{"id":1259932,"date":"2025-04-02T07:46:31","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T07:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/?p=1259932"},"modified":"2025-04-02T07:46:31","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T07:46:31","slug":"interview-mick-harvey-and-amanda-acevedo-discuss-their-latest-project-golden-mirrors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/interview-mick-harvey-and-amanda-acevedo-discuss-their-latest-project-golden-mirrors\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Mick Harvey and Amanda Acevedo discuss their latest project \u201cGolden Mirrors\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"Mick<\/p>\n

Mick Harvey<\/strong> has been a staple of the Australian music scene for many years, working with The Birthday Part<\/strong>y and The Bad Seeds<\/strong> as well as artists such as PJ Harvey<\/strong>. He has teamed up with Mexican artist Amanda Acevedo<\/strong> to release an album covering songs from American songwriter Jackson C. Frank<\/strong>. We had a chance to discuss their project and what made them choose Jackson C. Frank for their first tribute project.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with how you two first met and started working together.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mick Harvey:<\/strong>\u00a0 It was very gradual, by almost by happenstance, in a way.<\/p>\n

Amanda Acevedo:<\/strong> Yeah, we were communicating a lot, and then at some point, Mick visited Mexico, because he was on tour with PJ Harvey<\/strong>, and we met in person. After that, we remained gradually more and more in touch. It was just very friendly at first, and then we started to exchange a few ideas. Then I realised that I have access to someone I admire very much. So, I might ask for advice, to help me with ideas, and tell me if there\u2019s anything good that I\u2019m doing. When that started happening, we recorded one song just to see how it went. It was so much fun, and we enjoyed it so much, and the result was so interesting.<\/p>\n

Mick:<\/strong> Gradually it just started growing; there was no particular intention within it at first, and then it just turned into something. So, it was kind of an organic process. I don\u2019t know what point we decided to take it seriously, or just say, this is a project. It just kind of happened.<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/strong>: I think first we started recording random songs that we liked, and honestly, we just wanted to do one. Then both of us thought about other songs that would be good for our voices, and we started searching for more songs intentionally. There was a song I remember, \u201cPhantasmagoria in 2\u201d that sounded so good that Mick said, this needs to be out in the world. It needs to be a proper album. And I was a bit shocked, because I was not sure if it was going to be public or we were just having a fun recording. And that was really exciting when it became a serious project.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

What I like about the Phantasmagoria in Blue<\/em> album is the contrast between the two of you. Your voice, Amanda and Mick your voice, they balance each other out really well<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Mick<\/strong>; I\u2019m not really in a position to be objective about it. I feel that they blend really well when we sing together. There\u2019s certainly a contrast and there\u2019s a conversation that\u2019s happening between us with the lyrics, like turning it into a kind of dialogue. Voices are very subjective. Some of the greatest singing voices in the world, I can\u2019t stand them. Celine Dion<\/strong>, for instance, she just makes me feel nauseous. So, you can\u2019t judge that. You want your voices to convey something and be impactful, and for people to be able to enjoy that and get something powerful from it.<\/p>\n

So, was \u201cMilk and Honey\u201d the first song that you recorded?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amanda<\/strong>: No, actually, the first song we ever recorded is not even out. But the first song, from the ones that are out was \u201cIndian Summer\u201d. Then \u201cCreators of Rain\u201d and I think \u201cMilk and Honey\u201d we recorded it once we were a bit more\u2026<\/p>\n

Mick<\/strong>: We were looking like we were actually starting to compile things for the project and that was one of the songs that came up.<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/strong>: And it was the first song that was released into the world.<\/p>\n

Mick<\/strong>: By then I think we felt that there was some kind of direction with it, or a strength that we had. There was some kind of strength coming into what we were doing.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

What made you choose \u201cMilk and Honey\u201d \u2013 what did you like about the song?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amanda<\/strong>: I remember running into it, I think it was a suggestion from Spotify or something like that, because I was listening to folk and lots of artists that are a bit obscure, and probably Spotify thought that this is going in the same direction. I really loved the song, and I kept listening to it. I didn\u2019t know much about Jackson back then, but when we started doing our Phantasmagoria in Blue, we were doing songs that were emotional and personal. I thought the song \u201cMilk and Honey\u201d would fit in this mixture. Then we started researching more into Jackson C. Frank<\/strong> and then when I suggested it, I already knew a bit more about Jackson. That was the selection process we were looking for, like, mystical, cryptic, surreal songs, and I felt that \u201cMilk and Honey\u201d had all of that.<\/p>\n

When you cover a song, how do you put your own interpretation into it, yet keep the original true to life?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mick<\/strong>: I don\u2019t know if one\u2019s concern is about keeping true to the original. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s necessarily part of what you have to be doing. Unless you actually set about destroying aspects of the original version, then you\u2019re going to have a connection with the original anyway. So, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s really something you worry about. Particularly to lose connection with the original, you would have to change, deliberately, in such a way that it was disconnected from the original. So, if that\u2019s not your purpose, then you\u2019re going to end up with that anyway. I mean, it\u2019s pretty easy for me to apply aspects of my own sound and playing approach, to any song, really.<\/p>\n

One\u2019s voices are what they are, so you end up with a with something that\u2019s yours anyway, to some degree. So, if there\u2019s a particular overlay of some atmosphere or musical feeling you want to put into songs that you\u2019re looking at in general, then you just go down that path. I guess with Phantasmagoria in Blue<\/em>, we had some of that. We had some kind of general sense of the type of thing we were trying to produce there. So, it becomes easy. I don\u2019t find it difficult.<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/strong>: I think we do like changing the songs because we don\u2019t find any sense in making them exactly the same as they are. We try to find a different angle. In this case, we transform it into a dialogue with the song. It\u2019s just one person singing. We thought, oh, this could be a conversation between two people, which is a big change. Also, we really like the original song, so there\u2019s this sense of respect or connection with them. At least I can say that for me. I think he does like most of it. But the thing is that when you respect that, you know you won\u2019t want to affect it. And I think I can connect to the lyrics.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Mick<\/strong>: I mean, there\u2019s an exception there, actually. With \u201cLove is a Battlefield\u201d, for instance, we specifically wouldn\u2019t have wanted to adhere to the original, so we deliberately took that into a very different space. I suppose it kind of revealed the lyrical content in a different way. It wasn\u2019t out of disrespect to the original song. The song is still there in its core form, and it\u2019s actually a really simple, beautifully written song. Their production and arrangement choices were questionable, perhaps to my ear; most people would prefer theirs to ours but that\u2019s life. That\u2019s my life in a nutshell.<\/p>\n

For the clip you did for \u201cGolden Mirror\u201d, how much input do you have in the overall look and the feel? Was that your vision how the video clip came through?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amanda<\/strong>: I think in this video, we didn\u2019t even want to make public the credits, because we did a lot. Both of us did a lot in the video, it\u2019s both of our ambitions. I decided the place like we were, it\u2019s a place that we will go after.<\/p>\n

Mick<\/strong>: I think Amanda means that that a couple of the previous videos, she\u2019s actually the director. She actually directed and edited them, and there was no one else involved in the making of the video. So how much input we have into it is 100%.<\/p>\n

It feels like some professional made it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mick<\/strong>: We just shot it ourselves, the two of us in that space. That\u2019s what you can do these days, especially if you\u2019ve got someone who\u2019s good at that sort of thing. I\u2019ve made quite a few of the videos I\u2019ve been involved with over the years too. I have a little bit of a part time job as a video director that people don\u2019t know about. When there\u2019s little or no budget, then you\u2019re put in that position. But aside from that, Amanda was at film school, and I\u2019ve done a lot of it over the years myself, so I\u2019m glad you couldn\u2019t tell that.<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/strong>: I think coming from film school, I had to do videos with absolutely no budget, just for fun or just for an assignment. He\u2019s also a bit like that; we try to find something really good with what we have. And that\u2019s what we\u2019ve been doing with the videos most of the times. And I hope they\u2019re great.<\/p>\n

No, it\u2019s good. I really like it. It adds to the to the song.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mick<\/strong>: Amanda edited it and did that kind of colour processing, grading or effect, the overall kind of glowing thing. So, it\u2019s a self-made video.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

I didn\u2019t know about Jackson C. Frank before this interview. It seems like he had a really difficult life. What drew you to him, to cover his songs?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mick<\/strong>: I\u2019d hadn\u2019t heard of him either, until Amanda introduced me to him, so this is kind of a great thing. There\u2019s a lot of negative aspects to the current way that one is sold music, or as one is exposed to music. You know, the streaming systems and everything aren\u2019t necessarily that supportive of musicians and songwriters and so forth, but it does provide access to just about everything. The younger people these days, if they become enthusiastic in the way that I and my colleagues used to be back in our day, you can find everything. You can search pretty much everything. So, Amanda had found Jackson C Frank, through connections to other artists she\u2019s interested in. Just about everybody I know, people who are very interested in music \u2013 nobody\u2019s ever heard of him.<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/strong>: In his time, he was not very well known. In recent years, his music has been used in films and TV shows that have been popular. One of his songs was in The Joker<\/em>!<\/p>\n

Mick<\/strong>: Some people are hearing his songs now, and he\u2019s getting a lot of streams and a lot of interest on YouTube, so people are interested in him. There\u2019ll be a bit more awareness about his name in association with songs and so forth. As we went into it, we\u2019d done \u201cMilk and Honey\u201d, which is on the first album, and just as that was coming out, I was contacted by a friend from Italy who asked me if I was interested in contributing to a Jackson C. Frank tribute album. I said, well, that\u2019s really funny, because our first song from the project is coming out this week, and it\u2019s \u201cMilk and Honey\u201d. He obviously knew the song, and that\u2019s really where the whole thing began. We went and recorded a few songs for him for this tribute project. And we thought, why don\u2019t we record a few more so that we\u2019ve got a selection, so that we can send him the ones that we think are the best or most appropriate for his project. We had five or six and then we just kept going with it, and decided we should just do our own.<\/p>\n

Obviously, he\u2019s trying to herd cats with about 30 different artists, so it\u2019s taken two years to get to the point where he\u2019s done his project. We\u2019re kind of working hand in hand with the thing, but that\u2019s really how the project began. Now we\u2019ve got this potential series of things that we want to do, an uncovered series idea, albums where we investigate particular songwriters.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a great idea because, like you say, even though we\u2019ve got access to virtually everything these days, there\u2019s still artists that fall under the radar. I\u2019ve been listening to his music over the last couple of days and he really had very little recognition in his lifetime.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mick<\/strong>: Some people slip through the cracks who really have something special to offer and potential for them to be re-found. That\u2019s been happening with a few different people, like Nick Drake<\/strong> and people like that. Nick Drake\u2019s had a mini resurgence a couple of times. In his life he wasn\u2019t very successful, but he\u2019s had a couple of little bumps through the years. But now he\u2019s kind of become quite established as a classic underground artist. So, it\u2019s happening with a few different people, because their music\u2019s really accessible now. That\u2019s one of the positive things, I guess, about the modern world.<\/p>\n

What about the idea of the tortured artist, like he seems to have had a really hard life. Is that a prerequisite? Does that help artists?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mick<\/strong>: Not necessarily. I remember some interview with Roy Orbison,<\/strong> where he was responding to his songs being very sad and depressing. And he said, Well, no, I\u2019m not a sad or depressing person. When you\u2019re in that state, you can\u2019t really write very much, actually. I think people, oddly, would tend to write more when they\u2019re outside of that zone.<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/strong>: I think, reading Jackson\u2019s lyrics and his life and everything, it obviously did impact what he was writing. But in a way, I think he was trying to escape the ugly things he was living and feeling and trying to find beauty through music. Because some of his lyrics are trying to capture something outside of the horrible things he was thinking, even though some songs like \u201cMarlene\u201d are directly about what happened to him. It\u2019s an interesting mixture with that, and there\u2019s a bit of hope in the songs.<\/p>\n

Mick<\/strong>: I think the thing with Roy Orbison was, the vast majority of his life, was really happy and had a great time, but you can\u2019t really write about that. It\u2019s not very interesting material.<\/p>\n

An exclusive gold edition of Mick Harvey and Amanda Acevedo<\/strong>\u2018s album Golden Mirrors (The Uncovered Sessions Vol. 1)<\/em>, a tribute to Jackson C. Frank is now available through Impressed Recordings .<\/a> Limited to 200 copies.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n


\n \n <\/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.theaureview.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 O artigo anterior foi obtido e traduzido do site internacional da celebrity.land \u2019 Source Link <\/em><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mick Harvey has been a staple of the Australian music scene for many years, working with The Birthday Party and The Bad Seeds as well as artists such as PJ Harvey. He has teamed up with Mexican artist Amanda Acevedo to release an album covering songs from American songwriter Jackson C. Frank. We had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1259933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1259932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-musica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1259932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1259932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1259932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1259933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1259932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1259932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1259932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}