Moses Sumney
“I’m the director, but I want everyone to have a stake” MOSES SUMNEY
The rising US star on tour in Scandinavia
Meet MOSES SUMNEY, the genre-defying singer-songwriter with a soaring falsetto whose latest EP, “Black In Deep Red, 2014”, takes his idiosyncratic, exploratory soul music in a radical new direction. Tom Pinnock travels to three cities in three days with Sumney and discovers an artist restlessly pushing against the status quo. “If you ever fully feel like you know what you’re doing,” he tells us, “you should probably quit.”
Backstage at gothenburg’s Pustervik venue, a staff member has a burning question for Uncut. “What kind of music is this?” she asks, after Moses sumney comes offstage. “I’ve never heard anything like it…” We explain: words like soul, rock, electronic, experimental tumble out, but no one description seems entirely accurate. Later on, sumney is delighted to hear all this. “that’s what I want!” he says. “I get so excited when I hear that, just because I feel like people don’t say that enough to me, to be honest, for what I think I’m trying to make.”
He has a point. Over the past five years, sumney has mixed up all manner of genres, from post-rock to R&B, to create something very much his own, all tied together by his extraordinary, swooping soul voice – carrying the nocturnal melodrama of Jeff Buckley – and his expertise with a loop pedal. His debut LP, 2017’s hushed Aromanticism, was a concept album about love – more specifically, the absence of it – but sumney has returned this autumn with a new eP, “Black In Deep Red, 2014”, a heavier-hitting sound and a more political preoccupation. “I am a very politicised person in my personal life,” he explains. “I have passionate views and have for years. But I’m not making a protest eP in the traditional sense, like ‘Let’s speak truth to power and try to dismantle oppressive political forces…’ I’m more like ‘What is power?’ I feel like I could go so many different ways sonically, and I want to do all of them, over time.”
to discover how sumney got here and what drives him, we have tagged along on a trip through scandinavia, from rainy Oslo on to gothenburg in sweden, and then across the Øresund Bridge to breezy copenhagen, where the singer performs at Haven, a festival curated by aaron and Bryce Dessner of the National. along the way, we’ll hear about his ghanaian heritage and his unusual upbringing, his lofty ambitions and the run-in with the LaPD that inspired his eP.
“Moses is a sweet, inviting, good person,” says Mac DeMarco, who helped track some of “Black In Deep Red” at his home studio. “the kid’s got a wild set of pipes on him, real nuts. I remember him saying at some point that he was barely trained as a musician, which in my neck of the woods wouldn’t be that surprising, but his tunes are really cyber… hearing that kinda stuff just makes me wanna quit music!”
“I think if you ever fully feel like you know what you’re doing then you should probably quit,” laughs sumney. “Like, that’s so boring! all the good people, none of them know what they’re doing, and it’s amazing!”
WHEN Uncut first meets Moses, it’s 9am and he needs refreshment. “I need to get some tea in me,” he explains, introducing himself in the lobby of Oslo’s Comfort Hotel Grand Central. We adjourn to the adjoining Østbanehallen, an old station building complete with indoor trees, as Sumney tucks in to the breakfast buffet. The previous day he had performed at the city’s Øyafestivalen, travelling to Norway from Lithuania, where he’d played in Vilnius’s St Kotryna church, declaiming from the pulpit like some impossibly statuesque bishop. The crowd was suitably reverent and quiet, which, he explains, is the way he likes it. “We tend to bring that out of people,” he says, peering at Uncut through round, mirrored shades. He’s an imposing presence, exceedingly tall and clad, whether in his stage clothes or his civvies, entirely in black. “I mean, I literally tell people to be quiet if I have to, or threaten them. Sometimes I’ll say, ‘I’m gonna come down there and get you if I see you talking’, or I’ll point at specific people who are talking and ridicule them! I’ve never had to physically attack anyone, not yet, but never say never.”
Since he started performing, Sumney has played solo, and with one, two or three other musicians, radically rearranging his songs depending on the players and the space that he’s performing in. Since summer 2017 he’s mainly toured with Mike Haldeman on guitar, treated clarinet and electronics, Peter Lee Johnson on electric violin and keys and Jamire Williams on drums and percussion. His three amigos are not your usual backing musicians, though. Sumney provides much of the meat of the music himself live, using his red Stratocaster, looping pedals, body percussion and beatboxing, leaving Haldeman, Johnson and Williams free to weave textures and experimental soundscapes over the top. “Of course, Moses is the gem on the piece of jewellery,” says Haldeman. “But I need to be the best mount for that gem possible. Every time we enter a new space, we’re seeing how this organism we put together is going to fit in it. Our first gig as a four-piece was in Phoenix, Arizona. It was at the Musical Instrument Museum, a bit of an older crowd, quite tame, but then we played Oakland and it was all late teenagers to mid-twenties, super energy. So we ran the gamut in those two shows.”
Although Sumney dislikes the comparison, the sound the group make is most similar to latter-day Radiohead. The singer-songwriter has reached this point from the opposite direction to Yorke and co, though, moving from soul and R&B to embrace rock and electronic elements. This idiosyncratic sound is most likely the result of his unusual musical upbringing, with his knowledge of the ‘canon’ of rock and soul music only blossoming as he reached his twenties. There are still gaps in his knowledge. He admits that he hasn’t really explored Kraftwerk yet, for instance.
“My family’s not very musical, and the only music my parents would play in the house was gospel and reggae. I didn’t explicitly take to either, so I didn’t really have that music discovery thing.”
Born in California in 1990, the child of Ghanaian immigrants, Sumney spent his first 10 years on the West Coast, before he, his siblings and his pastor parents moved back to West Africa for six years. Many artists are driven to create by one particular experience, and for Sumney this move to Accra was probably it; snatched away from the country and culture he’d grown up with, he felt adrift.
“When I was growing up in Ghana I was ‘the American’,” he says. “That’s what everyone called me. Or ‘white’, which is basically what they call you if you’re foreign. But then when I moved back to America I was ‘the African’, so I’ve never lived anywhere and seemed like I was from there to anyone. That’s what happens when you’re multi-cultural or bi-cultural, you either fit in everywhere or you fit in nowhere. In my experience, it’s mostly the latter.” While they were in Ghana, his father would visit the US once a year, so Sumney and his siblings would assemble what they called The List, a set of items for their dad to bring back. Sumney’s requests consisted entirely of music, mostly contemporary R&B – Destiny’s Child, Brandy, Justin Timberlake. “It was a great time,” he enthuses. “I used to be really embarrassed when I started my music career – people would judge me because I didn’t know any Beatles songs. But now I’m proud of it in a way, as I think that music is genuinely innovative, and it gives me a unique perspective on making stuff.”
When Sumney was 16, his family moved back to Southern California, before he moved to LA alone to attend UCLA. There he began seriously writing and
“Police brutality is built into the fabric of American lifeÓ
performing, exploring the music of the past that he’d missed out on, such as Nick Drake’s Pink Moon and records by Joni Mitchell and Marvin Gaye. After a series of LA gigs, Sumney was “summoned” by TV On The Radio’s Dave Sitek, who gave him a four-track. “Someone texted me and said, ‘Hey, I’ve been working with Dave Sitek and he wants to meet you – would you come up to the mountain?’ He lives on the top of this mountain in LA, it’s very Wizard Of Oz. So I went up to meet him and I thought he was gonna wanna talk about working with me. He just sat me down and said, ‘What you’re doing is interesting. You clearly don’t fully know what you’re doing yet, and you should just figure it out on your own before working with anyone.’”
The results were released as Sumney’s first EP, the lo-fi “Mid-City Island”. That same day he met Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O, and was soon enlisted to play guitar for her solo work. Opportunities snowballed. He was handpicked to support Sufjan Stevens and became fast friends with Solange Knowles. “I think the reason any of those artists were drawn to me is ’cos we were already thinking about the world and art in similar ways. So I learned I’m not as much of a loser as I thought I was! When I started meeting people I was like, ‘Urgh, I’m trash, why would anyone want to get to know me?’ Then I found we have similar things in common, similar processes and ways of approaching things and building a career.” W HEN your performances are as demanding as Moses Sumney’s, a four-hour van journey from Oslo to Gothenburg is the perfect time for a nap. Climbing up into the single bunk bed at the back of the Mercedes splitter van, he misses the rainy, rocky coast, the drifts of deep green forest, the bridge marking Norway and Sweden’s border, and a lengthy traffic jam next to a giant Ikea. By early afternoon, we’ve arrived at Gothenburg’s Gothia Towers hotel. The band head to the Pustervik venue in the city centre to set up their gear, while Uncut travels in later with Sumney.
The event, also featuring Courtney Marie Andrews and Alex Cameron, is an aftershow concert for the Way Out West festival, which means Sumney’s not onstage until midnight. “I’m having flashbacks to the last time we played a festival this late in Europe,” he admits. “It went terribly. They just put us on in a club close to midnight, there was a DJ in the next room and every time the door would open there was this techno…”
Uncut sits in on the group’s soundcheck, which turns out to be a testament to Sumney and his band’s drive to experiment. They test out a huge variety of effects and new sounds, and even run through a deconstructed version of Lennon’s “Jealous Guy”, eventually running out of time to even try a full song. An hour or so later, when they do leave their tiny dressing room to take to the stage properly, though, they’re tight and together; and despite Sumney’s fears, the crowd are attentive throughout. It’s hard to be unimpressed, after all, by the beauty of the opening “Don’t Bother Calling”, especially when Sumney’s voice and Johnson’s violin meet on one note then diverge in opposite directions to heart-churning effect.
“Quarrel” has been rearranged and is now led by a woody synth, and accented by Jamire Williams’ free, rolling drums. “Doomed”, meanwhile, ends in a storm of white noise, a cathartic crescendo before a solo “Plastic” closes the set. “We’re trying to stretch the boundaries of what people expect an instrument to do,” says Mike Haldeman.
“Sticking to one arrangement can be crippling for a live performer who wants to be dynamic and living and breathing,” adds Sumney.
There are plenty of sublime moments during the set, but the most exciting, urgent point is when the quartet play “Rank & File”, the lead track from EP. Driven by an infectious rhythm in 7/8, the songwriter reckons its polyrhythms might be inspired by his years in Ghana. “I never listened to Ghanaian music when I was there, but drumming is a huge part of the culture – the theme song to the news shows would just be drumming. So I grew up with polyrhythms.”
“Black In Deep Red, 2014” itself is something of a concept EP, a companion piece to Sumney’s similarly conceptual debut LP. Rather than dealing with romantic, or aromantic matters, though, “Power?”, “Call-To-Arms” and “Rank & File” together examine a protest that Sumney attended in LA in 2014. He’d never protested before, and was fascinated by what he saw; the demeanour of the LAPD, their highpower weaponry and the ensuing arrests that saw almost everyone detained. Somehow Sumney slipped through the net, but the friend he went with spent the night in a cell.
“It was fascinating to see them fall into rank and file,” he recalls. “They’re dressed in military gear, with weaponry you’d take to war and they’re marching in a square. It was such a literal metaphor for the militarisation of the police force. It’s freaky to know that at any moment they can turn and use those devices of warfare on the populace. I was also thinking about ‘groupthink’, and how they’re falling into rank and file physically, but also mentally. They’re so good at presenting a united front, ou wonder, ‘Are they thinking for themselves?’ I’m sure some of them are, but I wonder.”
Sumney was keen to include ‘2014’ in the EP’s title to ensure no-one took the songs as a direct protest against Donald Trump. “I wasn’t interested in making music that would be read as a critique of the current administration. Yeah, obviously, he sucks, but it’s important to make the distinction that these are not new problems. The militarisation of the police, the police brutality, these are not new things, and they do not change under a Democratic or a Republican administration – it’s built into the fabric of American life.”
The EP was written at the same time as Aromanticism, and its three songs almost opened the LP until Sumney decided to keep the record more conceptually pure. He recorded them properly after the album’s release, working on them around the world in short bursts. “I did ‘Call-ToArms’ and ‘Rank And File’ with Ludwig Göransson – Jamire plays drums and Mike plays guitar on ‘Rank And File’, Shabaka Hutchings plays sax on ‘Call-To-Arms’, and Mac DeMarco recorded the drums. We recorded it all in LA. ‘Power?’ I did at home. I mixed them in London, so they’ve kind of travelled a bit.”
“Moses had been staying at our house in LA while we were on tour in South America,” explains Mac DeMarco,
“and had seen the studio, and asked, once we were both around, if he could track some drums. He brought in his friend Jamire – that guy really knows what he’s doing behind the tubs, it’s insane – and after a couple of takes he got what he needed. In the studio he’s open to people going nuts and trying ideas but at the same time he gives these precise directions as to where he wants it to go.”
“It’s a healthy mix of dictation and letting them be inspired,” says Sumney. “I choose people based on their abilities and taste, so there wouldn’t be anyone in the band who isn’t already aligned – I am the musical director, but I want everyone to feel they have a stake in the music.”
While we’re talking after the gig at Pustervik, a young Swede suddenly appears at Sumney’s side. “I just had to meet you,” he says breathlessly. “That was incredible! Amazing!”
“He was so nice – really complimentary,” says Sumney when the fan’s gone. “I’m always super-stoked for people when they sneak backstage, like ‘Yeah, punk rock! Do it!’”
THE next day we leave Sweden’s second city and head down the E20, the land getting flatter as we speed towards Scandinavia’s most southerly point. As the Øresund Bridge comes into view, Denmark’s ports looming in the distance, Sumney emerges from his bunk to admire the landscape. Unlike Oslo or Gothenburg, the Danish capital is somewhere he’s visited before. “I love Copenhagen,” he recalls. It’s one of my favourite cities in Europe.”
The group are heading to Haven festival, held on the island of Refshaleøen, a post-industrial wonderland just north of the anarchist commune of Christiania. Kraftwerk are headlining, with Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Nils Frahm and Einstürzende Neubauten also appearing, but Sumney is most excited about seeing his friend Josiah Wise aka Serpentwithfeet. We troop out to watch Wise in the rain and wind that’s unexpectedly materialised, before Uncut and Sumney head back to his backstage cabin to discuss his plans for the future. There’s hope of an album later next year, and the singer has already made headway. “I went to Jamaica in May, near the coast, and just stayed in a house for a week writing. I have a computer and an interface and my guitar and notebook. That’s kind of it.
“As soon as this tour is done, I’m gonna go home to the studio. I know the concept for the next album – I have 21 songs right now, but I want to write 15 to 20 more and whittle it down from there. For the first album I wrote 60 songs, which is insane ’cos it ended up being 36 minutes of music.”
The quartet’s festival set is as impressive as their Gothenburg performance, even when a sound engineer forgets to turn on the PA for half of the opener, “Don’t Bother Calling”. When his voice suddenly bursts out of the speakers, the crowd cheer and Sumney is sweetly bemused. “Could you hear anything?” he asks. “Rank & File” is even more powerful than the night before, with Williams relentlessly pounding his kit as Sumney calls out the LAPD with his octave-vaulting voice.
Afterwards, as he, the band and Serpentwithfeet retire to the backstage canteen, talk turns to moving to London. Sumney spent a month in Hackney a couple of years back, and reckons the city is his favourite place in the world. Just as in Scandinavia or Jamaica, though, you can’t imagine that sightseeing would be on the menu if Sumney did move to the UK: his work is what’s important to him, and he’s seemingly committed to his craft to the exclusion of all else. “I’m sure he could take a stab at whatever and rock it real hard,” reckons Mac DeMaro, “with his own vibe of course. I’m still processing half the things he’s got his hands on. Seems like it’s built into his MO.” Sumney is often charmingly self-deprecating, though – when
Uncut praises his EP, he jokes, “Are you saying all my music is trash until now?” Just a joke, perhaps, but there’s a sense that this fragility is very real, his vulnerability kept in check by a burning drive to create. This is an artist in it for the long haul; and what he might return with next is almost impossible to guess, even for him. “I always wanted to make acoustic soul music, but as I went along I realised I wouldn’t be satisfied with being one thing or two things, that I wanted to do it all. So the trick was to find out how to do it all and just spread it out over time. I’m excited about the next thing, I don’t know if anyone else will be – I’m just dying to record. I’m so curious to see what’s gonna happen.”