While a caterpillar enters a chrysalis before transforming into a butterfly, Eve Parker Finley’s seamless blends of classical, electronic, ambient, indie pop, and folk music create safe spaces for listeners to reconcile with their emotions - and maybe even with their own transformations. The Montreal-based producer, multi-instrumentalist, media maker, and facilitator is premiering “Come With Me” (linked at the end) off her debut album Chrysalia, which will be released on December  4th with Florafone Records and Coax Records. She is also performing at this year’s POP Montreal on the Rialto Theatre rooftop at 3pm on September 24th - tickets are still available to see her IRL! We caught up with her on the new album, making video art, TikTok, and filming a video for virtual Miss Gay Panama 2020. Indulge below:

Maya for Also Cool Mag: You're releasing a new album - what's it about?

Eve Parker Finley: I'm releasing my first full album, and the official date is now December 4th, which is super exciting. It's called Chrysalia, and it's a bunch of songs that I've written over the past year or two years. I recorded it last summer with my friend Ky Brooks and I'm super happy with it. It's called Chrysalia because there's this word, “chrysalism”, that describes that feeling of pleasure you get when you're inside during a thunderstorm. So that, mixed with chrysalis, which obviously everyone thinks is what a caterpillar goes into to be safe and calm before it turns into a butterfly.

But actually, in the chrysalis, the caterpillar turns into a pile of goo and has to reconstitute itself - and it's super messy and gross. So [a combination of] those two things, plus I wanted it to sound a little more feminine, so that's why it's Chrysalia.

MH: You made a post on Instagram where you were talking about the idea of transformation - was that tying into the theme of this album and the title itself?

I feel like I'm always trying to reinvent myself. It ties back to my experiences through life and music. When I was a kid, I was in the classical music world from age four to 17, and I learned a lot through that, but I also found the culture really restrictive.

I remember my violin teacher was even like, "No one can wear nail polish or watches, or even too much jewelry here, because it's distracting,” and we'd play these competitions where people would finish and then bow to the three people in the room - and then everyone would be like, dead silent.

It was such an uptight culture - and no wonder so many people leave and stop playing music because of that. So I fell out of love with music when I was 17 and moved to Montreal. Here I found another way to do music and fell into more of a music scene. I eventually found my way back to violin electronics in a way that I found more exciting.

I started making music on my own, changed the genre of music I was making a bunch of times, changed names a few times. Now we're here in - I don't think my final form - but here we are.

MH: So no longer Lonely Boa? Or is that still a name that you go by for certain projects?

Lonely Boa has been retired.

It was definitely a really hard decision. I spent a lot of quarantine thinking about it. It's really scary to just start releasing music by your own name. That name of Lonely Boa has been really helpful for me to have a constant stage name throughout a bunch of gender name changes. But now it's time to come into my own and just be like, "I'm this person making this music and doing all these other things and they're all me and I am all of them."

MH: Going back to the notion of goo in a cocoon - is there something about the texture of sludge that interested you?

Yeah, totally. There are a couple songs on the album that are what I would describe as sludgy. The album is a kind of mix of genres. There are a couple songs that are contemporary classical, a couple songs that are more like indie pop bangers, alternative pop bangers. And then there are a couple of drone-ey, sludgy songs.

MH: So you're making electronic music that’s meshed with more classical sounds - and maybe you're just creating your own genre - but what influences do you have for that?

For the longest time I had trouble describing what kind of music I made, and then I was like, "Oh, why am I trying to put this into a box?" I don't think people want to listen to just one kind of music anymore. I like to say that my music floats between three points of a triangle, which are indie pop/electronica, drone-y ambient, and contemporary classical.

MH: What are you listening to? What kind of music are you into that maybe isn't even related to what you're making? What do you find cool?

If you scroll through my Spotify "liked" songs playlist, you will find a big mix of pure pop music - you have Gaga, I've been really obsessed with the pussycat dolls recently (again) -  but I also love Tame Impala, indie pop music, I love some R&B, and a lot of folk-y/new folk music. I also love some noise stuff - like ARCA.

MH: What have you been up to these past few months - I noticed you had gotten into video production and were somehow involved in Miss Gay Panama? Like... I need to know.

So, I had a bit of a life change the past half a year. Back in January, I felt burnt out at my stressful job at McGill. I left in January, and then moved into an apartment by myself for the first time - and a month later the shit hit the fan!

 [During lockdown] I really had to learn how to be by myself and how to cancel out everything I thought I was going to do - all the shows, I was going on tour in June - and just  learn how to take care of myself and cook food, do laundry, and sleep.

I wanted to see what would happen if I could really focus on music in the next couple of years. [Because] when the pandemic happened, I was like, "Oh my God, what am I supposed to do? What can I do? What do I need to do?"

I thought about something I could easily share and realized I could start making videos. It seems like all of a sudden many of us [artists] have had to become video creators in a way that we weren't necessarily before.

I helped my friend win Miss Gay Panama Virtual 2020, which was so fun. We produced four different videos for the different categories - and it was really cool that she could participate from afar. We did a scrappy DIY - just a camera, a couple of lights, a little stabilizer borrowed from a friend, and a few friends helping - and we won!

MH: Did you also get into TikTok?

I fell deep into the TikTok hole. I'm not as deep into it as I was a month ago, but it's so weird - it's beautiful and funny and intense, but it's also clearly designed to be this addictive feed of dopamine-releasing content. As much as I find it entertaining and love the medium and the style of wacky videos that people do, I don't want to get caught up in [a fad].

MH: Just last night I watched that Netflix documentary on social media called The Social Dilemma. It's interesting because TikTok and Instagram have been such important points of communication throughout the pandemic, and while we've all binge-scrolled on those platforms and know that they're unhealthy, [during the pandemic] social media has also been really helpful for people to feel less alone.

Don't get me started on The Social Dilemma - I thought it was informative and I agreed with a lot of it, but they kept saying that there's nothing good about social media, that it's not a tool for anything. just an addiction, made for advertising, whatever. But people find community through those things, especially when they're isolated, and I think that's legitimate.

MH: I think it's also an important resource for information that we've all been learning to take advantage of, especially these past few months.

Also good to remember it's controlled by a company.

MH: You're doing music full-time time now, while also not being able to have in-person gigs and go on tour like before - how has that transition been for you?

At first it was terrifying, because I was like, "How is this possible?" The CERB has been really helpful, but I'm not in a place of making any money from music yet. I'm just investing in it now - I'll see what happens. At the beginning it was stressful, but it's also been very exciting to see this real energy to create new things.

There seems to be a new kind of economy popping up, like Bandcamp Fridays, where a hundred percent [of the proceeds] goes to the artists - and that's been super helpful. A bunch of live streaming gigs have also started to happen - I did a gig for Suoni Per Il Popolo and this thing called Arts Cast, and I got paid to do it, and felt awesome to play a show. It was my first show since the pandemic, no audience, but we took the visual of it so seriously - there were five different camera angles, we made the set, designed the colors and everything.

People always find a way to play and share music.

Check out “Come With Me” on Bandcamp

Violin, Vox, Electronics, Sax by Eve Parker Finley
Written by Eve Parker Finley
Recording and Mixing by Ky Brooks
Cello by Alexis Castrogiovanni
Viola by Gwendolyne Krasnicki
Mastered by Harris Newman (Greymarket Mastering)
Recorded at The Pines in Montreal, Quebec

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