“I had a very clear vision of what it was that I wanted to create,” Chloe Gill tells Happy Mag for an exclusive deep-dive into her new single Circulated Fantasies.
Chloe Gill recently shared her single Circulated Fantasies. A guitar-driven ballad detailing a loss of control, the track was created in collaboration with producer Jack Nigro, and while the intimate storytelling sheds some light on the woman behind the lyrics, there’s always more to be learned about the songwriting process.
Below, Gill stops by Happy Mag to share a peek behind the curtain of Circulated Fantasies’ creation. Spanning her musical influences to the emotions behind certain lyrics, the Newcastle singer-songwriter lays her artistry bare with a powerful manifesto surrounding her latest single.
Scroll down to get behind the imagination of Chloe Gill, and listen to her new single Circulated Fantasies below.
BEHIND MY IMAGINATION.
Circulated Fantasies was inspired by many aspects of my real life and I guess, my dream life. I was inspired to write so many specific lyrics by many different specific things, places and people in my life.
With a focus on the vocals as the driving force to the track I wanted to ensure that my agile melodic lines were well supported by the lyrics and the rest of the instrumental aspects underneath. So here’s an insight to my imagination and an explanation behind my lyrics.
Out of frustration, verses one and two touch on my daily routine at the time which was made up of school, study, assessments, work and tasks. Eat, sleep, fuel, repeat. I kept asking myself what the point was in placing so much unnecessary pressure onto everything I did during this time.
The anger bubbling inside me and the question of why I was doing it all was an ongoing one I would ask myself most days. Amidst all of this, I was working a really shitty 9-5 job that was emotionally and physically taxing and just really gross.
It also had nothing to do with my passions and was probably the thing furthest away from supporting them, aside from the fortnightly pay of course. I remember one day my boss said to me “well music isn’t really a real career so…”.
I remained creative and as level headed as I could, taking advice from those older than me and drawing inspiration from every fibre of my surroundings. Jotting them down in the notes of my phone or voice memo recordings and writing whenever I could. My family was my biggest support system and kept reassuring me it was just a rough patch, they were right.
I definitely didn’t feel there was a huge importance in me staying at school but I am glad I did and overtime I learnt it certainly wasn’t worth the stress. I still had my music, my family, my connections and relationships with friends and loved ones.
While I felt really held back, I knew the feeling wouldn’t linger for long and I still had and found ways to support the growth of my musicianship and my craft of songwriting. I still had chances to play the odd gig and to still be present on social media and share my progress during our isolated lockdown times.
The focus of this track was to keep its authenticity in the way I wrote it, its rawness of the vocals in the forefront as well as the acoustic guitar accompaniment. When going into the studio I was conscious of potentially overcooking the track, which is easy to do because you just want to add and add and add.
However, I had a very clear vision of what it was that I wanted to create and how I wanted to achieve it. Tracking drums first I worked with with producer and engineer Jack Nigro at The Grove Studios and my go to drummer and friend Brad Rhienberger and we created a couple of different feels that ended up being chopped around and looped through the track in the production process.
We never once played through the whole song.After this, myself, Brad and Jack all recorded lots of different body percussion elements, stomps, claps, pats, brushes and slaps. Gathering different sounds from each of us in different rooms on different microphones.
It was a really fun and unique experience that I am glad we spent the time doing as it proved to make a huge difference to the track’s ambience and naturality. We then added lots of acoustic goodness and ambience through pads, synths, piano parts, vocal harmonies and electric guitar parts, prioritizing my vocals at the forefront of the track.
While I am not the biggest Ed Sheeran fan, I can definitely understand the hype and can definitely get behind this song, Give Me Love. His writing is enriched with this warm inviting energy. I love his approach to lyricism and he definitely inspired the writing style of Circulated Fantasies in many ways.
I drew inspiration from the feel of this track and how it is lifted by elements of percussion and acoustic guitar, but still feels very singer-songwritery. Give Me Love came to mind many times when writing the middle eight section, and especially when working on it in the studio.
I wanted it to have this pulsing growth but also a feeling of repetition not just here but throughout the whole track, hence the Circulated aspect. I wanted to bring this to the listeners through a bunch of percussive layers whether they were drums, breaths and sighs, the body percussion parts we tracked as well as shakers and brushes.
I also felt the importance of the 6/8 time signature and bringing that two feel into the track with the emphasis on the backbeat creating an energy that felt like you were inside a heartbeat. Sheeran nails this in the middle eight of Give Me Love, hence the reference.
A couple of other references for Circulated Fantasies were drawn from my biggest inspiration, Joni Mitchell. If God is a woman it’s her. Her songwriting is unmatched and fucking unexplainably good. The first time I heard her was when I was 8 and my dad showed me the Blue album, Case of You, which importantly was a reference for Circulated, as well as Cactus Tree.
Never in my life had I heard anything like it. She will forever be my biggest inspiration. As well as Adrianne Lenker’s Two Reverse the beautiful guitar part inspired the vocal melody that is repeated throughout every verse.
One of my favourite’s of all time and an extremely underrated artist, Sharon Van Etten – A FREAK OF FUCKEN NATURE by the way she is so amazing, but her track We Are Fine was a guiding light for Circulated and finally the mother of life, Phoebe Bridgers and her track Punisher which inspired the by the piano tone in the mixing process.
