motel void

Holy Matter is the pseudonym of Leanna Kaiser, a musician, experimental filmmaker, and music video creator living in Los Angeles, CA.

MOTEL VOID: You’ve just released your new single ‘Wishing Well’. What was the writing and recording process behind this track?

HOLY MATTER: I wrote and started recording this song pretty quickly. It came out of the ether of emotions I was feeling at the time for one reason or another. I usually write songs when I’m struggling with something, emotionally. I knew I wanted it to have a sort of bossanova/ Tropicalia vibe and a dark quality despite also wanting it to be an upbeat song. I have always loved and used vintage drum machines and one of my collaborators, Andy, had recently restored a Maestro Rhythm Jester drum machine from the 60s and I really wanted to put that on the song. So, I recorded the first few tracks at my house and then had Andy send me over the drum track and his bassline, which I asked him to write in a sort of Motown vibe, something that moved around a lot because the drum machine was so static. I travelled to St. Louis a few months later and we recorded the Farfisa and hand percussion at our friend Matt Stuttler’s studio there, The Sinkhole. It was wonderful and a rare moment for me of sitting back and saying “damn this IS good!” I was very excited to finally release this one out into the world.

MOTEL VOID: Your music journey began in St. Louis with the ambient duo Frances With Wolves. Can you tell us more about how the band was formed and your experiences touring the country? You opened for a lot of my favorite artists like Mount Eerie, Xiu Xiu… what was it like?

HOLY MATTER: I met the other member of FWW, Andy Kahn, in my early 20s because we worked next to each other and my co-worker made me invite him to a show I was going to. We hung out and bonded over our mutual love for the musician Tickley Feather. I recorded a live collage cassette tape of my songs mixed with audio from films I liked and gave it to him, and he gave me a tape of his music, which he had recorded on 4 track. He loved my tape and I was blown away by his! He was a very accomplished musician and recording artist, writing and recording all these wonderful strange songs by himself and had been since middle school. I had never heard anything like it, especially not from someone in St. Louis. The way he viewed music resonated with me; that all sounds are good and even bad sounds can be good when applied correctly. I had been going to noise shows since high school and experimenting a lot with looping and making noise music in my bedroom, so it was a commonality we shared. I was very depressed at the time and he was similarly filled with angst and rage. We started dating soon after that and formed Frances with Wolves. We were really into the first two Beach House albums at the time and wanted to make a band that sounded like that and Spacemen 3. We wrote some songs together with me singing and playing a Casio SK-1 and him on electric guitar and then started playing a lot of shows around St. Louis, evolving into pretty harsh but beautiful sets with a lot of improvised drones and jams with harmonies on top. Every time we played people seemed to love what we were doing so we toured around and met other freaks and weirdos who liked noise music and harmonies. I loved and still love playing smaller cities.

One great thing about being part of a small music scene like the one in St. Louis is that you get to play with and meet bands you really love, in more intimate spaces. Playing with Mount Eerie was insane, at the time. I can’t overstate how much of an effect The Microphones’ “The Glow Pt 2” had on me as a young person, it felt so vulnerable and honest and raw and made me reconsider what was a legitimate song. So, having Phil Elverum hear my music was a dream come true. He stayed at our apartment and it was very surreal for me. Shortly after I moved to LA, Andy and I parted ways romantically, but in the 10 years since have maintained a musical collaboration and very close friendship, and we always jam when I visit St. Louis. I have an album of recent instrumental synth and guitar improvisations we’ve done in the mix, now, that hopefully we will release within the next year.

MOTEL VOID: Your debut show as Holy Matter was opening for Weyes Blood in St. Louis. Did this experience somehow influence your solo career?

HOLY MATTER: Yes, that was another very cool but nerve wracking experience. I was so nervous to play guitar for the first time in front of people that I took a lot of Xanax and ended up playing all my songs in a slower tempo than I intended to! Someone recorded the show and gave me a CD of it later and I had to throw it away immediately because I couldn’t relive that ha. But, I was very happy to be asked and felt honored to be able to share my songs. I played a cover of the Syd Barrett song “Terrapin” and Natalie from Weyes Blood and I chatted a while about Syd and she gave me some words of encouragement. Later down the road we talked about playing some more shows together but just sort of lost track of each other in the hustle and bustle. This was when she was relatively unknown, compared to now, and was playing, like, medieval songs on a 12 string guitar, but she was big in the experimental scene and you could tell she was on her way up, because she was so talented and cool and nice. All my friends were excited for me to play that show, there weren’t a ton of female musicians floating around that scene at the time, and it was nice to bond with another young woman who was navigating those waters and had been for a bit longer. I don’t think that show really influenced my solo career other than the fact that I didn’t play solo for a long time after that because it gave me so much anxiety.

MOTEL VOID: How has your background in experimental film influenced your approach to music and music video creation?

HOLY MATTER: Hmm well it’s hard to say because I’ve been making music for a long time but came into film in my mid 20s. But, I do think they are all wrapped up together, for me, now. Filmmaking has a lot to do with rhythm and patterns, as does music, and film can be ‘colored’ by visual choices in the same way that music can with different instruments and production, if that makes sense. I have some sort of synesthesia and a visual relationship to music and vice versa; it’s easy for me to hear things and see images, I can close my eyes and interpret sound visually, which has benefited me greatly when it comes to making music videos. I also have done a lot of film scoring because I feel so in tune with music and sound in that way. Music and film are two sides of the same coin, to me. I’m lucky that the film school I went to, CalArts, also has a music school in the same building and there was a lot of crossover, so it was easy for me to do both, although there was always a debate in the film school about music not belonging in film because of how emotionally manipulative it can be. I began making music videos in film school, first just as experimental films with scores with my own work. I’ve always been fixated on music in an intense way and was subsequently really into music videos as a kid (especially those by NIN, Smashing Pumpkins, Aphex Twin etc) because they were these huge artistic productions unlike the mainstream movies I’d seen, which I didn’t consider art (I know, I know. David Lynch convinced me otherwise.), and it was so cool to me. I wanted to do that for a living, but unfortunately, there is no MTV or VH1 anymore, so that dream was squashed pretty quickly. Overall, experimental film is always the well I draw upon for music videos, as it’s one of the most free wheeling and boundless art forms, where people go way out there, in my opinion. People just make some crazy stuff and it’s refreshing. I was not particularly interested in narrative films until I went to film school in my late 20s, but had always loved music videos and art films.

MOTEL VOID: Who and what is your biggest inspiration at the moment?

HOLY MATTER: I’d say my biggest inspirations at the moment are the endless stream of intense emotions in my head as well as my friends who are also artists/musicians. I have an insanely talented cluster of friends here in LA and we play in each others’ bands and make music videos and photos together and are in each other’s films. We push each other to be better artists in a gentle way. Their drives drives me, and their successes make me want to give a shit and try new things, as well. I’m a pretty introverted and private person but I will always make time to make art with my friends (which they’ve realized is often the only time they can coax me out of my hole!). It inspires me to feel the energy of people doing their ‘things’, just being true to themselves and their muse, which I always strive to do, myself, even though it is difficult sometimes in a city like Los Angeles which is all about mass appeal and marketing. I’m a sort of person that absorbs everything around me and filters it down to my music, somehow. This could be a book I’m reading, shadows of plants in the park, some weird history I learned about, a bird song like a mourning dove…the list never ends. I try not to be too inspired or influenced by other works of art or music, because I end up comparing myself to them and it always makes me feel like shit.