“Shall I call you Celia or Vera?”
Vera Blue smiled and brushed a hand through the air, signalling that she didn’t mind either way. At this point in her life, Vera Blue and her given name, Celia Pavey, are one and the same – a realisation she describes as “powerful to come to know”.
That sense of wholeness sits at the heart of Modern Rituals, her new album due for release on 21 August. Across eight tracks, Vera embraces all her shades through sampled beats, gothic soundscapes and a voice that just won’t be caged. The electronic dance record traverses the woes and wonders that shape our lives, and the rituals that encompass them.
“It was important to push myself out of that comfort zone to grow as an artist.”
– Vera Blue
We begin by looking at what’s new about the project, starting with its constellation of collaborators. The decision certainly wasn’t about moving away from longtime producers Andy and Tom Mak, but rather a challenge Vera set for herself.
“It was important to push myself out of that comfort zone to grow as an artist,” she explains.
As it turns out however, each producer shared a common thread. “They’ve all got this cool, ethereal, ’90s palette which really inspired me,” Vera says, echoing the recordings of Madonna, Enya and Nine Inch Nails that captured her before making the record. That connective tissue lets Vera leap and dive between emotional extremes without the album ever losing its footing.
At this point, I wondered what it was like to pour your heart out to a room full of new collaborators.
“They get to move on with their life and you’re still there living in that emotion,” Vera explains. “But I came to realise that these creatives that I worked with, this is what they do, what they love – it’s a safe space.”
What began as vulnerability eventually became trust – trust in the people around her, but perhaps more importantly, trust in herself.
“It’s been very empowering to have done that”
“Sometimes you write and try to be metaphorical and deep, […] but sometimes you just have to say it as it is.
– Vera Blue
This same spirit of serendipity found its way into the recording process, as Vera made room for the unexpected. In the studio, that meant embracing happy accidents – keeping a first vocal take, for instance, and bottling the lightning that disappears once a moment is examined too closely.
“As an artist, I became quite a perfectionist. Even as a human, I’m always trying to be perfect,” she says. “Exploring this album, and even the concept behind it, I had to let go of that.”
Still, there are some things that never leave you, even if you try. The folk sounds that defined Vera’s earlier work are heard throughout the album. “I’m Irish and Welsh, so it’s in my blood, my bones, and it’s always going to seep out in my music,” she says.
Yet today, those folk roots bear new fruit. Throughout Modern Rituals, Vera weaves folk and electronic elements into something new, much in the way Enya balances the mystical with vocal performances steeped in storytelling.
From the self-sabotage of ‘Brittle Wings’ to the longing of ‘Parallel Desire’, Vera tests the emotional elasticity of Modern Rituals. “I wanted this whiplash-y feel,” she says.
Yet there is one song that anchors the record, acting as the deep breath before the emotional ride. Opening track ‘Rituals’ reflects what Vera describes as “the ritual of witnessing yourself and seeing yourself clearly without needing to change or fix anything”.
Written last, “My rituals and all the things that make who I am” arrived naturally at the piano. From there, Vera turned to Lachlan Bostock, whom she describes as “the perfect person to bring it into that cinematic emotional world”, solidifying the song’s final form.
However, not every song arrived so easily. ‘In The Corner’, a song shaped by survival and resilience, holds, at its core, what Vera describes as “a lot of fuck you energy”.
Recording it required her to revisit those feelings, to poke the bruise. “There were moments where I felt so much anger,” she explains.
After umming and ahhing over the lyrics, Vera realised that her feelings could not be perfumed in poetry and finally found the courage to “just fucking say it”.
In the chorus, Vera sings: “I’m sitting here waiting for you / for you to fuck me up again.”
For writers, the temptation to lean on metaphor, to veil feelings in imagery and symbolism, constantly lingers in the corner of the eye. Vera knows that instinct well. “Sometimes you write and try to be metaphorical and deep,” she explains. “But sometimes you just have to say it as it is.”
When we turned to her hopes for the Australian headlining tour, which begins on 21 August, Vera spoke about embracing the full spectrum of human feeling and experience. Different sections of the show will be dedicated to the “different versions of a person”, allowing past and present to merge into one.
And as for what she hopes listeners take from the project itself?
“I don’t want to force them to feel anything, but I do hope they feel.”
Though you can’t spell emotion without motion.
“I also hope they dance,” Vera adds.
“Dancing is like a ritual.”
