Foxture // "Circles"

Foxture’s music blends whispered poetry with complex arrangements that sound like Sufjan Stevens hypnotized by Animal Collective. “Circles” is a dreamy meditation on perfection, existence, and self-discovery. Lead singer Marlon Blackmon weaves the confessional amidst chiming guitars, lively piano, “Casting diamonds into the sea / convincing myself they mean nothing to me”. Marlon joined me for a brief chat about change, hindsight, and hometown inspiration.

You can buy a copy of their EP Circles here.

SC: I love the second verse—“I'm thinking of all of the times / I second-guessed my humble mind / but I'm overthinking”—because of how the third line undercuts the narrator’s first lines. Can you tell me a little about writing these lines?

MB: So while I was writing circles, I was coming out of an anxious state of mind where I realized that I didn't have to second guess myself. Those lyrics opening up the second verse serve as a growing point for me and my state of mind from the opening lines where I’m willing to change myself to please someone else's needs or desires. In the second verse, I’m realizing that maybe I wasn't as wrong as I felt just because my way of doing things or expressing myself didn't fit someone else's standards.

SC: What was your songwriting process like for “Circles”?

MB: As far as the writing process for “Circles” goes, I was wringing from a point of hindsight of past relationships with people where I was at a healthier, more independent state of mind, free of the bias and emotional wear and tear that emotions tend to bring. The instrumentation up until the bridge came first and the bridge represents yet another change in mindset—of how when you think back to the darker times, you become a bit down at your past actions, which, the entire bridge was written mostly off of feel. 

SC: What is your normal songwriting process like? Do you write on a schedule? Do you wait for inspiration? Do you write as a group?

MB: Our normal writing technique is that I write a song in it's most minimalistic form to get the bare bones of it, and then I bring it into practice and then everyone else writes their own respective parts. After it's been a while, I’ll introduce a new song, we will perfect it and then perform it. Since we are releasing a new body of work soon, and currently writing for a full-length album after the upcoming release of a new EP, we are trying to release material in a more strategic manner.

SC: How does your community of songwriters influence you?

MB: I look up to most songwriters from our hometown of Winston-Salem! I feel that you can learn so much from watching other creators move around their own careers and everyone in our local scene of musicians are insanely supportive and will help where they can, whether that’s lending contacts or collaboratively working on writing or creating in general.