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An Interview with Dru Allen and Summer Bowman of Mirabilis
Posted: Sunday, June 03, 2007
By: Ilker Yücel
Editor

Formed in 2001 by Dru Allen and Summer Bowman, Mirabilis might be what many perceive to be the quintessential neo-classical/darkwave music group. Having already established their reputations in the scene—Allen having fronted This Ascension for over a decade until their apparent dissolution in 2001 and Bowman with The Machine in the Garden—both women have demonstrated their unique vocal talents in their respective bands. With the release of their self-titled seven-inch EP in 2003 and their full-length debut Pleiades the following year, they sought out to create a new musical identity, one that not only combined the angelic beauty of their voices but also their growing skills as musicians, incorporating a variety of instrumentals that evoked the spirit of the medieval or Renaissance eras, but with a modern production edge that landed them very firmly in the here and now. After three years, Mirabilis returns with a new album, Sub Rosa, named for the Latin term for "under the rose," meaning secrecy. Dru Allen and Summer Bowman took some time to reveal their secrets to ReGen as they discussed the development of the new album, as well as shedding some light on the future of their other bands, both old and new. They offer some insight into the nature of their friendship beyond Mirabilis, and even their interest in fitness and the downside of touring.

Sub Rosa is the second full-length release by Mirabilis, following 2004's Pleiades. In the three years between albums, what would you say have been the biggest developments for Mirabilis, both personally and musically? What changes did the two of you go through, and how are they reflected in Sub Rosa?

Bowman: I think the biggest change on the new album is that we used a lot more instrumentation. I'm not exactly sure why that is or how that came about, but in between albums, I released with Roger Fracé a new The Machine in the Garden album, Shadow Puppets. That found him taking up most of the musical writing responsibility, because at that point, during Pleiades and after, pretty much anything I wrote went towards Mirabilis as opposed to the way it was before, where sometimes he'd write some songs, and sometimes I'd write some songs, and so forth. On that album, since Dru and I pretty much began working on it around the same time, anything I wrote ended up for Mirabilis. Any kind of musical stuff that I would've written for Machine in the Garden went on Mirabilis, instead. I think I had a lot more musical ideas, and also Dru comes here often to record, and there were several weekends when she was here and we'd start working on a musical idea together. I think she has also become more involved in writing instrumentation for whatever reason. We just ended up collaborating more on an instrumental level this time around and adding vocals to that, and we have less vocal nuggets that we began working with, less vocal doodles, as it were, this time around. I don't really know why, I just think we got more interested in writing more music. Dru, as her technological knowledge has grown in this process, has become more comfortable with writing music.

Allen: I couldn't agree with Summer's assessment more. You said everything I thought of, literally. I just want to re-echo that sentiment that with Pleiades, we started with some vocal pieces that either I'd sung before or Summer had, or a song we were familiar with, things like that. It was really something that came from that, and maybe instrumentation would be added or we'd put a different spin on it. That happened very much in the minority for the next record, and it's very much like Summer said. I'd come out there and we would have maybe two or three things on the plate to take care of, and we would just start fooling around in the studio. One of us would maybe stay up late and work on that, or we would just build on it together in a really sort of organic way. It was almost like jamming, but not in a traditional sense, because we don't have live instruments and we don't have a big selection of instruments, but you can do so much with stuff like synthesizers. Summer played flute, and that was new. We both played dulcimer a lot and incorporated that. In fact, a couple of songs started, if anything, as dulcimer riffs, and things were built on top of that.

Bowman: I think we've both become better with instruments through this process, and I've always kind of tacked on with Roger whatever he was working on, and Dru had already worked on stuff with This Ascension, but I think this process put us both in a songwriter hole. We really further explored that and became really comfortable and felt really good exploring more musical and instrumental elements.

Allen: And I also think that Summer's also grown to become more comfortable with being the conductor of many instruments at the mixing board. There is that other component, and maybe I shouldn't speak for Summer, but to me, you've become more comfortable with the engineering aspects and mixing. There's a lot going on with some of the songs on Sub Rosa, more so than the first record, and I think you've gotten a lot better. Not that you were bad before.

Bowman: That's definitely true. I'm much more comfortable in the studio with the technology, and mixing can be kind of intimidating when you head towards a song with lots of instruments. I was really intimidated at first with a few of the songs on this album, but as I started working on them and refining them, I found that I actually had all the experience I needed from Pleiades. I learned a lot, too, from Pete Murray who had worked with us on Pleiades and is working with us again on Sub Rosa with some additional mixing and engineering.

While the music of Mirabilis is primarily vocal, there are accompaniments of keyboards and other instrumentals. What is the writing process like for the two of you? How do you come up with the various arrangements and harmonies in your music? How do you decide on what's going to be a vocal piece and what's going to be an instrumental?

Allen: Well, I'll let Summer speak to her experience of actually putting together a song from start to finish, because that's something that I haven't done. I've never been able to just come up with a musical idea, like, 'Oh here's the beats, and here's the bass part, and here's a bridge,' and there are definitely a few pieces on Sub Rosa that she did that, start to finish. My experience was so long with This Ascension where I was sort of a fixed instrument, and it was very much everybody putting their ingredients into a pot and stirring it up. I still can't do that, but a lot of it has been like some of the things that we talked about, like spontaneity and working off one another's ideas, and sometimes one of us will hit a brick wall, and be like, 'I can't do anything with this anymore.' Then the other will go, 'Hit record! I know what to do!' There's a lot of playing back and forth and a lot of really good collaboration. There was a piece on Pleiades where we joked that we were both completely possessed by the same spirit of the music, and it came out so naturally. We didn't even write it. It was more like channeling it, and there were a couple of pieces on Sub Rosa that felt like that, too.

Bowman: Dru calls it channeling, and that's when one of us could get into this space where the music just kind of comes, and it's almost otherworldly. I think I mentioned that I've grown a lot as a musician from Machine in the Garden and from the things that I've done there. I used to have a kind of formula, a way that I would write songs, and it would end up with the kind of songs that sounded the same. Since I started working on Mirabilis, that's changed a lot. My formula doesn't really exist anymore, and I approached things from several aspects on this album. Sometimes drums would come first, but sometimes a dulcimer would come first, sometimes keyboard parts; there wasn't really any one way. With the vocal-only pieces, I tend to find some words or write some words and then I start playing with a different melody, or like a main theme part. Those usually come together pretty quickly and pretty easily.

What of the title Sub Rosa, the Latin phrase for 'under the rose,' which is commonly used to refer to confidentiality or secrecy, though it does have connotations in Greek mythology as well. Is there an underlying theme or concept to the songs on the album, and if so, how does the title relate to it?

Bowman: We're always on the lookout for unique things, phrases, words, and Dru just came across it, and we really loved the idea, the connotations, the different meanings, the subtleties, and the layers. It felt like it really fit some of the new layers and directions that we were exploring and the kind of unseen, uncharted territories we were exploring on that album. It just seemed to fit and work on maybe not even a conscious level.

Okay, what of the cover image, a sculpture of The Rape of the Sabine? How does this image tie into the album title or concept, or was it just something that looked good?

Allen: Summer took that photo.

Bowman: I was in Florence, and the statue is really impressive. It's hard to explain, and I'm trying to think of the word I want to say. It's really impressive and the presence of it is so strong. I saw David when I was in Florence, and in fact, I thought of it the same way, although you can't take photos of David. We were looking at different images and things that we could possibly use for the title and it kept striking me as a really beautiful piece of art, even though it is depicting a kind of horrible thing.

Allen: The connotation doesn't necessarily mean rape. It can mean taking. It's not as brutal as it sounds, but it is still a kind of powerful image.

Besides Mirabilis, Dru was in This Ascension and Summer is in The Machine in the Garden. How has working with each other in Mirabilis compared to working in your respective bands? Apart from the style of music, what do you find are the primary differences between what you do in your own bands and what you do in Mirabilis?

Allen: Well, it might be interesting to hear Summer's answer more because her other band is a partnership, too. I've never been in such a close partnership with somebody apart from a significant other. It's a very personal relationship. It was funny because when we did that photo shoot for our new pictures...

Bowman: I know what you're going to say! I was just thinking this!

Allen: Summer's friend Cindy, who took the pictures and also sings on the album, and who I had never met before, goes, 'Oh my gosh! Your mannerisms are so similar, it's eerie.' I never thought of that. Did you ever think that? Sometimes, our voices sound alike when we sing, and we go, 'Oh, is that me, or is that you?' And we can't tell, but it was really funny because she kept saying, 'You could be sisters!'

Bowman: I think 'siblings' is an apt metaphor, because we both are passionate people, both with regards to our music and life in general. We often agree, we disagree, and we'll get on a great creative pathway, and we'll both get really intense. We'll also have light moments, and we love to do social things together. We obviously don't work 24/7 when she's here, so we have to break things up with dinner out. Sometimes we'll go see a movie. We both like to exercise, and sometimes we'll go on a run together. When she's here, it's really a close partnership, and even when she's not, I don't know if we ever expected to develop into the friendship that we now have, where it's not just about music anymore. We've become very good friends, and I've found many occasions when I needed Dru's advice, or just for her to listen as a friend, and it's not Mirabilis-related at all. In fact, I would say these days, almost half of our interactions aren't even Mirabilis-related, because we've grown into really good friends. It's a different relationship than I have with Roger in The Machine in the Garden in terms of our musical interaction. He and I just work together differently. I think I mentioned that on Shadow Puppets, the dynamic shifted more towards where it used to be. In the beginning, I got music and I sang on it.

Didn't it start out as his solo thing?

Bowman: It did, and then I came along, and he'd give me music and I'd sing. The middle albums became a little more collaborative. Most of the songs were that way, but also I would help write some songs. Sometimes he'd sing on songs, but they're not all released on albums. Then with Shadow Puppets it swung back the other way as mostly finished music that I would then sing on. With Dru and me, I feel like the creative process is really collaborative. We're both really engaged and involved in all the songs from the top to the bottom. There are only a couple of songs where one of us did all the stuff, or it was done separately, like instruments by one, vocals by the other. Most of the songs are really highly collaborative and both of our hands are way deep in all the music. For me, it's different that way.

Allen: Not to stray too far from the musical topic, but I wanted to restate how we both became interested in fitness around the same time. I was always trying to get into running, and it's funny because Summer was getting into it, but for real. She is a natural sort of teacher and trainer, and I got carried away with that and really learned a lot. This mirrors my experience working in the studio with her, because she's naturally very good at imparting new things to people, so she was really instrumental in getting me up to speed in the studio, but I also learned a lot from her from the fitness standpoint. I just want to brag about Summer because she has become an accomplished tri-athlete.

Summer competed in the triathlon?

Bowman: Yes, there are varying distances of triathlon, and they're getting bigger and bigger and harder and harder, but I got the bug.

Allen: Triathlons are really actually very goth. It's all about pain. [Laughs.]

Bowman: Plus, bike shorts are always black.

Some artists, when they begin work on another project, seem to place more focus on one rather than the other. While The Machine in the Garden released Shadow Puppets in 2005, This Ascension has been inactive for some years. What can you tell us about the current status of both bands, and how has working in Mirabilis affected your outlook on them

Allen:I can't really say very much about This Ascension, because it's a group of six people that shift around, and I don't want to discount the possibility that something could happen. I really can't say. I miss being in a band, for sure, and I miss This Ascension in parts, so it's kind of hard to figure out what I miss. We all get along as people, so it's nothing like that. I think it was what it was and that it maybe came to its natural conclusion. I really want to say this in a good way.

So many bands tend to continue when they shouldn't. To say that something has run its natural course is probably the best and simplest way to say it.

Allen: Well, I saw Bauhaus when they reunited, and then I saw them again. I think that was last year or maybe the year before. And I thought, 'OK, this was really fun, but what was the point?' They didn't play anything new at all. It was fun, but if we were to do something again, I would want it to have some meaning, whether that's because we're putting out something new or we're celebrating something. If I won the lottery, I'd get everybody together and put them on a tour bus and we'd go out. But it's just so hard to get six people to do anything, let alone go out on a tour. You try to get six people to go to see a movie, and it's like herding cats. [Laughs.]

Bowman: Roger's in the studio right now as we speak in the other room. I don't know what he's doing. He did a great remix for the album. It's really good.

For Sub Rosa?

Bowman: Yes. The very first song on the album will be a remix at the end of the album as well. He did that remix and it's really fabulous. It's got a great beat, very club-friendly. We're working on a song for an Attrition cover album or tribute album. We were actually personally asked to do it, so that's exciting and interesting. We're also working on a kind of 'best of,' demos, rarities, outtakes, remixes, a kind of random collection of junk that was never released in some form. We'd like to have that out this year, because it's the 15th anniversary of The Machine in the Garden as well as the 10th anniversary of the release of Underworld. It seems like an appropriate year to do something like that. Right now, obviously, Mirabilis is center stage, and we're trying to get that all hammered out. As soon as that's all taken care of with a release date, we're ready to go there, and then Roger and I will be off and running to try to get that all put together. It'll probably be a limited thing, like 500 copies or so; we're not sure. We haven't really talked about after that. I definitely see that going forward. I don't see any reason why it won't. I've been monopolizing the studio, so there hasn't been lots of time to do anything related to The Machine in the Garden, and I think Roger's been fed up with the software we're using, which is funny because we're using industry-standard ProTools. He's been wanting to expand his horizons with regards to MIDI programming, and ProTools doesn't have a lot of MIDI capabilities, so he's been working with Logic Audio lately, so a lot of the time that he's actually been spending in the studio has been learning new software. That's time-consuming, because that particular application has a pretty hefty learning curve to it.

A lot of people are starting to use Logic Audio as opposed to ProTools nowadays.

Bowman: I understand that once you've learned it, there's no better tool, especially for MIDI editing and programming.

There was a track Dru performed with Monica Richards, titled 'Frater Ave Atque Vale,' on a Tess Records compilation, which acted as somewhat of a precursor to Mirabilis. Has it ever been a consideration to bring Monica Richards into Mirabilis, at least as a guest performance?

Allen: I think she'd be open to it, but we haven't ever put something official together. It's a great idea, and there have been other people that we'd love to work with who we've extended invitations to. The nice thing about Mirabilis is that I don't feel that sense of urgency, like, ‘Oh my god, we have to get so-and-so for the next record,' because it could just go on infinitely. It's just a different kind of project to be involved in. It would be great to work with Monica at some point, and it's really a matter of getting her schedule free and find her appropriately.

Bowman: Yeah, she's been busy with her comic, and she's now got a solo project, and she's got that punk rock thing that she's doing, plus Faith and the Muse. She's involved in a million different things, so the timing hasn't been really apt, but hopefully we'll get the timing worked out at some point.

Allen: She's one of the only people that makes Summer look not busy.

Pleiades featured guest performances from Regeana Morris, Katy Belle, and Rebecca Colleen Miller. What was it like working with them, and will any of them be featured on Sub Rosa? What other sorts of guest appearances will we be seeing on Sub Rosa?

Bowman: It was really great working with the three of them. We didn't interface a lot with Regeana, but she made a lot of the compositional choices on that track and then sent it our way, and then we added to it. She's incredibly talented. That was really exciting to have her on the album. Meeting Katy is a funny story, and she performs in Matson Belle, but she has a band that often revolves and changes. I actually heard her on the radio, and I don't listen to the radio, so I don't know what was going on that day. I must've just popped out a CD. I was listening to like a South by Southwest showcase on the radio, so I left it on and I heard this song. It was so great, a really neat song, and they said, 'That was an Austin artist,' and then it got all fuzzy, and I never heard it again and never figured it out. Probably about a year later, Roger's brother came into town and he said, 'I'd really like you and Roger to go have dinner with my friend. She's a musician, and you'll really like her.' So we had dinner with her, and she gave us a CD, and it was that song, and I loved it. We became great supporters of her music and became friends with her, and I knew that she just had to sing on a Mirabilis song. I had written this song for The Machine in the Garden and tried some vocals on it, and it never really worked out. I sent it to Dru, and she couldn't think of anything either.

Allen: That was completely daunting to me because I really liked the song and the only thing I could think of was, ‘Could you take this out, or could you take that out,' because there was a lot going on. I'm so glad that you just said, 'Let's see if Matson Belle wants to do it,' and I guess you played it for her and she said, 'I want to do it!'

Bowman: She was all over it, and those weird chanting vocals in the background, that was kind of what I had tried that didn't work, and I needed them. When I gave it to her, I didn't have those on, so she recorded without them. We worked together and she sang a big thing, so we trimmed and worked it into the melody that you hear. Then I put those weird vocals back on it and it was great. It's one of my favorite songs. People comment on that song a lot.

Allen: It's almost got a Björk-like quality to it.

Bowman: Colleen's a crazy multi-talented lady who I've known for several years, actually. Her husband works with Roger at a company, so we met that way. She is an amazing operatic vocalist, like auditioned for the Met type of woman. She's got this velvet alto voice, and she had to be on the album because that voice is just gorgeous. She had some ideas, and nothing was really working out, and I handed her some words and said, 'Here, sing that. Come up with something.' And she did, and it was great. She's on the new album, too. She's the only guest that's carrying over, so that's exciting, though she's a little more hidden on Sub Rosa. It's kind of a big vocal thing, so you can't really tell that it's her so much, but that velvety voice is in there and it definitely adds a lot of fullness to the song. We mentioned Cindy a little bit already, who took some pictures, and her track is fabulous. She sings and she also played flute on the track she sings on and on another track. I was just playing her some stuff from the album, and she said, 'Oh, that track, I want to add flute.' I said, ‘Well, it's done, but OK.' She did, and it really added to the song, even though there was already gobs going on before. Somehow, it really added something to the song. Her track is fabulous, and it's actually a beautiful tribute to her father who recently passed away.

Dru, you recently performed vocals for a track by Asymptote. How did this collaboration come about and what was it like working in a more electronic/industrial style of music different from what most audiences would normally associate you with?

Allen: I'm really looking forward to that getting finished at some point. David Flick just wrote saying, 'I really like your music,' and 'I'm in a band too.' And he was just exiting Voodou, and was like, 'I and this other guy are doing this other project called Entropy.' He sent me a CD of that and I thought it was brilliant. He's really prolific, and he'll like record a record and then he'll say, 'Oh, now I'm recording new stuff.' Initially I was going to sing a track on Entropy, and then they got another track for me, so I was going to try to do two tracks. Then he said, 'Wait, now I'm working with this other guy.' So then it was the Asymptote track, and I really do want to finish that at some point. It was really challenging for me, and this is not a reflection on David at all. His music is just brilliant, and he's one of the best human beings I've ever met through e-mail. I met him when he came to the concert in DC, but to have met somebody like that, I feel really special to have made his acquaintance. So that was really challenging for me, and I hope to continue with that relationship. I can't compliment him enough.

Bowman: Did you play that for me, Dru?

Allen: Yeah, I played it for you in the car. It's still a preliminary mix, though. I feel like I would like to do a better job on it. The music is just phenomenal. It almost tells its own story. I could say, 'This song is so great, it would be a great instrumental.' It has the kind of feel like...the only thing I can think of is Peter Gabriel's Passion. It's a different style of music, but that's kind of how it affected me, so it's neat. We'll get more stuff out.

Bowman: It can be challenging for yourself to sing for a different kind of genre than you're used to. Like when I did The Synthetic Dream Foundation, it's very industrial and techno in a way. It's very electronic and different and I had a really hard time with it. In fact, he sent me a couple of other things, and I'm still really behind. I think it's just that you're not used to hearing your voice in that context.

Is there anything that either of you would like to add in closing?

Bowman: You should be on the lookout for future live performances. We haven't ever performed live, but we definitely plan on it. On Dru's last visit, it was something that we started to think about and work out a little bit.