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We've had a musical crush on Brownswood-signed artist Zara McFarlane ever since she blew the mind dust out with this record store day special "Lions Of Chiaroscuro." So a little jealous that our more instrumentally-minded (hey turntables are an instrument) brethren and sistren at Revivalist got to sit down with Zara for a proper interview about her roots, her LP Until Tomorrow, and her working relationship with Brownswood label-head Gilles Peterson. Get a quick snippet below and then hit the link for the full jawn.
Q: Can you talk about the journey of the making of your album Until Tomorrow and how you met Gilles Peterson?A: I met Gilles through a connection with a producer friend of mine. He liked my music enough to play it on s radio show in Feb 2010. I then met him at the Southport weekender in May 2010 where I was performing a set of my house tracks and he was DJing. I managed to talk to him and he asked me to come onto his show as a guest artist. So I kept tweeting him to try to get a date and the next time we spoke (some months later after much persistence) he asked to release the album instead! I originally produced an EP, which was how Gilles heard about the music. By the time I was signed to Brownswood I had produced and recorded about 80% of the album. The support and encouragement of Gilles and Brownswood has been absolutely fantastic.
Q: You cover two lovely Harry Whitaker tunes “The Children and the Warlock” and “Thoughts;” why did you choose these tunes?
A: The album Thoughts: Past and Present was introduced to me by Gilles. He has a great ear for music and where an artist is coming from musically and I fell in love with the album straight away as Harry Whitaker’s playing reminded me of Peter Edwards, the pianist who plays on my album.
