Excited by their single "Eaten by Wolves" released earlier this year, we wanted to learn more about Darkswoon, Jana Cushman's band, hailing from Portland, Oregon. As the American band released their second album entitled "Bloom Decay" in mid-September, we reached out to Jana to chat about her group, her songs and the production of this dark and intelligent new record, which balance between guitar and electronics seems perfect to us. With sincerity and conviction, Jana dissects the content of "Bloom Decay" for us, or how to bring out of such a devastating world a piece of work of such beauty and goodness.

I started Darkswoon as a solo bedroom project, recording lofi demos that married electronic beats and samples to guitar and voice. The name actually comes from a dream I had where I started a band called Darkswoon-sometimes dreams do come true-ha! In 2014, I started performing with Christian Terrett, a friend of mine who came on to play all the parts I could not: synths and beats. We used Ableton to trigger the electronic elements and had an old micro Korg for keys. In 2017, my partner, Rachel Ellis, took over Christian’s role and we worked to create a music set up of live hardware electronic instruments. Taking over the keys and rhythm was well suited to her background in piano and drums. Around the same time, a friend of Rachel’s, Norah Lynn, started to play bass with us. Writing in her own style really characterized and complimented the sound. She doesn’t play bass in a traditional sense and always comes up with something I wouldn’t have thought to do. Our first show together is still one of my favorites we’ve ever played. Several things went wrong and at the end, my pedal board malfunctioned and butt my guitar out completely but we just kept going with it, having fun, improvising. The music I was writing became more fully realized with the addition of Rachel and Norah.

Thank you-I’m so grateful you connect with this song. It is one of the first songs I wrote for this album. It’s really a metaphor for what it feels like to be a women or gender minority in the states and how bodies are politicized by mostly men in power. When I say "My body is not mine" this is how it feels-that we are not trusted to make decisions about our own bodies and that they are property of the state. The wolves are the powers that be: those legislating human bodies to how they best see fit resulting in devastating consequences for individuals. The song was heavily inspired by the tragic irony in the confirmation of Supreme Court Judge Kavanaugh, a man accused of sexual assault, would have significant power in deciding the fate of Roe v. Wade and the future of abortion rights which was recently overturned.

The lyrics in this song are a kind of exercise in stream of consciousness. In a way, the song is about many things at once. A time and place. But the deeper meaning comes through in some of the more concrete themes- "There’s violence in the silence, the world is on fire, burn it down" speaks to the systems that are no longer serving us-specifically when it comes to social justice and the environment-and how we might be better off clearing the slate and starting over. The systems are a void, the lack of them is a void, the silence when we should speak up is a void. A void means emptiness but there’s a lot of energy in that negative space.

The original goal of this music project came from my desire to combine electronics with guitar-which is my primary instrument. I’ve always had a love for electronic music so Darkswoon very much became a space for me to begin exploring this creatively. Especially in the beginning of this project, I didn’t know how to define the music. It’s like dark and electronic but also foggy and shoegazey…so maybe we could call it electrohaze? Genres are subjective to a certain extent, I believe, so might as well make one up. If you don’t find your music fits just make your own space for it.

When I’m composing, I do try to be intentional about the balance of everything. In earlier work, I had a tendency to just override the sonic space with as much as I could. I think I was more drawn to chaos back then. Moments of chaos are great but I was trying to create more space in the music on this record. Jeremy Wilkins co-produced this record with me and he mixed the music in such a way that brought the details to the forefront, showcasing all the elements. Nothing is buried in the mix. He also fine-tuned the rhythm with some additional drum programming, contributed many great ideas to the production and final product. We took our time, really dedicated to getting the right balance in the mix for each song.

Yes, we’ve worked with We Are Parasols on several projects. As I said, Jeremy co-produced and mixed "Bloom Decay" and his spouse did the vocal editing. We may create another video together for this release as well.

There is a thriving scene in Portland for our kind of music but it feels small in a sense that it is close knit. In general, I feel it is a very supportive environment with several clubs that host bands and music of the like.

I’ve always kept a journal and most of my songs end up being more about a time in my life than a specific theme, although certain themes ring through as in with ‘Eaten By Wolves’. My inspiration always leans towards the more emotional and darker side of human experience, through my own lens. I prefer to keep the veil up rather than writing very literally. I am usually trying to find a balance between keeping the content vague so that others may find their own meaning in the words and keeping it personal so that it is still something I am connecting with.

I wrote the song "Bloom Decay" in some of the darkest pandemic times, before the vaccine and when things were very scary. In the US and very much all around me in Portland there was necessary upheaval and uprising-a call to fight the deeply rooted racial injustice here. On a personal level, I had a bad falling out with an old friend. Much like a phoenix rising from the ashes, I was thinking ‘what blooms from this decay?’. What good can come out of this time? Nothing grows if nothing dies. It became a common theme throughout this album and seemed like a fitting title.

I love writing a song that grows and builds as it moves through time. I don’t often set out with a standard structure -verse-chorus-verse. Sometimes it is just verses and building until a climactic moment which may be considered the chorus. I love to keep layering. Jeremy, who mixed the album, definitely helped accentuate those arcing moments in the mix as well. It is intentional, going back to a love of chaos but keeping it somewhat controlled.

Thank you so much! I think I am still surprised when people connect with my voice. For many years, I didn’t think of myself as a singer as much as a guitarist. I have a tendency to want to bury my vocals and have some imposter syndrome about being a vocalist which is funny because I’ve been singing since I could talk. My whole family sings and my mother especially encouraged me to sing at a young age. I grew up singing in choir, performed as a kid then as a teenager and just continued to sing because I loved to sing while playing guitar, the two go hand in hand for me. As far as gaining power as a vocalist, I can be a bit soft spoken and my voice is naturally on the quiet side. Honestly, I think I became more vocally powerful just by trying to sing over the drums in my first few bands. I wanted to be heard so I had to adapt.