Over the last six years, journalists have never failed to mention that How To Dress Well mastermind Tom Krell is working towards a PhD in continental philosophy.
It’s an intriguing biographical detail – and he is indeed still working on that PhD – but he’s not planning on making a full-time shift into academia any time soon.
“[Music] is 100 per cent my real passion,” says Krell. “The thing I care about the most is doing this music project. It’s just made me so happy over the last five, six years. I feel so fucking blessed to have found this thing to do that I love so much.”
Krell’s passionate investment in How To Dress Well is reflected in his creative self-confidence. Speaking with the BRAG after the release of 2014’s What Is This Heart?, he said, “If I had to say which record I thought was the best of this year, it would be mine.” But such statements shouldn’t be mistaken as a display of arrogance. First of all, Krell is an undeniably hard worker, and he’s graciously appreciative of his ongoing success.
“That’s part of what brings me so much joy from it – when you start to work towards a dream and then it’s matching up and it’s producing itself in reality, it’s kind of a thrilling feeling,” he says.
Just as you’d expect from someone engaged in a philosophy PhD, Krell’s not interested in doing things by halves. Nor would he release anything he didn’t completely believe in, which is certainly the case with his new LP, Care.
“I always take very seriously and want to treat with a lot of respect the fact that I’m not putting something out just for myself,” he says. “As my audience has built, [I’ve just been trying] to do something very good for the people who have invested so much time and energy into my project. With this record, I cannot fucking wait to get it to people. I’m so proud of it and so happy to share it.”
It’s immediately apparent upon pressing play that Care is a celebratory, triumphant record. Although Krell hinted at a proclivity for pop on his first three albums, with radio-ready hooks rising to the fore on What Is This Heart?, Care is an all-out buffet full of bold melodies and sensual rhythms. The record features production from the likes of Jack Antonoff (fun., Taylor Swift), Dre Skull, CFCF and Kara-Lis Coverdale, who help to spotlight the vocal and lyrical hooks.
“A lot has changed in my life in the last couple of years, spiritually, psychically. I’m way happier and more secure in myself than ever before,” Krell says. “It sounds cheesy, but I’ve come to realise that there are things that I like in life – like I want love, I want sex, I want good feelings and I want to claim them with real authority. I think that personal voyage has material consequences in the kinds of choices I make musically.”
This personal development is reflected in the album’s lyrics, whichlargely concern human emotions, intersubjective interactions and self-understanding. An especially major theme is how crucial self-understanding and self-acceptance are when having a healthy relationships with others. Though it’s not wholly unusual for such themes to appear in pop songs, what’s unique about Care is the honest, raw manner in which Krell addresses his thematic concerns. He adopts a sober and assertive perspective, rather than acting irrational and flippant.
“I think if one wanted to, one could do a psychoanalytic case study on my album arc so far – the four albums – and the way that art has allowed me personally to work through a lot of stuff. Now when the songs are sad, they’re not this swirling, inchoate, inarticulate sadness. They’re directly facing the sadness, directly grappling with my desires. Instead of being like, ‘I think I want this, I think I want that,’ now the songs say, ‘This is what I want and this is how I’m going to get it, and I can’t wait to have it.’ Or, ‘This is what I want but I know it’s wrong.’ I feel like I have a much more direct relationship with myself now and I put myself through a lot less hell.”
Krell singles out one song on Care that typifies his newly realised inner clarity. “I used to think that the only way to honour an experience was to take a poetic path. I think that the most profoundly poetic thing I’ve ever written is the long chorus on ‘Made A Lifetime’ where I say, ‘I’ll always be indebted to how warm skin is / If you ever want to feel it let me know.’ I used to think I had to blow things up and destroy things in order to touch reality.
“Part of the reason I called the record Care is because care for me is nurturing. You can’t just destroy yourself to get a poetic image. You have to live the next day. This calmness I’ve developed in myself over the last few years, it’s brought me way more happiness and way more pleasure and clarity of vision, clarity of feeling.”
[How To Dress Well photo by Ben Tricklebank]
How To Dress Well’sCareis out Friday September 23 through Domino.
