Tara Jane O’Neil Interview: “I open the doors and see what comes through”

“May you be happy / May you be at ease/ May you be free”, sings Tara Jane O’Neil on Metta – the closing track from her criminally underrated 2017 self-titled album. It’s a passage that encompasses TJO’s songcraft: slightly cosmic, forever wandering, and effortlessly borderless.

Something about TJO’s performance is so fragile, raw, and spirited. Three facets that don’t often entwine, but that’s not the case on Metta, a song with a cadence that – even seven years after its release – possesses the same abilities to stir up the embers.

Lyrically, Metta cuts a multitude of ways, and while many listeners strive for art to mirror their own reality, it got me thinking of TJO’s and how the ensuing years since Metta have – from the outside at least – appeared enveloped in unrest.

Following the self-titled release, TJO and her partner, dancer, choreographer, and frequent collaborator, Jmy James Kidd, lost their house to the Thomas Fire. With the ensuing years of the COVID pandemic, on the surface, it’s difficult to ascertain how anyone could muster the strength to release as much music as TJO has. Scratch beneath that service, and it all makes sense: Tara Jane O’Neil is a lifer.

Everything Changes: Rodan’s Rusty 30th anniversary

Bassist of post-rock lynchpins Rodan, TJO has since been a part of and formed bands such as Retsin, The Sonora Pine, and The Naysayer, as well as boasting a solo catalogue of work that extends back to her excellent 2000 debut, Peregrine.

In between various collaborations and rarities, the last several years has seen TJO release the more experimental inclined Yoake – Music from and Near the Film (2019), Songs for Peakock (2020)and Dispatches from the Drift (2021). And now, seven years after her last song-based album, TJO returns with The Cool Cloud of Okayness.

An album that was plotted in the time between the wildfire, the house rebuilding and COVID, The Cool Cloud of Okayness was then recorded by TJO at her home studio, built on the ashes of her Upper Ojai, California home.

Answering a string of questions via email last month, TJO said the most important aspect she wanted to capture on The Cool Cloud of Okayness was “for it to play like a film”. Sonically, it’s quite a leap from its predecessor, largely due to TJO’s collaborators. Featuring percussionist Sheridan Riley (Alvvays), multi-instrumentalist Walt McClements, and guitarists Meg Duffy (Hand Habits) and Marisa Anderson, each musician arrives from various corners of the experimental sound world, leaving their own mark. And the result sees TJO covering new ground.

“The contributions are essential to the sound and energy of the record,” says TJO. “I am friends with all the people you mention. Also, I played bass in Hand Habits one spring, Walt and I have done many shows together, and he appears on my [self-titled] record, Sheridan played in LA Takedown on the tour where they were my band, resulting in the live album One Night in Phoenix. So, these individuals have been around in my world and I’m happy we got to do this together.”

Anderson features on the eponymous opening track – a graceful odyssey that evokes the filmic vibe TJO speaks of, and from here Cool Cloud of Okayness plays out like a rolling dreamscape. The striking, ghostly atmospheres of Seeing Glass. The following Two Stones and We Bright; songs that possess the subtle echoes of TJO’s earlier works, both in a solo capacity and with Rodan. So too on Glass Island, which is meandering post-rock coupled with the softer edges of jazz.

And while Curling continues the cascading dream-state, it’s a wonderful segue into the album’s final two tracks, Fresh End and Kaichan Kitchen. Songs that float with spectral guitars, soft synths and rippled percussion, providing a fitting end to The Cool Cloud of Okayness. A finely crafted album with subtle intricacies and various layers that unravel more and more with each listen. It’s an escapist record. Music that feels like a sanctuary. And Tara Jane O’Neil is the formidable host.

S13: Do you need concrete ideas before beginning work on a new album, or is your process based more on impulse?

Tara Jane O’Neil: “I open the doors and see what comes through usually. Then the sculptor and the intention enter the room. Both are necessary to my process.”

S13: The Cool Cloud of Okayness was made through some extremely difficult times for you. With a lyric like, “Joy too can be a way of fighting”, was creativity the only possible outlet to find some kind of solace?

TJO: “The exact lyric is the rather direct ‘Joy is a form of Fight’. And it’s in response to the conditions in the world right now. Also, I find that it is generally a true statement for many people. In my life creativity has definitely been a practice of solace and expression as well as direction. I also walk a lot with my dog, ride my bike, dance around and keep an intention daily to the exertion toward joy and gladdening my mind.”

S13: You’ve collaborated with Marisa Anderson before, and her involvement of the eponymous opening track is wonderful. Was it the first track written for the album?

TJO: “It was actually the last song written for the record. Marisa appearance is at the very end fade of the song, you can hear her ghost notes if it’s really very quiet where you listen or on headphones. We did a version of the song together, and I kept elements of that recording so we can hear her presence on that day in the room microphone.” 

S13: Was it always the intension to have so many collaborators on the album, or did it just end up that way?

TJO: “I wanted to record with Sheridan after playing a few shows together and hanging out by playing music on early incarnations of a couple songs. I always invite people to join me on records. This one was fun because Walt, Sheridan and I were all able to play together and really discover what the music could be while we played it which was recorded. Arrangements did not really exist for these songs, and many musical surprises were born from our jam. Side note is that I always ask people to collaborate on the albums and also at shows, I like to experience the music alongside the different players’ vistas.”

S13: Fresh End and Kaichan Kitchen are wonderful pieces to finish the album, and to me, really underpin things with a new sense of optimism. Was that something you were stiving for?

TJO: “I definitely sequenced the album to be experienced as a film. By the time we get to those last two tracks we have all been through a lot. And so, it has an uplift, were there not an uplift built in to the story of the album it would never have been made. There are times we come very close to the edges that would keep us down, squash us out, silence us, this record is not one of those times.”

S13: Do you work on music every day?

TJO: “I don’t but I do try.”

S13: Do you feel that your personality is a representation of the music that you make, or do you separate the two?

S13: “Turtle and shell. Inseparable but really quite distinct and different things.”

S13: Going back to your days in Rodan, did you ever envisage being a solo artist, and also, did you think you’d spend the ensuing three decades making music?

TJO: “Music remains the only thing I know that I want to do. That’s been true since I was that teenager. I’ve been lucky to continue this journey for 30 years and feel grateful for all the versions of self and music I’ve experienced.”

The Cool Cloud of Okayness is out now via Orindal Records. Purchase from Bandcamp.