Q&A: Sonic Architects Quiet Houses Construct a Vibrant World of Intimacy and Gentle Relatability In “What My Heart Is For”
ROOTED IN THE CINEMATIC ART OF IMMERSION — Quiet Houses’ latest track, “What My Heart Is For,” envelopes listeners in an ocean of dreamy melodies, luring us into their world of relatability and the relief in feeling seen. Inspired heavily by a love of films, each Quiet Houses track plunges listeners into a delicate, vibrant sonic world, translating feelings, places, and people in an abstract yet universally familiar language.
Gentle, vivid, and intricate, the track proffers a soft landing for the 20-somethings with big dreams and even bigger fears. Dripping with hopeful enthusiasm onto a bed of deep, pensive lyrics, “What My Heart Is For” effortlessly captures the highs and lows of chasing dreams and building your perfect world in your twenties. Sonically, its inspiration comes from the shoegaze and dream pop genres, creating a brand new sound that still pays homage to the duo’s previous work.
Originally from Edinburgh, Quiet Houses was born not out of a conscious decision to create together, but rather through a connection formed via their individual love for music and music creation, which slowly morphed into creating together. Forming a friendship out of frequent dives into the Glasgow music scene, it feels almost inevitable that the pair now enjoy playing for Glasgow audiences, made up of the same fans they’re looking forward to playing for at their gig at the King Tuts venue at the end of February.
Read on below to sink a little deeper into the vivid, extrospective world of Quiet Houses, as they dive into their latest track, their inspirations, and hopes they have for the year ahead.
LUNA: Congrats on “What My Heart Is For”! What are you trying to communicate to listeners through the track?
QUIET HOUSES: “What My Heart Is For” is about being in your twenties, having big dreams, and the ridiculousness of pursuing them. We love writing in a very observational way, creating vivid pictures so the listener feels like they can see the people and places in the song or put themselves in the situation we are describing. Although the lyrics are pretty depressing at points, the big melodies and lush, dreamy production give the song a triumphant, hopeful feeling that was important for us to capture. Being an ambitious 20-something-year-old can be terrifying, but we hope this song helps you to romanticize it all a bit.
LUNA: Can you tell us a bit about the inspiration behind the track?
QUIET HOUSES: We are both big film nerds and we had been obsessing over this film Local Hero. It’s about this big American oil company fixer who is sent to Scotland to buy up an entire village and build a refinery but gradually … finds himself having a change of heart. It’s a film about love and figuring out what’s important to you, and it has a lot of common themes with the music we were writing.
We actually ended up shooting all of the visuals for this campaign in the same place it was filmed! Musically, we had been listening to lots of shoegaze and dream pop bands like Beach House, Slowdive, the Cocteau Twins, and Hatchie, as well as lots of guitar heavy music (Teenage Fanclub, TTNG, Alvvays, and The Cure).
LUNA: Sonically, what’s your favorite thing about “What My Heart Is For”?
QUIET HOUSES: We love the bridge so much. Recording that big, bloomy vocal stack was so fun, and the flat seven chord just feels so good. Our producer, Jake, and drummer, Kieran, also smashed it with the drums — they sound massive.
LUNA: I like that you’re starting the new year off with a much livelier sound than in previous work. Is this something we can expect more of as the year progresses?
QUIET HOUSES: Definitely! We’ve started playing more with a band, which lets us explore more expansive, dreamy shoegaze territory. We don’t like to put ourselves in a box too much because we still love writing the intimate songs, but we’re definitely more of an indie-pop band rather than an indie-folk band now.
LUNA: What initially brought the duo together?
QUIET HOUSES: We’ve known each other for pretty much our whole lives, which is a bit mad, but we first bonded over music in the last year of school when we would get the Megabus to Glasgow to see gigs. There was never a moment when we thought, “Let’s start a band,” really. We just started writing songs separately and showing them to each other, and then gradually we realized it was a band and we should probably choose a name!
LUNA: What are the biggest inspirations that fuel your creativity?
QUIET HOUSES: We get inspiration from so many places: going to gigs, listening to music, films, people watching, having good conversations, and from our musician friends. The feeling of going to an incredible gig or listening to your favorite song is what keeps us going. If we could ever make someone else feel like that [while] listening to our music, then we will feel like we have achieved something meaningful.
LUNA: How would you describe the atmosphere you build with your music?
QUIET HOUSES: World-building is extremely important to us. We want our music to be very immersive and for the listener to feel like they are somewhere else as soon as you hit play. We love dreamy, expansive production and intimate vocals.
LUNA: You’re headlining King Tuts at the end of February — how are you feeling about that?
QUIET HOUSES: Tuts is one of our favorite venues ever — we are so excited to be headlining! We love a Glasgow crowd. We can’t wait to play with the band again, too. They are amazing.
LUNA: On that note, what is your favorite track to play live, and why?
QUIET HOUSES: We played the new single live a couple of times last year and loved it! It’s good fun and gives the set a real lift.
LUNA: What are you most looking forward to in 2024, personally or professionally?
QUIET HOUSES: We have just moved to London and we’re so excited to be here. It’s big and exciting and we are so keen for new musical collaborations and to write with new artists. We are also much closer to the studio we use, too, which is very exciting, so hopefully lots of time in there and lots of new music!
