By Kristine Villarroel

Photo by Lissyelle / Courtesy of the artist

Harriette Pilbeam walked into her late 20s with a specific perception of herself, as both a person and an artist. Following a wave of lockdown-induced self-reflection, she tore that image down and reconstructed it in her own way. Her upcoming sophomore album, Giving The World Away, reimagines her dreamy sound and explores new sonic avenues.

Following the release of her 2018 EP Sugar & Spice, Pilbeam quickly became an indie darling, and worried that moving too close to a pop sound wouldn’t be the best next move. An alienated fanbase, a loss of momentum, and a misunderstanding of sounds were the fears that haunted the singer-songwriter going into the production of her new record.

She felt as if she had to deliver on promises set by the shoegaze and dream pop sound of her earlier work. “I was really unsure about [“Quicksand”] being like the song that I brought that I came back with after a break because it's so different from my old music,” Pilbeam said in a Zoom interview. “I didn't really want to like alienate anyone by putting out such a dancey track straight up.”

“Quicksand,” co-written by Dan Nigro — the Olivia Rodrigo and Caroline Polachek collaborator — was one of the first songs Pilbeam started working on for the record. The original demo was purely pop, and according to Pilbeam, “even more so than it is now.” She went back and forth between how far pop it was going to be. Still, by the time she got to Los Angeles to work with star producers Nigro and Jorge Elbrecht, she had decided to let the sound evolve naturally without limiting it to a genre label. “I think I'm less concerned about it sounding like one particular thing,” she said.

As Pilbeam came into her own during this period of personal reinvention and healing, she decided to bet on an unrestricted sound, and took control of what she wanted it to be.

The fifth track, “The Rhythm,” stands as the centerpiece of Giving the World Away, Pilbeam’s reclamation of the Hatchie sound. The unconventional yet confident song was intended to make people stop in their tracks during live shows, or when listening to the record. The lyrics align closely with this sonic manifesto:

No reason to go
No space left to grow
It’s moving too fast
When I wanna go slow
No place left to leave
No love
‘Til I took some time for me to find the rhythm

Hatchie’s Harriette Pilbeam sat down with Sunstroke music writer Kristine Villarroel to talk about her artistic growth, the shift in her sound, and her journey of self-discovery throughout the album’s creation.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Let's start from the beginning. How did you start playing music?

I started in bands playing bass, when I was 17, but I always sang and played instruments myself before that. I also come from a musical family, so I was singing from the very beginning.

Do you think that growing up in a musical family influenced you in any way?

To some degree. I think a lot of the music my parents listened to when I was growing up — stuff like Billy Joel, the Beach Boys, Todd Rundgren — had a lot of harmonies in them. My mom sang, as did my siblings, and we were always really encouraged to sing along and sing harmonies to music, so I think that's what gave me a really good ear for harmonies. I have two older sisters and an older brother, and I think all of their music tastes really rubbed off on me as a kid as well. It all kind of came together in subtle ways to influence everything.

This record’s sound is very sonically different from what you’ve done in the past. How did you land there?

Part of it is just, I really wanted to expand my sound to fit a live show more with this record — because with my first EP and my first album, some of it didn't translate as well to a lot of the shows that we were playing. I wanted it to become more of an upbeat live set for my own sake, my band's sake, and for the audience's sake. I just wanted it to be a little more exciting and high-energy, and maybe more dancy, even.

So when we started writing for this record, I wanted to explore stuff like acid house, [1990s] house kind of sounds, and do a bit more like, dancey stuff, which we started with “This Enchanted”. But then with everything happening with lockdown and COVID, we had a lot more time to work on the songs, and they kind of just naturally became a lot more emotional and introspective.

I can definitely hear that dancey-ness in the record, especially with the hooks. They’re so catchy! What is your process for writing them?

If something isn't catching my ear enough, I'll work on it until it's more memorable, because that's what's the most fun about music — being able to remember it really easily and being able to sing along. I do think that top lining and writing vocal melodies that are really catchy is one of my skills. There are a lot of things that I'm not very good at. I'm not very good at instruments, but I think one of the things I am good at is harmonies and catchy melodies. So, to be honest, it's kind of one of the things that come naturally.

How do you think you’ve embraced pop with this new record?

I think what I've always loved to do is to mash pop with other sounds. So even though a lot of the songs are pretty much straight-up pop, if you listen closely, you hear like, you know, elements of other genres — like shoegaze or jazz, or different types of pop. I think that pop isn't something to be ashamed of. I think there's a reason pop music is so big.

What does the phrase "giving the world away" mean, considering the album?

It's about being vulnerable but also protecting your heart. The song "Giving The World Away" is like, from the perspective of me talking to someone who's really unhappy, and trying to tell them to not give their heart away so much, and to try and hold on to their heart, and not just like, let everything get away from them.

And I thought that was the perfect name for the album, because the album is all about vulnerability and understanding yourself, and accepting yourself for who you are, and not letting everything affect you in such a negative way — and trying to hold on to your heart and not give it away.

Did you discover anything about yourself while writing the record?

I realized that I really do have control over how I feel about myself, and it's up to me to stop negative thinking and habits and processes. So it's still something I'm working on. But 2020 was definitely a milestone year for me in figuring myself out.

What did this journey of self-discovery look like for you?

I guess, looking after myself more — and that translated into my health, physical health and mental health, journaling, and putting more effort into my relationships with my family and my friends, and trying to not care about things that weren't affecting me positively.

It all translated into me having more confidence in myself — just caring about myself a bit more, and also dressing in ways that I'd always wanted to dress and just living my life in ways that I always wanted to but felt like I didn't deserve to.

How did your style change?

It just became more confident, and a bit less plain. I started experimenting a little more and not being as nervous about what other people think. I started spending more time picking my clothes out every day, whereas I used to just throw anything on and then hate what I was wearing.

How has your sound evolved from your previous record?

I think that it sounds a little more mature now. When I listen to my old songs, they sound quite girlish and juvenile, which is fine because there were songs that I was writing when I was younger. I think those songs are still important, but I really wanted this album to be more glossy and more Hi-Fi, or the kind of music that would stop you in your tracks — and also less about love and more about, I don't know, everything else.

Finding Her Rhythm: Hatchie Talks New Sound and Self-Discovery

By Kristine Villarroel