Holland Patent Public Library

Meet Holland Patent Public Library

Overwhelmingly charming was the first thought to come to my mind when I heard the sounds of Holland Patent Public Library. This genre-defying project knocked my socks off with their 2020 release “Quiet, or You’ll Wake Them an They Will Disappear Forever”. The release lives in a very special place nestled between post-rock, folk, drone, and ambient. In line with its unconventional name, the album boasts some fantastic and adventurous musical ideas all while holding on to an incredible intimacy with the listener. Get to know them in our latest interview.

A self-portrait by, Holland Patent Public Library

Would You Rather

have two cats for feet or two very small wheels for feet? Also please tell us why.

There is only one right answer to this and that is cats. First, you can already have wheels for feet if you want, it’s called roller blades. Why would you choose something you can already have? And honestly, even with cats for feet, you could still probably cram them into something with wheels. Or give them their own little roller booties.

Second, some people would probably gripe about cats not doing what you tell them, they’ll drag you all over the place, etc. Important point here, who cares. Let them take the wheel, see what happens. If you want to go somewhere, figure out how to manipulate them. Now’s your chance to really figure out how to be a cat whisperer. If you don’t, at the very least you’ll be free of the chains of your boring and irresistible habits.

Third, on a personal note, my gross motor skills never really fully matured, and cats always land on their feet, so this would likely be an improvement for me, whereas wheels might significantly flatten my face over time. 

Some Questions with Holland Patent Public Library

What was the creative drive behind your 2020 release “Quiet, or You’ll Wake Them and They Will Disappear Forever”?

I honestly just wanted to release some music. After I did Approximosey and sort of assessed what the game was to become a successful musician, it just didn’t appeal to me. Music is a personal endeavour for me. So once I decided not to play the successful musician game, I felt like, well I should just do exactly what I want to do, make exactly the music I want to make. And from there I started another album and promised myself to let it take as long as it would take, explore all the rabbit holes, do as much as I could to translate what I had in my head into reality. I think a good few musicians will tell you that this approach could take forever, and indeed I’ve been picking away at this thing for years at this point.

I’m still committed to that approach for that particular project, but earlier this year I just felt the urge to release stuff, probably as a creative vacation. I went through a bunch of demos, stuff I assumed I would circle back to and work on, but seeing how long this other album was taking, I decided to do the opposite and just release them as is. They’re all songs I thought had potential, usually recorded in one session, and I wanted to preserve that feeling of unrealized potential. I’ve always enjoyed demos for that reason, you get to compare them to the finished product and try to hear what was invisible at the time. I like listening to these songs now with all that invisible potential still floating in the cracks and flaws.

Which would you prefer to have a garden or a fish tank? What would you have in it?

I have to say I like both, but if I were to have one I’d probably want to have a fish tank. Having something implies that you’re responsible for it, that your life is wrapped up in it to some extent. You’ll feel the ebbs and flows of what’s inside of it. I think a garden is a lot of external conflict. You’re trying to keep plants alive and safe from the dangers of weather, insects, disease and malnutrition. A garden is assessed on its ratio of life to death. So it’s like a low key horror film: just stay alive. 

A fish tank on the other hand presents a very internal conflict. When you see fish in a tank, you ask yourself, what are they thinking? You put yourself in the bowl and wonder what you would do in that confinement. You watch the fish interact and you imagine what they might think of each other. These are way more intricate questions than the binary “is it alive or dead today?”, to wonder what a creature’s experience of existence is in such a confined and unchanging space. I find that way more compelling. So yeah, a sizable fish tank with a handful of different fish sounds good.

Where does composing a song usually start for you? Is there a usual start?

I’ve tried to start songs in all different ways, just to see what happens. I think my work is better when I’m out of my element and I don’t really know what I’m doing. It prevents unconscious habits from taking over and steering me back toward something typical. That can still happen regardless though, so I try to start in as foreign a place as possible - maybe with a new instrument or start from a vague concept - and then outrun my habits as long as I can.  

One method I do find has produced a lot of music though is learning music from other people. I’ve often gone on kicks where I’ll learn songs that I really admire and from there apply what I’ve learned by writing a song in that style. And while the song might be a failure in terms of how close it mimics the original, I often end up with something interesting in its own right. Or even if I don’t write something good, there’s always value in learning.

Do you have a piece of musical gear that you find yourself returning to often?

Not really. Again, in keeping myself off balance I try a lot of different things. I buy weird instruments I have no idea how to play, or pedals or plugins that have unique sounds. So I don’t really have gear that I come back to, but I am kind of fascinated with strings and stringed instruments. I started on guitar and cello as a kid so strings are my native language, and the more time I spend with them the more versatile they seem. You can pluck them, smack them, scrape them, bow them, vibrate them with magnets (my friend tried using an electric razor as a guitar pick once which allegedly sounded very cool). As an American at least, I understand the cultural context of all these sounds. Americans have generally all heard a guitar strummed or a violin bowed, and I know the instances in which they probably heard them. So if I do something new with strings, it’s not an emotional blank slate because it will start from a well-understood anchor point and then stretch into a distant orbit where I can find a very complex emotional iteration of that anchor. I’m not at a point where I’ve run out of room to explore either, if anything the more I understand the more possibilities I see. But luckily if I do ever exhaust all the possibilities of strings, there’s always the land of sucking and blowing to explore next. 

Where do you want to take your listeners through your music?

I’m really into mental cinema. Most of my favorite songs have an associated movie in my mind when I listen to it, so to me success as an artist would, one day, be the mastery of conjuring an explicit mental film through sound and music. I think a few of the things I’ve done so far have scratched that surface, but finding what I imagine to exist may take a lot of searching. For now, if I make anything that gets people to close their eyes while they’re listening, that’s probably the best I could hope for.

If you could compare your music to one dish which would it be and why?

Fresh pineapple, because it’s my favorite food. Like I said, music is sort of a selfish endeavor for me because I would carry on with it even if no one ever heard it. But I don’t disregard an audience completely. Art for me has always been like a conduit through which I can know that other people have experienced life in the way that I have, and in return is a way for me to communicate to others, “If you are here, I was here once as well.”  That experience is very grounding. So if my music were a food it would be pineapple because it’s a food that’s important to my mouth, and if it’s important to yours too, then we share a common understanding. 

What are your most important values as a musician?

Experimentation. For me experimentation is like a form of community service. It’s expanding the vocabulary and creating tools for others to express themselves. Every failed experiment is an opportunity for someone else to come along and go, oh you just have to use it this way and now it’s awesome. Then you’ve helped someone find their voice and you’ve helped continue the evolution of music. To me that’s pretty valuable. Personally, I actually don’t think I’ve experimented nearly enough yet, but I treat values as statements of aspiration.

Any final comments? (This is your electronic soapbox for one last answer.)

We should probably start making better children’s content because the media for kids these days is absolute trash. Why are we wasting time trying to change dipshit adults who know how to rationalize their dipshittery when we could make a beloved children’s show and indoctrinate the youth with the future we want to live in? Again, statement of aspiration here.