Sun Riah's Haunting Meditations of Loss, Home & Identity

Photography - Ariel Bridget


                     On Sitting with Sounds and Listening for Ghosts, Sun Riah sews together an album that at times feels more like a book of poems. A quiet but pronounced meditation of grief and the painfully long process of making sense, if ever we can, of what has been lost. Stephenson explores the spaces of her Grandmothers house, rooms that, once so full of life, become engulfed in absence with her passing. The haunting power of this work is not just its universal applicability, but the recognition that where we come from, landscapes, houses, family, all of the many ties that bind us to our own identity, and what becomes of us once those threads come undone, constitutes the fabric, the language by which we know ourselves. 


AHC: Could you talk a little about your upcoming album, Sitting with Sounds and Listening for Ghosts, the themes that you deal with here, family, loss and what you've described as the "emotional definitions of home and identity?"
 
Yeah. This album for me is a journey through loss and changing relationships to landscapes and place. The album is centered around a small house in a very small town in rural Oklahoma where my grandmother was born in 1926 and lived until she died in 2015. She was actually born in what my family calls the middle room of the house. The middle room, from my understanding, was the original structure of the house. The kitchen and other rooms were added over time. As a child, my grandmother's home was one of the only constant places in my life. As she died and after she died, I watched her house change with emptiness. This album attempts to capture the life of her house. It was born out of my own processes of coping with the feelings of loss, regret, and shame that I experienced after my grandmother died. Both Firefly Night Light and Sitting with Sounds and Listening for Ghosts are part of my own path in understanding my very complicated relationship to home and identity.
 
AHC: What first pulled you toward music and songwriting? Was there a specific, defining moment where you began to feel a creative-call that could only be answered through music?
 
I’ve made up songs for as long as I can remember, so I don’t really know what first pulled me towards music. I often wonder why I feel pulled to share music with other people. I don’t fully understand it myself. I’ve come to realize that sharing music with other people, especially through live performance, is a form of communication for me that provides me with grounding; it helps me connect with other human-beings. Live performance is probably at the core of why I share music. It’s easy in our very digital world to forget the role that live performance plays in sharing and writing music, but for me, when I perform music live and in front of an audience, it is in those moments that I’m able to most fully commit to a song, to notice all of its nuances, and to feel a song’s movements deeply. Sharing music with other people is both part of the songwriting process and an emotional outlet for me. Music is a means of communication and connecting with people in ways that I struggle to in my daily life. I think I’m the most vulnerable and the most connected to other humans when I make music. So, I don’t remember a moment in time when that all became clear to me or when I felt a creative-call that could only be answered through music. I just think I’ve kind of always felt music really intensely and loved making music, and at some point, I gave in to the ways that music makes me feel and embraced music’s potential for connecting, sharing, and communicating with other people.
 
AHC: Who are some of your inspirations or guiding lights as a songwriter, performer, musician?
 
As a performer, I’m inspired by my niece and nephew. Really almost any child that I’ve ever met. Not only because they are honest, but children feel things really intensely and seem to be more willing to give in to their emotions than adults. As a performer, I want to have a child-like honesty and commitment to my emotions. As a songwriter and musician, I’ve been really inspired by Helen Money, Laura Mvula, and Julianna Barwick. I’m also really influenced by movie soundtracks and musicals, musical projects that tell stories and span multiple genres. I’m endlessly inspired by DIY musicians who I’ve met touring and playing music, and I honestly think some of those folks have been some of my biggest inspirations: Jasmine Dreame Wagner, Sister Grotto, Sarah Reid, C.J. Boyd, and Teach Me Equals, just to name a few. I’m inspired by their commitments to their art, and the ways that they creatively work to share their music and other works with people. I also just find that DIY musicians are often some of the most creative and least praised folks making music today. I’d also say that I’m forever musically indebted to and inspired by Joni Mitchell, Billie Holiday, Kate Bush, Grouper, Alice Coltrane, Loreena Mckinnitt, and Joanna Newsom among others. It’s hard to come up with a concise list. Ha.
 
AHC: What do you think makes for a good, enduring song, the formulas of honesty and intensity, as you're writing and composing, is there a sudden moment when you know you've found the right mix, that perfect angle of light, so to speak? 
 
It’s a delicate and difficult balance for me, and I think it really depends on the content. I think a good, enduring song is like a good, enduring story; there has to be movement, counter-narratives, and layers of story that unfold with time. A fun aspect of music is that counter-narratives can happen through soundscapes, musical progressions, silence, or words. I love music that creates tension between the content of the words or melody and the feeling of the music. So, for instance, a happy sounding song with devastatingly sad lyrics can work to tell multiple stories. I think a good, enduring song utilizes multiple aspects of music to intimately tell a story: sound, words, melody, accompaniment, performance, and silence.
 
For my most recent album, I was very much trying to tell a story both through music, sounds, and words. It’s difficult to talk about because at this point in my life I feel like songwriting is something that happens to me as much as it is something that I do. I think that for me, I know that I’ve found the right mix when a song is transformative for me. I can never know how other people will experience the music that I make, but if it is satisfying, transformative, and interesting to me, and if after I listen to it and play it hundreds of times, I’m still learning new things about it and captivated by the song when I hear it or play it, that’s all I can do. So, I guess my goal when writing music is to make music that moves me, and then all I can do is hope that it is a moving and meaningful song to other people.
 
AHC: What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town? On-tour, on-the-road?
 
Oh my goodness. There are so many! … One that really stands out for me is performing as part of a harp studio when I was first learning harp. I was an older beginner, and I had some insecurity about that. The harp studio included small children to older adults, I’m guessing in their sixties. We performed pieces together, but we also were working on solo pieces for an upcoming recital. Our teacher had us perform our solo pieces for each other during a harp ensemble rehearsal in her living room. I remember watching everyone perform, and seeing young students and old students of varying levels and harp histories become incredibly vulnerable as they performed their solo pieces. It was a really beautiful musical moment because each performer found comfort in their own playing and each other’s. We were also all very nervous with each other, but we did our best. And, we all wanted the best for each other. Something about that moment taught me to have much more patience with myself, and it helped me to humble myself as an older beginner approaching the harp. That moment also helped me to cherish music as a collaborative process and to appreciate where I’m at in my own process.
 
 
AHC: Do you have any words of advice or encouragement for other musicians and singer-songwriters out there who are just starting out and trying to find their voice and their way in this world? What are the kinds of things that you tell yourself when you begin to have doubts or are struggling with the creative process? Or what kinds of things have others told you that have helped push you past moments of self doubt/creative blocks?
 
I encourage folks to make music for themselves first. Moments of praise, appreciation, or recognition, those moments are always fleeting, but if you make music that genuinely resonates with you, then music will almost always be satisfying. I’d also advise songwriters, artists, and maybe humans in general to be aware of finding balance between self-criticism and self-trust. I think some amount of self-doubt is healthy, but some people seem to need more self-trust and others probably wouldn’t be hurt by a little more self-critique. I lean on the side of being overly critical of myself. For me, it helps to have someone that I love who I really trust to be honest with me. My sister is that person for me, and I know that I can always trust her to tell me if my fears and doubts are overly critical or reasonable. Her perspective helps ground me when I’m wallowing in doubt.  I’d also encourage people to look outward, listen to music. Listen to lots of music. Go to live shows, and see touring bands. Follow smaller music blogs. Listen and see and feel music.  Take time away from your own music and learn a song that you love. If you are struggling with the creative process or self-doubt, take time to look outward and appreciate the work of others.

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Sitting with Sounds and Listening for Ghosts will be available on CD, cassette, and digital download via Keeled Scales on July 21st.
Pre-order now from keeledscales.com/
Sun Riah's first two albums, ..., the musical & firefly night light are available via sunriah.bandcamp.com/