My interview with Colleen was something of a heat check. I'd just come off three straight interview experiences very close to my platonic ideal (all of which have since been published: Matana Roberts, Stephin Merritt, and the Laetitia Sadier interview from the 6/8 issue). In all the excitement, I'd more-or-less forgotten to prepare anything for Colleen, lesser-known as Cécile Schott (besides a lot of listening to her wonderful 2015 album Captain of None). Besides what I could pull up on my phone on the way to her hotel, all I knew was that she'd led off her performance the night prior with a solid ten minutes of excited monologue about birdwatching, which, if it didn't quite land with the audience, was nonetheless very endearing.

Thus, this is an interview about birdwatching. It's the last of my interviews from this year's Big Ears, which was, as always, on a completely different level from every other festival in the country.

At the show last night you spoke about birdwatching and how exciting seeing a new part of the world was as a result - is that a lifelong passion, or something that you had a specific introduction to?

Oh, no. It started in 2013, I think. I had an interest in nature and especially had noticed that in moments of stress or while feeling overwhelmed, including by the music business, that being in nature had a really deep effect on me and provided a sort of happiness that nothing could take away. Even inside cities, you know, when you find a little pocket of nature. I noticed that in about 2008, at a time when I had completed three albums but was feeling a little burnt out. I took a mental note of how nature was helping me to regenerate, and then in 2010 I moved from Paris to Spain. Where I live is very natural - it has the sea, mountains, hills. I got closer and closer to nature, and then it turned out that the label that released my fourth album was co-run by a guy who worked for Bird Life International, this huge umbrella organization for environmental preservation. He was the first person who put binoculars in my hands, and from there on I picked it up myself. It means a lot to me; I feel the need to balance this everyday creative life with nature, where you can find something that’s always there and that is not about you. In music, we often have to talk about ourselves the way that I’m doing now, but in nature you’re away from the ego, reconnecting with things outside of yourself.

That’s really effective recruiting - I think a lot of people miss out just because they don’t take the initial leap into something. I was really surprised when you brought it up at the show, but I couldn’t quite figure out why. Obviously I’m not walking around making assumptions about who is and is not a birdwatcher, but I was suddenly really ashamed at having been surprised that you had… other hobbies. There’s plenty of personal and intimate music, yet it seems like many artists are inextricable from their musical function or output.

When I started playing live and became a real musician by putting out albums, I started to meet people whose work I admired, people who were my peers. There’s always kind of a weird feeling in the moment when you meet a person whose music you know and have admired. Even for me, if I like someone’s output I’ll be a bit scared to go and talk to them, whereas I’m the first person to know that there’s a person behind the musician. Not even behind the musician; the musician is the person. It’s not a bad thing if people perceive musicians as their output, which is what should really matter. These days, especially on social media, it’s becoming more and more about the person. I think it’s becoming a really fine line to walk - for instance, I really like to go deep in my interviews but there are still things that I consider private. I think that there are personal things that can be shared, but definitely not everything. It’s pretty pathetic - I’m not going to put pictures of my food on Instagram or whatever. Who cares? I think artists should be expressing themselves creatively and about things that really matter to them, so I would really prefer that someone think about me in terms of my music more than anything else.

A lot of coverage of your last two albums has focused on the long hiatus that you took before them - was that due to similar concerns about overexposure?

I’ve never been massive successful, so I don’t know that I would say overexposure. I’ve been releasing albums for fourteen years, and I’m actually becoming increasingly grateful for never having been fashionable or having a hit album. I feel lucky to have been able to keep a slow but steady trajectory - with the passing of time, I’m noticing patterns of people who have been really successful, and I think it must be really difficult to find yourself going downhill from that. It’s much better to have a kind of steady output, which is one of the things that I actually love about Big Ears: they’ve invited quite a lot of musicians who are in their 70s or even in their 80s like Roedelius. This is interesting; if we were in the classical world or if we were the world of painters or architects, it would be not at all bizarre for someone to be 75 and possibly even producing their best work. It’s an interesting festival in that respect.

As for my break, I think that too much of a good thing can become a bad thing. If you’re travelling all the time and you come home to too many things to do… I also had quite a few administrative hurdles while I was living in France, because I don’t think many countries are geared towards citizens who work outside of the country. Just in terms of real, completely unglamorous things like taxes - it became too much of a burden. That, combined with not really knowing what I wanted to do with music at the time, meant that I had to take a break. Maybe one day I’ll need another break, and I think it’s better to embrace the fact that we’re not machines. I think that music comes from this special place that can’t really be identified, and if you feel you’re losing that then you need to step back.

It seems like anytime you ascend to a given quality of life that becomes the new baseline that you’re pressured to maintain.

You say lifestyle, but also if you become very popular you might become surrounded by insincere people, or people who are interested in you for the wrong reasons - they want to be friends with someone who’s fashionable or something. In terms of the lifestyle, I define luxury as having time to do what I really want to do, which could be making music or what I’m doing this weekend: I’m staying the whole weekend and I’m buying two extra hotel nights for myself so that I’m able to go birdwatching. I don’t feel stressed out; it’s a long trip but it’s not some crazy schedule. I’m definitely becoming an anti-consumerist person more and more, and I think time is the most precious commodity that we all have. It’s a shame to waste it, to spend your time shopping because you work so hard. I’d rather not work as hard and remain able to enjoy things for more than their monetary value.

Speaking of growth, I was wondering how, more than ten years into your musical career, you can make a decision like I’m going to begin singing on my albums.

My main focus when I’m working on a new album is that I want the contents to feel essential to me. I think one of the problems of today is that on the one hand, the ability to record in your home or a makeshift studio - which is what I have - is incredible. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the advent of computers and easy recording programs. On the other hand, it’s like everyone’s a musician. That’s not true, but I think there is so much of everything that it’s overwhelming. When I’m working on an album, the question is do I really need to put this out in the world? If the answer is no, then I’ll keep working.

In terms of vocals, it just came naturally after this break - I just thought what would it feel like to sing? I think a lot of what I do is based on a kind of physical experience of wanting to learn what it’s like to do something. That’s why I work on my own; I’m not the most proficient musician in terms of technicality - this festival, for example, is very impressive in that regard. People can control their instruments in a really incredible way. I’m aware that I’m not as technically proficient, but hopefully there’s something else that I have which is personal and therefore worthwhile for someone attuned to what I’m trying to do. Vocals were definitely something like that. Just as I was embarking on this journey of trying to sing, I was reading a biography of Arthur Russell called Hold On to Your Dreams by Tim Lawrence. I felt really inspired by Russell’s trajectory, and that kind of pointed me in the direction of what I wanted to do.

On the topic of technicality, I’ve always thought of mastery as not so much a quantifiable technical thing as the ability to get the sound you want from an instrument. Would you say you’re able to achieve that?

I’m maybe not the best judge, because I listen to what I do when I’m making an album, mixing and mastering, but obviously when you’re performing you can’t also be front of house. I think there are a lot of bands that have a more powerful sound than I do, obviously - we just saw Xiu Xiu Plays The Music of Twin Peaks and I’m really in awe. There’s a kind of power to being in a band that uses electricity which I don’t have. When I was watching them earlier I was thinking that there are different kinds of powers that you can feel in music - some is more of a physical, decibel, gut thing, but I also think there’s another sort that’s closer to emotional frailty. I saw Michael Hurley on Thursday night, and he played a very bare set with only a small, amplified guitar and his voice. It almost brought tears to my eyes, a very simple setup with a power of its own. No one can be everything at the same time, which I think carries over into life in general.

When you’re incorporating new interests or influences, how do you negotiate that without too much or too little commitment to the new element?

What really helps me is that, for instance with the influence of dub music, no one in Jamaica plays it with the treble viola da gamba, the instrument I was using. It’s kind of a shield, protecting me from low-quality pastiche. Even using an octave pedal to give me a bass sound, it’s still not going to give me an actual Jamaican bass sound. In terms of what influences the other thing, I think it’s interesting to listen to many different instruments, different eras, different genres, and realizing that I can’t be a baroque orchestra all by myself, I can’t be a Jamaican band by myself, and that’s a good thing. Instead of thinking oh, I should try and play like this incredible rhythm section, I do what I can and that will automatically be transformed into something else. It’s almost like the food you ingest; in that case, you can never have too much of a good thing - reading a great novel, watching a great movie, it all becomes a positive spring of influences inside you.

This may have been a typo, but I read that you recorded your most recent album in an… olive store?

No, no, that’s right! My studio is a former shop - not even a shop - in Spain, people eat a lot of olives, and the Basque country also has a small pepper, the guindilla, and the place was a building where they put the olives and peppers into brine. As far as I know, it wasn’t really open to the public, but they would package them there and then distribute everything to the local bars. When I visited the place, which was kind of run down, it was totally my kind of place - obviously good vibrations around. I don’t really want to invest the money that would be necessary for a real professional and soundproofed home studio, so right now I have to make do with this place.

Even if you don’t necessarily have the ability to follow through on it, do you have strong ideas or preferences about where you’d like to record?

I think in keeping with what I was saying about the music coming from somewhere very personal, I think I wouldn’t be very comfortable inside a recording studio unless it was owned by a friend or by someone particularly friendly. My work process is very much spending a lot of time in the studio and trying things, and if they sound good then I’ll hit record. That’s not really the way that you can work in a professional studio, because obviously you have to pay the owner, which means that you’d have to come in ready to record and that’s it. I really like the idea of working by myself; I even like the idea of not working in a professionally studio, actually, except for the noise problem. I think it’s really important to have a sort of personal element to where you work.

Do you have any frequent collaborators, or even non-musical friends that you’ll look to for feedback?

By now I’ve fully accepted that I’m not really the collaboration type. Sometimes I’ll get asked, but I turn them down by saying the truth, which is that it’s just not me. Usually what I do is keep my records unheard by anyone until they’re finished. I’m always worried that I’m going to be influenced by what they say. That’s one of the things that I learned early in life when I started making music; I’d make tapes of myself playing electric guitar, and I remember wanting to give my tapes to friends, or people who looked cool. Then I realized that if it’s somebody’s cup of tea they might say ok, great, or if it’s not then I’ll see that they’re not enthusiastic about it, but either way what does it have to do with what I want to do? So I’ve gotten into the habit of not playing the albums until they’re finished, which can be difficult. You have to trust yourself, but I’d rather take full responsibility for the output.

How do you decide that a song or album is finished?

That’s not easy, actually - right now I’m having a little problem with my new album, which I thought was finished but I realized wasn’t quite right in the mixing. When I get back from the festival, I need to work on it until it works. It can be difficult, knowing when to stop before you end up having impossibly high standards for yourself. The history of music is full of people who started recording albums but never finished.

It’s clear that you’ve got a pretty worldly musical sensibility - do you often experience that music in a vacuum, or have you ever been moved to go see a place because of the music produced there?

To be honest, I’ve never been to Africa and kind of doubt that I will travel there. I love travelling, and I’m lucky to have been able to do a lot of it while playing live, but I also love being at home. I try to find a balance, but I wouldn’t say… I admire backpackers, you know, people off to Peru or something. I tend to be scared quite easily, and I’ve grown to like a lot of basic Western comforts, so I’m not sure that I would be a very good traveler if I really went to the places whose music I enjoy so much. I think that’s one of the advantages of music - it can take you to places.

It’s funny talking about scenery and travelling. Today I went to a nature center about ten minutes from here, and just listening to the birds - obviously, each bird has different songs, and a lot are identified by the song - really enjoying being in the forest and thinking well, when I go home, that’s it. Those sounds won’t be there anymore. It’s just fascinating that the world is populated with all these creatures making different sounds. With birds it’s really amazing because some of the birds of Europe are similar to those you’ll find here, but they’ll still have a different song. Everything here sounds more exotic, it’s just really lovely to be walking and taking in the sounds. Last night I did a cover of a song from The Night of the Hunter, which I think is supposed to take place in West Virginia, but being by the Tennessee River I felt as though I was getting a little bit more about the movie, seeing the natural inspiration that led to that story.

Have you gotten into field recording at all? That would seem like a natural extension of your interests.

I haven’t, although I’ve been the owner of a smartphone for two months now and I do have a recording app on there. For the first time in my life this weekend, I’ve actually started recording birds. You can have two species that are completely identical but still distinct species, and the only way of knowing the difference for sure is to listen to the song. I also recorded some birds that I couldn’t identify by look, but if I compare my recording of them to some of the sounds in my birding apps, I’ll be able to identify them. I don’t think I would go into field recording to produce something artistic, but it is a good tool. At least for birdwatching [laughs].

Do you have a favorite bird?

I have many favorite birds! In order not to bore the readers, I’ll just say my two highlights of this weekend. They’re actually not rare birds by any means, but for me obviously it was incredible to see them for the first time. One is the Northern Cardinal, a really striking red bird with a crest on his head and a really colorful way of singing. He seems like a really friendly bird, really easy to see and I love seeing him. Today I saw several specimens, several individuals, of the Tufted Titmouse, which is a really lovely, really small bird, again with a crest and looking like the cutest thing. Those two for now are my favorites, but I also love the Northern Mockingbird, which is a bird that also makes some crazy sounds and imitations. But to me, all birds are special.

How’d you choose the name Colleen?

That’s from a long time ago. I used to study English, and in university I spent a lot of time with my bilingual dictionary, opening pages at random. At the top of one of the pages, there was the word colleen - not a lot of people know, but colleen is an Irish word meaning young girl. Lass. I really liked the way it sounded, and it was written with the curves of the C, the loop of the O, the repetition of the two Ls and two Es. I thought it would make a good name because my music had its own curvy, loopy thing going on. Also, if you pronounce it the French way, it’s the French word for hill, more of my favorite scenery. The bad thing now is that people think I’m called Colleen because of the name - I initially insisted on writing it with a small c, but as years go by I had better stuff to do than telling people how to write the name.