In The Greenhouse with Salem’s Corydalis

Gimpleg had the pleasure of speaking with Salem’s Corydalis. Together they discussed flowers, their songwriting process, deapfthpop records, and so much more!

---

1. Hello and welcome to Music Shelf. How are you today?

Heyo! I’m having a very cold, sweaty morning but I’m not doing too bad! Thank you for having me!

2  You’ve released three full length albums in the last three years. How would you say your sound has evolved over that time?

Right off the bat, I knew that there were two things I wanted to accomplish with this project: To combine the genres that I’m most interested in, and to have a discography in which no two albums sound aesthetically similar. My first album, which was made up of my very first attempts at writing songs, was very slow, noisy, and drowned in reverb. My second album did away with the reverb, and was less noisy with more focus on slowcore/indie style songwriting. This newest third album is certainly my most triumphant and experimental yet, revisiting the noisy aspects with a revamped energy, screamo vocals, and fast keyboard parts. I’d been sitting on a lot of the ideas presented on that album for a long time, and gaining the courage to put them into fruition and release them to the world has felt super rewarding.

3 A corydalis is a type of flower. What is your favorite type of flower?

My favorite flower is always changing, but lately I’ve been really fascinated by passion flowers and bleeding hearts!

4 Where did the name Salem’s Corydalis come from?

really wish I had a cool answer or story behind this, but I really just came up with it at random because they were two words I thought sounded cool. My friend initially thought that my name came from some old short story, which would be so much cooler than “oh I don’t know I made it up”. So let’s all just start up a lost media search for “The Salem’s Corydalis Story”.

5 One of the singles for a song on your most recent album (also called Salem’s Corydalis) is Lilac Lesions. Is there a theme of flowers in your life?

I don’t think I spend more time around flowers than an average person, I’m always just completely mind-blown by how gorgeous and unique flowers can turn out to be, so I like to make them a theme in my art. I have a few other songs that are named after flowers aside from Lilac Lesions, (Daffodil and Zinnia Baby), and I was going to allude to that in the original version of my song Wasp Parts, but I ended up changing the lyrical themes for that song, probably for the better.

6 Your last album was released on Halloween. Was that intentional and meaningful? Is Halloween your favorite holiday?

Yeah! Me and the two other Deapfth Pop Records founders were going to all drop our albums on Halloween 2023, but I ended up being the only one who finished their album in time. Knowing that they’re both putting in the extra time to make something they’re satisfied with instead of a half-baked rushed release makes me feel pretty hopeful that they’ll turn out to be masterpieces, though. And after much thought and consideration I think that Halloween probably is my favorite holiday.I think it has the perfect ratio of fun to stress.

7 When you released your last album you said that it encapsulated all of the different styles of music that inspire you. What music inspires you and what bands are your biggest influences?

I try my best to draw as much inspiration as I can from different genres of music. The obvious ones, like emo and bedroom pop, are the most prominent because that’s what I would listen to the most growing up on 2010’s internet. But a lot of the sonic ideas that I have draw inspiration from many different places, from cloud rap to harsh noise, from video game OSTs to vaporwave, from eurodance to random sounds I come across while walking outside. Close listeners can find samples from 70’s disco hits, 90’s hip hop songs, video game soundfonts, and other weird stuff scattered across my newest album. I feel that internet music scenes have presented young artists with so many different kinds of insane sounding stylings to build upon, and that’s what makes me so excited about the arising 5th wave emo movement. Some artists that influence me would definitely include the newer genre-neinding lofi emo projects that have popped up in the past 5 or so years, like Weatherday or Your Arms Are My Cocoon. Other bands like Xiu Xiu, Nouns, Teen Suicide, The Brave Little Abacus were some of the first to help me realize what cool things you can achieve with noisy/lofi texturing and keyboards. Even rap artists like Bladee or Yabujin influence me to try to shoot for a sense of 00’s nostalgia, an era which I’m barely even old enough to remember.

8 What is your songwriting process like?

My songwriting process is usually just coming up with a short demo, leaving it untouched on my computer for a couple months, and then coming back with some better ideas on how to build upon it. Sometimes, though, the songs just pour right out of me immediately like it did with Star or Salem’s Catharsis, and those usually end up being my favorite ones. Almost feels like the music was already in the air before I came and turned it into a song.

9 You are a co-founder of deapfthpop records. How did that come into existence and what does the name mean?

The number one rule of Deapfth Pop Records is that you don’t ask about the name. But since you’ve been so polite, I’ll provide you with the answer. When Sarah, Summer, and I came together to create a split EP, we wanted to make something really bold and noisy. We wanted to make music that sounds like whatever “death pop” would be. DEATH pop needed to have a lot of DEPTH and make you go DEAF, hence DEAPFTH POP. The EP later evolved into a collective and record label, and we were swiftly bought out by Tobey the cat lawyer who has been making his living off of our music ever since.

10 Deapfthpop records just released deapfth comp 1, a compilation album with 10 artists playing a whopping 39 songs. What was it like putting that compilation together?

Deapfth Comp Vol. 1 was so much fun to put together. I like to think of it as what our “death pop split” eventually evolved into. It was a perfect time to reflect on all of the cool friends and insane art we’ve made in 2022 since the inception of Deapfth Pop. Aside from members of the collective, we had a lot of friends and fans that brought super cool covers and originals to the table as well, and we hope we get to work with them some more in the future! We’re insanely proud of the community we’ve built and we’re so happy to have captured the attention of so many cool people, artists or otherwise! And special thanks to Jordan from Against Realism for helping us to organize and master the compilation on such short notice, they did all it in less than a week. Everybody did an awesome job on the comp and I’m really looking forward to all the cool things we’re gonna do next year!

11 What’s next for Deapfthpop records?

Deapfth Pop Records is looking to release some more physicals and to recruit more experimental lofi emo artists this year, so keep your eyes peeled and stay tuned!

12  Where can people find your music and find more information about you and the record label?

My music is available on all streaming services! I am also @salemscorydalis on all social media! Deapfth Pop Records is @deapfthpop on Twitter and @deapfthpoprecords on Instagram, and the best place to find our collection of music is at the Deapfth Pop Records Bandcamp page!