By Samantha Weisenthal, Contributor

Meet Aidan Noell

You lot may be familiar with a little trio called Nation of Language; Brooklyn’s very own synth-pop dream team. If you’ve had the pleasure to hear their musical stylings, you know how dang good that keyboard is.

Enter Aidan Noell; NOL’s resident keyboardist. This year, the Brooklynite has also shared her songwriting prowess with the world.

Below, we chat all about her release of “Prepositional Phrase,” her new wave influences, and the freedom of writing without performing.

What was the process of writing this song like as a solo act apart from Nation of Language? What were some of the challenges and what was made easier?

Writing the song was a decision I made on the fly. I was always interested in seeing if I could do it and Ian has been very encouraging. We had recently gotten a new synth, it’s a  Behringer MS1 which has sequencing capability and it’s much simpler than some of the other synths that we have. I opened Garageband on my computer for the first time ever and made a little arpeggio, which I really liked. It evolved quickly. 

I had watched artists that I know struggle for hours or days, and oftentimes even longer, to write a song. I know that my song is very elementary and naive and it doesn't follow many pop music schemes, but it came together extremely quickly. Which is probably a dangerous precedent to set. Now anytime I’m sitting at the keyboard and I’m trying to write a song and it takes longer than a day I feel like it’s going to be a failure. 

Were you going for a pop vibe? 

I wasn’t really going for anything, I just let it happen and waited to see what came of it. I don’t really listen to modern pop music, I listen to a lot of strange new wave. I was learning to DJ for a while before the pandemic hit and I would find cool music from this book I have, Volume One: 1980 put out by One Ten Records. I went on these deep youtube and discogs dives and found these sick bands who would write with a very basic structure of synth over bass over apathetic lead female vocal, which is sort of what I was going for when I was writing this song. 

I would sort of jot down ideas over the arpeggio with GarageBand synths, then replace them with other synths we have around the house. Ian (my husband and NOL bandmate) is really good at hearing the vibe I’m going for and matching the sound on our Sub 37. After that, I scoured a couple poems on my phone from over the years in my notes app and improvised some melodies. Really the song was written by the time I had to leave for work.

Did you use a producer to mix it or did you do that yourself? 

I mixed it with Ian. We listened to it on our separate commutes and would come back together and talk about the layers and the levels of the song. After four or five sit downs together at our kitchen table we settled on the final mix. 

How did you personally know that this song was going to be a solo project versus a Nation Of Language song? 

Nation of Language is just Ian’s writing. So my song was never intended to be for Nation of Language. I didn’t even think that I would share it publicly, but Ian was adamant that I should, that it was good enough to show to other people. 

Nation of Language existed for a long time as a band prior to releasing the debut album. What was it like to release music prior to playing it live, how did that change things for you? 

Ian just asked me yesterday if I ever thought I would be playing my songs live. I honestly don’t envision that ever happening, I just don’t feel that urge with these songs like I do with NOL music.

Also, writing without imagining performing gave a sense of freedom, not feeling constrained to logistics of what’s possible on stage. For example, I’m about to put out a second song that has theremin in it, which is not an instrument I envision seeing myself mastering in order to be able to play it live. I can play it on the record because I can track the part five times until I get it right, but that’s obviously not how it works live.  

How do the different tools that you have in your repertoire affect what you envision making? Do you think first about the instrument and then the song or do you think about the song first? 

Definitely the instrument first for me. I came to writing “Prepositional Phrase” by sitting at the synth and tooling around until something came up, which was the same experience for my second song. I had a very simple drum beat set and then I worked within the parameters of what that synth can accomplish at my skill level. It’s a nice boundary to have drawn for myself, as a person who has never written music before. 

What inspires you to get new instruments and what is something that you want right now? 

My friend Michelle in the band Glove, she’s one of my synth icons, and she just got the Korg Prologue which is an extremely cool machine. There’s a lot about aesthetics that draws me to synthesizers which seems superficial, but there is a look and feel to certain synths that just draw me in. Ian and I would love to have a MiniMoog. We always talk about what synth we would buy if we won the lottery. We don’t play the lottery though.

It’s really amazing that you donated all of the proceeds from the song! Why did you choose G.L.I.T.S. specifically as the organization to support? 

Whenever I was deciding to put it on Bandcamp I knew it should be on there for free, but I thought that if anybody wanted to pay, it would be great to make it an outlet for mutual aid. I considered a bunch of different organizations that are local to NY, and I decided on G.L.I.T.S. in support of black trans folks in our community. The idea of using my song or merch as a means of getting people together to donate was exciting to me. 

How did you come up with the idea for the mystery ephemera? 

I don’t have the resources to print shirts or patches, but stamps are cheap, so I wrote people little love letters and poems and that seemed like a fair trade to donate to a great organization. I was shocked by how many people actually donated. It was very cool. 

That is super cool. I’ve seen a lot of compilation tapes in the last year that have been donating to mutual aid. I used to go to shows that would donate to different organizations, this kind of idea is a great way of substituting that practice. 

I love the photos that you took for the release with Rita Iovine. What was it like collaborating with her to find a vibe to match the music?

A: I told her broadly that I wanted it to be vibrant and dark and emotional. I also said I wanted it to incorporate physical movement. She had a lot of reference images that were pretty spot on to what I envisioned. We got together in her apartment and she set up a perfect red backdrop and some lights and we made it happen. It was the first time I was the sole subject of photography in that way, being one on one with someone creating these images. We put on a playlist of new wave music for four or five hours and took loads of rolls, but time elapsed really quickly. 

Do you have plans for new releases? 

I am finishing a new song now, set to come out on Bandcamp and Spotify on  April 8th. After Prepositional Phrase, there was a lot of motivation to release another song, as people are curious about what else I can do and I’m excited to show them.

Is there anything else that you would like to let people know about? This is a moment to cover anything we may have missed. 

Some people are asking what Prepositional Phrase is about. It is an expression of the sense of longing and yearning for someone you can’t have. A sort of consensual romantic violence is probably my most consistent artistic influence when I’m writing. I wonder if it’s possible for me to write a song that’s not a love song… I haven’t tried. 

Side note, I’ve had the prepositions memorized since the sixth grade. I remember when writing the poem thinking “finally, an outlet for these words that have haunted my subconscious for fifteen years.” 

Do you foresee your work continuing to be about love and romance? 

Probably. It’s the aspect of the human condition that most inspires me to write, love and yearning. 

Is there anything that you would want to say to your listeners? 

Definitely thank you! I genuinely had low expectations of people caring about my first release. I remember putting it out on Bandcamp and watching it get a hundred streams on the first day, it was so shocking and heartwarming. The support since then has been very inspirational and validating, to see all of these people, including strangers, be into the music I’ve been making. I’m so grateful.