Sean van Doornum AKA eüsh has had quite the year.
After resettling in New York, a place that he’s had an on/off relationship with over the past decade, van Doornum was forced back due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Since resettling (this time back in Aus) he’s put out two singles from a forthcoming fourth album Fever Dream, and each shows a different side of musical prowess.
‘Across The Hills’ is a downtempo ballad with a haunting harmonica and shimmering guitars that fade into powerful harmonies buoyed by Amanda McGregor. Once again van Doornum finds a way of incorporating imagery of the natural world without making it ever feel tired or lazy. Treading that line between melancholic and optimistic there’s a reflective current that runs through the track, making it the kind of tune you’d turn to when you’re down but also when you’re content (and probably anywhere in between).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxycu-i8Ack
‘Song For Carmel’ sees him pick up the pace and document his gratitude for his mother, as illustrated by a series of snapshots from his past. It’s one of those tunes that you enjoy immediately without the lyrics fully resonating and then, after a few spins, they start to sink in and elevate it to new places – you know the ones.
But what goes on behind the scenes in making this music? We checked in with van Doornum just the other day. Check it below and head here to follow him on Instagram:
What’s been happening with you lately? You were in The States last year, right?
Yes, I came back at the end of March because of the pandemic. I was living in a beautiful little town two hours north of NYC called Mountaindale. Since being back I’ve been living up the North Coast surfing and working on music projects. Just finished mixing the debut album for a post-punk band called Funeral Tango. Mixed a song called ‘Dream Of You’ for the UK artist Eda Eren, which kind of sounds like a mix between the Twin Peaks theme and Beach House but with a 50s soul vibe. Composed and conducted a string quintet for a short film called Eleanor that should be out soon. Oh yeah and also started a record label called Rice & Beans Records! haha and working on a few releases for that! Anyway starting to sound like a resumé, but yeah … doing stuff.
What have you been missing about being over there? What have been the major benefits from coming back?
I was doing some pretty fun shows and playing with some amazing players. The band I had put together in NY was amazing. Was also working on some great collaborations with other artists, musicians and poets etc. With New York, it’s always the people I miss the most. Even just brief encounters with total strangers can have a profound poetic resonance. But then whilst I’m there I miss my friends and family here, and miss the ocean … so I think I’m just doomed to have my heart in two places.
Have you been missing playing live?
Yes very much. I’m doing my first show since March at 5 Church in Bellingen on Dec 12th. Playing solo. So I’ve been spending a lot of time working out my songs so that they work solo. I really enjoy playing solo actually. It really tells you if your songs are good enough to not hide behind a band and can work stripped back. These days I’m trying to write songs that will work just as well solo as with a full band, and with different feels and arrangements. I think great songs work no matter which way you play them.
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Did the physical place you were in affect the way you were writing songs?
I would say yes but I’ve found that the effect of a place or situation or musical influences usually takes me a while to absorb and filter through into my music. So a lot of my music is kind of retrospective in a way. Except for a couple of songs on my new album that are actually immediate responses to what was going on around me. I wrote a song in Feb 2019 at the end of Winter in NY that was definitely influenced by that time of year, late winter, and the grind of New York. So I’ve given you two different answers but ultimately yes.
‘Song for Carmel’ is a bit more up-tempo than I was expecting from you. What artists/art/music informed the track?
Yeah I was a little worried about that haha. I don’t want people thinking I’m actually upbeat and happy and not really the brooding artist I try to portray! (jokes) But to answer your question I think musically the song derived from a Springsteen song called ‘State Trooper’ that I’ve been digging. So I guess it has that Springsteen “working class hero” feel. The song is written for my Mum and is really a song of gratitude.
It has quite an unexpectedly sharp ending having locked into that rhythmic groove. What was the motivation there?
Ummm I don’t know that’s just how I was feeling it. I like being decisive with my songwriting choices, but I guess it also gives the track a sense of drama. Actually, there’s an Arcade Fire song that I really love called ‘Antichrist Television Blues’ that has a similar ending and feel. I wasn’t thinking about it at the time but I guess that song was coming through as well.
I don’t really think about influences too much when I’m writing and recording. They’re all there in my head but I try just to follow what the song is telling me intuitively. I think if you focus too much on specific songs or influences when you’re writing or recording you risk becoming generic and not sound like yourself. Influences are important but finding your own voice is more important.
Tell us about the collaborative vocals. Why was that the right fit for the track?
When I was tracking the vocals for ‘Song For Carmel’ I started hearing that vocal harmony. I initially had no plan to record harmonies for this song. But I heard them so distinctly that I felt they had to be included. And I didn’t want to just double my voice so Amanda was recommended to me to sing the harmonies, and I’m so glad she did. She has a really beautiful and natural Nashville style sound to her voice. Almost like a Stevie Nicks thing.
‘Across The Hills’ has an ‘On The Beach’-era Neill Young vibe to it. Who were you listening to at the time?
Sure I love that album. I think the musical inspiration for this song actually came from a Nick Drake song that I was strumming. Either ‘Things Behind The Sun’ or ‘River Man’. The Neil Young song that has been most influential is ‘Expecting To Fly’ and his soundtrack to the film ‘Dead Man’. Actually, there’s a song on this album that is directly influenced by that film.
One thing I love about albums like ‘On The Beach’, and I think most of his albums from that era, is that there’s no mix engineer. He just used whatever balance he had in the studio at the time. He has a lot of courage as an artist. I’ve been practising harmonica for a few years now, and actually there’s a Joni Mitchel song called ‘Fury Sings The Blues’ that Neil Young plays Harmonica on. His playing is SO good. That might be my favorite Joni song. I think I might have been reaching for that.
“The homes we built lie broken from the shame of our reflection” really jumps out. What does this line mean to you?
‘Across The Hills’ is one of those songs that personally comes with a really clear visual, cinematic image. To me, the song is about a group of people leaving a broken society and returning to nature and finding peace and love within nature. “The homes we built lie broken from the shame of our reflection” illustrates a deep sense of shame that I think we all feel in regards to how we have treated the earth and each other. When I see people who struggle to embrace, and even react against movements like Black Lives Matter I see their retaliation as an inability to come to terms with the trauma of their own shame.
There is a lot of reconciliation that is needed in our society before we can find real harmony together, and I think shame unconsciously inhibits our ability to find love and empathy. Initially the lyrics began as an attempt to write more verses to the Carol King song ‘Wasn’t Born To Follow’. I love those lyrics so much, and I wanted to try to write lyrics that just sounded like extra verses to that song. And then ultimately, of course, they became their own thing.
I know your musical tastes lie both within and beyond what you’re playing. Is writing eüsh tracks a cathartic process that you need to go through to then explore other genres?
Possibly! That’s an interesting way to look at it. I’m definitely a music fan and listen to everything (except EDM) and I’m fascinated with the process of creation and of finding sounds and combinations of sounds. And I love the process from germination to a finished recording. A song is like a person and you have to let that song discover itself, which involves getting out of the way, or of your own way. But I really like to infuse so many different things into my songwriting. I borrow (or steal) a lot from classical music. The harmonic structure of orchestral music when put into a band setting can really take on an interesting and unique quality. I would say writing music for eüsh is more of a compulsion in which I try to operate intrinsically, without too much thought, as a means of playful creation.
What else is coming up? Is it true that there’s an upcoming record that is the last we’ll hear from you for a while?
For eüsh just finishing the album. Hopefully some shows in 2021. I did say that this will be the last album, and at the time I felt that to be true, but now I find myself with a whole other albums worth of new songs that I can’t wait to record, so I dunno … I might hang around a little longer. I’ll always be writing music, if not under the artist name eüsh, then something else. I kind of see myself writing a lot of Choral music some day. It’s definitely my favorite style of music. Listen to Rachmaninoff’s ‘Vespers’. That’s all I’ll say.
