Holly Palmer has had a long and varied career, yet she says that her new album Metamorphosis (Colorfield Records) is “full of feelings I’d not yet found a way to express.” A collaboration with producer and multi-instrumentalist Pete Min, Metamorphosis was built through improvisation and experimentation, which provided the initial foundations for tightly focused compositions. With no genre in mind, the duo allowed different styles to emerge naturally as the music evolved. The result is jazz-inflected art-pop that is warm and inviting, yet uncategorizable. Rather than featuring lyrical vocals, Palmer explores the use of the voice beyond language through layering, texture, and atmosphere.
After graduating from Berklee College of Music, Palmer made her major-label debut with a self-titled album in 1996. Continuing to release solo material over the years, she has also collaborated with many notable artists. Palmer appeared on David Bowie’s 1999 album Hours and was part of his live band from 1999 to 2000. Other artists she has worked with include Gnarls Barkley, Seal, Michael Bublé, Billy Preston, and Dr. Dre.
Over Zoom, Palmer discussed the making of Metamorphosis.
Since this is somewhat of a different type of album for you, could you talk about how this project came about?
Holly Palmer: I called my friend Pete Min one day last year for a catchup. A few minutes into the conversation, he said, “Hey Holl, do you wanna make a record?” I said, “Yes! But I don’t want to write song-songs right now. I’d like to use my voice like a horn player.” He said, “No songs, that’s cool. Just come in.”
He told me it’d be different than any other way I’d worked, and it’d be weird at first, to totally let go, and that it’s not for everybody, but if I trusted him, we’d let the music tell us what it was, what it needed and what to do next. I’d play various instruments and sing whatever ideas I had in the moment and we’d see where that took us.
I had no idea how it would unfold or that we’d end up with such a personal album, full of feelings I’d not yet found a way to express. I was surprised to hear a story emerge and to feel such a clear thematic through-line when we were finished.
Did you have any ideas or goals going into it?
Holly Palmer: We wanted to make something new. We were not aiming for a certain genre, like jazz, pop or soul – but we were open to let styles come through if that’s where the music wanted to go.
I sang a lot of closely voiced vocal parts, creating little improvised choirs, focusing on each passage and layering it with other vocal parts. The improvising was the writing, and it was a pretty natural process.
We responded to what we liked, or wanted to add, or change about what the other was doing. There was a freedom about the process which I really enjoyed. When we hit a moment where it wasn’t clear what to do next, we moved on to something else, returning later to it, in a new light on another day.
Are there any particular ways that you feel it evolved as you went along?
Holly Palmer: We were a few tracks in, before we found our groove. By about our third or fourth session, things started taking shape. Pete likes to put people on percussion or drums to get a rhythm track going, though there’s no formula. It’s a spontaneous approach.
On For The Love Of It, Pete set up some drums and percussion instruments for me to play and I noodled around. Though I played percussion on tour with Bowie, in that setting I learned the parts and how to play them for each song specifically. But in this setting with a blank canvas, I was shy at first, and would sometimes stop and say, ‘I don’t like it, this is boring and not good,” to which Pete would say, “Just keep going. Don’t give up so easily.” Or I’d play around with making different drums sounds and typically end up playing a backbeat. Pete would say, “No backbeats, just play around.” And though I was sometimes uncomfortable not doing the things I would normally do – he encouraged me to just stay there and express myself in new ways. Gradually I’d start finding little moments and expressions that we’d catch, and then we’d either build a track around them or fold them into what we were already working on.
Some days, Pete set up keyboards for me to play as a first step, like on omw!. That one is built on something I played on the Juno 8 synth, which I thought we might replace later, but which remained the body of the song. We made each song by starting with one idea, either an a cappella vocal line, synth or rhythm track. We’d work with that idea, adding voices or creating the sections, until we both liked what was happening. Then we’d add something else, and so on, sometimes staying with one piece all day. Or sometimes, after an hour it would feel done for the moment and one of us would say, “We need to get Benny, or Tim and Mark on this and then we’ll take it from there.”
On Requiem for a Dream, I’m still surprised at how that one went down. Though it sounds like a kind of futuristic organ and choir piece to me, it’s a duet between Pete and me, created live in the same room in his smaller studio, with me on the mic and he on a little resonator box called a “Meng Wingie” As I sang, Pete would adjust a knob on the box reacting to my melodies. What you hear is largely how it went down in the moment, that one and only time.
Did you tend to basically complete a track and then move on, or were there a lot of pieces in progress at the same time?
Holly Palmer: We’d usually have a few going at the same time. With Deconstructed Aria—I think that was the first one—Pete said, “It would be great to get Mark Guiliana on this.” And I thought, “Oh, yeah, that would be amazing.” I hadn’t played with Mark before, but I knew his playing and he and my friend Tim Lefebvre were the rhythm section on Bowie’s Blackstar. The idea of playing with them was really exciting. So we left that track without a rhythm section for a while, planning to bring them in when we had a couple of pieces ready.
When we got to Metamorphosis (Capes Up!), it was the same thing—we wanted Mark and Tim to come play on it. And then with Jeff Parker, it was like, “Wouldn’t it be cool if he played on these two as well?” So we took those tracks as far as we could without them, then brought them in to add their parts.
Other songs were different. With For the Love of It, I sang it, and played balafon and drums and then when Tim came in—he added bass, and when he was done with his part, it felt finished. We treated each piece individually, asking what it needed.
Toward the end, I really wanted to find a piece for my friend Cuong Vu to play trumpet on. We’ve known each other since high school and later were roommates in Boston. He’s such a unique musical force—he leads his own groups, and played with Bill Frisell, and with Pat Metheny, winning Grammys along the way. Back in New York, Cuong would play in my band. It was a kind of chamber-soul setup: Cuong on trumpet, Jay Bellerose on drums, Robin Macatangay on guitar. We played a show at Brownies one night with Earl Slick on guitar and David Bowie and some of the band came out, to the delight of everyone there. David loved Cuong’s playing and shortly after that brought him into the studio to play on Toy, his album which we were recording at the time.
As we got to work on our last track, I was hoping it would work for Cuong to play on it. Pete set up the Rhodes for me and at some point he said, “This is good.” I laughed because to me it didn’t sound like much. But Pete said, “No, this works, you’ll see—now let’s add some vocals.” It was really nice to be able to go with Pete’s instincts in these moments. Lovely to trust in his ideas. I layered in some sounds and then we sent it to Cuong up in Seattle. He did a few trumpet passes, which we wove together and that became the last thing we finished.
Do you think this material might be adapted to live performance?
Holly Palmer: Yes, I’m working on that now. Since this is a studio album, where Pete’s studio chops shape the overall sound, it presents questions about what is essential to recreating it live. As we answer those, we’ll develop arrangements and hopefully start playing this music in concert soon.
The tricky and fun part is the vocal arranging. A lot of it is this very tight, close voicing—where I’m singing half-steps, which are dissonant notes, against each
other. I’m considering which parts will be sung by live singers in a choir and which I could recreate live by layering them myself using a looping pedal in performance.
Another idea I’m excited about is collaborating with a choreographer and dance in some form. There’s so much rhythmic variety in this music, and I would love to see it interpreted through movement. I’m interested to see what I would learn about the music through a dancer’s discoveries.
What do you think you’re creatively taking away from this project? Do you feel it might influence your future work?
Holly Palmer: I think so. I like the immediacy of the music. I’m intrigued by the way that the melodic, sonic, and textural ideas became like maps or catalysts for the accompanying instruments. To me, the album almost sounds like it’s singing. Like everyone playing is singing together on their various instruments.
I like this way of writing, where I’m not interpreting ideas or emotions by putting words to them. I can express them vocally, and then invite other musicians to respond, weave their ideas into, and further shape the music. The result is a whole that has a clear identity—each song feels like its own little universe that’s easy to feel and understand in your own way as a listener.
It reminds me of a quote about writing that says something like, “I write what I feel, so I can see what I say.” I was surprised to learn that there was a lot that this album was specifically about, that I didn’t know was inside, waiting to be expressed.
That’s what excites me: the openness. And at the same time, I was specific with my imagination, ideas, sounds, and the music. That balance is something I’d love to carry into future work.
Did a lot of thought go into the track order and how the music would flow?
Holly Palmer: As each song was finished, ideas would pop into my head. How It Started came early on—two or three tracks in—and I thought, “This is the beginning. This is how this album starts.”
Some of the songs seemed to name themselves. For example, when we were working on what became These Little Depth Charges, I kept thinking, “This one’s for Jay.” The track had that kind of doo-wop feel and I was curious what Jay would make of it, and what he might play on it. I kept thinking, “This one’s for Jay,” and sorta thought that might be the title. Then in the session when Jay came to play, he described these sonic bursts on the drums that he was doing as “these little depth charges.” And I thought, yes, These Little Depth Charges, that’s it. That phrase captured exactly what the song was about: those subtle explosions of information or emotion inside your body that you may not always notice or deal with, but they’re there.
So the titles emerged naturally, and I wrote them down on lists in my notes app on my phone—Deconstructed Aria, Metamorphosis, and so on—and then I started arranging and rearranging them. I realized that with How It Started opening the album and Metamorphosis near the end, the songs in between seemed to line themselves up as stages of a journey, leading from beginning all the way through to personal transformation. The closing track, To Be Continued, felt like a way of saying, “And this isn’t finished—there’s more to come.”
That’s often how songwriting feels: sometimes the songs just arrive and you’re lucky enough to catch them, other times you know there’s something you have to say. And sometimes it’s both. In this case, at a certain point I realized that this album was about a kind of liberation for me—creatively, and in the bigger picture of my life.
When I started out as a songwriter, I thought my path was clear: I’d write songs, go on tour, make records. But life rarely goes the way we imagine. I struggled with record companies, and in 2009 my son was born with multiple medical issues. He’s an absolute joy, and helping him live his best life has been both incredibly challenging and wholly transformative.
After we recorded Requiem for a Dream, as I listened back I realized that this one is about letting go of what I thought was going to happen, honoring that, and making room in my heart for acceptance. Each track became a touchstone along the way, marking stages of struggle, love, release, freedom, joy, movement, energy, and surprise – culminating in that final desire to keep evolving as expressed in the last song, To Be Continued. Cause we’re never really finished, are we?
For more info, visit hollypalmerlife.com. Purchase Metamorphosis from hollypalmer.bandcamp.com.
