INTERVIEW: How Heirloome Turned Grief Into Beauty On ‘Flesh To Flower’

Heirloome. Photo supplied.

Hearing queer/nonbinary artist Heirloome’s new single Flesh To Flower is a poignant reminder of the power of music to turn personal events into a message to be shared with the world. Heirloome is based on Gumbaynggir land, also known as Dorrigo, in New South Wales, Australia, where the music video for the track was filmed. Flesh To Flower is a tribute to their late little brother, and while the word “ethereal” can often be used in places where it’s not appropriate, I can’t think of a more fitting description of the track.

Every note glistens, and while it is heavy with emotion, it’s never overpowering. Heirloome makes art-pop in its truest form, and the strings present on the track afford it a sense of delicacy. However, I don’t see this as a fragile track - quite the opposite. I think it’s a powerful reminder that it’s important to celebrate people for who they were and are in life.

I spoke to Heirloome about their new single, as well as the grieving process. I really enjoyed the chat, so check out Flesh To Flower below, and read on to learn more about the track, as well as how music can often be the best way to express oneself after an event that makes the Earth feel like it’s been thrown off its axis.

Firstly, can you introduce yourself and your music?

I’m Heirloome - a queer, nonbinary artist living on Gumbaynggir land, also known as Dorrigo, in NSW Australia. I feel like those words - “queer”, and “nonbinary” - are important here not just because they are vital, reclaimed aspects of my identity, but because they inherently inform what I create, and often why I create it. I sometimes describe my music as aural magic realism; fantastical elements fusing with the ‘ordinary’ magic of being human.

Your new song, Flesh To Flower, speaks about the death of your brother. I’d love to get a sense of who he was in life – as I think that’s the way people are best remembered.

My brother was hilarious. Really cheeky, really naughty, but also very sensitive - I thought of him as the Bart Simpson to my Lisa, and we grew up very much like that. I’d hide his ‘letters home from school’, he’d make light-hearted fun of my nerdy obsessions - and we’d get into all sorts of mischief. He was 23 when he passed, but I seem to think of him mostly as a kid now, the age he was during the time we were closest. Memory is strange and wonderful like that. He was my companion through a lot of really difficult times growing up - and the source of many of my happiest memories, too. I miss him every day.

“Transforming grief into magic” was the subject line of the email you sent me about this track, which I think captures the song’s essence. Did writing this prove to be cathartic, and now that you’re sharing the story of your brother’s death with the world, do you feel like the pain is being shared with your audience?

Writing this song, and the other two songs from the upcoming EP, were some of the most cathartic & natural songwriting experiences I’ve ever had. I was laying on the floor, with my ukulele, sort of cry-singing… and this song came to me piece by piece, like each line searched for the next. I was singing to my brother’s spirit, trying to listen for his voice answering my questions. I’ve been holding the songs I wrote for him for close to 2 years now… and I know that letting them go is a rite of passage. I hope what the audience feels more than the pain of grief, is the shared, collective experience of it - that we will all feel this, one day - but we don’t have to feel it alone.

Reading about you, I notice you’ve used the word ‘ethereal’ – exactly how I’d describe your music as well. I’d love to know more about your influences, given your music is quite out of step with the sounds that Australian music fans might typically be exposed to?

I feel like I’m not quite in any one place - I’m a little in this world and a little in the next. I think I’m a bit ‘out of step’ as a person really, and increasingly I try not to force myself to match anyone else’s rhythm. Musically, I grew up listening to a lot of expansive artists like Björk and Kate Bush, and I think they really helped me disregard the idea of genre (at least in a limiting sense). Hearing ANOHNI for the first time also had a huge impact on me - the way that she allows the beauty and tragedy of life to live side-by-side in her music really gave me permission to be honest.

I could list a hundred artists here - I really could - but for the sake of brevity, I just love sound! I love it when it makes me feel, when it makes me tilt my head... when it does that unknowable, magic thing only music can do. I get as excited by bird calls and my feet crunching leaves as I do by a huge bassline in a dance track, or a violin that brings me to tears.

I wanted to ask about the music video, which was filmed in Dorrigo, Australia (on Gumbaynggir land). You worked with Tim Kent (aka Stackhat) on the shoot – can you tell me about the message behind the clip?

When I wrote Flesh To Flower - I didn’t want it to just be gloomy. Yes, it’s about grief, it’s about death… but it’s also about life. I wanted the clip to reflect that, too. Stackhat came up with this concept about finding a magical water spirit, in the form of a fish, and wanting to hold on to it and keep it somehow… but ultimately realising that sometimes you have to surrender the things you love. That’s how life feels, in a way. 

The string arrangement on the track gives the song a sense of lightness – so much so, that I highly recommend people read the lyrics in the YouTube description for the video, because the lyrics are poetic. Can you speak to me more about the decision to make the song feel light, rather than translate the weight grief carries into the music?

Leaning into the mystery and alchemy of the death experience was a huge part of my grief process. Of course, I’m human - some days I think it’s all senseless and cruel - but I think my true nature is to see the magic in all things. That’s why Flesh To Flower sounds this way - because I want to see the world this way. I want to see the beauty and the magic, even when it feels like all the light has gone out in the world. I plant flowers on the battlefield.

I feel like this song will act as a balm for those who are experiencing/have experienced grief. Are there any methods (other than creating music) that you’ve personally used to process your grief? 

I have a deep connection to astrology, to tarot, to the world of the spirit, and to nature. I think those things were, and are, my primary support systems for processing grief. Of course, the people in my life are hugely important, too - but when I don’t feel that people can hold me, I know that those things can. Finding meaning in loss was my way through.

I couldn’t just let it be random and cruel, I had to find a way to make it mean something… so I spoke to the stars in the language of astrology, I spoke to my psyche in the language of tarot, I spoke to my brother in the language of spirit, and I spoke to the future, and to hope, by letting nature hold me. I cried in the arms of mulberry trees, I sang to birds, I screamed into the ocean. I decided that I’m living for the two of us now and that I had to find a way to create beauty in the world while I’m here.

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Finally, what are your next few steps, both personally and music-wise?

There are two other songs that I wrote for my brother around the same time as Flesh To Flower, and I’m releasing them in November as the Cycles EP. I can’t quite explain the personal gravity of releasing this music… it’s all wrapped up in the cycle of grief itself, as well as some complex evolutions in my personal & artistic life.

After that, I’m hoping that some space opens up for lightness, for joy, and for pleasure. I have so much unreleased, half-finished music that I just knew I couldn’t share until Cycles had been brought to completion - and the final act is in letting it go, in giving it away.

I’m hoping to explore the other facets of my artistic output, collaborate widely with musicians and performance artists, and create as much beauty in the world as I can.

I want to drink life in as deeply as I can - and then share it in song.

You can follow Heirloome on Facebook here and Instagram here.