“I want to draw the listeners in and let them feel suspended in that moment, altering their experience of the passage of time. The sounds should promote a shift from conscious thought towards a more emotional and physical experience.” This is what artist Lyndsie Alguire wants to achieve with her performance for Practice on March 17th at Never Apart.

“I’ll be improvising with a small group of sounds, building them up harmonically and texturally. The sounds will come together into a whole that becomes increasingly immersive as it progresses through time.”

Lyndsie Alguire is a Montreal based musician, photographer and model. The delicate, sensual and melancholic textures of her photographs is also what I found in her music. It is akin to the memory of a dream that lingers, but effaces itself as the day goes on, only to leave a bittersweet and velvety affect.

We caught up with the artist to learn more about her musical process and universe.

How do you describe your music to people who’ve never heard it before?

My music is often ethereal, textural, and detailed. It’s based on improvisation and a focus on stillness. It’s mostly composed of piano or synths with non-verbal vocals, and some field recordings.

How did you learn music and what was that process like for you?

I begged my parents for piano lessons from a young age, and started around the age of 7. I had a classical training via the Royal Conservatory for Music’s repertoire. I had a piano teacher as well as a theory teacher, and I was encouraged to take the RCM’s exams. The pressure to follow that path, as well as the performance anxiety I experienced during those exams caused me to eventually quit my lessons, and for a while I focused more on the flute which I was learning in high school.

My keyboard at the time had a very limited two-track recording feature, and that was how I first started to write my own music and was my first experience with multi-track recording. My high school music teacher eventually set up a recording studio and started teaching audio engineering, which I got very into, to the point of him letting me take gear home where I would study the manuals and experiment with it.

What does your songwriting and compositional process look like?

It always starts with a mood and with improvisation. I’ll feel something that I can’t express in words, but that I want to describe, document, and share in some way. Often I’ll hit record and just start playing either at my digital piano, or with my synth and pedals making loops. Once I have enough material, I’ll start editing and arranging it. Once it has a “skeleton” I can start overdubbing and adding more details. Vocals and field recordings I save for last.