Sylvan Esso Gets Honest With "No Rules Sandy"
Hypebae speaks to Amelia Meath about their fourth album.
At the beginning of 2022, Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn made a pilgrimage to Los Angeles, writing Sylvan Esso’s fourth album No Rules Sandy. Inspired by the restless itch the pandemic bestowed on us all, the inimitable pop duo wrote the infectious collection of songs in a mere three weeks. Embarking on a creative project unlike any other, Meath and Sanborn channeled their one-of-a-kind creative synergy into a raw and vulnerable record, exploring themes of self-actualization, self-destruction and of course, love.
Sanborn’s high-octane synths and thrumming percussions imbue the album with a sense of carefree energy, while Meath’s haunting vocals and lyrics serve as a bit of an unexpected wake-up call, transporting listeners to a feverish limbo state. The album is a constant loop of sonic excitement as it is spliced with a tender collection of found sounds, creating an auditory memoriam of everyday life’s smallest and most precious moments.
“No Rules Sandy is a return to our first record when we started making music together. The wildest part about the pandemic was not being able to share our music on shows. With that gone, why would you hold yourself to any rules?,” Meath asserts.
This unabashed rejection of the status quo is apparent as the album takes delight in delivering slightly unsettling electronic beats alongside equally unsettling words. “Sunburn” is a pop song through and through, bearing an undeniably catching rhythm, but it’s lyrics point to trappings of the saccharine side of things as Meath sings, “My favorite way to ruin me/to eat the sweet right when I see it/And never stop to think or breathe/It comes to me naturally.”
Writing the album’s ten songs without edits, No Rules Sandy, which is an ode to Sanborn’s nickname, is undoubtedly Sylvan Esso’s most honest album to date and for that reason, might be their best. After experiencing a global health emergency, there is no time to be wasted being inauthentic. “‘Your Reality’ is mostly about being in a state of mind when you are defining yourself in every moment. You can decide how and who you’re going to be and how you’re going to love yourself.”
No Rules Sandy is available to listen on August 12 on Apple Music and Spotify and watch the music video for “Echo Party” below.
Continue scrolling to read Hypebae’s interview with Amelia Meath.
What inspired you to temporarily move to Los Angeles to create No Rules Sandy?
It’s something that we started doing during the pandemic. We live in North Carolina and normally we spend some time in New York and in LA every year, which we couldn’t do any more. The pandemic was very depressing and we loved the idea of getting in the car on January 1 and beginning the year traveling and doing what we love to do best. It’s impossible to write pop music in isolation because it’s all about sexiness, joy and fun. The moment we got to LA, the new COVID wave hit and the Grammy’s were canceled, so we decided to just sit down and write. The weirdest part was that No Rules Sandy literally flowed out in a way that an album never has before. Nick and I are explorers, constantly reacting to the world around us and this album feels like a true embrace of that.
The last album you released was in 2020 when we all experienced a global health emergency. How did the pandemic and its required isolation influence your creative partnership and process?
Of course, everyone was greatly influenced by the pandemic. I think we’ll probably spend the rest of our lives unpacking what the pandemic was like and how it made us feel. Particularly with the opening track “Moving,” when your work is your art, your life and your art become the same thing. Because of that, when I want a break, what I want a break from is living, which is of course impossible. It channels that strange idea of “How do I stop time? How do I not exist?” Usually, I can only achieve that when I’m performing. I find that eventually, I’ll get to a place where I disappear into the music.
Bobby Strickland
Have you become less precious with your art and more experimental?
Absolutely. I think in a lot of ways, No Rules Sandy is a return to our first record when we started making music together. The wildest part about the pandemic was not being able to share our music on shows. With that gone, why would you hold yourself to any rules?
Can you discuss the inclusion of more intimate interludes in the album like voicemails and clips of conversations?
They’re from our actual life. I wanted to include a sort of time capsule of the last year, so Nick and I just dug through all of our voicemails. We’re constantly recording for sounds in the street and all sorts of things, so we just made a big folder of all of these collected sounds.
Where do you think the future of electronic music is going, especially with the arrival of emergent technologies? How do you see that evolving for yourself and your practice, as well as the industry at large?
The thing I’m most excited about is haptic technology because I like to delve into the sensory experience of sound. On TikTok, there’s so much about how a sound makes you feel or with wearables, being able to have something that you can touch and that truly pushes or pulls you is really exciting. I’m really into the metaverse and there’s so much potential to completely change the art world with virtual reality.
In the song “Your Reality,” you sing, “Were there rules originally or/are we learning how to be?/surreal but free.” We’ve all been faced with different levels of reality, not only with the pandemic, but also with the presence of the metaverse. We’d love to hear your intention behind those lyrics.
Writing the lyrics for this record, I never went back to correct them, so they’re much more vulnerable and honest. “Your Reality” is mostly about being in a state of mind when you are defining yourself in every moment. When you’re paying attention to how you want to show up in the world and how you want to react to other people. It’s about being able to raise and take care of yourself in a way that makes for that safe feeling. You can decide how and who you’re going to be and how you’re going to love yourself.
In “Did You Know?,” it’s about the wild reality of being able to comport yourself through the world. It’s as if I’m observing myself and watching myself grow and change. What I wanted to talk about in “Did You Know?” is that strange feeling of seeing that I have done a good job.
Bobby Strickland
