{"id":1955278,"date":"2025-08-12T04:25:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T04:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=1955278"},"modified":"2025-08-12T04:25:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T04:25:10","slug":"we-were-trying-to-conjure-as-many-ghosts-as-we-could-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/we-were-trying-to-conjure-as-many-ghosts-as-we-could-the-irish-times\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We were trying to conjure as many ghosts as we could\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Last year Sharon Van Etten<\/a> crossed the ocean searching for ghosts. Her destination was London and a recording studio that was once a church and had, in another life, belonged to Dave Stewart, of Eurythmics. The American indie superstar planned to soak up the funereal atmosphere and make an album as glamorously grey as England in the rain. There was only one problem. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe actually had sunny weather in London,\u201d she says, laughing as she adds that she made the best of these challenging circumstances as she set up shop at the Church Studios<\/a>, in Crouch End, with all \u201cthe light coming in. We were trying to conjure as many ghosts as we could.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Etten reduces other songwriters to giddy superlatives. Her fans include The National, Fiona Apple and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, all of whom have collaborated with her or covered her work. (She also has a side gig as an actor, appearing in the cult Netflix show The OA<\/a>, as well as making a musical cameo in David Lynch<\/a>\u2019s Twin Peaks: The Return.) Fans will be out in force when she tours Ireland this month with her new project, Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory.<\/p>\n

As Van Etten dials in by video link, it\u2019s clear she has chosen the perfect setting for her conversation with The Irish Times: the basement of her parents\u2019 house, in suburban New Jersey, from where she talks about the bands she listened to as an angst-ridden adolescent: dandies of doom such as The Cure<\/a>, Joy Division<\/a> and Nine Inch Nails.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember closing my door and upsetting my mother, being very introspective \u2013 in some ways gloomy for no reason,\u201d she says.\u201d I was definitely an angsty teenager.\u201d<\/p>\n

She has held on tightly to her love of those artists, but it has taken until now for her to directly reference them in her songwriting. Written and recorded with her touring bandmates, and steeped in the drizzle of the 1980s, the London-made LP \u2013 also called Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory \u2013 is a stately synth-pop odyssey that gives off a cool glow of mannered melancholia.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a brilliantly bleak ghost-train ride, ripe with secrets that reveal more of themselves with each repeated listen. There is also a wonderful tension between the textures of the album \u2013 those vintage synths and ever-collapsing Cure-style guitars \u2013 and lyrics that are very much rooted in Van Etten\u2019s experience as a millennial woman with a family and ageing parents.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the perfect blend of teenage nostalgia and the dull ache of growing older and realising the things you took for granted about life, and your place in it, won\u2019t be around forever. Your kids will grow up, your parents will get old and you, too, will finally reach the end of the line.<\/p>\n

She gets right to the point on Live Forever, the album\u2019s New Order<\/a>-playing-at-your-wake opening track, on which she wonders about immortality and if it would be worth the price. \u201cWho wants to live forever?\u201d she howls. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d The song is about having the courage to accept that all things will pass. <\/p>\n

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\"Sharon<\/div>
Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory. Photograph: Devin Oktar Yalkin <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI had read this article about a medical study being done in the UK where they were doing these experiments on mice. They were injecting them with the serum that reversed the ageing process by replicating the cells that normally die, causing ageing,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so we got into this philosophical conversation: if you could live forever, would you? And why? What would the world look like? It would be overpopulated with people. Why would you want to live that long? The whole purpose of life is death and coming to terms with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Etten had to build her career the hard way. Born in New Jersey, she started writing songs in earnest while studying at college in Tennessee and working as a music booker on the side. Her boyfriend at the time disapproved: he would break her instruments and tell her she didn\u2019t have the talent to make it.<\/p>\n

The trauma of the relationship and of the break-up fuelled her early albums. \u201cNever let myself love like that again,\u201d she sang on her second LP, Epic, from 2010, a record that showcased both her darkly expressive voice and her ability to craft songs that build and build, like a dam forever threatening to burst.<\/p>\n

Returning to New York, she then worked with Aaron Dessner<\/a> of The National on Tramp, her widely lauded breakout album.<\/p>\n

A decade later, music continues to be an outlet for Van Etten\u2019s hopes and fears. So much else has changed. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Zeke Hutchins \u2013 once her drummer, now her manager \u2013 and their eight-year-old son. <\/p>\n

With its political tensions and apocalyptic wildfires, the city has its challenges, she acknowledges, but she wonders if it\u2019s all that different from anywhere else nowadays. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s spreading across the whole world. I feel we have these environmental catastrophes everywhere now \u2013 fires, tornadoes. When you think of the war that\u2019s going on, the famine that\u2019s going on. Even if you\u2019re living on the east coast [of the US] you have hurricanes, woods over-run with ticks. Nature is pissed off right now. And it\u2019s coming in at all sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

She tries to look at the positives. Life is hard, but in LA she has found a group of like-minded souls. \u201cLos Angeles has had a horrific year \u2013 couple of years. Especially now, in the political climate, it\u2019s pretty intense.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019ve been seeing is communities showing up and being strong and resilient in the face of disaster. There is that to be hopeful about. I love LA. I have a beautiful community and support network of musicians and friends. There\u2019s this dark undertone, but it\u2019s such a beautiful place.\u201d <\/p>\n

Last November Van Etten and her fellow singer Ezra Furman<\/a> covered a Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor song, Feel So Different, the first track from the late artist\u2019s second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven\u2019t Got, as part of the Transa<\/a> project celebrating the trans community.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s largely faithful to O\u2019Connor\u2019s original: Van Etten says her goal was to honour the song rather than to reinvent it. She also wanted to express her admiration for O\u2019Connor, an artist who spoke up when others remained silent, whether about clerical abuse or misogyny in the music industry. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople didn\u2019t know how to deal with mental health, and they also took advantage of her,\u201d Van Etten says. \u201cShe always spoke up and represented the underdog, and was always a political activist, from my understanding of her beliefs.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd she suffered quite a lot as a child. She went through a lot, she lived through a lot, and was able to make beautiful music out of it, and also speak her mind about what she believed in.\u201d <\/p>\n

Van Etten, who is in her mid-40s, recently said she worried that Attachment Theory might be regarded as a middle-aged folly. But this isn\u2019t the first time she has had to grapple with her place in the music industry and whether it has room for her. <\/p>\n

\u201cI remember when I was first looking for a label. I was in my late 20s, early 30s. And [record companies] were, like, \u2018I don\u2019t know if anyone wants to sign a 30-year-old.\u2019 What year is this? You don\u2019t want to sign a 30-year-old? Because, I guess, the older you get the more thoughtful you get in your touring choices.\u201d <\/p>\n

The industry wants young artists not simply because they\u2019re fresh-faced and full of energy. They are also more malleable and prepared to work to the bone, unlike someone with more life experience. \u201cYou say yes to everything in your 20s, which I did,\u201d Van Etten says.<\/p>\n

She adds that her label, Jagjaguwar<\/a>, is artist-driven and artist-led. \u201cAlso, my manager is my husband. We\u2019ve all grown together in this industry that is constantly changing. It is harder, the industry, outside of who I work with. That is what I observe.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel older. It doesn\u2019t affect what I want to make and how I want to work or how I want people to experience our music. It\u2019s just a fact of life. I\u2019m a mom and I\u2019m a musician, and I\u2019m figuring out the balance of how I want to live my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory is released by Jagjaguwar. The band play <\/i>Cork Opera House<\/i><\/a> on Tuesday, August 19th; <\/i>Mandela Hall<\/i><\/a>, Belfast, on Wednesday, August 20th; and Collins Barracks, Dublin, on Thursday, August 21st, as part of the <\/i>Wider Than Pictures<\/i><\/a> series<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.irishtimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year Sharon Van Etten crossed the ocean searching for ghosts. Her destination was London and a recording studio that was once a church and had, in another life, belonged to Dave Stewart, of Eurythmics. The American indie superstar planned to soak up the funereal atmosphere and make an album as glamorously grey as England […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[343013,52337,311591,318076,310596,305354,338087],"class_list":["post-1955278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-aaron-dessner","tag-david-lynch","tag-ezra-furman","tag-joy-division","tag-sharon-van-etten","tag-sinead-oconnor","tag-the-cure"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1955278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1955278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1955278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1955278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1955278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1955278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}