Mary Lattimore
Recommended this month: indie rock’s go-to harpist and composer of mesmeric nocturnes
Once you spend £23,000 on a musical instrument, it goes without saying that you need to find ways of making your money back as quickly as possible. For Mary Lattimore, freelance harpist to the stars and an acclaimed solo performer in her own right, this currently means lugging her 40kg Lyon & Healy harp around the US in a Volvo while she supports Danish art-rockers Iceage on tour – a billing that’s not as incongruous as it sounds.
“The tour’s going great and the audiences are into the combination,” says Lattimore from her Seattle hotel room before she sets off on the fivehour drive to Spokane, Washington. each night she loops and layers her instrument to mesmeric effect as she performs material from her third album, Hundreds Of Days. “Iceage are smart guys and a lot of their vibe is very poetic, so having a harp open up for them isn’t too far-fetched.”
Lattimore is used to providing additional support to the more imaginative acts of modern indierock, playing on records by the likes of Thurston Moore, Steve Gunn, Sunburned Hand Of The Man, Sharon Van etten, Karen elson and Kurt Vile. “I just say yes a lot,” she laughs. “I stick to music I enjoy and see if I can weave in a part as a fun challenge or as a logical element of the song.”
Lattimore grew up in Asheville, north carolina, with a professional harpist for a mother, and found herself committed to the instrument from an early age. “When I turned 11, my mum said, ‘now it’s your turn.’ I’m not sure how into it I was at first – that’s an awkward age to practise something you’re bad at – but the better I got, the more I loved it. People are generally happy to have a harpist around.”
If you’re wondering if any rivalry exists between her and that other well-known harpist Joanna newsom, Lattimore reveals that the two have been pals since 2004, just before newsom broke through. “We’d discuss how weird it is to play the harp. She would go on tour with her harp in her Subaru. I thought that was so cool.”
Lattimore subsequently joined espersassociated ensemble The Valerie Project, who released one album on Drag city and were booked to play Jarvis cocker’s Meltdown. Her current role as indie-rock’s go-to harpist was initiated when cocker invited her to play on his 2009 solo album,
Further Complications. “He flew me to chicago to record with Steve Albini and I was pinching myself the whole time.”
A self-confessed “drifter” who’s also lived in Philadelphia and Vienna, Lattimore recently moved to LA for work opportunities and a change of scenery. Last year, while still finding her bearings, she was awarded a twomonth residency at the Headlands center For The Arts in the rolling hills north of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. In these luxurious confines – a gourmet chef would prepare meals – she composed Hundreds Of Days, this time embellishing the serene sounds of her harp with guitar, synth and voice. “no-one could hear what I was doing there, so I wasn’t afraid to fuck things up and experiment,” she says.
“The beauty of playing instrumental music is that people can take it anywhere. If they need to get healed, take it as healing music. Once I let it off the leash, it’s not mine any more.” Piers Martin Hundreds Of Days is out now on Ghostly. Mary Lattimore tours the UK in October with Kurt Vile