Paris based threepiece, Oracle Sisters are currently on the road in support of their second album Divinations. Earlier this year, they embarked on a massive European / UK tour, and now its time for North America. On Divinations, Oracle Sisters’ beautifully transcends time with a sound unlike any other.
Last week, I had the privilege of chatting with one of the members Chris Willatt about their recording process, life on the road, new music and preshow rituals.
I read that this album process was paying honor to the unknown and magical force songwriting. Were there any moments in the record where you really felt like that’s a subliminal experience when writing, recording.
“I don’t know if there will be a particular song, but the whole process of songwriting has always been something which for me is always kind of a surprise. You sit down and allow something to come to you, and you make yourself available. You either do that on your own or with your bandmates, and we did this. We wrote a lot of this record, the three of us, which is kind of the first time we’ve done that. A lot of the time it was Louis and I, and we put ourselves in a quiet place in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. We just had faith in what might happen.
A lot of the record was really honoring that process of just listening and waiting for songs to come for you and provoking, setting things up in a way where a certain type of song might come, you know, choosing certain instruments. If you sit down with a classical guitar or you sit down at, you know, a synth plugged into a massive sound system, it’s gonna provide a different kind of path to whatever the song will become, I guess.”
Yeah, definitely. So this time around, it felt more like you guys worked as a trio?
“Yeah, we did. There’s definitely a mix, but we worked as a trio, and we wanted to kind of switch up instruments a little bit. Lewis was on the bass. He was programming some drum machines. Julia, at one point, was singing into a pepper grinder. We kind of just had fun and freed ourselves up and gave ourselves the intention of doing something that felt kind of a little bit more vital, a little bit more to the point, maybe. I don’t know if that comes across necessarily in the record, but we wanted to do something that was a little bit more in your face, maybe sometimes.”
“But then inevitably, if you always go through the way one does things, you can have an intention, but it’s still us making it. You could try and write like a rock and roll song, but it will still come out sounding a little bit different to what a rock and roll song might sound like because it’s going through our process of doing things.
And then you said you were all together in a farmhouse. Did that location inspire the visual elements, like the music videos that came along with the record?
“This time around? Not really. I think it was honestly the point of where we did it. We had been on the road most of last year. We hadn’t really been together just as a band, certainly writing songs, just the three of us. We’ve been on the road a lot, but you’re in a different space. The purpose of going to this remote and kind of uninteresting little place that we went to was just to really force us. We didn’t have a choice but to be face to face with one another again. We were touring our previous record. It was really intense. There’s a lot to take care of. It was really nice to just kind of center ourselves and be really directly face to face and you know, no distractions. We kind of set up and got the fire going and. allowed the songs to kind of start coming.”
Has your approach to touring changed since you toured the first record?
“You definitely learn from mistakes, from each other, each other’s needs. You understand every time you go on tour, you start to understand each other better and give people the space they need when they need it. Everyone has different needs on the road to think about. I think you understand all those subtleties better the more you do it. And then there’s just the very basic nuts and bolts of being better organized. We have a bigger team now as well, with the sound engineer and a tour manager. It takes a lot of pressure off us.
When you first tour, you do everything, you’re driving your van, you’re advancing all the shows, you’re loading in, you’re loading out, You’re calling promoters to make sure this and that, and you’re settling up after you were doing everything. It takes a lot of pressure off of us as a unit. We can just really enjoy the shows more. The tour we just did was a lot of fun and we have a great team together for this tour. We just met. Actually, a lot of us haven’t met before, so we are all just kind of getting to know each other. It’s such a unique thing to do as a group of people that it’s kind of funny when you first hang out. You know, you’re about to go on this crazy experience together. You have no idea really what’s going to happen. So many, untold stories, unwritten stories, and you’re just kind of getting to know each other. It’s good.”
For the European tour you did at the beginning of this year, what was it like bringing the new songs to life for the first time?
“It was great. I think there’s a bit more complexity in the 3D space that these songs have, and you’re playing bigger rooms so the sound can stretch out more, it can fill out the room more. We have slightly more aggressive, higher bpm, slightly more in your face songs which are really fun to play live. We’ve been using some drum machines. I love that part of the process, bringing the songs together live. It’s. It’s very satisfying. I’m really, I’m really enjoying turning this record in.”
Yeah, it kind of echoes the theme of divinations, like bridging that gap of the performance and the unknown in it.
“There’s certainly a lot of unknowns before you go in for the first time to see how the songs come alive with the band you assemble. Since the sound has these extra dimensions, I think we can kind of take people into this slightly trance-like state. When you write a song, you enter kind of a bit of a trance. You know when it’s happening, especially when you’re doing it with someone else. You’re in this very knife edge moment where you realize that the entire thing is being created in that moment and there’s a tension. You want to keep that tension and you want to ride on that tension and feel that you’re both taking the right journey together without talking about it; just pure feeling. When you can bring back that intensity of the moment a song is born with a crowd in a live room, I think that’s a really special place to get to.”
Yeah, definitely. Were there certain songs on this project when you were recording them where the band was telling each other “I can’t wait to play this one for crowds everywhere?”
“I guess Velveteen and Alouette are really fun. Riverside and Marseille as well. I think we kind of were all looking forward to getting those ones in front of crowds.”
Do you have a personal favorite that you like to play from the record?
“I like playing Velveteen. It’s fun. I like the drum pattern on that song. It just kind of just comes right in just off the mark and we’re all singing, all the instruments are going. It’s kind of a great “world of sound” song which is quite different from anything we’ve done before, so I enjoy that one.”
And then last week you, the band released “Wait for Me,” a kind of outtake of Divinations. How did that come about?
“Every time we make an album, I’d say we always have a lot of songs that don’t go on. I think our first album we had about 25 songs that we recorded and we put out 12 of them or something, and Divinations, there were about 20 songs and we put 11 on there. On an album, you’re trying to sculpt a kind of journey and a balance and a cohesiveness and different sounds and even though there are all these songs that we love, you know, some of these songs and the outtakes like I really love, They somehow just didn’t seem to fit on there.
“Wait For Me” was a really fun one that we wrote really quickly when we were in this barn, and Julia just picked up a kind of foot long pepper grinder and just started singing into it. Lewis and I were playing this garagey kind of thing and it was super fun and we were all really enjoying it and we thought it was a cheeky song and thought it was worth putting out for people to enjoy. It’s a fun one. I’m really excited to put those out because there are some great songs on there.”
Do you ever feel like outtakes could lead to the direction of sound for future projects? Do they just kind of stay adjacent to the world of the current record?
“No, they could, they definitely could. We are always open to taking songs and reworking them. You might realize that one song that you had from a previous album and that recording actually fits. Even if you’re not maybe building the entire sound, it just somehow fits really well with these 10 new songs you wrote. I think a great example of that would be In Rainbows by Radiohead, an incredible album. There’s songs on that album they’d written maybe 10 or 20 years before. They’re mixing many different eras of their career but somehow making this very cohesive, incredible record. So we’re always open to that. Even a song like “Michelle” by the Beatles. That was an old song that Paul had lying around and John was like, “That’s really good, you need to finish that and make something of it.” We definitely believe in not wasting good songs.”
Since the time between your European tour and the North American tour, has there been any new music happening lately or have you just been focusing on the North American leg of the tour?
“Yeah, there’s been lots, plenty actually. We’ve had some quite creative bursts, I would say. And there’s definitely a lot of ideas going around. We’ve been in the studio again already laying down a few songs and we’re planning to end the tour in a studio as well. We like kind of booking out a studio at the end of a tour to just go in for a few days, two or three, and just track whatever ideas we’ve had kind of come up over the last few months or during the tour.
We’re deep in thinking about our next record already writing it and exploring ideas. We just kind of come to the table with ideas and then that can inform somewhat the direction it could take. I think it’s fun to really get together and see what we create together as well. Then you kind of choose the path that feels the most essential, most exciting.”
Do you think you’ll try out any of the songs you’ve recorded recently, on this tour? Is it just gonna primarily focus on the new record?
“It’s not impossible, I don’t think, in the first shows. It’s quite a long run and it can be fun during it to maybe throw something in there that’s brand new. Since we’re kind of getting a new band together, there’s already that nice tension of everything being new. But we’ll play some of the Outtake songs, And who knows? It wouldn’t be the first time we played a brand new idea on the road. It’s possible. “
Are there any pre show rituals you guys have before starting a tour or before each show that set the tone for the show.
“We like to get kind of psyched up about it. You’re in this after sound check space and then you’re in this space of suspension where you can feel the energy building, but you don’t want to use it, so you kind of keep the lid on the pot somewhat. Then maybe like half an hour before the show, you feel everyone just starts to really come out of themselves. We like to create a bit of a party, backstage before to just get everyone vibrating on a kind of slightly higher level. We all just start to get out of ourselves and have some fun and we’re all feeling connected and together and buzzing.”
Who does the band like to listen to before stepping out on a stage?
“I mean, it really changes a lot sometimes. It can be really cheesy. It depends who’s on the iPhone, but sometimes we like to just sing an Irish song together or something. Lewis and I would like to just really start belting out like an Irish tune and then everyone can kind of join in on the chorus to warm up our voices. There was a really weird, like, Sean Paul thing going on the last tour. Don’t ask me why. That was mainly down to our tour manager, Lily, who was just blasting Sean Paul, but it kind of worked. It was funny.”
Do you have a show you’re looking forward to most out of this run?
“I don’t know. Probably. L.A., right? It’s always a buzz playing in L.A. or New York. Each show has a really different mood to it. Those shows are always a buzz, The Lodge Room, I’m really excited to play. So many great people have played there and I’ve heard good things about it. Pappy and Harriets, I’ve heard great things about too. But honestly, I’m excited for all the shows. Yeah. Really excited for all of them. “
Be sure to stream Divinations, and if you haven’t already, catch the Oracle Sisters on their current North American tour.
