Image of Mary Lattimore performing at Central United Church on the Wednesday night of 2025 Sled Island.
Mary Lattimore performed during Sled Island on Wednesday, 8pm at Central United Church.
Interview conducted in collaboration with Reverie Magazine.
TRANSCRIPT:
Emily (CJSW)
And we’ll start recording, I guess before we get into it, do you have any questions?
Mary Lattimore
I don’t think so.
Emily (CJSW)
Right on.
Mary Lattimore
Yeah.
Emily (CJSW)
So my name is Emily. I’m here on behalf of CJSW radio at this year’s Sled Island Music and Arts Festival. Today we’re sitting down with Mary Lattimore, an LA-based, classically trained harpist. How are you?
Mary Lattimore
I’m doing fine. Yeah. Thanks. Really excited to be here in Calgary for the first time. Just been walking around this morning checking things out downtown, and really excited to get into the music.
Emily (CJSW)
Right on. So this is your first time playing in Calgary as we’ve just established. How does it feel to be part of Sled Island? And is there anything that you’re looking forward to in particular?
Mary Lattimore
Well, it feels great to be asked. I am really excited about the show tonight because it also includes another harpist who I’ve never met before, but we’ve corresponded through Instagram, and so I’m excited to hear her set, Hermitess, and I’m staying an extra day because I really wanted to see Willie Thrasher play tomorrow. So.
Emily (CJSW)
Oh yeah, that’s gonna be a great show.
Mary Lattimore
I know I feel like that’s an opportunity that doesn’t really come to LA so I decided to stay an extra day and kind of take in Canada before heading back to the US. You know.
Emily (CJSW)
That’s perfect. That’s why festivals like Sled Island exist. [They] give people an opportunity to sample so many different genres and different artists. That’s awesome. I want to jump right into things. Doing my research, humor or comedy is often linked intrinsically with your work.
Mary Lattimore
Really? [Laughs]
Emily (CJSW)
That was kind of my read on your music.
Mary Lattimore
That makes me happy.
Emily (CJSW)
So I don’t know.. How do you think that manifests in your work?
Mary Lattimore
I don’t know. I think about my songs as being pretty sad, usually pretty melancholy.
Emily (CJSW)
Really?
Mary Lattimore
I think in my mind, I usually write songs when something like heartbreaking has happened or or sometimes like some, some weird memory, or something nostalgic or wistful. You know that feeling I just want to capture it so, maybe, maybe it’s like something poignant that’s happened but a lot of times I want to kind of look at it with like a wry eye? Maybe in a certain way, like I think the titles can be kind of wry, maybe, but, but as far as humour goes, when I’m writing the actual song, it’s usually because I’m feeling a little bit emo, you know [laughs]. But maybe presenting it too, like on stage, sometimes I like to sometimes I like to laugh on stage.
Emily (CJSW)
Yeah.
Mary Lattimore
But when it comes to the foundation of the songs, I think there’s a little bit of sadness. But, you know, that’s what life is. All of the emotional range.
Emily (CJSW)
I think I like, certainly get that. Like even listening back to your album, Goodbye Hotel, Arkada. Um, you know that album touches on, like, a lot of themes like memory keeping and whatnot, which can be, like, very bittersweet. But I also feel like there’s like a lightness to the album, especially with the song about glimmering eyeshadow.
Mary Lattimore
Oh yeah
Emily (CJSW)
There’s something I don’t know, hopeful about it, so maybe there’s, like, different interpretations which is cool.
Mary Lattimore
I love it. I love all the interpretations. It makes me happy when people you know can take it off to their own, like intimate universe and yeah.
Emily (CJSW)
Yeah, I guess branching off of interpretations you’ve previously shared that you made your public harp debut in an Arby’s parking lot.
Mary Lattimore
Oh! [Laughs]
Emily (CJSW)
I wanted to touch on that. Obviously, like that’s not the kind of venue that I would associate with a harp which I think is really fun and charming. But how do you think a location informs a particular performance and how it’s received?
Mary Lattimore
I think always, always does. I don’t know about the Arby’s. I mean that the Arby’s thing happened. Do you guys have Arby’s in Canada?
Emily (CJSW)
Yep.
Mary Lattimore
It happened because my mom was driving me to a harp recital, and it was one of my very first recitals, so I had learned all this classical music to play, and I was really nervous. But then we got a flat tire, and we had to pull over into this Arby’s parking lot. And by the time they finished changing, the mechanic had to come and stuff, and by the time they finished changing the tire, we had missed the recital. So my mom was just like, like, ‘Mary, you should just go for it and play the harp for play the songs for the people that are here,’ you know. And people came out of the Arby’s. It was fun, but I feel like location always, always affects it. You know, that’s, that’s like, part of the reason why I was like walking around Calgary today is just because I’ve never been to this downtown area before. I’ve never been to this area. So I was like, I want to soak in a little bit, soak it in and and see what happens tonight with that kind of influence. And I think, like, it’s not only the location, but it’s, you know, it’s everything that’s happening in the world, and just emotions and the communities that we have formed. And like, being here at this festival feels like a safe place in a way, you know. So I think, I think it all adds to the performance and and that’s just kind of what making music is all about, you know.
Emily (CJSW)
Yeah and sharing in community.
Mary Lattimore
Yeah.
Emily (CJSW)
That’s really special. Let’s see, are there particular spaces you find yourself gravitating towards when you play? Like, do you have a favorite spot?
Mary Lattimore
I really love playing in weird places, you know, like I played at an Olympic-sized swimming pool for the Sydney Festival in Australia. And that, you know, just playing while people were swimming was pretty far out. You know, they had underwater speakers there, which, that was really vibey. I played at a couple of James Turrell sky spaces, which are really amazing. And I love playing at bars, like dive bars, places where you wouldn’t usually find a harp. Those might be my favourite, you know, like in towns where, like, a harpist might not come through. But I also do love playing a gorgeous church, with good acoustics, or, like, beautiful stained glass, or, or, you know, just like a very, like a place that people hold sacred in a way.
Emily (CJSW)
That’s really cool.
Mary Lattimore
Yeah.
Emily (CJSW)
Let’s see. Your 2023 album Goodbye, Hotel Arkada. The title and inspiration comes from the hotel Arkada in Croatia, which was renovated out of its old world charm, which is devastating. I love, like, historic homes.
Mary Lattimore
Yeah, me too.
Emily (CJSW)
Hearing the backstory, I was like, that’s such a shame. But you use the hotel as a metaphor to explore themes of change, memory, loss and the passage of time. I’m curious, do you have any memory keeping practices that you’ve subscribed to?
Mary Lattimore
Well, I’m a big collector. I’m like a hoarder, almost like I love collecting, just like little things from, you know, ticket stubs and Polaroids and things like that. And I just have boxes and boxes of that. My family is also this way. So both my parents are only children, and they have all of the collections from both sides of the family, you know. So I think, I think I’ve kind of learned that subconsciously, that, you know, all these little ephemera, ephemeral things, kind of link up to show a life in a way, a lot of records and books and things and and, yeah, I don’t know. I, I think, like, I try to write in a journal, but I don’t know. I’m not too great at regular things.
Emily (CJSW)
It’s hard to keep up! But I can appreciate that, like, there’s something nice about holding something tangible, and I don’t know, like a ticket stub, and being like, transported back to that moment. I don’t know, there’s definitely like themes here that I’ve also been contemplating over the last little while. So I guess this isn’t necessarily a question so much as a comment that it really resonated with me.
Mary Lattimore
Awesome. Thanks.
Emily (CJSW)
Your song music for applying shimmering eyeshadow was written as a pre-show, kind of green room ritual soundtrack. Do you normally develop your songs with a place in mind? Or do you find that kind of comes after the song is finished?
Mary Lattimore
Usually I write the song after I write the title, I think I like to think, oh, yeah, this would be a good idea for a song, or I want to capture this moment and make a song. Sometimes the hardest part is that I’m not with a harp when the idea comes, you know. So I usually write the title and then try to tap into that feeling when I get to the harp.
Emily (CJSW)
That’s really cool. I have a couple more questions for you. In the past, you’ve compared playing the harp to skateboarding, which I really liked. Kind of citing the solitary nature of both of these activities. And yet, in recent years, you’ve kind of taken a more collaborative approach working with Lol Tolhurst and your friend Meg Baird. Can you speak to how the spirit of collaboration transforms your work as opposed to your solo work?
Mary Lattimore
I think it’s important to have both, you know, as a person who likes to be alone a lot and who loves to be around people the same time. I think, like, music’s the same way for me. I like to collaborate with people and kind of have that conversation with people, and then retreat and make my own stuff. You know, I think it’s always a combo of both. Glad I can do it all.
Emily (CJSW)
I like the way that you like frame collaboration is like a conversation, because it’s true, like everyone’s kind of bringing their own unique knowledge and skills into the mix. It’s really cool.
Mary Lattimore
Yeah, thanks.
Emily (CJSW)
On a similar note, can you speak to how your musical process differs when it comes to curating soundtracks? I know you’ve kind of delved into that recently, maybe as opposed to your own solo work.
Mary Lattimore
I would say it’s really, it’s really hard, even though I’m loving it, it’s very hard thing to do to score films. I really want to get better at it, and I am getting better, I hope, at it. But I would will say, like having to do a lot of revisions comes from a different place than just writing a song that comes, you know, blasting from the heart, yeah, and where you you get to make all the decisions on it, and then perfect it kind of like cooking or something, and like presenting something, I think, like, since it’s not your baby, the film, and, you know, taking criticism from the director, and then going back and, you know, polishing it and and reassessing, I think, is, like, it’s a really healthy thing to do, but it doesn’t come so naturally to me immediately, the same way that writing, the improvising does.
Emily (CJSW)
Sounds like there’s like an element of, almost like having to surrender yourself.
Mary Lattimore
Well it’s good, right?
Emily (CJSW)
It’s your baby but it’s also our baby. So to speak.
Mary Lattimore
Yeah! And it’s respect for the project. You know? It’s like, kind of surrendering, surrendering yourself in this way. It’s like, okay, we’re all putting our skills to use here, and we’ll come up with compromises that will make the film good.
Emily (CJSW)
Yeah. Do you have any like, particularly favorite soundtracks, like, in general, that like, really resonate with you?
Mary Lattimore
I mean, I love Morricone. I think I love, what else… I have a good friend, Emile Mosseri, who writes really beautiful music for scores. My friend Alex Summers, I think, I think it’s cool to hear like, because in LA there’s a lot of films being made, and so I’m friends with a bunch of composers. Heather McIntosh’s scores are really beautiful, and I think it’s really fun to get to hear what your friends make. And like, their personalities shine through and into these scores and, like, see them on the big screen. And everybody has their own distinct style that’s, like, chosen for that film.
Emily (CJSW)
Yeah.
Mary Lattimore
So it’s really, it’s really exciting to hear and to see on the big screen like that. Yeah.
Emily (CJSW)
Right on. I think I have two or three more questions. You have your own ties to college radio.
Mary Lattimore
Oh, yeah.
Emily (CJSW)
Which I wanted to touch on. You previously worked at WRUR in Rochester, New York. Are there any particular skills or lessons that you picked up during that time that you still carry with you?
Mary Lattimore
Oh, man, I love it so much. I also worked at WXYC in Chapel Hill for a summer. And I just love college radio. Let’s see skills. I mean, I know how to make a really good mixtape, you know.
Emily (CJSW)
I think, like, that art of mixtape making has been lost. So I think that’s a flex. [laughs]
Mary Lattimore
Well, if I do say so myself, I still have a cassette player, I don’t know. But I, what else, I don’t know. I think it’s made me better at talking to people on the radio and just kind of understanding. You know, when I’m interviewed for a college or community radio station, I feel like it, it just brings me such joy, because I know where it’s coming from.
Emily (CJSW)
Yeah.
Mary Lattimore
You know. And I think these things are so important to the community. And I’ve just seen so many of my friends and myself get turned on to music through radio and and I think it’s extremely important, yeah.
Emily (CJSW)
Right on. Outside of playing the harp, you also sometimes vinyl DJ. What kind of music do you like to spend and do you have like, a favourite song to put on?
Mary Lattimore
Yeah. Oh, man, I like, I like all the genres. I mean, the best thing, I’m sure you know, is like matching up things from different genres, and like seeing how they intersect, and like sometimes, sometimes accidentally finding out that they’re in the same key, and you’re like, ‘I’m gonna put this on next. Whoa! This fits really perfectly.’ You know, think that’s like a real thrill. Yeah. I think, like, yeah, I don’t know. I love, love DJing.
Emily (CJSW)
It’s so fun. It’s like, I have so many good songs, and you’re gonna hopefully get put on to one of them, for sure.
Mary Lattimore
My favorite song is called “Too Late” by the cure. It’s like a B-side from Love Song single and and I love playing that one, you know, cause’ it’s kind of a deeper cut, and it’s so it’s really poppy and great.
Emily (CJSW)
I love when people come up too and they’re like, ‘Oh my god, what is this song?’
Mary Lattimore
Yeah, it’s the best.
Emily (CJSW)
The most magical feeling. I have one last question for you, what are you listening to lately?
Mary Lattimore
Oh, man, good question. Well, I am really in love with this new record by Walt McClements. He’s an accordion player. He plays accordion through effects. We’ve toured a lot, and he’s very close friend. And the record is just stunning. He had a his first record, his first solo record was called A Hole In The Fence, and that was really beautiful. And then this kind of goes a step further, like includes some unusual instrumentation and just see him developing this thing that’s extremely beautiful and immersive. And if you ever get a chance to see him, his new record is called On a Painted Ocean, I think is what it’s called, or A Painted Ocean. It’s, it’s really beautiful.
Emily (CJSW)
All right. Well, I’ll have to check it out.
Mary Lattimore
Yeah.
Emily (CJSW)
Thank you so much for sitting down with us today.
Mary Lattimore
Thank you.
Emily (CJSW)
I hope you enjoy your time in Calgary. I’ll be sure to check out your show later today.
Mary Lattimore
Awesome.
Emily (CJSW)
And yeah.
Mary Lattimore
See you there.
Emily (CJSW)
That’s a wrap. Thank you.
Mary Lattimore
Thank you. Thanks.