Guitarist and songwriter Nili Brosh pursues a multi-faceted career as a performing guitarist with a number of high-profile touring gigs as well as writing and performing her own Instrumental Rock music. This year will be particularly energetic for her as she continues to perform with Michael Jackson ONE by Cirque du Soleil, and also performs with Danny Elfman on dates in California, as well joining Dethklok on their summer tour, “The Babyklok Tour,” with Babymetal.
But alongside preparation for those different roles, Brosh has also found the time to record and release two new, interrelated tracks that build on her three previous solo albums, Through The Looking Glass (2010), A Matter of Perception (2014), and Spectrum, (2019). The solo music also forms the basis of Brosh’s solo touring and she has plans in the works for a new solo tour in 2024. The two new tracks, “Song for Hope” and “Lavender Mountains” have an interesting sonic relationship and also tie into Brosh’s feelings for her adopted home of Las Vegas. I spoke with her about her busy 2023 coming up and how these songs developed for her.
HMS: Based on all the announcements lately, you have a lot going on, from releasing new solo music to upcoming dates with Cirque du Soleil, Danny Elfman and Dethklok. Has rehearsing and getting ready been spread out enough for you, or is it all on top of each other?
Nilil Brosh: It’s mainly that now, post-Covid, everything is happening all at once. Luckily, it’s been spread out. Up until now, the scheduling has been relatively chill. I’m still lucky that everything is working out without scheduling conflicts. There’s not a lot of new music to learn and now it’s just the result of all the hard work that’s already been put into it.
HMS: Regarding your new songs, I know they were written after the songs on your previous album, Spectrum. Do you see these as part of a new wave of music underway right now? Or are they more standalone?
NB: It might be somewhere in-between. I definitely see them as something that will be part of a bigger record that’s more of a conceptual thing, but that being said, some of the music that’s being written right now has some resemblance to Spectrum. It has several genres to it already, like the previous album did. I’m not necessarily saying that the next album will be “Spectrum Part II”, but hopefully it’ll sound like a natural evolution even when it ends up being different.
HMS: I know that there’s a relationship between “Song for Hope” and “Lavender Mountains” and that you suggested that they be listened to together, so that reminded me of the beginning of an emotional arc. Did you think that way when creating albums before, that there were relationships among the songs?
NB: With the first two, not as much. With Spectrum, it ended up being the result of the music itself. It didn’t strike me that the songs were related until it hit me that despite different genres, each song had at least one thing in common with another song on the album and blended into one another. Aside from that, I didn’t think of relationships in a big way. But the new album may end up naturally going that way, too, like the last one. I try not to push things in any particular direction but try to let the music have its own life and lead me to where it wants to go.
HMS: Are you someone who is always working on your own music whenever you have time?
NB: For the most part. I have a lot of voice memos on my phone. That’s how these songs started as well. I get some melodic idea in my head and I sing it into the phone and jot down whatever notes I hear. I then know that it’s there for whenever I do have the time to actually sit down and sketch it out. Sometimes that’s the entirety of the song, sometimes it’s just one part with a lot of writing work still to be done.
HMS: I was watching the latest U2 documentary that was on recently, and I think towards the end, The Edge said that he had thousands of musical voice memos to work through. It was a funny moment.
NB: [Laughs] Because it’s very easy to not come back to them if you don’t really have a strong intention to come back to them. It’s very easy to have a fleeting thought, jot it down, feel safe that it’s there, and then the moment is gone. For me, sometimes it’s a matter of prioritizing the ones that you really want to see through, because you don’t forget them, and they keep popping up in your head. I have a lot of voice memos, but I probably like about four of them! I get it.
HMS: Instrumental Rock is not the biggest genre in the world, though I have spoken to a number of bands in recent years who pursue it. I know that your songwriting took you a while to come to grips with because of needing to construct melodies. Do you think Instrumental Rock is growing, or is it mainly your imperative, your creative urge, which drives you?
NB: I think it’s both. If my music continues to land that way, I’m going to continue to make it in the way that it makes sense to me. Like you mention, though, I think there’s plenty of evidence out there that it is not dead and there are audiences who are open to it. Actually, it’s very easy for the instrumentalist to see it as a niche thing, but I think it has more potential than we’ve been giving it credit for. I think there is a resurgence in it.
HMS: Not that this is the main reason for making Instrumental Rock, but I’ll point out that a lot of Rock music has to be recorded in an instrumental version if songwriters want to seek placement in TV, film, or advertising. Having an instrumental version as the original version is a natural advantage to working with other art forms.
NB: It’s true. I completely agree with that.
HMS: With “Song For Hope”, which was the first of these two tracks to be written, was it just another memo to you, or did you have a sense that you would pursue it?
NB: It did start as a memo, but it did start on the guitar, in the sense that the voice memo was played on the guitar rather than sung. I don’t remember if there was an earlier version. But like the majority of my work, it started out that way.
HMS: I guess it would be weird if you, being who you are, suddenly wrote a demo on a piano! Though I have heard of that occasionally.
NB: I’ve done that, too! And I’ll tell you why. It’s a similar reason to my singing the voice memos. It’s really easy for guitarists to bastardize ideas by overplaying them and playing too many notes just because we can. If you’re singing something, you’re going to need to take breaths at certain points. If you’re using your voice, you usually come out with a better sense of phrasing.
We guitarists don’t have a reason to stop, we don’t know how to. If you sing something, you guarantee that it can be concise and memorable. You can’t kill it. With the piano, it’s the same thing for me because I don’t know how to play the piano. I use my index finger all around the keys. That limits how many notes I can play, and that helps the idea, because it forces me to do something that even I can jot down.
HMS: It reminds me of story writing, where it’s almost always better to have a very clear outline in place before beginning.
NB: Yes! I also compare it to punctuation all the time, because that’s what it is. When you’re talking, there are commas, and periods, and things that make sense to the listener. Hopefully, with the playing, it’s the same. If you don’t have that, it’s going to be really hard for the listener to try to figure out what you’re trying to say.
HMS: I noticed with these songs that there is room and space for pausing, almost like breathing space.
NB: Exactly! Talk to a saxophone player. They are going to pass out eventually if they don’t pause.
HMS: How did “Song For Hope” develop for you? Was it returning to the basic demo and building layers, or making it a longer piece?
NB: I think, what I call the B section, the middle section, came later. That felt a little more compositional to me. But it didn’t feel like a grind. That song kind of flowed. I’m always grateful for the ones that do since there’s plenty of times that it’s like pulling teeth in the songwriting process.
HMS: It’s a very memorable song. I feel like it could be translated in multiple genres and instruments and still be recognizable.
NB: Thank you. I would love to hear some different interpretations. Again, that’s why I focus on melody. I would like there to be meat to the song that can be taken in different ways.
HMS: For that song, you made a decision to keep things spare. Was that part of the emotion you were looking for?
NB: I think so. It didn’t feel like it needed to be something less mellow. I felt like it was a complete thought. And with the long introduction to “Lavender Mountains”, it felt like that would naturally follow from a mellow thing, to a long brooding intro, to a triumphant place. It’s that thought process. For now, that’s the complete picture. Even though it’s not one long tune, it still feels like those two songs follow each other.
HMS: When do you realize that these were two related songs?
NB: I think it was pretty early on because that intro was always there, and it was clear to me that a song was going to come out of that intro. The intro had this ethereal vibe to me that I kind of equated with the reverb on “Song For Hope” and the tone that I was trying to achieve with that. The connection there seemed natural. It was a sonic connection.
HMS: The energy is very different for “Lavender Mountains” with its build-up and trajectory. I understand that one of the difficulties of making Instrumental Rock is trying to craft guitar parts that essentially follow vocal lines.
NB: Exactly, yes. It’s very hard.
HMS: They are two different things, but they can be brought together.
NB: It’s a long process. At least, it is for me.
HMS: Are there discoveries that you have to make with each song in order to get there?
NB: Yes, there are a lot of little details about it that you wouldn’t think, on the surface, were there. And those are things that you have to discover.
HMS: The video for “Lavender Mountains” is a lot of fun.
NB: I wanted it to be the visual representation of those lavender mountains that surround me in Las Vegas! It was simple and to the point.
HMS: Do you see these mountains where you live?
NB: Vegas is pretty much surrounded by these mountains that have different colors throughout the day and throughout different seasons of the year. A lot of them look very purplish and that’s something I’ve always loved, and I find inspiring. I try to go out there hiking as much as I can and when the weather permits. The desert has always fed my soul. It seemed natural for this to be the song that gets that video. The director, Anomaly, really killed it. I’m so proud of how it came out.
HMS: The visuals are very crisp and lovely. My family comes from the mountains and something my mother used to say is that looking up towards mountains kind of lifts you up, too. There’s something about that human experience.
NB: What a great way to put it! Yes! I completely agree.
HMS: I feel like the music does that, too, since it has that rising build up. Then when you put it with the video, the two things reinforce each other.
NB: That’s the nicest thing I could hear!
