White Hinterland

White Hinterland is Portland, Oregon duo Casey Dienel and Shawn Creeden, who with their latest album ‘Kairos’ have created a sensual set of electronic pop and R&B songs driven by Dienel’s expressive, limber voice. The duo, along with producer Alexis Gideon, manipulate, magnify and loop that voice to create a uniquely ethereal atmosphere grounded by Dienel’s stirring lyrics. Dazed Digital spoke to the band as they get ready to embark on a month-long European tour.
 
Dazed Digital: Casey, the story goes that it was actually a friend who submitted your first recordings to a label. Did you need any convincing to take the plunge into becoming a recording artist?
Casey Dienel: A little bit, yes. Shyness had a lot to do with this, but my own music was originally meant to be private. It wasn’t until some of my friends in college were hearing stuff I was working on that they pushed me to get out of my bedroom and play shows…I was really surprised to learn how comfortable I felt performing even that early on. I think something chemical occurs. I get very calm and still inside, and also unspeakably happy.

DD: You’ve lived in Boston and New York, and currently reside in Portland, Oregon. What inspired the move? Any sense of wanderlust now, or does touring suffice?
Casey Dienel: I’m unsure where all my restlessness comes from, but it’s always been there, like a buzz trapped inside the walls. I wanted to move out to Portland because I had spent enough time there to sense I felt kindred with the place. I like the rainy season immensely, the overgrown forest, the sheer mammoth force of nature out here. On tour I spend plenty of time in big cities, so it’s nice to be able to afford my own quiet little perch in Portland, which is the antithesis of tour. It’s nice to have some privacy. It’s clean, calm, cozy.
 
DD: You made the switch from using your given name to White Hinterland with your last album, ‘Phylactery Factory.’ Is a stage name more advantageous for musicians?
Casey Dienel: I think going by own name did very little to contextualize the music I was writing. Unfortunately, going by a female name is so totally loaded. It carries baggage; ideas of what women in music should be or sound like—ideas that I find mind-numbingly limiting and archaic. Why try to pretend I’m doing something I’m not? But that wasn’t the primary catalyst. Most of all, I loved that a band name meant I could literally create my own world, an atmosphere for my songs to live in. I feel like the conducting rod. Music passes through me; it’s an ecstatic experience. It’s less that I get to be the center of attention for 45 minutes—but that I’m literally channeling some awesome, beautiful force in a very visceral, physical way.
 
DD: What non-musical items inspired ‘Kairos’?
Shawn Creeden: The move to Portland, living near so many good friends from the Northeast and with my childhood best friend Joel for the first time, reading Cormac McCarthy, Tumblr, watching 'Jurassic Park' every day, shooting bottles with my b.b. gun…
Casey Dienel: I re-read ‘Tender Is The Night’ at one point during recording…it is one of my favorite books. I like the idea of “mood” as opposed to narrative. This book has an almost inconsequential plotline, but the mood is so thick, muggy, and romantic. Film is huge for me. I spent a long time wishing there was a musical equivalent of the yellow, yearning light in Kieslowski’s ‘La Double Vie de Véronique.’ It’s an incredible film about doppelgangers with a haunting Zbigniew Preisner soundtrack. There’s this one part with a hand-operated puppet show that kills me…and I can’t watch that film without wishing there was a sound or a song to encapsulate all the mixed up feelings I have when I’m watching it.
 
DD: You’re spending a couple of weeks in the U.K. on this leg of your tour. Any plans for your time off?
Shawn Creeden: I need to see the Celeste Boursier-Mougenot show at the Barbican Centre in London. 40 zebra finches in a room with electric guitars and amps. Find the video online—it looks and sounds amazing.
Casey Dienel: I really want to go to the Barbican for that exhibit as well. Hopefully I’ll find the time to stop in Ottolenghi for lunch, and Ladurée in Paris for macaroons. I’m kind of excited to see parts of the U.K. we’ve never really been to before.
 
White Hinterland’s album ‘Kairos’ is out now on Dead Oceans. See them live: 27th of May @ The Social and 1st of June at Heaven with Beach House. Check MySpace for more U.K. dates.