“We get lots of inspiration from the natural world: its quietness, rhythms and beauty”
Mary Lattimore and Walt McClements are two of contemporary music’s most renowned innovators. Lattimore’s inventive harp processing and looping has brought the instrument to a new audience and her prolific run of celestial solo albums and evocative film scores have redefined the instrument in the modern consciousness. Her genre-agnostic collaborations include work with Kurt Vile, Steve Gunn, Jeff Zeigler, Meg Baird, Bill Fay and Thurston Moore.
McClements, who tours as a member of Weyes Blood, is an acclaimed composer in his own right, sculpting glacial atmospherics from the accordion.
Recorded in the cozy setting of McClements’ apartment during a rainy December in LA, their new collaborative LP Rain on the Road unfurls as a series of sonic vignettes, rolling landscapes hewn from longform improvisations for harp and accordion. Embellished with additional instrumentation such as the shimmering constellations of hand bells on “Stolen Bells” that glisten like lights on wet pavement, or the stately piano figures on “The Top of Thomas Street”; their pastoral pieces manage to paint vivid images.
Currently in the middle of an extensive European tour, I was very happy they agreed to have a chat about the album, the origins of their collaborations and why Spotify sucks.
When did you first meet, and how long did it take for you to decide that you wanted to work together on music?
Walt – We met in 2017 when we were both playing a festival with the same band. I feel like we became friends then and did some collaboration here and there, Mary played some harp on an old project of mine’s record. But maybe not until the pandemic did we start to connect more musically. I had started making more instrumental ambient/drone work, and Mary was a big influence and supporter. I played on her porch when she started hosting socially distanced outdoor shows, and then we went on tour together in 2021, and I started to sit in on a few songs at the end of Mary’s set, which was so fun, and that led to the idea of making a record together.
Mary – We both grew up in North Carolina and turns out we attended some of the same shows. This collaboration and friendship feels meant-to-be. I’m a big fan of Walt’s ear and aesthetic and sonic curiosity, so it was natural to ask him to sit in when we were on tour together. It feels like a really organic way of getting to know someone, personality and musical sensibility and instincts going hand-in-hand.
The Predatory Wasp 