Night Tapes (Max Doohan, Sam Richards and Iiris Vesik) is a London-based, genre-blending atmospheric dream pop band with haunting vocals by Iiris.
The band's inspiration came from both their lived experience in the world that they can see and touch, as well as the less tangible spiritual and metaphysical realm.
The 'Perfect Kindness' EP has been mixed by Nathan Boddy (known for his work with PinkPantheress, James Blake, Mura Masa) and mastered by Matt Colton (noted for his work with Flying Lotus, Flume, and Brian Eno).
Their debut single "Forever" has already amassed over 5 million plays, while their music continues to garner support from various media outlets. Having signed to Nettwerk Music Group in 2022, Night Tapes also made their SXSW debut in 2023.
These are Iiris's reflections on songwriting and valuable tips for overcoming creative hurdles.
What experiences impact your songwriting and the emotional depth of your music?
I think that being a musician is somewhat of a mystical, mythical journey because so many things are out of your direct control. You're a part of a bigger wave than yourself. It's bigger than you. And you're bringing creations from a world unseen, from that big wave out into the real world and making something out of nothing.
And I feel very lucky to have writing by my side because I can describe what the fuck is happening to me. And I agree with the existentialists. When you have the power to describe what is happening to you, you can somewhat take your own experience into your own hands.
For me, that has helped to feel like I can turn the things that happen to me into something useful and that I can take control. No, not control…I can take responsibility over my own reality and spot some treasures in the underworld.
At times I feel like I'm free and on the right path. Carl Jung has said “the work is the expression of my inner development for commitment to the contents of the unconscious forms the man and produces his transformations”. But to be honest, I just trust the unknown because it's been really useful, effective and easy for me to create.
I love the scientific and I love the empirical. But when it comes to art, the work I do is between me and the source. And the more I've let go, the more I've trusted, the more I've been able to flow in synchronicity, meet the peeps that I need to meet. And at best, creation has felt like magic and a journey of individuation. So I do recommend.
Tips for finding your creativity on a challenging day.
I think one can't really be creative if the Maslow hierarchy of needs is missing. The bottom half my body needs nourishment and sunlight and eating and exercise and all that good stuff that I didn't think I used to need. I used to think that music is number one and everything else is secondary and let me tell you, that was a bit destructive. I do NOT recommend.
So on a tough day, I think that there's definitely phases to creation (and to life), and it's good to not mix them up together. It's like if you're resting, rest. If you're working, work. There's chaos, there's order. And it's good to start from order, because without order, there is no harvest. So having a plan, having a setup, having an environment that supports your creativity is necessary and that comes through order. You create those things for yourself. You set them up in order.
And then when you get there, that's when you can go into chaos because you can let loose, vomit out the ideas that you did, just like get the material out so you'd have material to work with.
And then when you got the material, then you can see like OOH, what shape is this? What is this? And then you can your analytical mind, your intellectual knife and start to sculpture the thing of your vision, of your dream, what you're thinking.
And then once again, you have to go into chaos to let go of the outcome, to have some surprise, to be open to the highest, best outcome. Because the thing that wants to come through you is already somewhere out there in the world, unseen. And you can just act as a tool (if you're into that sort of way of thinking, which I am, because it's easy).
And then when things go, a lot of the times it's because you just don't know what phase you're in. Like in creation, try to start chiseling with an intellectual knife of a thing that you don't have to chisel. You need to have the phases in the right order and you need to be able to know which phase you're in.
So sometimes you show up, you try to implement your order for your harvest but sometimes it's good to just ask like, maybe this is not the time. Maybe it's time for a little chaos. Maybe it's time for a little bit of task free time. Maybe it's time to slug out a little bit, to breathe in so you could breathe out.
So that would be my tip for finding some power to go on on a tough day of creation.
(Yeah, this is long).
