Caterpillar Girl

First things first: Vyvienne Long’s debut album Caterpillar Sarabande is an accomplished and sure-footed collection of chamber pop songs, and a serious statement of intent from an artist hitherto best known for her role as cellist in Damien Rice’s and Lisa Hannigan’s live and studio ensembles. The album’s title, in case you were wondering, pertains to the slo-mo dance performed by a Spanish species of caterpillar.

“I knew that humans would find it difficult to dance to these songs,” says the elfin, soft-spoken songwriter on a rainy February midday in Dublin’s Brook’s Hotel. “By nature caterpillars are slower and very graceful, and they’ve a few moves that I’ve never seen a human do. The Spanish caterpillars were the first ones to champion the sarabande, and it spread throughout Europe. I had seen this dance at one of their festivals, and it’s really a great dance.”
Hold on a minute – is she seriously telling us there’s a caterpillar dance festival?
“Well, there’s a season, it’s kind of like Carnivale. And it has to end before human festivals start, because they’d get crushed.”
Right, and there’s also an annual meeting of the lesser-spotted banana slug in North Carolina. They all get together and drop acid and listen to Tuareg flavoured acid house remixes.
“Well, there is a group of caterpillars who go to that religiously every year too.”
They must be very tired when they get there.
“There are great deals if they catch the right leaf.”
Enough of this gnomic frivolity – does Ms Long dance to her own music?
“At the gigs. We do actually attempt an example of the caterpillar sarabande live.”
Okay. Why?
“Well the album is called Caterpillar Sarabande, and I didn’t want people to be in the dark about what the dance actually was.”
And do they play music while they dance?
“No, we down the instruments for this dance.”
So let’s get this straight: only caterpillars can dance to this music, but they, the originators of the music, can’t actually play it while attempting to mimic the caterpillars?
“Well, for the very first time humans are attempting this! And, of course, I don’t know if we do it justice. But it must be witnessed.”
Indeed. As these songs must be heard. Caterpillar Sarabande’s elaborate arrangements belie an admirable simplicity of expression. As Vyvienne explains, this was intentional.
“As I learned more about the recording process and took time with the songs, I started to uncomplicate things and take away stuff as I went along,” she says. “I didn’t want to gloss over mistakes. I was just fussy about it. I took my time writing them, and even more time recording them.”
The result is a collection of songs that sound by turns coquettish, mischievous, irked, cheeky and sometimes downright heartbroken. Pretty much every conceivable manifestation of the human condition gets a look-in.
“I think everybody’s capable of being really silly and really serious,” she observes. “In real life I struggle with the serious! Sometimes I feel a little... exposed, because they are very honest. I think anybody who puts lyrics to music is opening the diary. And I think in the more extreme honesty there’s comedy in what women will come out with and what men wouldn’t say. But then, men in their own company come out with really blunt things too. Depending on how you’re singing them, sometimes the audience laughs and sometimes they don’t. It’s like, ‘I didn’t know that was funny!’”
Does she find it uncomfortable talking about these songs now they’re in the public domain?
“This is the first time I’ve really been asked about them. When I was writing them I wasn’t consciously thinking of universal themes, I was expressing my opinions and feelings, so it’s really good to hear that I’m not alone. It’s just that you don’t hear other people admit to certain things, there’s a pressure on people to present things as great all the time. No matter what choices they’ve made in life, they feel obliged to portray these as the best choices, no regrets, which is great if it is true...”
But it makes those of us who’ve made a muddle of things feel like bit of a heel.
“Well, I don’t know if I am like everybody else, but... Everybody loves people and everybody hates people. It’s really not cool to show irritation, but it’s just the way things go on particular days. If I sought to do anything with these songs it was pick people up from those situations. ‘Happy Thoughts’ is an example of where you end up in a completely unexpected public situation, where you feel really humiliated or hard done by, and you just want to run away or leave the country or not leave your house again – that was just to sort of collect yourself after that situation and carry on.”
Long’s debut was a good while coming. Dun Laoghaire born and bred, and a National Symphony Orchestra standard cellist and pianist, she completed postgraduate studies at the Escola de Musica in Barcelona under the watchful eye of Luis Claret.
“I remember my first introduction to the cello when I was in singing-and-clapping class,” she says. “I remember the day the cellist was brought in and sat down in front of us. I think I was about eight. But I didn’t start playing until years later. It was definitely a turning point when I started playing chamber music with other people, I realised that this might be enjoyable.”
This writer’s first reaction to hearing the sound of a cello was a sort of low-level terror, not unlike the feeling inspired by Lovecraft’s short story ‘The Music of Erich Zann’.
“I’m sure that’s what everyone around me thought too, for the first few years anyway!” she laughs. “I still wonder when I look at some people in the audience!”
On her return to Ireland, Long played on Damien Rice’s O and spent the next five or so years on the road and in the studio as part of his band. She performed her first solo gig in Mother Redcap’s in 2005, released the Birdtalk EP, and became renowned for quirky covers of the White Stripes’ ‘Seven Nations Army’ and NERD’s ‘She Wants To Move’. The week we meet, she will crown her Irish tour with a headlining show at the Sugar Club.
“I’m trying to get my old cello teacher down on Friday,” she divulges. “I don’t know what he thinks. I imagine he’s not impressed, he’s part of the Russian school. I don’t know that they did much cello rock, I don’t think the Soviets encouraged it. But then, my cello teacher did leave the country, he defected!”
Well, whatever the maestro’s verdict, Ms Long’s masterplan seems to have worked out just fine so far.
“I can’t plan today, never mind next week!” she laughs. “My life is just the way it happened.”