10 Questions w/ Elizabeth A. Carver

Elizabeth A. Carver, with her debut, avant-folk project The Cart Before the Horse, has burst onto the post-rock scene with a sort of quiet force. Oscillating between coherence and incoherence, wailing and hushed lamentation, the project simultaneously signifies a broad first step into the musical world and the end of a personal era for its creator. Below are 10 questions meant to dive deeper into Carver’s journey:

1. Walk us through your journey into music. What kind of music did you grow up around? What/who were your major influences?

So, my dad is a drummer, he had me playing hand drums and stuff really early. I probably first played drums and then started learning keys a little because my dad’s grandfather was a jazz pianist and was- I think- my dad’s first mentor in music so he knew some basic stuff he taught me. I also definitely slapped the strings on a guitar around a bit as kids do, and that’s still how I play guitar to this day. 

I was never classically trained in any instrument though, just grew up around them and eventually started to take figuring them out very seriously. I had some occasional lessons with friends of my parents and I think I did an after school rock program for a little while in elementary school though. 

As far as what kind of music I was growing up around, my dad has a Jazz background so I heard him do jazz stuff when he would practice pretty often but he was mostly playing in hippie bands as far as I can remember. I don’t really even know what genre the stuff would be called, but if you’ve spent enough time around neo-hippies you probably know what I mean by “hippie music.” I grew up around that kinda stuff a lot but always thought it fucking sucked and still do. 

I went through a lot of shitty music fazes in my childhood but the stuff I was hearing that maybe actually stuck with me and inspired me from a very young age would’ve been like Bjork, Sade, Arca, Neutral Milk Hotel, Aphex Twin, Pink Floyd, stuff like that. Was also forced to listen to A LOT of radiohead in my childhood… too much radiohead. 

Speaking more recently, my influences are quite numerous, which is probably a pretty big understatement to describe just how numerous. They are very numerous. 

I’ve been listening to a lot of Evan Ziporyn, Pharoh Sanders, Townes Van Zandt, and I’ve been going through Rob Fisk’s discography really extensively lately. Also, recently rewatched Tarkovsky’s Stalker, such an incredible movie.

2. What’s your favorite instrument to play? How do you balance your time practicing other instruments?

It’s hard to say what my favorite is to play, it kinda changes all the time, but I tend to write on acoustic guitar the most so maybe it’s that. 

I do a lot more of just playing and writing with guitar whereas piano is something I’ve been practicing with a lot of restraint and focus and a bit more academically these days I guess. 

I play a lot of different instruments for my music though. I tend to practice them more in the way that I’ve practiced guitar, which is just by getting physically comfortable with them and playing them attentively in a way that challenges me to understand them sonically somehow. 

I really like practicing drums too, I just love percussion instruments in general. But, I’m not a classically trained or even a very good musician so I’m just kinda going with my gut for the most part. 

3. How did you ultimately develop the sound you’ve turned to now? What were some of the challenges you encountered in the process?

Through many varying inspirations and through experimentation, but I don’t think I’m turning towards a specific sound per se, at least not intentionally, just using all my worthwhile ideas and seeing what comes of them. 

I’d say the biggest challenge is writing in a way that is inherent to me and ignores how I feel other people will think about it. Although I think that is just how I write now to the best of my ability so maybe I’m just saying the hardest part about making the music I am right now is making the music I am right now?

4. Do you consider genre at all in the writing of your tracks?

No.

5. In regards to The Cart Before the Horse, what was the process of recording it like?

Well, my friend Alex Kent recorded it, basically I went to his house and recorded with him almost every day all day for over a week. I think we recorded for about 7 full days in total. 

Prior to starting to record with him I recorded demos of all the songs myself except for Portraits of Sections of Whale Body, I pretty much only went in having the lyrics written and a vague idea of how I wanted that song to sound, and I Commit You to God, which just didn’t need any more than a voice memo as a demo, and we changed certain things and added way more instrumentation but stayed pretty true to them. I basically wrote all the instrumentation for Portraits as we went though, and Alex played some instruments on that one and most of the other songs as well. 

Even though I love recording in some ways it turns out it’s quite hard for me because I mentally beat myself up a lot when I make mistakes, and by the time I started recording those songs I was feeling very ready to move on to the next thing, but ultimately I’m really glad I did it, and Alex helped tremendously to make it as enjoyable as it could be.

6. What aspect of the project are you most proud of? 

I think just the fact that I finished it, I kind of didn’t want to. I was really scared before I had committed fully to finishing that project that I wouldn’t ever finish a project because I kind of hadn’t yet and I had watched people in my life when I was younger start things that they never finished quite often. 

Also just because I’m a perfectionist so committing to things is difficult. But now, that record and the process of writing it seen retrospectively is basically proof for myself that I can commit to my ideas enough to see them all the way through and I’m proud of it for being that.

7. If you could use one word to describe The Cart Before the Horse, what would it be? Why?

I would describe it as ballsdeep. “Why?” You ask. Because that’s what my heart is telling me, and I follow my heart always. 

8. Where are you planning on going next with your music (either in a conceptual or sonic sense)?

I can only really speak to how my process is changing. For one, I’m allotting myself more time to write and finish stuff this time because last time I wrote the songs within a lot of self imposed deadlines and limitations to insure I would finish it and that worked but now I know I am going to finish this next thing, or rather I am going to insure that I do no matter what. So, I’m letting myself get a little more perfectionist about it. 

I’m also letting it get a lot more wild and influenced by all sorts of stuff, I’m much less concerned about what other people are going to think about it now which I think is resulting in something more unique maybe. Basically, I’m releasing my inhibitions and feeling the rain on my skin.

9. Do you have plans to do any live shows in the near future?

Not sure exactly how near it will be but I intend to make playing my music live a serious priority in the future, but I’m not going to play any of the songs from The Cart Before The Horse ever again. I played some of those songs under different monikers live before I started recording them and that was enough of playing them for me. I’m definitely gonna play the new stuff live when the time comes though. 

10. Just a fun question: if you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?

I’m gonna go with Wild Is The Wind by Nina Simone.