How to Dress Well in the dark

On the highly personal and by turns heart-rending Total Loss, Tom Krell – who goes under the stage name How to Dress Well – documents life after (the) death (of a good friend). “And suddenly, I could find my way in the dark.”

The first thing that strikes you when you hear Tom Krell’s intimate music is that sublime falsetto voice, as impressive as it is unreal. Basically, the American producer and songwriter strips the R&B idols of his youth down to the bone and then submerges them in a hallowed bath of drones and echoes. Often, the vocal frills of the charts are the only thing to remain standing on Krell’s profound tracks about dealing with loss. Krell lost a good friend, and more. On Total Loss, you witness his mourning process. You hear him start with a clean slate after the car wreck. Krell’s bedroom sound is rather more polished than on his debut Love Remains, but the contrast between his high voice and the refined electronica that surrounds it is more efficient than ever. So we were quite surprised when our phone call woke him and we were confronted with a deep morning growl that was clearly in need of coffee.

Oh, do you need some more time to wake up?
Tom Krell: [yawning] No, not at all.

I would like to talk about your voice, your falsetto that is. When did you discover you had such an impressive range in your voice – perfect to express your deepest feelings?
Krell: In high school. I had performed with various hard-core bands, but I didn’t do much singing. Screaming, on the other hand… It was only a few years later that I realised I could actually do “beautiful” things with my voice.

On your new album, your falsetto is the driving force behind expressing your mourning process. Was it difficult to write the songs?
Krell: No, not really. Life is much crueller than the soundtrack I have written to it. Look, I lost someone very close to me, and that’s really tough. But beside that I also sing about more everyday loss, about things that we constantly have to leave behind. In that sense, Total Loss is about transformation, and how to deal with it, so that you can move forward. In fact, that constant stream of change is an inexhaustible source of 
creativity.

Is that why there is a moving picture of a death mask on the cover?
Krell: Yes, a death mask of my own face. I made it myself. The picture refers to death and the changes caused by such a radical experience. And yet it is moving. It’s not a picture of a coffin, which I would find much more gruesome. It’s a picture of someone trying to come clean with death… [desperately trying to suppress a yawn] You really know how to pick the right topics for a morning chat.

It may be morning to you, but the neighbours have already started making dinner here. Anyway, we can lighten the conversation.
Krell: [laughing] It’s all good. Anyway, the album is more reflective than really painful. I’ve put that period behind me. It may be telling that after the release of Love Remains, I discovered that I have excellent night vision. Suddenly, I could find my way in the dark. Perhaps it is psychological and I had to drag myself through the pain and sorrow so I could get on with my life. At a certain point I realised that I didn’t want to be sad anymore.

And did music help you through the night, as they sometimes sing?
Krell: Yes, absolutely. Music has a therapeutic effect on me. Not just writing and performing it, but also listening to it, as long as a song appeals to me personally, irrespective of the genre. Both “Candy Bling” by Mariah Carey and “Cut the World” by Antony move me. I don’t just want an artist to tell me about his or her difficult life, they have to grip me emotionally. I try to do the same in my own music. However old-fashioned it might sound, my real goal is community building. Music is a way to get closer to my audience. That is how I find the energy to take a call from Belgium early in the morning.


But isn’t there sometimes an enormous gulf between your highly personal and introverted compositions and the extroversion needed to perform them onstage?
Krell: We spontaneously tend to think that our emotional life is private, and that we should thus stay introverted about it. But then you reject the possibility of a collective emotional experience. Obviously, these songs will sound very introverted if you listen to them in your bedroom, as though I am dragging you into my psyche. When you are in a space with 200 or 300 people, it is perfectly possible to be moved together. It’s my job to make sure both settings have the same emotional tension.

On the album, your falsetto voice certainly creates a great contrast with the broken R&B beats. When did you discover that this combination works so well?
Krell: Onstage! It all developed very organically. When I was on tour with Love Remains, I became a better musician and I discovered the sound of Total Loss. I first sang a few old songs in this style, and now I have created a whole album with it.

What started as an intimate bedroom project has grown into a modest international breakthrough. And what’s more, it doesn’t seem to a bedroom project anymore.
Krell: Call it a bedrooms project. [laughs] I recorded in various bedrooms this time. But what you say is true, I actually visited a studio a few times for this album. It simply produces a purer tonal palette. I wanted a recording with more contours, forms, and colours. In short, more dynamics, so that the vocals and basses would sound really good. But on the other hand, it is still an experimental project.

That emotional tension and dynamism comes out best on the song “Talking to You”, in which you seem to be battling with yourself.
Krell: [enthused] That’s my favourite too! It’s a song about conflicting desires in your head, and how they each beg for your attention separately. Actually, “Talking to You” is a performance, a duet with myself, but it sounds anything but harmonious. It is my attempt to accept all those conflicting desires, and that mounts to a fight sometimes. But I am well aware that I still unite all those feelings – they all whirl around the same head.

How to Dress Well • 19/10, 20.00, €12, Ancienne Belgique, boulevard Anspachlaan 110, Brussel/Bruxelles, 02-548.24.24, info@abconcerts.be, www.abconcerts.be