A founding member of both The Jayhawks and the Original Harmony Ridge Creekdippers, Mark Olson’s back catalogue stretches to nineteen albums over four decades. His latest recording, DESERT HEALTH FARM SACRED SONGS – TRUST US!, is his fourth recording with the input of his wife, Ingunn Ringvold and a continuation of Olson’s vividly imagined songwriting and the couple’s wide instrumental palette. Due to return to Ireland for shows in Dublin and Belfast next month, we recently spoke with Mark about the new album and more.
Are you still living in the Joshua Tree?
We moved during the pandemic to Surprise Valley. Joshua Tree became too crowded, decided to find green grass and a cooler temperature for our two dogs. I always drove up Highway 395 to Owens Valley in the summer. There is good swimming and fishing there. I kept driving north and found an old house that needed fixing. This is the third house I have restored in Eastern California. I have a basic skill set for doing that, and it’s a good way to get exercise and work in the area.
What is a typical Mark Olson day there?
For a year, I worked on the house and played music in the evening. Now I am practising in the morning. It’s fairly isolated here, so everything from books to kitchen appliances are ordered and delivered online. The dogs are two sisters from different litters; they are a handful! It’s about 45 miles to a town with groceries and a pharmacy. Let’s see, I have a lot of things I grow, like mulberry trees. My Dad grew up on a farm. I just seem to know how to grow plants; I can put in irrigation. I always stop at places that sell that stuff and check in. We cook because of a lack of restaurants.
The outdoors have featured strongly in your songwriting; do you still write outdoors?
Yes, there is a place by Ft. Bidwell with a creek running out of the mountains, or at the Modoc County fairgrounds. I like it when the wind is blowing softly. I get on these rolls where I write on the qanun and dulcimer now, and I just do a part and either film it or make quick fingering notes because chords are made up on these instruments. I can take lyric lines I have been working out in poem form and take the line straight to dulcimer, turn on recorder, done; next line straight to recorder, done. Each line has its own musical passage. When you get on a roll, you have to keep going… I’ve noticed albums come out of a very good sessions that last all day.
What shaped the direction lyrically and musically on the new album?
Musically, it’s modal tunings on the dulcimer and qanun. Each song is in a different tuning. I flip the switches on the qanun and quickly retune to the dulcimer. Guitar is in open tunings; later I reconstruct using normal tuning. Lyrically, these are some, not nearly all, of the themes I work with; atmosphere in memory, impressions re looked at situations, spiritual outlooks, things representing other things, second and third meanings full of interior rhymes, thrown out repercussions. I have fun doing it. I am not gentle about creating statements of psychological intent via song. I take scissors to it later and cut out the dodgy parts, the parts that just don’t get along, to go along with stuff like that.
Your wife, Ingunn, co-wrote several of the songs on your last album, Spokeswoman Of The Bright Sun. Was that the case on the new album?
Because of the move and Ingunn now working with Native American students at the local school, I have just focused myself towards writing. Ingunn is a revelation with her ability to naturally elevate her focused talents. When we met, she was a djembe player and vocalist. She had piano training, but I didn’t know her level until we started recording together. She is able to compose and perform the most interesting original string arrangements! She has her own style; it’s part Scandinavian, but she has a gentle playfulness that is truly her own. She hasn’t really listened to string arrangements on pop records. She is making this up as she goes. It will take her a day with each song as she builds and then reconstructs her parts. We had a very well-known Italian violinist who did a few string arrangements with us in the past. Yes, he is very good! Ingunn isn’t anything like this. It’s totally unexpected her ability and the themes she presents. She has extreme talent. Unfortunately, music is not something you can always count on to keep the house running. We both made the decision for her to work the job here and let me go forward with touring alone. The ability to earn a living on the road as a musician is up and down. The worst thing to find out halfway through a tour is that it’s down. That is something we don’t want anymore.
How is that process handled? Who pens the initial lyrics and thoughts for the songs?
I do. It’s part of my program. A life purpose. Again, it’s obvious! Don’t be misled by vague claimants. Lately, I find solace in the fact that I am always thinking about Etty Hillesum, really, since about 4 years ago. I like the way she writes. She is breathtakingly direct about spiritual stuff, relationships and family. There is a picture of her on the cover of an Italian book about her. The title is ‘Courage’. Just ‘Courage’. That one word. Then you’re looking at a very young person (her Etty ), and you go, “woe, this is what I wanted”. I wanted to be a writer like she wanted to be a writer. That’s what she wanted to do. Then you read about her, and she is just like basically all of us. She is 20th century all the way.
Tell us about some of the songs, I buried the heart of mourning is particularly striking?
This is an exact blow-by-blow account of my life with my sisters and parents. It’s true, he sold books and magazine subscriptions door to door in rural South Dakota. Do you know how far the farms are from each other out there? It’s true, I chased snakes through the nettles. My skin exploded with bleeding pimples. I didn’t care. I had jars waiting for the snakes. I’d feed them insects. Then, I’d let them go near our house. So I could run across them now and again. Little boy games with snakes turn into lifelong recording sessions. I don’t like a type of snake in Joshua Tree. Scares the daylights out of me. There are rattlesnakes in Southeastern Minnesota. They don’t rattle so much. They wait for you to walk by. They feel you coming. Look on a map.
Missing Windows, Books And Games is an interesting title. What is the message behind that song?
Missing Windows – you cannot see the other; you cannot see outside, or inside the window is missing. You cannot know what is in another person’s heart without a type of window the other person must provide.
Books – relationships can be transferred into the land of bookdom. Constantly making examples of the thing you just read in your lovely book to the other.
Games – Do I have to explain lovers’ games? No.
Tarantula Hawk is also striking. Was the song inspired by a particular vision, or is the song fictional?
You are where the rubber meets the road! I wonder what it’s about? There’s some ambiguity going on here, level 3 maybe. There are shoes hanging from a shoe tree where people throw their shoes! Why? Maybe because they are sick of it. Running so hard and so long, to free themselves of their background. There is something in the past that keeps asking for attention in the present. I want to be free of her, him and it! It’s a desperate declaration of intent. How does it feel to be a plant that lives in a hole? Not very good when you dug the hole by yourself, with your own poor decision-making. Or was it even a decision? It seems to me now more like a reaction. To what? An inability to express oneself. The very dangerous wild animal park of peer pressure, the mounting turmoil of the beloveds’ gossip. The parties getting late! ... got to drop a load of heresy on the attendant. Let’s get out the calumny lotion! Let’s spread it all over ourselves! There is someone that needs to be calumniated. Why are we here anyway? I don’t have anything in common with these people.
The instrumentation on the last album included string arrangements, Mellotron and Armenian Qanun. What instruments were employed and by who on this album?
Mark Olson – Vocal, Dulcimer, Key Chime and Guitar. Ingunn Ringvold – Vocal, Mellotron String Arrangements and Qanun. Soli Barki – Percussion.
Did you record at your home studio again, and over what period?
Yes, I have been collecting old recording gear during the pandemic. It’s really fun to search out stuff and make it work. Home recording is about solving all of your problems yourself. It’s really good for your self-esteem. I call people, engineers that I have worked with and got along with. They are really glad to help out. They are liking you seeing things from their side of the glass partition. This is an important point. I’m not sure I understand the value and benefit of all this digital editing. Either it’s there or not. If it’s not, take a break, have a laugh. When you come back, it will be there. You don’t have to cut up your song into 590 different pieces. Then write your song and perform it. Listen to your song a few times. Don’t listen to your song 120 times while it is being dissected by modern recording appliances! Go on with your day. Take a walk. Smile at the neighbours. Don’t rag on your fellow musicians.
Have you had the opportunity to road test the material or will your dates in europe find you playing the songs live for the first time?
Across the street is a bookstore in a house, Floating Island Bookstore. I play there. That’s my favourite place. It’s nice in there, surrounded by beat poetry. I started out as a collage poet. I am not kidding; I took a class on collage, UCLA extension. I cared for my grandmother so much; this collage poetry business horrified her. I am sorry she got so upset. We drink ginseng tea and congratulate ourselves on making a go of our artistic interests in a far-out place like the Surprise Valley. Go ahead and come here sometime; you’ll see it’s really out there. It’s not easy to get here. Once you’re here, you’re kind of in a land time forgot. This is super good for songwriting. This is timeless. This has the advantage of taking the long view. Like, what the heck are people doing, pushing, pushing, all the time? Slow down, get a centre, get a modulation on your work and life force that will help you see your own heart.
How challenging is it to perform the songs solo acoustic from this and your last album solo?
All the songs are in different open tunings on the guitar, dulcimer and qanun. I tune between every song. I am pretty good at tuning quickly. You just flip switches on the qanun. I carry diagrams. The dulcimer has 4 strings, easy breezy. The guitar: open tunings have been adapted to standard tuning one step down (I think for now).
What can we expect on your set list, or is that still fluid?
Yes, the set list is fluid. On the final question, all of those songs are on the list. I have to do this subdivision for the three instruments. I play the dulcimer, the qanun and the guitar, all about equal parts of the show. I did a tour last year with just the dulcimer and qanun. I totally rearrange material, I add new parts; I change lyrics; songs are in completely different tempos. I play in front of all kinds of folks. I played at a mall there in Ireland. I changed a lot of the songs, make them longer, make them shorter, raise or lower the key. Be in the present moment. Accept that life cannot be a repeat performance and commit to being confident in the face of criticism.
Describe Mark Olson’s musical journey to someone new to your work?
This is a strange way of looking at something that I felt like I just had to do. I had to find a way to communicate about and make sense of the world around me and my family throughout my life, starting at a young age and going forward. I made a type of theology that I unravelled and put back together, through unspoken beliefs. And yes, justifications that we take part in imagining, or dealing with the psychic fallout that happens and did and will happen to all of us. I have been on a very personal mission weaving these lines to make detachment, that naturally comes from these kinds of things, more explainable and therefore more likely to be overcome.
What songs are you most proud of from your career in the Jayhawks, The Original Harmony Ridge Creekdippers and solo work?
I think in terms of songs. Morning Dove, Beehive, Into The Yard, Sandy Denny, Rosalee, Ann Jane, Over My Shoulder, Two Angels, If I Give The Words To You, Sunshine Hillside, My Gospel Song For You, Pray For Me, Clifton Bridge, Blue, Clouds, Alta’s Song, Cactus Wren. I still stay rehearsed on these songs and others!
Interview by Declan Culliton