motel void

MOTEL VOID: You’re from Los Angeles, CA. How would you describe the current DIY/ (maybe even ‘doomgaze’) scene there?

SHRINE MAIDEN: The DIY scene in Los Angeles is vibrant; the city is home to 10 million people, and I feel like there are just as many music projects. There are a ton of great venues, a lot of DM for the address aka ‘ask a punk’ spots which are really the better venues to experience. We are constantly going to shows at new venues we have never heard of before, or liminal spaces which open their doors to shows – we recently played at a plant nursery, and the ticket counter had to be made of stacked bags of fertilizer and compost. We went to a show recently that was held in the hallway of a multi unit storage facility during its off hours. Some guy sitting on a bucket in the alley of this place stamped our hands for re-entry and boom punk show and DIY night market right there! There’s a cool billiards hall that has a lot of black metal shows. There is a commune we played at once where everyone living there sat around huffing gasoline and cans of duster, oh and those balloon things, while their giant deaf dog came and laid down right in front of the stage, 105 db of my guitar rattling his bones.

MOTEL VOID: Could you recommend your favorite local artists and venues?

SHRINE MAIDEN: We founded a film and music fest with Andy from body / negative who is really wonderful, we directed the music video for their song everett and the camera guy Danny just started a great shoegaze festival in LA – he has his own band Scrunchie who are good and have very cute stickers; April formerly of the band Sprain has some great music projects including Guck and Dark Pulse, Mike Meanstreetz just released an split with Full of Hell under his band Gasp but also has a great project called Sobbing Honey we love. We play a lot in the noise/ambient crowd and Ian MacPhee, Cop Funeral, and Jack Kilgore are all making great work from that scene. Obsolete Sun hasn’t released anything in a while but has been performing a bit lately and we love his stuff, excited hopefully for a future cassette from him. ex hapax, timewave hero, TYLR GLD MTN, and something crushing something dragging are four up and coming experimental artists we really love. Favorite venue has to be Coaxial, or The Church of Fun.

MOTEL VOID: If I’m not mistaken, you’re originally from Hawaii. What is your connection to this place right now?

SHRINE MAIDEN: My family is from the Big Island, where it is mostly ranches and farms. I’ve actually been working on a novel about my grandma’s experience as a laborer in the sugar cane fields, historical fiction but with an unidentified horror lurking out in the tall stalks of cane, atmospheric and spooky.

When I was younger I was a California state champion hula dancer, and although I no longer compete, the chants and melodies from this way of life find their way into Shrine Maiden songs. We have been working on a new visual show, with Melissa Ferrari (who does all Shrine Maiden cover art) working with glass slide projection on magic lanterns. Indigenous plant species of Hawai’i are painted onto the glass and projected while Shrine Maiden performs.

MOTEL VOID: You’ve just released a beautiful new single ‘mother’s day’. What was the writing and recording process behind this track?

SHRINE MAIDEN: Thank you!! For something that sounds so simple, it was an arduous task to hit the right level of background flurry, a soft chaos underlying the words, which are spoken in Hawaiian giving praise and love to the powerful women in ones life. It took a few different iterations before we settled on this final composition, each past rendition feeling too fast or too noisy or too boring. Having the vocals sit lightly atop the recorded sounds instead of buried into the mix which is what we usually like to do.

MOTEL VOID: Your biggest inspirations right now?

SHRINE MAIDEN: Really love Dawn Brought Savior, they released an EP this year that is excellent. The new album Tent Music by Michaela Tobin and Joshua Hill is really great. Precious Bane’s album In Night’s Meadow is a must as seasons change from autumn to winter, winter to spring. On the heavier side we have been loving Habak, Lagrimas, Remete, Sacrimoon, Bismuth. Bismuth’s album The Slow Dying of the Great Barrier Reef is fantastic. There was this goth lofi movement out of Seattle around 2010 that we keep coming back to; Grave Babies, Perpetual Ritual, Baby Guns. Perpetual Ritual’s self titled album that came out on Skrot Up is Ryan’s favorite album of all time. There is a great witchy folky album from around that time and area, Deep Water Dark Water by Margy Pepper. They also have another band called Pines that had a great self titled cassette in 2015. Bandcamp has a lot of these, not as much on spotify. For Hawaiian music, Rachel’s favorite of all time is Keali’i Reichel, his song maunaleo is what we based our mother’s day off of; Mark Keali’i Ho’omalu, Waipuna, The Brothers Cazimero, Natalie Ai Kamauu, Robi Kahakalau.