Following their collaboration in avantgarde folk band Bishopskin, Revd Tati Gutteridge and James Donovan have now decided to create music together as Mother Church. Both no strangers to music, with Donovan having been a founding member and songwriter in much-hyped London band HMLTD and Gutteridge an avid songwriter who discovered her love of the Anglican choral tradition before joining her husband’s experimental rock band Ex Giant, this new project interweaves theological themes and plainsong with elements of alternative folk and literary inspirations. With the addition of sweeping – and largely improvised! – strings from classically trained violinist Hana Miyagi, their debut album Yolk offers a carefully crafted collection of compositions reflecting on both theological and literary themes, each oozing an enthralling splendour and intrigue. Yolk is set for release this Friday, 13th November, and is being celebrated with a special launch show at St Pancras Old Church that evening.
We caught up with front person and songwriter, Revd Tati, to discuss her inspirations, the influences behind the album, her role as a female priest and the unique experience of playing live. Have a read, pre-order the exquisite album, and nab tickets for their launch show on Friday now!
Hi Tati, welcome to Get In Her Ears! Would you like to tell us a bit about yourself and what you do?
I am an ordained priest in the Church of England and musician. I have two kids, two beautiful cats, and in the free time I can find, I enjoy patchworking. I’m very interested, as a priest and songwriter, in the subject of sin. I want to find the beauty in ugly things.
How did you and James Donovan initially meet and decide to start creating music together as Mother Church?
James and I met several years ago, after a Mass in which I had been singing chants from the Roman Gradual. I subsequently started playing with Bishopskin, often incorporating plainchant elements into our songs (Stella Splendens, Come Home, Grey Rabbit),. I can’t remember why we started working on the Mother Church material, but once we started, we just had to create something complete with it. I wrote the songs, but James was really the engine behind making the record.
And how did you first connect with musician Hana Miyagi?
James met Hannah at a jam session hosted by the Fat White Family. I met her later, through Bishopskin. She has this amazing way of improvising. I think she calls it psycho-violin. Her style on Yolk is mostly sweet and melodic, and it’s her ability to switch from sweetness to quite frightening, harsh lines that make her, for me, such a compelling instrumentalist.
What do you think it was that first got you into songwriting and singing?
I have always been interested in songwriting. It’s always been a way for me to process and interpret the world around me. I didn’t get into singing until much later when I was a graduate student. I joined a chapel choir and was given some singing lessons, which really developed my understanding of how to use my voice.
It’s quite a unique experience, to be an ordained reverend and part of a band – how do you find balancing these two roles, as well as your role as a mother to two children? It sounds like you have a lot of different responsibilities to keep on top of!
Until I started working on Mother Church, I tried not to cross the streams of being a priest and a musician. My songwriting is obviously suffused with religion, but, for example, I wouldn’t perform wearing my clerical clothes. Mother Church blurs the boundary between being a priest and being a musician much more, because so much of the music is about my understanding of myself as a Christian and as a priest, so I’m not sure where that will go aesthetically in the long run. As for the kids, I bounced back into doing gigs and so on pretty quickly after my first, but getting back into the world has been a much slower process with my second.
How do you generally find being a female reverend? Do you ever encounter any challenges in the profession due to your gender?
Firstly, I have benefited enormously from the efforts made by women who have pursued ordination before me. I have found the Church of England to be a supportive environment as a female priest, and I have found my diocese, in particular, to be really supportive of my needs as a working mother. It would be misleading of me to pretend that the subject of women’s ordination is simple and easy. But my personal experience has been a very affirming one.
Yolk, the exquisite debut album from Mother Church, is out this Friday 13th November, which is very exciting! Are you able to tell us about the main themes running through it and what inspired the writing?
Yolk is a collection of ten original songs about desire, and particularly the desire to be and become good.I said earlier that I was interested in sin, and that is one of the main themes of the album. What do we do with the ugliness and brokenness within ourselves? I hope that my treatment of this subject is uplifting, and not accusing or dispiriting!
And do you have any particular musical influences who you feel inspired the album?
I have so many musical influences, and it is hard. I often find it hard to list them because it’s not always obvious how they might have influenced my work. For example, I am very interested in the English music hall tradition, and I love David Bowie and think that he is a songwriter in whom you see the influence of the music hall tradition transcribed into a new genre. It is interesting how influences become displaced in new forms like that. I was playing a lot of Ivor Novello when I wrote some of the songs on this album. More obviously, these songs are influenced by the British folk revival. I’m also very keen on Yma Sumac and the way she uses her voice.
The album was recorded in one day at the crypt in St John’s Church in Bethnal Green, which seems very appropriate! How was this experience for you, and how do you think it affected the sound of the album?
Recording the album was so much fun and so intense. We had so much material to get through in one day. But having to do each track live in one take, meant that we did capture a really raw energy in each song. Louis Grace was so fun to work with. He really understood the dry, intimate sound that we were aiming for. But the logistics that we were limited by certainly helped us focus in on the vision of doing an album that was live, with small forces and minimal production magic.
You’re launching the album with a special show at St Pancras Old Church on Friday 13th. How do you find the experience of playing live, and what can people expect at this show?
I love doing live shows. Public engagement is obviously something I do a lot of as a priest as well. So for me, it feels quite natural to be in front of a crowd. I like to have a clear sense of purpose when I am doing anything in public. I suppose my desire for this show is to communicate something of the sense of mystery that makes faith such a rich subject for me to write about.
Huge thanks so Tati for speaking to us! Yolk, the debut album from Mother Church, is out this Friday 13th November via Trapped Animal Records. Make sure you pre-order the album, and nab tickets for Friday’s launch show now – it promises to be a pretty special night!
