Lauren Green and Marissa Macias - Tan Cologne Interview
Tan Cologne is the duo of Lauren Green and Marissa Macias. The two artists work in sonic + tactile modalities inspired by both Earthly and otherworldly landscapes. Their debut album "Cave Vaults..." has been listed as one of GvsB’s Favorite Albums of '20, Brooklyn Vegan's Best Albums of '20, and Upcoming projects: 7” (Curation Records), 2nd album (Labrador Recs), soundscape residency (Pescetrullo Italy).
When and where were you born? What was your childhood like growing up? When did you first begin to fall in love with music? Was this something that was relevant around your household growing up?
Lauren - I was born in late May on the same day as Bob Dylan, 47 years later in a small town outside of Austin, TX called “Belton”. Childhood was spent mostly in the woods, swimming, learning guitar, and finding fossils and shells at the lake. Music was always an intuitively special element in my life, even though there weren’t conventional instruments lying around the house. My mom played the flute (and was the only other musician besides Marissa and I who was recorded on “Cave Vaults...”!), but otherwise I found my own pathways. There was always music coming from somewhere around the house. Lots of 90s smooth jazz, Texas musicians, old country and classic rock.
Marissa - I was born and raised in the southside of Santa Monica, and it was a small kinda edgy beach town back then and resides in my mind forever as a intertwined experience of cholos and surfers. When I drive down Rose Ave now, I still imagine Rosita the seamstress and the lowrider bikers cruising around. I grew up in a musical family, but I’ve been shy about performing til most recently - though I have loved and played the electric guitar since I was 12.
What would you do for fun growing up? Who were some of your earliest influences in your more formative years? When and where did you see your first concert and when did you realize you wanted to spend your time pursuing music?
Marissa - I spent a lot of time at the beach, in the sun and in the ocean. It was my life and has remained my sacred place. I grew up listening to CSNY, Sade, Tom Petty and Nirvana, and I still listen to all of them. When I first heard Mazzy Star that kind of changed my experience of listening and discovering. My first concert was at the Venice pit and I saw Sponge play with my Uncle.
Lauren - There wasn’t as much accessibility in a small town in Texas, so research and observation became a large part of existence. I spent most of my time exploring wilderness, learning guitar and drums, messing around with a Tascam 8-track, layering sounds, and digging in to projects my grandma and grandpa were exploring - gardening, beekeeping, tree grafting. Some early influences were early Black Sabbath, 13th Floor Elevators, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Broadcast. My first big concert was Reba McEntire & The Judds (!) at the Bell County Expo Center. When I started venturing out to underground shows at local skateparks, VFWs, and house shows around town, I became interested in widening my musical scope to different sounds and genres.
Did you participate in any groups prior to Tan Cologne? How did you guys initially meet each other? What were your first impressions of one another and what led to forming the band? What was the overall vision and approach to the group? When and where did recording begin for the group’s 2020 debut album “CVOTMINM” and how did you want to go about writing and reading this album?
Lauren - I have been in a few different projects since high school as well as playing with other musicians’ projects. A few were Mirror Travel, Black Gum and LRN GRN. Marissa had been experimenting with guitar layers and keyboard waves, newly songwriting and exploring sounds when they met in Taos, New Mexico. We met through our friend Jesse, and began creating music together about a year later. We both discussed all our musical and visual inspirations, set up a series of guitar pedals in a circle and played what we referred to as “dark west”. The overall vision came from sound experimentation and writing in a very old building in Ranchos de Taos, NM. We write, perform and record everything on both albums, which is a key element that has become the essence of our project. Tan Cologne came out of our collaborative journey together in a rare place. “Cave Vaults on The Moon in New Mexico” recorded and produced in two unique spaces - a 250 plus year old historic adobe structure, and a small hippie casita in Northern New Mexico. We primarily wrote in an old fortress steps from the St. Francis de Assisi church. The environment had deep swirling and strange energy. There and then, as we wrote, we would work on parts individually, shuffling through obscure occurrences and faulty electricity. Together during the process of "Cave Vaults" we weaved together our supernatural textures, and sounds.
2022 saw the release of the band’s follow up on Labrador entitled “EVOWS”. Can you tell me about writing and recording this record and how you wanted to approach this material that differs from the previous album? What else does summer have in store for you guys? Any shows, or tours to support the album next month upon its release?
Lauren - “Earth Visions of Water Spaces” as a body of work feels more Earth centered. It is about the shared space with humanity and all life forms. We moved into a new space at the end of 2020 and transformed the entire home as we wrote and recorded at our home in Ranchos de Taos, NM. The location is fairly remote, so we were able to record at various times in the day without disturbing any humans, horses, or spirits. Writing and recording simultaneously is also part of our process since we are a duo and write, perform and record all instrumentation by ourselves. We began recording "Earth Visions of Water Spaces" in the summer of 2021 and would go to a pool down the road, then write and record simultaneously. Swimming became an important ritual for this album, gardening too, and visiting the dry river bed on the land. For "Earth Visions of Water Spaces", we experienced a different, but also still thunderous and lengthy process. The summers in New Mexico have major monsoons and lightning storms. Most of the recording was done during moody and wild weather in the contrasting day - from lightning storms to dust devils to snow. In the new space, there are a decent amount of windows, so it felt like we were almost a part of the elemental dances and shifts for this album.
As for Summer plans, we are about to venture down to San Jose del Cabo Baja Mexico where we were invited to take part in a music residency and full band live performance at El Ganzo Hotel for a week. We will be playing a few select shows in California as well as a short East Coast jaunt. We have a new single and music video entitled “Visitation” due out on Labrador Records July 21st and an upcoming instrumental project from our previous music residency at Pescetrullo in Puglia, Italy from last Summer. The Pescetrullo project will contain a cassette of instrumental songs recorded on site, as well as an accompanying printed matter of visuals from our time there.
Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?
Thank you for having us!
