Having been spending the last few years following up her highly-praised debut album ‘Miscellaneous’ with a string of heartfelt offerings, US artist Talon David recently delivered her long-awaited sophomore LP ‘Pure Imagination’.
Continuing more of that warm and invigorating aesthetic she has been honing since she first emerged, ‘Pure Imagination’ has been a joy to experience and heightens her already passionate presence. So we caught up with her to discover more about her inspirations, aspirations, and the origins of her distinctive sound.
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Can you tell us a bit about your musical background and how you got started in music?
Absolutely! I grew up in a musical household i.e. waking up to my dad ripping through an electric guitar solo at 6:30 AM, my mom singing to the pets swirling around her legs as she cooked breakfast. I was singing before I was speaking coherent sentences and latched onto melody and harmony as my favourite means of communication. When I went to school, I had a difficult time discerning what to say to my peers. I wasn’t shy…the words just weren’t computing or seemed inadequate. It wasn’t until I got onstage and was sharing my voice with an audience that I realised this was the emotional expression I had been missing in speech. This experience developed a deep-seated desire to be a singer, which I hid for a long time because I didn’t want people to think I was after fame or stardom. It has always been about communication.
Who are some of your biggest musical influences, both past and present?
My influences start with my parents’ influences. Sharing music was a bonding experience for us. My dad would blast Journey, Kenny Loggins, and Stevie Wonder, while my mom had us listening to the Wicked soundtrack and classic Disney. I developed a deep appreciation for both sweeping orchestral soundscapes and funky guitar/bass rhythms. With that bedrock in place, I picked up more of a jazz influence at university, and now my favourite playlist on Spotify includes Nat King Cole, Jacob Collier, 5SoS, Adele, Henry Mancini, and Tchaikovsky.
Are there any specific artists or bands that have had a significant impact on your music style or approach?
If I had to single out one, in regards to this album especially, I’d say Jacob Collier, purely because I’ve had to battle a heaping amount of imposter syndrome learning to produce and engineer my own music. His daringly adventurous style inspires me to trust my own instincts and not be too concerned about what I don’t know. It’s about communicating the story, not about perfection, I continue to beat through my thick head lol.
Could you share any memorable moments or experiences that have shaped your musical journey so far?
A huge one was in 2017, when I got to attend the 59th GRAMMY Awards. The GRAMMY Foundation ran a teen songwriting contest through Musicares, and on a whim I’d submitted my song “Deep Snow” in a desperate attempt to rack up more scholarship money for university. To my utter shock, I ended up winning and part of the spoils was attending the awards. Granted, the seats were in the nosebleeds of the Staples Center, but I remember looking out at this elite of the music industry, realising that my music and songwriting had resonance and purpose. It had a place, however remote, among this upper echelon of the industry. It was a humbling moment, but also firm in the conviction that I wanted to come back to the GRAMMYs one day and be seated on the floor, having pursued the crafting of music to the best of my ability. It ignited the spark that before had been tentatively flickering, and that flame has sustained my craft through the darkest personal and professional moments.
How do you express your personal experiences and identity through your music?
This is an interesting question, and I’m struggling to answer it because I don’t think expressing my personal experience and identity is something I consciously think about. It’s simply what happens when creating, it is the filter through which all my music theory and emotional comprehension is sent. I pick this chord because it personally elicits happiness or melancholy or calm; I pick this word because the vowel shapes fit my mouth better or it rings truer; I pick this melody because it’s familiar or unfamiliar to my family of influences; I produce this way because it presents the song most truthfully to my ears. If you were to analyse all these choices, you’d form the outline of a person who looked a lot like me.
Have you faced any challenges or obstacles as a female musician, and if so, how have you overcome them?
I’m not going to say that there’s an anti-women sentiment in the music industry, because I don’t think that’s strictly accurate for the majority of men working in music. In fact, I think they’d be mortified if that was the perceived intent. But more times than I can count, I have been in a control room or a studio environment, where it is jarringly clear I am the only female in the room, and have had men in black skinny jeans shrugging their shoulders, telling me “you’ve got potential but…” or “I’ve been in this industry…” or “this is what you need.” They’ve done nothing to understand me and my sound, have given me cookie cutter instructions whether I asked for them or not, and have subtly asserted their dominance to make the young female hesitate before she disagrees with them.
To be sure, this isn’t every male-dominant room, and it would be unfair to make it a strictly male-female issue. I think it has to do more with the fear of losing relevance, the fear of the unfamiliar. It has taught me to be very careful with who I allow to speak into my life and art, either positively or negatively, and has allowed me to build up the confidence to be the ultimate authority on my art. Historically, this is rare for female artists, and I feel so blessed to have struggled to where I am now.
Are there any particular themes or messages that you aim to convey through your music?
I strive to do two things with my music: to relate my human experience to someone else’s and to give them hope in a better tomorrow. I believe mental health is the most widespread issue in today’s society, and music is uniquely capable of affecting it, either for the better or for the worse. Ultimately I want my music to both cut deep, like hey, life is hard right, but also remind listeners that it is their choice whether to live with hope or to succumb to defeat.
Can you talk about your creative process and how you go about writing and producing your music?
Happily! Most of the songs on the Pure Imagination album began with a riff or piano pattern. This deviates from my writing process for Miscellaneous (my first album) which primarily started with song titles or concepts. “Heart’s Mirage” and “Tonedeaf” still follow that order, but for the rest of the songs on this new album, I constructed the harmonic information first, then determined what the concept would be, based on what I was resonating with on the piano. Some songs took 45 minutes to write, others were slowly worked on over months.
As far as production goes, I attempt to reassess for every song. Sure, I have my templates for consistency across the project, but I never want to create “placeholder” songs. Each song must serve a purpose—have its own flavour and hue. This means using an unfamiliar keyboard sound or even layering conflicting sounds, experimenting with weird reverbs (like inverted reverb for “Wading through the Memories”), singing the melody in an altered timbre to fit the EQ curve better, getting rid of excess background vocals if they’re detracting, etc. I try to stay away from anything I identify as formulaic.
And of course, I don’t play guitar, so whenever a song is needing it, I get my dad to play. There’s something about that family connection that you can’t quite beat, and it brings me so much joy to share my music with him, the way he shared his music with me throughout my upbringing.
How do you hope your music will resonate with your audience, especially with other aspiring female musicians?
I hope it inspires. That it ignites that same spark I got at the GRAMMYs. That they’ll find the resilience needed to shrug off the limitations they’ve been wearing as armour. That they’ll have the courage to dream, and when the dream must be altered or reprioritised, they can weather the changes with grace and unerring trust that the end of the dream will be even greater than they imagined.
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Listen to Talon David’s new album ‘Pure Imagination’ below.