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Kerry Nolan: This is all of it. I'm Kerry Nolan filling in for Alison Stewart. This Friday, singer-songwriter Margaret Glaspy will release her latest album, Echo The Diamond. Here's a clip of the song, Get Back, which just dropped today.

[MUSIC - Margaret Glaspy: Get Back]

Kerry Nolan: Margaret Glaspy moved to New York at the age of 21, and kicked off her career with a debut album in 2016 titled Emotions and Math. In March of 2020, she released the album Devotion, and without a tour for the album release, got on the road the following year opening for Ruston Kelly in 2021, and for Spoon the following year. This Friday, she'll headline her own album release show at Rough Trade and kick off a US-UK tour in September. First, to preview the album, she's joining me right now live from WNYC Studio 5. Margaret, welcome.

Margaret Glaspy: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Kerry Nolan: It's our pleasure. Would you start off with a song for us?

Margaret Glaspy: Yes, I'd love to play a song. This is called Act Natural

Kerry Nolan: Okay.

[MUSIC - Margaret Glaspy: Act Natural]

Kerry Nolan: From the album Echo The Diamond, which is out, coming up this Friday, it's Margaret Glaspy here on WNYC in Studio 5. I was taking some notes while I was listening, and I love the idea of butterfly rebirth, and the idea of transformation, and that fog and fear of falling in love. A lot of these songs on the record deal with themes of being self-conscious, and the idea of "Do I want to stand out?" Or "Do I want to disappear into the background?" Do I have that right or--

Margaret Glaspy: I don't know. I think that some of the songs on here, I feel a lot of this record was written incredibly quickly. I'm still figuring some of it out a little bit. Some of them feel really on the nose. I know exactly, for instance, Act Natural, it's totally about trying to act cool in front of somebody that you think is awesome. Whether that's a crush, or it's someone you just look up to, or whatever. I think that one's pretty self-explanatory. There's some of the songs in the record that feel kind of dark and mysterious to me, that I'm not even quite sure where they came from. Then others are really direct hits to a very particular feeling. Yes, so it's a mix.

Kerry Nolan: You said some of the songs you have no idea where they came from. What's your process when the muse visits?

Margaret Glaspy: It's pretty consistent these days. It's basically if I sit down with a guitar for 15 minutes straight, there's something at the end of that, so for me, it's just sitting down and starting, and I play a song as though I know it [laughs]-

Kerry Nolan: Okay.

Margaret Glaspy: -but I'm making it up. I think there's maybe some channeling in there of some sort where just as long as I show up, then a song happens, and I'm not quite sure where it comes from. For the most part, I know the topics that I'm covering but sometimes it is mysterious. Sometimes it's fun to let it be.

Kerry Nolan: I would imagine so. The album title is Echo The Diamond doesn't appear as a title in any of the songs on the record. What is echoing of diamond?

Margaret Glaspy: I'd say it's something similar to what I was just describing. That one was like I don't know what that means in terms of the phrase. For me, I think somehow it really fit. I was actually working on a record with Julian, my husband, and we were working on his music, and I suggested that title for his record or one of his songs. It was like a hard pass. He was like, "No, thanks."

Kerry Nolan: [laughs]

Margaret Glaspy: [laughs] So I got it, but for me, I really liked that title quite a bit. I think what it's come to mean for me now, it feels similar to this Bruce Lee sentiment and quote that I heard him say "Be water," and if you're water, then you take the shape of what you are in. It's this flexibility. This strength and flexibility, and I think Echo The Diamond, it feels like a command to me of shine bright, echo the diamond, be like the diamond. Sometimes in certain days, it means different things to me, but I think that's what it has come to mean for me. Somehow, I've seen a lot of different iterations of diamonds where it feels they can be dark, they can be light, they can be rough, they can be sharp. I think it's different for everybody, but for me, I think it's about shining bright in your own ways unapologetically, for sure.

Kerry Nolan: In the press notes for the record, you describe it, and this makes perfect sense in light of your comment about Bruce Lee. You call this the most fluid and immediate music you've made.

Margaret Glaspy: Yes. Yes, definitely.

Kerry Nolan: Your last album, which was Devotion, opened with a vocoder effect on the vocals, and across the album you used a lot of synth and a lot of electronic elements. This album Echo The Diamond it feels more like a rock record than the other one did. When did the sound of the album reveal itself to you?

Margaret Glaspy: It felt like coming home to me in making this record, so I feel like the sound of it in some ways. It was like getting back to what just comes out of me naturally in a way. It felt less like experimentation and more like fall off a log. Just do exactly what your instinct is and don't overthink anything, and that's what this record came from. I think this record in particular, it really flies a flag for live-sounding music. It's not one that's manicured very much. I mean, I had the fortune of having my friend Tyler Chester, who's wonderful, put a little synth on one of the songs, and that's about it.

The rest of it is just me and Dave King on the drums, Chris Morrissey on the bass, and we're just making music in that room. Some of these things they're very raw and fresh recordings of maybe rehearsal takes sometimes, first takes, sometimes it's really raw.

Kerry Nolan: If you're just joining us, my guest is Margaret Glaspy. She has a brand new record out, well, it'll be out on Friday. It's called Echo The Diamond. We're just talking about the record and inspirations, and when the muses visit. Were you listening to anything in particular when you were putting this record together?

Margaret Glaspy: Yes, I was. I think when I was making the record and right now was absorbing a lot of music that my siblings were listening to when I was young. The youngest of three, I was absorbing the music from my brother and from my sister, and they were bringing home Pearl Jam records, and Alanis Mor-- I remember the day that Jagged Little Pill came into our house [laughs]. I remember the day that The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, that record came into our house. There were a lot of bands that came into my sphere by way of my siblings.

Elliot Smith was also just a massive influence on my brother, and then he gave that to me, so I think that there's a lot of '90s influence for me that I picked up on in making this record. I think some of that, maybe a little bit of that grunge came through for me and felt natural because I was listening to a lot of that music.

Kerry Nolan: Now, your husband, you co-produced the record with him. He's the guitarist, Julian Lage. He's mostly jazz-based-

Margaret Glaspy: Yes.

Kerry Nolan: -and you are bringing in a lot of this '90s grunge, and these sort of jagged sounds, if you will. How did he help you hone the sound that you wanted?

Margaret Glaspy: I think with Julian and I, we collaborate on everything we do together. There's always some sense of collaboration between our records. It's very rare for me not to be in the control room for his records and vice versa. In this case, it's usually very performance-based, so I'd say mostly it's just him going, "Oh, that was great. I'm going to make a note of that one." Him being able to have this bird's eye view of what's going on is important. I think a lot of the aesthetic and the songwriting and the direction, the sequencing, that that's all me, but Julian is really able to call it when the magic happened, so he's such a good compass for that.

He really was so valuable in making this record because he was able to just sit like a rock in the studio while everything else was moving around him and just be like, "Yes, that was it. That was it. That was it." He was really our guide in being able to choose performances and guide us in terms of like, you're on the right path or you're not on the right path right now.

Kerry Nolan: Can we hear another song?

Margaret Glaspy: Yes. Absolutely. I'm going to play Get Back. This is the newest release song, so it's an exciting day for Get Back. [chuckles]

Kerry Nolan: Okay. Margaret Glaspy here in Studio 5 at WNYC.

[MUSIC - Margaret Glaspy: Get Back]

Kerry Nolan: That is Get Back [chuckles] from Echo The Diamond, a new album by Margaret Glaspy. It comes out on Friday. Get Back, dropped today, that's exciting.

Margaret Glaspy: [chuckles] Very exciting.

Kerry Nolan: Now on your last album. It was released like two weeks into lockdown-

Margaret Glaspy: Yes.

Kerry Nolan: -so touring must have been a non-existent thing where there're a lot of Zoom concerts.

Margaret Glaspy: Yes, there was a whole lot of that. I mean, bless us all, we were all trying our best to just be able to share and make music for everyone, and it was special in the sense that you really did see people show up in any way that they could to try and get the music, which was so cool, but not quite the same. [chuckles]

Kerry Nolan: No, I can imagine. You must be excited to get on the road.

Margaret Glaspy: Very excited. Yes.

Kerry Nolan: Your tour starts in the US in September, and then you go to the UK. Is that?

Margaret Glaspy: Rather the UK first and then the US.

Kerry Nolan: Oh, UK first. [chuckles]

Margaret Glaspy: Yes, yes, yes, totally.

Kerry Nolan: Who are you playing with?

Margaret Glaspy: Oh, we have some great special guests on our tour in the US. There is a singer named Cat Clyde, wonderful singer and songwriter. Another named Tasha, that's going to be great. Then another one that's a dear friend of mine, Bridget Kearney, who also plays bass in the amazing band Lake Street Dive-

Kerry Nolan: Oh, yes.

Margaret Glaspy: -and she has an incredible solo project. She'll be playing guitar and singing her own songs, and opening the show in New York in October, which would be great.

Kerry Nolan: That's really exciting. Now you moved to New York when you were 21.

Margaret Glaspy: Yes.

Kerry Nolan: You're from California. You went to school in Boston. When did you realize that you might actually be a New Yorker?

Margaret Glaspy: [chuckles] Oh, man. I don't know. I think that there's moments you have that really hit you. It's like, "Okay, I think I've become part of the fabric." I think it's really moments where, honestly, at times, I think I felt that the most when I leave, and I see other ways of living, and I go, "Oh, wow." I've been living in kind of a bubble for a while and I'm really-- I have this way of existing in the world that is very particular to the city.

I think that I have had my moments of feeling like when your bodega is a part of you it feels like an extension of your house or maybe like your laundry mat is an extension of your home. Just your community is particular. There is little subtle things they think, bring together a New York Life that feel very nuanced and particular. I've had my moments with that for sure in realizing, "Wow, yes, I really have inherited quite a bit of New Yorkyness."

Kerry Nolan: It happens to the best of us.

Margaret Glaspy: Exactly.

[laughter]

Kerry Nolan: Well, you'll be performing and signing albums at Rough Trade on Friday when the album comes out. After Friday's show, as we said, your tour kicks off in the UK in September. You're back in New York City, October 20th. I'm so glad I got to meet you and hear some of your music, and share it with our listeners. Margaret Glaspy, I want to thank you so much for coming in and playing live for us here on All Of It.

Margaret Glaspy: Yes, thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Kerry Nolan: That wraps it up for us today on All Of It.

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I'm Kerry Nolan. I've been sitting in for Alison Stewart, and I'll be back, keeping her chair warm tomorrow. Hope you'll join us.

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Kerry Nolan: Fresh Air is coming up next with a conversation with Laura Meckler, the author of Dream Town: Shaker Heights and the Quest for Racial Equity. That's next on 93.9 FM and AM 820, or live streaming at wnyc.org.

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