Weston Minissali is the musical father of the experimental pop project Erica Eso and synthesizer player of Cloud Becomes Your Hand. Before Minissali comes to Boston this Friday to play our own Hassle Fest 7, he answered some questions on his varying roles, surrendering yourself, and what is in his future.
Boston Hassle: How many projects are you currently involved in?
Weston Minissali: I have 4 active projects. 1) Erica Eso, a solo project turned 4-piece microtonal pop band. 2) Cloud Becomes Your Hand 3) a brand new duo with the drummer of Cloud Becomes Your Hand, and a cozmyk sibling – Booker Stardrum. We lived in the woods for a week last winter and wrote some otherwise unimaginable music that’ll drop in 2016, and I think we’re called TonyVision? 4) Trumpet Trumpet Synthesizer – is a duo with the trumpet player Brad Henkel, who currently lives in Germany. We have 2 records out and will release a 3rd next year.
BH: How do you approach Erica Eso differently than Cloud Becomes Your Hand? How do your roles differ between projects?
WM: In Cloud, I’m mostly a synthesizer player and an arranger. I write riffs here and there to help things gel, but Stephe Cooper writes the core ideas. The rest of us have our very specific roles required to make the music really HAPPEN. Almost all my energy in this band is put into creating the synth timbres, as opposed to composition like all my other projects. I think that specificity of focus has allowed for a lot of detail and richness to come through in our songs. And that goes for everyone else in the band. We all have very hard-to-describe roles that are totally essential, including the latest and sexiest member SIMON HANES!
Erica Eso is my baby… or maybe duel identity is more appropriate… or maybe she’s pregnant with me… It has been such an intimate process writing and now performing this music, it really has been unlike any other project. Although the record only debuted last month, the music has been written for well over 2 years and the abstract fragments started to come way before that. I started to imagine this loner voice cruisin’ all sexy and fragile over loose synth rhythms and crackles. I think that vision is represented pretty well in the track “Iris Kyle”. Then that initial vibe started to shift to the more dancy tracks like “One Hundred Years” and “Crippled Symmetry”, etc.. Now I have this amazing live band with Rhonda Lowry, Ellen O’Meara and Nathaniel Morgan, all of whom I’m obsessed with. We just finished our first tour and I’m just really excited for this new iteration of the project to grow and be heard.
BH: Are there any particular messages you try to convey through these bands?
WM: I’m always hesitant to say anything too directly on this front. I think the most important messages are in the music itself, and would just encourage people to check it out. I will say in regards to Erica Eso, there is a particular embrace and surrender to a female wisdom that is a growing inspiration within myself and the people I surround myself with. If there’s anything the world needs most…
BH: What are some of your biggest influences and inspirations?
WM: Morton Feldman, Mariah Carey, Eliane Radigue, Nina Simone, Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, bell hooks and R Kelly.
BH: Have your goals and perspective of being a musician changed over the years?
WM: I’d say a general motion away from unnecessary clutter towards a cleaner simple vision. It used to be a more intellectual pursuit, which was completely necessary for my personal artistic journey, but I think I’m in more of a heart zone now.
BH: Will this be your first Hassle Fest? Is there anyone in particular that you are excited to see?
WM: Cloud has played Hassle before but this will be the first time with our extra exciting Boston-tastic lineup featuring the latest and sexiest member SIMON HANES!
But more than anything I’m looking forward to seeing the DIY Love-Monster/master SAM POTRYKUS do what he does best- gathering humans to celebrate being youtube channels together.
BH: What is in the future for Erica Eso and Cloud Becomes Your Hand?
WM: Erica Eso will be releasing some music videos in the next few months while working on the next record. We’ll just be playing NY until maybe January, when I’d like to come back to Boston again. Hey Sam, wanna book us a show?
Cloud Becomes Your Hand has a lot on our horizon. I’m super excited to release our next record with Northern Spy again, that’ll be out in spring 2016. We’ll most definitely be hitting up Boston and a bunch of the country around then.
Catch Weston in Cloud Becomes Your Hand this Friday at Hassle Fest 7!!
