Q&A: Tutara Peak Expands His Atmospheric Sound in New EP ‘Of the Nescient Mind’
IT’S BEAUTIFUL WATCHING SOMEONE DISCUSS THEIR PASSIONS — to be enthralled by their curiosity and obsessed with their art. This was my experience catching up with producer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and music aficionado Harvey Carter, the man behind Tutara Peak.
Carter is the quintessential music nerd — he radiates adoration for music in every answer he gives about his craft. Carefully explaining his process in a humble manner, he emphasizes his dedication to his music, which he views as art to dive into rather than a product to consume. Carter is driven by curiosity of sound and a commitment to his craft as a musician, not by ego or accolades. His sound has always been colorful, unique, and intentional, but he expands on these elements in his new EP, Of the Nescient Mind, creating a wholly unique venture.
Of the Nescient Mind is a blend of sonic complexity and tranquility. Pulling elements from his electronic roots, Carter intertwines new folk and country inspirations. You can hear these influences in the catchy guitar melodies, groovy breakdowns, and mix of organic sounds with high-caliber electronic elements. Each song is rich in texture and meticulously produced, flowing from one to the next seamlessly. Carter has a natural ability to create dreamscapes in his music, as each song produces powerful visuals in the listeners' minds as the melodies seep into your brain.
Luna sat down with Tutara Peak to discuss the process of making Of the Nescient Mind and explore how Carter stays motivated as a musician. Read below to learn more about this passionate artist.
LUNA: Congratulations on your latest EP, Of the Nescient Mind! I love how intentional every decision felt on the EP. How are you feeling now that those songs are released into the world?
CARTER: When it comes to bodies of work, I don't look to release something just to have a collection of songs out. It's important to have intention behind the music that I make.
LUNA: Focusing on the word “release,” in terms of putting work out into the world, do you feel as though you let go of control of your work when you release it?
CARTER: That's exactly the way I see [it]! My philosophy is that once it's released, it's no longer yours. It's everyone else's. It’s interesting that you have a similar thought as well. I put my time, effort, and emotions into this [project], and once I put it out, it's there for everyone else to enjoy. At [the time of release], it can sometimes be difficult to enjoy as much because you've listened to it millions of times. So it feels good. It's always nice to release a body of work, as opposed to singles, because it gets me thinking a lot more.
LUNA: Yeah, and I bet it brings up different conversations with your fans because they have to set aside time to sit down and listen to it.
CARTER: One major thing I'm always considering — more so these days than in previous years — is people's time and attention, and keeping that quite precious thing. I think everyone's attention has been drawn to many different things. Everything going on in the world at the moment has me thinking, “Why do I need to put out more music? Why does anyone need to put out any more music?”
So putting a lot of thought and effort into it allows the EP to be a moment-to-moment thing where you can just sit down and listen to a song off the EP or listen to the whole thing. Overall, you get to enjoy that moment of it. If you play the singles game, people go, “Oh, this is a cool song,” and then someone else releases another song and yours gets lost in the shuffle. So I feel like with an EP, the attention is held for a bit longer.
LUNA: In your EP, you have two collaborations — with Flaws and Winnifred. Can you talk about how those came to be?
CARTER: The first one … with my friend Flaws … was a bit of an eye-opener for the rest of the EP. This EP has changed many times — specifically the tracklist has been quite dynamic. So one of my songs on the EP, called “Gold In Autumn,” came from an idea I started a few years ago. I left that idea up to the second chorus, so [the new version] started from the beginning of the second chorus. It had this breakdown, and I wanted to do a big final third chorus. I had four or five final chorus ideas. I showed my manager one of those ideas, and he said it sounded like a song by itself. So that’s what initially started “Wind Atlas,” without vocals or anything. That opened my eyes to the thought that there are always ideas hiding within other ideas.
So I had the chorus for “Wind Atlas,” but there was one element missing. One day I worked on it all morning, and then one of my guitar cables broke. So I went into town to the last music shop, and they only had one guitar cable, which was 10 feet long. I had no cash, but the store was cash only so I went to the bank. [Outside the bank] there was this busker just jamming out. I listened and was like, “That sounds pretty interesting!” So I recorded it on my phone and when I got home, without even thinking, I put that busker sample in the song. Crazy enough, the sample was more or less the same tempo and the same key as the song I was working on. It just perfectly fits in there.
At that point, I sent it off to Flaws asking for his thoughts. Then he laid down some killer top lines and backing vocals, and we workshopped it. So that’s how that song came to be — it was quite a lengthy journey for that one. Some people can smash out a song in a week, which I have done before, but it's the songs that have a journey… I always like telling their stories.
The other collaboration was “Orbit” with Winnifred. We met for the first time when she came to London. She's originally from Townsville in Australia, and she came to London in May last year. Initially we got together to write some stuff for her projects. We quickly smashed up something for her, and in the last hour of the session we threw anything at the wall musically and just played.
She came up with the top line for “Orbit” and I came up with the music for it. The song started to sound very sleepy and lo-fi, which was its own vibe but it's not my sort of thing. From that point, I took her top line and transformed everything else around the top line. So that song came out of that, and after going back and forth over email for a while we had a finished track. It's crazy to know that most of that song was done in 45 minutes. There are a lot of cool journeys on this EP.
LUNA: That’s super cool! I think the “Orbit” journey is similar to the “Wind Atlas” one, where an idea comes out of another idea — it just happened to be an idea from a different session, instead of an idea from a different chorus.
CARTER: Yeah! I think “Orbit” also came from not thinking too critically. After a whole day of being in the studio, you can be quite critical because you've just been using your entire brain and emotions. So just allowing yourself to be a kid in the studio is how that song worked out so well.
Photo by Christopher Brown
LUNA: I love that! Play is such a big part of my creative process too. Who would you like to collaborate with in the future?
CARTER: I'd love to see what it is like collaborating with Blake Mills. He's just got a completely abstract way of working with music. I'd love to get in his brain and see what's going on inside there. I think working with Blake would be a really interesting experience… I don’t know what would come out of it, and I find that the most exciting.
LUNA: In an ideal world, what does your setup for a performance of this EP look like?
CARTER: I'd like to get both Flaws and Winnifred to perform their songs with the band — that’s something I've never done before, performing with vocalists. I’d love a live drummer. Hell, while we’re at it, why not have two drummers! I saw Bon Iver two years ago with two drummers and I had never seen that before, but it works so well. I’d also love a heck of a lot of synthesizers. I'm a big fan of the kalimba and thumb pianos. I've never seen it been done, but imagine an entire orchestra of kalimba — how would they even sound? They've got ukulele orchestras, but not for kalimba. I think creating a massive sound out of a tiny instrument is a really interesting thought.
LUNA: You mentioned that the trajectory of the EP has changed a few times. In general, I know that putting a whole body of work together can be a bit of a grueling feat, or at least emotionally draining. How did you keep yourself motivated?
CARTER: Through writing this EP, I was learning a bit more about my identity in this project — which I'm still exploring, even post-EP. I come from electronic roots, with some organic fields in it. I have dived into some folk and acoustic stuff as well, but it was not always in my repertoire. So throughout writing that entire EP, I wasn't ever really inspired by electronic music. I was heavily inspired by a lot of country and folk music. It was just a really nice period of music to be enjoying, especially a lot of the newer stuff coming out. So writing this EP was [all about] trying to understand who I am as an individual and what this EP actually means to me.
I think at this point, now that it's out, I've kind of understood that every body of work for me is a time capsule. Sometimes you can look at older projects and compare them to new ones and think, “Oh, this wasn't as good as we used to do it.” However, since this EP has come out, I've looked at it as the project [being] a previous version of me, as opposed to when I was worse. It's just a Harvey of the past. Overall, I hope to get better each time and learn to deal with the mental setbacks that I can often give myself just from wanting something really good out of the process. I think everyone goes through that, they just manifest it in different ways.
LUNA: Do you have any upcoming shows, or projects planned?
CARTER: I don't have any shows planned as of yet. I'm just currently working on another EP/body of work … I'm releasing a lot of music this year. I've got my schedule for releases until November locked in now. So I’ve been working on a lot of collaborations and on some film stuff, which I can't really talk too much about.
LUNA: That's super cool. Does it feel good to have all those releases lined up?
CARTER: Yes, but very overwhelming at the same time. We've planned these releases to come out at specific times, but not all of it is finished. So I've got to look to finish a lot of it, and then also do the art direction. Additionally, I'm producing for a bunch of other people as well. When it comes to any music that I work on, obviously, I put a lot of intention into it. So I don't want it to ever be a rushed thing, which is why I think I find it overwhelming. I'm disregarding that it's a lot of work, but maybe just because I just want it to be really good.
LUNA: Totally, that's a classic producer mentality!
CARTER: Exactly! I said this to my brother the other day: I feel like I love music, probably 99%, because there's 1% that makes me intensely upset when I can't get it right. I think it's that balance — you work on something all day in the studio, and if you're vibing the only thing that tells you to stop is your stomach rumbling. However, some days it can be long, and nothing ever really works. I think that's part of it too, though. I think if you're 100% in it, you've got to accept all the potential negative things to come from it as well. The way I look at it is if I've had a few bad things happen in my day and then a bunch of good things happen, it makes it a balanced day. A balanced day is a good day.
LUNA: That's the same realist perspective you had in keeping yourself motivated and not hyper comparing your current self to your past self.
CARTER: Yeah! One other thing that has just been keeping me motivated is that I am very grateful that I get to do this. Some people don't get that. So for the sake of actually making it worthwhile, I put all my 100% into music, because I'm aware that it's hard to get into this world. If it is your life, why would you not be grateful for that? I think for some people it's hard to be more humble. I think for me, I've always tried to remain as humble as possible, because it's never a bad thing, especially in this industry.
Photo by Christopher Brown
