnie (for Nocturne Magazine, New Zealand)
photo by Audrey Penven

 

Jill Tracy is a conjuror of the enigmatic; a purveyor of the extraordinary and raconteur of dark delights. She weaves her web with delicate soundscapes, seducing us into her parlour with eerie tales, which are sinister, yet captivatingly sweet. A singer, songwriter, composer, performer and all-around creative wonder, Jill has her delicate fingers in many delicious pies!

We found Jill tangled amongst a fury of live performances, recordings and music channeling: freeing herself for a moment to talk with us about some of the many projects she is currently immersed in.

 

Your music conjures such strong impressions of the past, each taking the listener back to a different by-gone era. What do you think it is about the past that is so seductive?

Jill Tracy: My music doesn’t evoke the Past so much as it does a sense of pure Timelessness. Transcendent of Time. That’s what makes it seductive; creating that place––familiar yet oddly intriguing. It resonates on a soulful level, but still maintains an air of the mysterious. That’s the magic music allows —like a trap door or portal, it accompanies us—to a place we never knew existed, but wish to go.

I’m honored to be this gatekeeper of emotions. Throughout my life, I’ve simply followed my own muses. I’ve always just composed the score I hear inside my head. Music from the mind’s eye… To listen to my music is to know me.

I have always been drawn to fantastical, otherworldly imagery. Worlds sans-time. As a child, I was obsessed with Alfred Hitchcock, Bernard Herrmann, Ray Bradbury, Rod Serling, Jean Cocteau. I just wanted to live in those worlds. I still do.
So I did the next best thing: I devoted my life to creating my own musical netherworld.


photo by bleedingvisuals

You’ve performed a number of ‘Musical Séances,’ with violinist Paul Mercer, over the years. At these events attendees bring along objects, trinkets, belongings that remind them of loved ones and you ‘channel’ live music using these possessions. What is it like to speak with the dead through music?

JT: Paul and I never approach it that way. It would be outrageous and in bad taste to claim we are “speaking to the dead through music.” If anything, it’s about honoring the dead, not mocking them, or selling hokum like sideshow hucksters.

The “Musical Séance” is a collective summoning inspired by beloved objects. Quite frankly, it’s more about the present than the past, music channeled from that fragile moment captured among the living. From sentiment to sadness, frivolity and fear. It’s musical psychometry.

Audience members are asked to bring tokens of special significance, such as a photo, talisman, jewelry, toy. This is a very crucial part of manifesting the music. Every object holds its story, its spirit. Energy, resonance, impressions from anyone who has ever held the object, to the experiences and emotions passed through it.

Often, these curiosities themselves are just as compelling as the music they inspire. We’ve encountered everything from cremated cats, dentures, haunted paintings, 16th century swords, antlers, and x-rays.

But one thing I’ve learned is––everyone in the world has a story to tell that will break your heart.

Objects brought to A Musical Seance (photo by Neil Girling theblight.net)

How did this process of channeling music evolve?

JT: My music and live performances have always been so emotionally driven to begin with– I would see people sometimes crying in the front row, or they’d come up to me after a set relating how a particular song got them through a rough time, or helped them find their true path, etc. I’ve realized I’ve become a beacon for so many kindred souls. And that’s very important to me. That genuine direct connection with an audience is such a rarity these days—in a world where entertainment has become vacuous and superficial. We are about as real as it gets.

I wanted the audience to become even more a part of my process, and actually compose pieces in front of them, culled from their energy. It’s a perfect circle. The audience gives to me, and I channel it musically and give it right back, creating a piece that will exist solely for us in those few minutes. It’s the most powerful thing I’ve ever experienced. A musical umbilical cord.

That led me to immersing myself in unusual locations laden with mysterious history, and manifesting music from my reaction to the environment. The intense purity and immediacy is so exciting. You are hearing my raw response at the piano. I call it “spontaneous musical combustion” (as homage to “spontaneous human combustion,” and my affinity for peculiar history and science tales.)
I’ve found myself conjuring the hidden score inside haunted castles, abandoned asylums, decrepit mansions, gardens, and theaters. It’s definitely one of my greatest pleasures right now.

The lovely and difficult thing about this work is that I can’t prepare for it, as I never know what to expect. I must allow myself to be completely vulnerable; simply feel, and react. It’s not about me anymore; it’s about the music, the story. It becomes so much bigger than any of us. That’s the beauty of it.


photo by Audrey Penven

It seems appropriate that you hold these musical séances when your music is so often described as being ‘haunting’ and ‘otherworldly’. Perhaps you are a bit of an apparition yourself?

JT: (laughs) Jello Biafra is quoted as saying “Drop dead original and dark as a drowning pool…I sometimes wonder if Jill Tracy is actually a ghost.”

I’ve been described as a musical sorceress, evocateur, intrigante, woman of mystery, ‘dark Queen of Melancholia,’ ‘femme fatale for the thinking man.’ All of these descriptives I adore. I guess when you feel out-of-sorts with the world, you must create your own.

From spiritualism to alchemy – what fine potions have you been working on by which to enchant us through another of the senses?

JT: I engage such a full-sensory arc in my work. I’ve always wanted to create fragrances to correspond to the music, similar to the way we concoct visuals with each album. Why not engage the olfactory? The sense of smell is directly linked to the limbic system, the part of the brain where emotion and memory are centered!

I’m collaborating with master perfumist Emerson Hart of Nocturne Alchemy. We’ve released two scents: Silver Smoke and Star of Night. I’m addicted to them already and have been wearing them constantly. More to come!

It’s been so exciting and fulfilling to smell these fragrances on different skins, everyone brings their signature to the scent and it changes person-to-person.
Night fragrance for Night music…


photo by Jeremy Carr

You’re currently in the middle of a new project with the Mütter Museum, where you have been invited to create compositions inspired by their collection of medical oddities. How did this come about?

JT: Yes, I’m honored to make history as the first musician to be awarded a grant, which is enabling me to compose music inside the Mütter Museum, a series of compositions directly inspired by pieces in the collection. It was vital for me to be in the presence of these long-lost souls, as I composed and recorded. I needed to immerse myself in their world. There is so much lurking here. This glorious synergy– the collection of souls together from various time periods and walks of life, most who endured extreme and rare medical conditions. I needed to be with them as I composed and make them a real part of the creation. This is my gift to them.

What inspired you to want to compose with the museum as a backdrop?

JT: The Mütter Museum has always been on of my favorite places on earth. When I first visited, I remember vividly standing on the red-carpeted steps leading down to the lower level and hearing the buzz. It was overwhelming. All these people, all these stories, together—yet apart, remembered—yet forgotten. I was swept in a whirlwind of feelings: admiration, pity, fright, shock, respect, repulsion, sadness. I just wanted to sit and listen, to hear their tales, to know them.

As you explore the Hyrtl Skull Collection, for example: Each has a brief story written in meticulous cursive on the side of the skull: Suicide by gunshot wound of the heart because of “weariness of life.” Lovesick teenager, a soldier, a shoemaker, well-known murderer, a tightrope walker who died of a broken neck, a hanged man, and a famous Viennese prostitute. All this life and death shared together in one glass case. It’s phenomenal.

There is such a brave beauty in these souls who had to endure these afflictions. I want to bring them to life through my music—peel away the clinical guise, dwell deeper, find the voices hiding within these walls.

All of my work will be factual. I’m in the throes of extensive research at the museum, even utilizing excerpts from letters and doctors’ records. My goal is to evoke the spirit, set a mood that transports you inside just by listening.


(Hyrtl Skulls, photo courtesy of Concierge.com Philadelphia)

What experiences have you had so far while working within the Mütter Museum?
What is it like to create music in a setting that is normally very sterile and diagnostic?

JT: Well, for many, the study of science and disease is viewed as quite dry and clinical. There exists a strong disconnect with the examination of the disease itself and the dear souls who had to endure these afflictions. The personal saga of these brave patients is not often well documented, nor discussed. I remember as a child being obsessed with old medical textbooks and tomes, and upset that I could never find out more about the people in these books, but merely the disease.

But the Mütter is a different experience. It is indeed a medical teaching museum. But, Dr. Mütter’s entire point for starting the museum was to teach empathy and compassion. There lies in that a tremendous sense of marvel for me.

I want to honor the emotional side, the human experience from the Mutter’s collection. You may read about Harry Eastlack, the ossified man, whose rare disease (FOP) caused his entire body to slowly transform into bone. Young, handsome, vibrant– painstakingly trapped beneath a second skeletal cage. In the end, he could only move his lips. What was he like? How did he cope? What was his day-to-day experience? It’s unfathomable to me. I was thrilled to be able to read through Harry’s private files in the Mütter collection, letters, photos, extensive doctors’ records.

I composed and recorded the work “Bone by Bone” as I sat next to Harry’s famed skeleton. I needed him with me, to truly be part of the song, and not just the subject matter.


(Harry Eastlack’s skeleton, courtesy College of Physicians, Philadelphia)

One of the most moving pieces I’m creating is entitled “My First and Last Time Alone,” about conjoined brothers Chang and Eng Bunker. Most of us know them as the original Siamese Twins, gloriously renowned performers who toured the world (even appeared before presidents and Queen Victoria)—married sisters, fathered 21 children, and employed the use of a “privacy sheet.” But after doing extensive research, I was completely devastated when I read how they died. The song is about that heartbreaking 3-hour period on a cold January night.

I was with Chang and Eng’s actual death cast, and their conjoined liver as I composed the piece. This was one of the most compelling experiences I’ve ever had. Abiding by the twins’ wishes, the liver was never separated, even after death.

How does the musical ‘channelling’ differ from the process you go through when composing (for example, the score for F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu) and/or writing the songs for your previous albums?

JT: It’s completely the opposite. In the case of film scoring, visuals dictate the music. I’m hanging on the visual, emotional cues–serving them. Channeling music is like jumping off a cliff. I’m not even conscious of it. It’s a visceral reaction to an energy, a sensation.
When I was scoring Nosferatu, I spent so much time in Murnau’s eerie world that the imagery would seep into the present. I remember vividly crossing a busy San Francisco street, looking down and suddenly seeing rats scurrying everywhere in a grainy, chiaroscuro haze.
When writing songs for my own albums, I get to take the reins. That process is much more personal.


(Jill Tracy performing her score to Nosferatu. photo by Jon Bradford)

Is there a famous figure from history you would like to try to connect with through one of their belongings? Anyone you would like to bring forth in a musical séance for your own pleasure?

JT: Wow, what a fantastic question! I can think of so many great ones: Count St. Germain’s velvet cloaks, Nikola Tesla and his beloved white pigeon, Rod Serling- via his Night Gallery paintings. I’d give anything to sit behind John Bonham’s drum kit, or play Richard Wright’s (Pink Floyd) piano.

Have you always been interested in history and its secrets?

JT: For me it was more about the unknown rather than just history stories. I loved asking certain questions and realizing no adult knew the answer. I learned there was a much deeper level that no one seemed to be able or brave enough to tap into.
I was given the book The Mysterious World when I was a child and when I first opened it, there was a picture of spontaneous human combustion. I had never heard of such a thing in my life. There’s that wonderful old photograph of Dr. John Irving Bentley who suddenly burst into flame. There’s a bit of his leg, with his foot still in a slipper, his walker, and cinders everywhere. And I’d read about toads and frogs and blood raining from the sky. Or Count Saint Germain, who was recorded to have lived for hundreds of years. He said his secret to immortality was to eat oatmeal and wear velvet encrusted with gemstones. To this day, no one knows exactly who he was, where he came from and if indeed he was immortal.
Monsters, marvels, lore, and legend—these are the things that make us feel most alive. The most wonderful questions of all are the ones for which there are no answers.


photo by Audrey Penven

At Nocturne Magazine, we ask our readers to suspend disbelief and become curious again. Is this also your hope for the future, that people allow themselves to be seduced by the mystery of life?

JT: Yes, I live to honor the mystery. I need to be a beacon for people, and allow them into the swampy place in their souls where the sinister and sensual meet. Peel away the layers of comfort and convention we hide behind. I find it fascinating to delve into those places and take an audience with me. Allow people to slip into the cracks, pry up the floorboards and search deeply. Believe. Imagine. It’s so important to hold on to that childlike sense of marvel.
Sometimes I feel that magic and the suspension of disbelief is the only thing that matters.

Categories : History, Interviews, Memoir, New Music, Photography, Projects, Uncategorized
Tags : audrey penven, Chang and Eng, clairaudient, claireaudience, film score, Harry Eastlack, Jill Tracy, medical oddities, musical psychometry, musical seance, Mutter Museum, mystery, nocturne alchemy, nosferatu, paul mercer, perfume, photos, Seance, Silent Film, spontaneous musical combustion

Jill Tracy and The Mütter Museum: An Excavation of Musical Spirits

By jilltracy
Saturday, April 21st, 2012

 

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve no doubt seen some odd musings lately. From tales involving archeoforensics, mermaid babies, leeches, assorted spinal deformities, the ossified man, various wet specimens, skeletons, and anthropodermic bibliopegy, the practice of binding books in human skin. And that’s just a start.

Although to most of you who know my work, this would be nothing out of the ordinary. But indeed, a very special creation was under wraps… So, now– drum roll please…

I am honored to make history as the first musician to ever be awarded a grant from the Wood Institute, College of Physicians of Philadelphia to compose music inside the famed Mütter Museum, (the nation’s foremost collection of medical oddities) a series of compositions directly inspired by pieces in the collection.

This is a dream come true project for me, It was vital for me to be in the presence of these long-lost souls, as I composed and recorded. I needed to immerse myself in their world. I needed them with me, so that they become an actual part of the work and not just the subject matter.
I first made the announcement onstage at the Mütter Ball to enthusiastic applause, and debuted a new (completely unfinished) piece from this project, part of my Teratology Lullaby series. I was exhilarated and terrified.

Here is a fantastic interview where I discuss my plans and inspiration behind the Mutter project with Cristy Zuazua from Chain D.L.K. Magazine:


You just announced at the Mutter Ball that you received the Wood Institute Grant – something unprecedented for a musician. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got involved with the grant and the project you’re currently working on at the museum?

JT: Yes, I’m honored to make history as the first musician to be awarded this grant, which is enabling me to compose music inside the Mutter Museum, a series of compositions directly inspired by pieces in the collection. It was vital for me to be in the presence of these long-lost souls, as I composed and recorded. I needed to immerse myself in their world. There is so much lurking here. This glorious synergy– the collection of souls together from various time periods and walks of life, most who endured extreme and rare medical conditions. I needed to be with them as I composed and make them a real part of the creation. This is my gift to them.

 

What inspired you to want to compose with the museum as a backdrop?

JT: The Mutter Museum has always been on of my favorite places on earth. When I first visited, I remember vividly standing on the red-carpeted steps leading down to the lower level and hearing the buzz. It was overwhelming. All these people, all these stories, together—yet apart, remembered—yet forgotten. I was swept in a whirlwind of feelings: admiration, pity, fright, shock, respect, repulsion, sadness. I just wanted to sit and listen, to hear their tales, to know them.

As you explore the Hyrtl Skull Collection, for example:  Each has a brief story written in meticulous cursive on the side of the skull: Suicide by gunshot wound of the heart because of “weariness of life.” Lovesick teenager, a soldier, a shoemaker, well-known murderer, a tightrope walker who died of a broken neck, a hanged man, and a famous Viennese prostitute. All this life and death shared together in one glass case. It’s phenomenal.

(Hyrtl Skulls, photo courtesy of Concierge.com Philadelphia)

There is such a brave beauty in these souls who had to endure these afflictions. I want to bring them to life through my music—peel away the clinical guise, dwell deeper, find the voices hiding within these walls.

All of my work will be factual. I’m in the throes of extensive research at the museum, even utilizing excerpts from letters and doctors’ records. My goal is to evoke the spirit, set a mood that transports you inside just by listening.

 

You’ve worked in several different mediums – film, music, voiceovers, performance art – what is your favorite method of expression?

JT: Music has always been magic to me. I’m evoking emotion solely out of sound– and transporting myself and others instantaneously. It’s a true slice of Time archived, never to be heard the same way again– especially with my “spontaneous” pieces. Both the fragility and immediacy are my greatest pleasure and challenge– as I’m not really a composer as much as a portal, conjuring this dark and elegant place with just my thoughts and fingertips. It’s both empowering and humbling to become the gatekeeper to emotions, and inviting the audience to join me there.

(Jill Tracy, College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Photo by Evi Numen.)

Is there any type of performance art that you’d like to try and haven’t yet?

JT: I would like to do more theatrical live performances that incorporate various elements, storytelling, memoir, film projection, music, lecture, revolving around one particular theme. I also have had some TV projects in development, trying to find the right home for them. They deal with my penchant for the dark corners of history and science.

 

I love the way you had this very dark, bluesy, 1920s lounge singer look for your performance at the Mutter – if you could live in any other time or place to make music and art, what would it be?

JT: The theme to the Mutter Ball this year was “Medicine and Electricity in the Roaring Twenties,” so the crowd was resplendent in their costumes, and the Ball featured odd electrical devices from the time period like violet ray generators. There was even bathtub gin amidst pipes in an old ornate claw foot.

Ideally, I’d build the ultimate time machine, and experience many periods and places. That would be fantastic. Although the 1920s was such a vibrant era of art, fashion, decadence—and the Victorian era abundant with aesthetic and ingenuity—I really feel like I’m in the perfect period now, as I am fortunate to employ technology, modern conveniences, communication. Plus being a woman was terribly tough during those times– especially as a fiercely independent artist who has no interest in marriage or having children. It’s hard enough as it is now. I would have been locked up in an asylum for sure.

(Jill Tracy, College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Photo by Evi Numen.)

How did you come up with the idea of “spontaneous musical combustion,” your improvised performances that are all unique? Did the way you involved the audience (like asking for a valued object) ever vary?

JT: My music and live performances have always been so emotionally driven to begin with– I would see people sometimes crying in the front row, or they’d come up to me after a set relating how a particular song got them through a rough time, or helped them find their true path, etc. I’ve realized I’ve become a beacon for so many kindred souls. And that’s very important to me. That genuine direct connection with an audience is such a rarity these days—in a world where entertainment has become vacuous and superficial. Most live shows are anything but—you’re watching a lip-sync to a prerecorded track. On the other hand, I am about as real as it gets!

I wanted the audience to become even more a part of my process, and actually compose pieces in front of them, culled from their energy. It’s a perfect circle. The audience gives to me, and I channel it musically and give it right back, creating a piece that will exist solely for us in those few minutes. It’s the most powerful thing I’ve ever experienced. A musical umbilical cord.

That led me to immersing myself in unusual locations laden with mysterious history, and manifesting music from my reaction to the environment. The intense purity and immediacy is so exciting. You are hearing my raw response at the piano. I call it “spontaneous musical combustion” (as homage to “spontaneous human combustion,” and my affinity for peculiar history and science tales.)
I’ve found myself conjuring the hidden score inside haunted castles, abandoned asylums, decrepit mansions, gardens, and theaters. It’s definitely one of my greatest pleasures right now.

(Objects from a Musical Seance, photo by Neil Girling, theblight.net)

The “Musical Séance” (which I most often perform alongside violinist Paul Mercer) is a collective summoning inspired by beloved objects. Audience members are asked to bring tokens of special significance, such as a photo, talisman, jewelry, toy. This is a very crucial part of manifesting the music. Every object holds its story, its spirit. Energy, resonance, impressions from anyone who has ever held the object, to the experiences and emotions passed through it.
Often, these curiosities themselves are just as compelling as the music they inspire. We’ve encountered everything from cremated cats, dentures, haunted paintings, 16th century swords, antlers, and x-rays.
The lovely and difficult thing about this work is that I can’t prepare for it, as I never know what to expect. I must allow myself to be completely vulnerable; simply feel, and react. It’s not about me anymore; it’s about the music, the story. It becomes so much bigger than any of us. That’s the beauty of it.

(Jill Tracy, College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Photo by Evi Numen.)

You’ve said in the past that the current focus on instant gratification has damaged people’s desire to use their imaginations – do you think your music would be different if you’d had the internet and a similar environment growing up?

JT: That’s a brilliant question. Yes, absolutely I would be a different person. The Internet is both a blessing and a curse. The ease and ability to obtain information is indeed wondrous. But, at the same time, it creates a laziness factor. The great “connection” we think we have achieved is actually destroying our distinct awareness because everyone is getting their information/views from the same sources, not looking outside or challenging themselves to think further.

Online marketing and social media creates a troubling herd mentality. When you purchase something, you are told, “Well, you will like THIS artist or product or friend.” Not giving you a chance to discover what you like on your own terms. Listening to radio like Pandora, etc is only playing things for you that it thinks you like, culled by very narrow factors. We think these tools are making our world bigger, but in essence it’s stifling us, making it much smaller. Only giving us a glimpse.

There has never been a greater need to venture outside the cage, to seize our true passions and shape ourselves authentically. Where’s the triumph of discovery, or empowering sense of identity when the same crap is being pushed down everyone’s throat? To be an individual now takes a great deal of effort, and sadly most people are apathetic, too buried in it all to even try or care anymore.

It’s the stepping away from the virtual Petri dish that’s vital to self-discovery. Great art was never created on a consensus.

(Mutter Museum, courtesy Concierge.com Philadelphia)

One theme going through your work is the concept of “the legend” and maintaining a sense of the unknown as we grow, yet the Mutter Museum and its research is geared toward dispelling much of that mystery as it relates to our bodies; how do you see your music combining these concepts?

JT: Well, for many, the study of science and disease is viewed as quite dry and clinical. There exists a strong disconnect with the examination of the disease itself and the dear souls who had to endure these afflictions. The personal saga of these brave patients is not often well documented, nor discussed. I remember as a child being obsessed with old medical textbooks and tomes, and upset that I could never find out more about the people in these books, but merely the disease.

But the Mutter is a different experience. It is indeed a medical teaching museum. But, Dr. Mutter’s entire point for starting the museum was to teach empathy and compassion. There lies in that a tremendous sense of marvel for me.

I want to honor the emotional side, the human experience from the Mutter’s collection. You may read about Harry Eastlack, the ossified man, whose rare disease (FOP) caused his entire body to slowly transform into bone. Young, handsome, vibrant– painstakingly trapped beneath a second skeletal cage. In the end, he could only move his lips. What was he like? How did he cope? What was his day-to-day experience? It’s unfathomable to me. I was thrilled to be able to read through Harry’s private files in the Mutter collection, letters, photos, extensive doctors’ records.

I composed and recorded the work “Bone by Bone” as I sat next to Harry’s famed skeleton. I needed him with me, to truly be part of the song, and not just the subject matter.

(Harry Eastlack’s skeleton, courtesy College of Physicians, Philadelphia)

Personally, one of the most moving pieces I’m creating is entitled “My First and Last Time Alone,” about conjoined brothers Chang and Eng Bunker. Most of us know them as the original Siamese Twins, gloriously renowned performers who toured the world (even appeared before presidents and Queen Victoria)—married sisters, fathered 21 children, and employed the use of a “privacy sheet.” But after doing extensive research, I was completely devastated when I read how they died. The song is about that heartbreaking 3-hour period on a cold January night. (I won’t give the rest away!)

I was with Chang and Eng’s actual death cast, and their conjoined liver as I composed the piece. This was one of the most compelling experiences I’ve ever had. Abiding by the twins’ wishes, the liver was never separated, even after death.

(Chang and Eng Bunker, courtesy summagallicana.it)

I’ve read you love the Bay area and have had a great reception there – could you see yourself living anywhere else?

JT: I adore San Francisco and the Bay Area; it will always feel like home. But I’m certainly open to adventure. I would love residing in other places if there was an intriguing project or circumstance beckoning me. The allure of new possibilities. Change is an integral part of feeling fully alive.

 

Here is a link to the original interview at Chain D.L.K.

 

 

Categories : books, History, Memoir, New Music, Projects
Tags : anthropodermic bibliopegy, cabinet of curiosities, Chang and Eng, channeling music, clairaudient, claireaudience, composing, Harry Eastlack, human skin books, Jill Tracy, medical oddities, museum, musical seance, Mutter Museum, oddities, paul mercer, Philadelphia, spontaneous musical combustion

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