![\"Well](\"http:\/\/www.stylusmagazine.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/Well-Sister_Photo-Eric-Roberts_01-500x333.jpg\")
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By Talula Schlegel<\/strong> The former singer of From Giants had been creating and performing her new songs since the band\u2019s dissolution and is now officially presenting them, accompanied by a handful of talented musicians, as a more refined version of her known work. The result is an entrancing and enchanting collection of songs. <\/span>Stylus<\/span><\/i> got a chance to sit down with her in a busy Sherbrook Street caf\u00e9 for an exclusive interview on the inspiration for the EP.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Stylus: Tell me about the name for the EP. What meaning does it posses for you? <\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jaymie Friesen:<\/b> (Laughs) That\u2019s a big one\u2026I knew that \u201cSacred Sights\u201d would be the single. I felt like it was maybe the strongest song, but I felt like it spoke most truly\u2026 it was kind of the anger of that album. It felt right to name the album that. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Stylus: The lyrics in the song \u201cFalling,\u201d \u201cPlease don\u2019t stop your singing, you are my songbird\u201d have always really stood out for me. Alongside being very beautifully written and sung, they have a sense of yearning to them as if you had a guide that you now covet. Can you explain what this song means to you?<\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Stylus: I always interpreted the song as \u2018to someone\u2019 but it\u2019s more introspective than that. <\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n JF: <\/b>It\u2019s both. It\u2019s a reference to myself and to people around me, or to anybody who sings and anyone who just expresses themselves – don\u2019t stop doing that! That\u2019s what keeps us alive, y\u2019know? Also I think in some ways the crux of that song is the line, \u201cnow we see the battle lost it\u2019s just as worthy as a battle won.\u201d I think it’s about even when we are defeated and broken and we\u2019ve failed and we\u2019re just down and out in the dirt, that\u2019s where we find connection. That\u2019s where we find love, and that\u2019s where we meet as souls.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Stylus: The second song on your album, \u201cSacred Sights\u201d touches upon feelings of doubt, worry, distance, and redemption in some form. They also mention a bomb being dropped on these sights. What is the literal translation of the poetry in this song?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n JF: <\/b>It\u2019s a hard one. The whole song came out of a conversation I had with a friend about, why make art? Why make beautiful things when the world\u2019s going the way it’s going? It seems so futile, our attempts to restore life. We feel so overpowered by mass forces in this world that are just destroying places that are so sacred. I mean life is all sacred. I think that verse\u2026 it\u2019s this picture that came to me of someone walking to this site that\u2019s just been blown up and their heart is aching and it\u2019s a catastrophe but they\u2019re not overwhelmed by that. They\u2019re just going to slowly pick up their tools and use their hands and are going to start making something worthwhile. It\u2019s still worthwhile to make something beautiful in this shit. <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Stylus: I\u2019ve heard that the song \u201cAudrey\u201d takes inspiration from a woman you sang for in a care home. Can you tell me what that experience was like and in which ways she influenced you to write this song? <\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Stylus: \u201cHands\u201d is one you wrote while traveling in Spain. How was that trip for you and in which ways did the elements of that journey shape this song? <\/b> <\/p>\n Stylus: Which song is best at bringing you back to the experience that it\u2019s about?<\/b> <\/p>\n Stylus: When do you find your music comes most fluidly? <\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n JF:<\/b> Probably when I\u2019ve been troubled or disturbed by something. When I\u2019ve had some sort or emotional experience that is disconcerting to my heart, often my music is trying to make sense of something. Often troubling experiences are something we need to make sense of. It\u2019s not to say I don\u2019t make music when I\u2019m not troubled by something, it\u2019s just I have to do this. It\u2019s therapeutic for me. The EP is more isolated experiences I went through, but there definitely have been a series of song that have come out of one experience and its repercussions. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Talula Schlegel Jaymie Friesen released Sacred Sights \u00a0from her solo project Well Sister early this November. Friesen had been tracking and mixing this EP since January, and finished the project four months later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n<\/span>Jaymie Friesen released <\/span>Sacred Sights<\/span><\/i> \u00a0from her solo project Well Sister early this November. Friesen had been tracking and mixing this EP since January, and finished the project four months later. <\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>JF:<\/b> The line \u201cyou are my songbird,\u201d that\u2019s maybe a call out to what keeps me alive, that\u2019s song and music. So it\u2019s kind of for myself, \u2018don\u2019t stop singing.\u2019 I often remind myself not to stop singing but (it\u2019s) also for other people\u2026song is food and song is healing. One of the things that\u2019s challenging about talking about my songs is that there\u2019s never a cohesive narrative. It\u2019s not like I can just break it down, because often I have lots of different images and words and I kind of just mold them into something. So I can’t really say this song is about X-Y-Z. I think maybe the essence of \u201cFalling\u201d is about human brokenness, and that in our brokenness we are together and that should be understood. <\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>JF:<\/b> A thing I\u2019ve done for the past couple years is one-on-one music with residents at the Misericordia (Hospital)\u2026 I had this three year, I guess you could say friendship, with Audrey and I never really got to know her because her cognitive ability to speak and express herself was quite low. I wrote the song while sitting with her. The guitar part came from our time spent together, then weirdly the song is about watching Audrey and her life alone and, in light of that, my own desire at the time to never get married or never have a family, and so I saw a parallel. I always felt a very kindred to Audrey and so it was always kind of like I found myself in her. The song is also about a heartbreak or the end of relationship. It\u2019s a couple different stories that weave together. <\/span><\/p>\n
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\n<\/b>JF: <\/b>When I was there I was walking the Commune of Santiago, which is a pilgrimage in northern Spain. I just walked for five weeks. \u201cHands\u201d kind of came out of this spiritual crisis I was having on the walk that really had to do with this really awful rash I had on my hands. In a very literal way, the song was actually about my hands but it\u2019s also a metaphor for what hands mean to me. I think the song came out of this place of not understanding how healing works, and why do some things in life heal and some things don\u2019t. How come, on this trip, did my ankle heal, but not my hands? \u00a0Now I extrapolate that into life\u2026 that\u2019s something I often struggle with. Why did that person suffer from mental illness their whole lives and that person didn\u2019t? So it\u2019s me, at the heart of that song, wrestling with that question. \u00a0But I have hope! I experience healing in some parts of my life, and others that haven\u2019t. The song is talking about hands and feet but I would say it\u2019s more figurative even though at the time I was literally talking about my hands and feet. <\/span><\/p>\n
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\n<\/span>JF: <\/b>It depends on the day. Sometimes it just depends on how it sounds in a certain space too. I think the one that demands me to feel the most emotion is \u201cSacred Sights.\u201d It\u2019s like that with all my songs, but that one in particular. I can\u2019t really perform that song unless I\u2019m willing to be in it. It requires emotion to present or share it.<\/span><\/p>\n