Nirvana, bossa nova: a chat with Mei Semones

The indie rock etc. singer/songwriter talks about her new LP and her jazz guitar heroes, and shares a playlist of favorites.

Welcome to New Music + Old Music. If you like the posts & playlist streams and want to get ‘em all, consider a subscription. Thanks! - Will

I first heard Mei Semones’ music about a year ago, when I was sent a link to her Kabutomushi EP. Heartfelt, earwormy indie-rock songcraft built on pirouetting guitar riffs clearly rooted in jazz and bossa nova, sung in English and Japanese, packaged in hand-drawn anime cover art, of a startled punk rock-ish character with big weird beetles in their hair.

I was like, yeah — this is different.

Fast forward to now, and Semones has finished her debut LP, Animaru (translation: Animal). It’s coming out this Friday out now, and it’s as good as the EP, if not better.

Semones jumped on a Zoom last month with me to last month to chat about it and her background — about listening to grunge in middle-school, studying at Berklee, pivoting away from the jazz world (sorta), trusting your gut, following your dreams.

Below is a transcript of our talk, edited, with embedded links. Below that, for paid subscribers, is a playlist of songs Mei selected as touchstones (Nirvana, Coltrane, João Gilberto, Chet Baker, Smashing Pumpkins, etc.) Also for subscribers, I’ve added notes and links re: the current bossa nova revival —Sofi Tukker, Liana Flores, Laufey, etc.— and some of its roots. Enjoy! — Will

PS - This image of Semones is a screengrab from our Zoom, not a link — I just like the towering boxes of vinyl LPs and other working-musician tour schwag teetering behind her.

Hiya Mei! Where are you now?

I'm in Brooklyn. I got home a couple days ago from tour, so I'm just at home.

You were in Europe. How’d that go?

It was awesome, really amazing. It was my first time playing any shows over there, so it was just really cool to see all the sites

Were you playing in rock clubs? Jazz clubs? I can imagine your music in both spaces.

It was mostly rock clubs. I was opening for the band Panchiko. They're kind of like rock … I don't know how exactly how to describe it.

I’ll check them out. Congrats on your new album, it's really great. I know I'm going to be listening to it a lot this year.

Thank you.

I wanted to rewind and ask you some background things. I know you grew up in Ann Arbor. Do you have family roots there?

My dad got a job for this company that makes bolts for cars, and they're based in Dexter, a town over from Ann Arbor. I'm guessing [my parents] probably wanted to live in Ann Arbor for the school system and stuff like that.

Did you grow up mostly listening to American pop and hiphop?

I guess pop music in elementary school, kind of just whatever my friends were listening to. And then also my dad would listen to the radio and stuff, so I would hear jazz. And he likes rock music as well. I guess in middle school I was listening to more grunge rock and stuff too. Then in high school I started listening to more jazz, and hip hop. too. The high school I went to had a really great jazz program, and so that was kind of how I was first introduced to playing that type of music.

Was guitar your instrument of choice straight away?

I started on piano when I was little. My parents had me start taking piano lessons when I was four, and I did that until around 11 and then switched to guitar around the age of 11.

I hear the jazz elements in your music, but it was specifically the bossa nova touches that jumped out to me — the melodic structures, and some of the sort of chording.

Yeah, I was introduced to bossa nova kind of around the same time that I started first playing jazz in high school, because along with all the standards they had me learn, and Charlie Parker, stuff like that, there was also tunes like “Girl from Ipanema” and “Corcovado” and “Wave” — the classic tunes that people learned to start. And I just really, really loved that type of music and kind of went, I guess, dove in a little further and started listening to more João Gilberto and stuff, yeah.

I was going to ask about Brazilian guitarists or singers that specifically grabbed you…

Definitely João Gilberto; I've listened to him the most. I really love his vocals and the guitar playing as well, the chord structures, everything.

After high school you got into Berklee. Talk about that a little bit, about what your jazz interests were going through college.

It’s hard to, like, pinpoint exactly what my interests were. There were a lot of really specialized classes. There was a class to just learn Kurt Rosenwinkel transcriptions, or Wes Montgomery transcriptions, very specific guitar labs and stuff like that. And there's advanced jazz harmony and advanced jazz improvisation, and all of the different ensembles. When I was in high school, it was just learning a lot of standards, which was really great. A lot of Charlie Parker, Wayne Shorter and Miles, really just all the greats. Berklee was kind of expanding on that, and getting more specific with it as well.

Besides João, are there other players you consider touchstone guitarists, or just whose work you really like?

Probably the one I've transcribed the most, especially when I was younger, was Grant Green. I really like Grant Green. I also love Wes Montgomery, and Jim Hall. And I really like Kurt Rosenwinkel a lot.

The band you're working with now is really good — are these folks that you met at Berklee, or afterwards?

Yeah, they're all Berklee classmates. Funnily enough, our bass player actually didn't know while we were at Berklee; we met after when we moved to New York, but he also [attended Berklee], we were there at the same time. So everyone in my band went to Berklee. Noah [Leong], who plays viola, I met freshman year. We lived in the same dorm.

It's not unusual to hear strings in pop or indie rock these days. But the way that you all play together, the violin and viola seem very integral to the music, rather than just like “oh, let's put some strings on this for color.” Do the songs come out of collaborative work, or do you write the string arrangements? How does that work?

I kind of write the core of the song — the guitar, the chords, the guitar parts, melody, the lyrics. And then once that's done, I bring it to my band and we arrange it and add all the string parts and the drums and bass and everything. That part is very collaborative. I'll usually have kind of an idea of where I think they should enter, where I think they should exit, and the dynamics of the song and the arc of the song and stuff like that, like a general concept. But in terms of actually arranging the parts, I leave it up to them, for the most part, because I just think they're going to be a lot better at writing string parts than I am. I don't play any string instruments; I don't even know what their range is, really.

It works very well! So you wound up not becoming an ensemble jazz player, but writing songs and working in kind of an indie rock space. Was that your vision all along?

Actually, when I first was entering Berklee, and in high school too, I always wanted to be a guitarist — a jazz guitarist or a session guitarist, mostly. Really just an instrumentalist. But the second year of Berklee I released my first song, and very gradually from then my focus shifted more to being an artist and a songwriter and making my own music, as opposed to being a guitarist in a backing band or something like that.

I don't know. It wasn't a conscious thing of me being like, “I've decided that I'm going to be an artist.” It just felt like the natural direction, because of how things were going with the songs. And I guess it was just what I was passionate about. I really enjoy playing my own music; that's why I make it. I mean, I still would love to get back into just guitar playing, just playing jazz and stuff. But it feels very daunting sometimes.

The worlds are sort of separate, but I love music that blurs them. Was there a singer-songwriter who was a touchstone for you, or a friend who maybe nudged you to write lyrics?

I don't know if there's a specific songwriter that comes to mind. But being at Berklee, most of your peers are also releasing music, or making their own music. It made me probably think “oh, maybe I should also try to put a song out or something.” That's what my friends were doing.

Some of your lyrics are English, some are Japanese, some are wordless jazz-scat singing. How you feel your way into how to vocally present the tunes?

It's really just whatever feels natural, whatever comes out. I might have a general idea of, oh, I know that I want this part to be in English and this part to be in Japanese. But at the end of the day, I'll just go with whatever comes out and feels natural. It's gotten pretty fluid now, to the point where I'll switch languages within a sentence sometimes, because sometimes a certain word in English is one too many syllables, but that same word in Japanese happens to be the right amount of syllables. So fitting it together in that way as well. Yeah.

I love “Tora Moyo” on the new album — the scat singing and the crazy tempo. It's like speed samba.

We play it even faster live! [laughs]

That's hard to conceive! You've got a great guitar break in it, sort of low-key shredding. Talk about solos. Do you just go from your gut as to whether one will fit in a song or not?

Kind of just whatever feels right. I don't want to overdo it, but at the same time, I want it to be an interesting song to listen to, but also for me to play and perform, y’know? And so it kind of depends on the song. I don't want to get bored playing, so I want it to be a little bit of a challenge.

That's one of the things that I like about listening to your music. You mentioned that you listened to grunge when you were growing up. I definitely hear some Nirvana structures, but where they might have noise guitar, you’ll fill it with arpeggio notes or something.

Yeah, I definitely listened to a lot of Nirvana when I was in middle school, and it's still one of my favorite bands to this day. And with this album, for sure, there's a few songs on there that are more rock-leaning, or parts of the songs are more rock leaning. “Tora Moyo” is kind of samba all the way through, whereas “Zarigani” switches between rock and a bossa type thing.

Great song. I read it’s partly about your sister. You’re twins?

Not identical, but yeah. We look kind of different. She actually lives here in this apartment with me.

Is that her in the opening shot of the video when you’re rolling through Brooklyn?

Yeah! She's the first person that appears next to me in the video.

You’re also working with your mom — she does your album art, yeah?

Not all of the music I've ever released, but this album, she did everything for the album art and the singles, and also the physical design for the vinyl and CDs and cassettes and stuff. And also for the Kabutomushi EP, she did all of the artwork for that.

Album art for Animaru by Seiko Semones

It seems like there's an emotional thread going through the lyrics — there are love songs, but maybe not all romantic love songs. And some are kind of disenchanted or frustrated love songs.

One of the main themes on the album lyrically is definitely love in general. And yeah, like you were saying, not necessarily romantic love, but love of life and love of music and love for my guitar and for my friends and for my band and stuff, and for New York City also.

The name of the album is Animaru, which is like a Japanese pronunciation of the word “animal.” And the other main theme is kind of trusting your instincts, following your instincts and doing what is important to you, and prioritizing yourself. I feel like those are the two main themes that come to mind.

Has that been something in your life just as something you've had to remind yourself — to kind of trust your gut and prioritize your feelings?

I feel like I am in a place where I am already trusting my instincts and really doing what I want to be doing, in terms of being able to just make a living from music and being in a place where I feel very confident in what I'm doing. And so I think that's kind of reflected in the album, and I'm hoping that that message will encourage other people to just prioritize what they want to do. Because sometimes I feel like I see people around me that are maybe not doing what they want to do. And I know it's easier said than done to just be like “oh, follow your dreams. You should do whatever you want.” But I just want people to really do what they love, because I think that is the best way to live your life.

Tell me about your audiences. Have you found mostly young folks, older folks?

It's kind of hard to say. We actually haven't done that many headline shows at this point. We're going on our first headline tour next month, and so I feel like that will definitely give me a better read. But based off of what I've seen so far, it's a lot of people around my age, I would say early twenties and stuff. I like to think that [the music] is for people of all ages. But generally the audiences have been around my age, I think. Yeah.

I hear pop music like what Laufey is doing, and Billie Eilish, who had that song “Billie Bossa Nova.” And it seems like there’s something happening in terms of pop music that's a little bit more complex melodically, and lush melodically. Is this somethjing you’ve been paying attention to?

I've definitely heard a lot of people being like “oh, jazz is coming back.” I actually don't really listen to pop music that much. I don't really listen to any new music other than music that my friends are putting out. I listen to mostly older music, jazz from the sixties and stuff. So I feel like I'm not super tapped into exactly what's going on, in terms of what you're describing.

I've always loved this type of music. It's always been a huge influence on me. And so when people are like, “oh, bossa is like, trendy,” I'm like, I don't know if it's trendy. This is the music that I've loved for years and years.

That’s cool. So what’s up for touring the record here in the U.S.?

The first leg of the tour, East Coast and Midwest, we're going to have our friend John Roseborough joining us. He's really amazing. I don't know if you're familiar with his music, but he makes, like, post-bossa indie music. If you like my music, I think you'll definitely like his music.

I’ll check him out. Well, thank you, Mei. Congratulations on making a wonderful record. I'm excited to hear it resonating out in the world.

Thank you for taking the time to talk. I appreciate it.

Addenda:

I asked Mei if she’d make me a short playlist of songs she feels are touchstones for her (yes, she likes Coltrane a lot). You’ll find that below, plus some other standout bossa-adjacent music from the past few years/ decades that I dug up for your listening pleasure.