“I live for art that startles me, shocks me, unsettles me, consumes me.” (An Interview with Eden Ariel)
As we skid into the midpoint of a tumultuous year, the Half Mystic team yearns more than ever for artists whose work contains multitudes in every sense, from its heritage to its dreaming, from its influence to its catharsis, from its seascape to its horizon. This artist spans every kind of continuum and embodies every kind of multitude we know how to hold, and we couldn't be more thrilled to have her. Please give a warm welcome to Eden Ariel.
HM: How do you respond to art that startles you?
EA: I live for art that startles me, shocks me, unsettles me, consumes me. I've always been that way, infatuated with art that hits you in the hidden parts of your soul, that breaks down the barriers of normal interaction—it's a dangerous love and sometimes I wish I wasn't such an adrenaline junkie, per say, for wild, free art, but I am. I've been in love with the counterculture art of the 1960s for a while, I think because it's all based on the notion of shattering and shocking. Lately I've started to question why I love this kind of art so much, because I do think there are merits to art that feels like home, that celebrates stillness and details and small joys.
What histories does your music draw from, apart from your own? How long is its memory?
I sometimes like to think I've lived past lives, or that in some abstract sense part of me (parts of all of us) are connected much more deeply to other forces and eras than we know. Often when I write my best music I feel like I need to turn off my "present" brain and I just key into some other plane where these memories live or where time isn’t linear. I think that's why a lot of my personal favorite songs (like "Road Trip" and "In a Station of the Metro") were basically improvised in one take as they are. I can't explain why but I do feel like I was born close to some kind of portal to elsewhere, to other memories and places.
What are you like when you have an exciting project in the works?
I feel most alive when I'm working on something I’m passionate about, and I’m truly happiest when I have a project to channel my obsessions into. Having a project in the works that I’m really invested in sometimes feels like being in love. A lot of times my best work happens in spurts, and when I’m in that flow state it feels almost like a trance—I always miss it when I have to live ordinary life.
What kind of work would you like to stop doing, whether musical or not?
I really want to stop working alone so much—I want to be less afraid to bounce my ideas off with other people. There are skills other people have that I don't, and there is so much to be gained from interacting with others in real time. I'll always value my own alone time, but I've started to realize there’s so much magic in genuinely connecting with others, of seeing your vision reflected and transformed, and I’ve held myself back from that for a while.
You describe yourself as “writ[ing] to tell honest stories.” How do you challenge yourself to be more honest in your work?
Honesty in my work is very important to me. It was the whole idea behind my concept album "Lilith," where I wrote as this alter ego in order to access parts of myself that my conscious mind wouldn't let me explore. I really admire musicians like Julien Baker, Mitski, Nicole Dollanganger and others who just pour their guts out in their music, and so I wanted to push that theme in my work as well. I think we can all connect, to some extent, to those secret, hidden feelings of aching sadness or desperation; there’s a deep, human kinship in lostness, which is often the really common thread in truly honest work, I think. I think that's one of the glorious things about music. It's transmuting these things into something productive, something joyful.
I want to work on telling other peoples' stories more, of creating art that comments on the reality of a world greater than myself. I think that honesty doesn’t have to only be about looking at your own truths with a magnifying glass—it can be about tapping into other stories and other nuances of relationships with vaster forces, like communities and the earth.
What is your music’s ‘emotional fingerprint,’ so to speak?
I write sad songs that hopefully provide some elements of catharsis to listeners. I’m a big believer in the power of cathartic honesty through art—not that it’ll totally heal anything, but it can provide such a great medium for connection and for talking about and working through the things we all go through. I hope my music and art can be that for people.
In addition to songs, you write poetry, fiction, and essays. How do you decide which medium to pursue an idea in?
I'm pretty indecisive and this extends to my artmaking. I definitely have always loved working in many mediums and have never been able to settle on just one. One of the ways I want to reconcile this is I want to create more multimedia art. I'm working on a musical right now, about the experiences of some of the female Beat poets in New York City in the 60's, and I also would really love to get more into multimedia exhibitionist art, performance art that combines words and sounds, light and theatre, technology and virtual reality... the Internet is a whole new canvas, a whole new dimension that I think has so much potential for creativity in the future, and I think that combining and working in different mediums can break down a lot of boundaries.
Your lyrics sometimes allude to places that are widely considered quintessentially American. To you, what does it mean—in terms of responsibility, craft, sensibility—to be a fundamentally “American” songwriter? Do you consider yourself one?
That's an interesting question. Americanness is a complex topic, and one that fascinates me. Obviously being American is fraught right now, with Trump and all of his entourage—but yet, like America, his pugilistic ugliness almost has a poetic quality in that it fits so perfectly with the hyperreal glamour that defines so much of what America was supposed to be, in the dreamscape that painted over its uglier truths for so long.
America is a nation of immigrants, a nation built on blood—and in spite of all of this it still has a dreamlike glamour to it. It is a place where people hope and create and see different futures, for better or for worse. As an American artist I definitely feel a responsibility to write and speak about the atrocities that the government is inflicting, especially on innocent people who are getting torn away from their families and essentially robbed and killed by large corporations—and I’m still trying to find my voice in that respect, but I definitely think that our current era is crying for protest art. I do think a lot of the finest protest art in America is happening in rap—nothing’s deserved the Pulitzer as much as Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. for a long while in my eyes.
I suppose I would consider myself an American songwriter, because I am kind of in love with the American landscape, with New York and California and the iconic idea of the American road trip.
Maybe to be an American songwriter is to inhabit an image that's larger than life, that's defined partially by a vast and unreachable sense of scope and that’s a combination of forces and voices. I think of Bob Dylan as the quintessential American songwriter, maybe along with Bruce Springsteen, just telling these huge stories about people's lives, the grit and pain and beautiful parts—and I'm absolutely not comparing myself to them, but that's the kind of vein I'd like to be in someday.
How do you go about cultivating a sound that is uniquely yours?
I imagine that my sound is defined by dreamy harmonies and a mix of floaty, smoky ambience cut through with some grit… I’d like to go for a poetic, ethereal quality, combining honest lyrics with dreamy music. As of now I've really only worked on recording music in my bedroom, on my own, but that will change soon and as I start working with more musicians, and I have a much bigger vision for what the future could sound like.
What do you see on the horizon for yourself—literally, emotionally, metaphysically?
Well, anything could happen. But I see myself creating, always, every single day. I definitely want to travel and will probably continue my education after college, but I also want to give this music thing a real shot, so I see some long tours across the country and some coffee shop or freelance jobs at odd hours while I play gigs at night and write. Luckily heaven for me is definitely a highway, stretching out, a pink sunset and warm wind and music playing; it’s very possible that I’ll get totally disenchanted with the road someday, but for now I love the idea of it.
In a metaphysical sense I hope to grow as a person, to get to the point where I can focus on sharing and manifesting compassion. I had this revelation a year or so ago that I've been a bit self-absorbed for a while and that is the root of a kind of self-obsessiveness that made me critical of myself all the time. There are so many people who dedicate their lives to helping others and who should focus more on themselves but for me it's kind of the opposite. So I want to work more on sharing and spreading love.
That's really all this is, when it comes down to it—music, artmaking, it's love at heart, they run on the same plane, creating seams between what separates us as individuals from other people and from the wider continuum of existence. I think there's so much potential in music and art therapy, in using art as healing and sometimes in place of language. We live in a hierarchical world right now, but I think the future is sonic, the future is posthuman, the future is breaking boundaries, acknowledging the constructions of race and gender, money and class, and slowly unwinding them… Realizing that humans are not at the top of a hierarchy but that we’re all connected, that it’s a circular world, not a linear one. I see myself becoming more involved in that and working towards that movement through writing in different ways.
I also see myself moving into a cabin at some point and just disappearing for a while, so it'll be a mix of things, I think.
Bio: Eden Ariel is a 19-year-old singer-songwriter from New York. She has been called a "cross between Lana Del Rey and Bon Iver," a "sadder Sara Bareilles" and an "Adele singing from the void." She is inspired by a variety of musicians, like Nina Simone, Pink Floyd, Bright Eyes, Claude Debussy, and more. She is influenced by forests, oceans, and the magic of the natural world, and her music also is influenced by philosophy, poetry, dream science, and surrealism. She writes to tell honest stories. She believes music is the most potent way to tell stories, and songs can connect straight to the heart and bone of the worlds nested within and around our world. She believes in the possibilities of catharsis through art. She wants to always provide support for LGBTQ+ people, people of color, and all people who show each other kindness.
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