One of the biggest challenges for Woom is maintaining the difference between friend life and band life. “We get so excited that we will talk over each other,” says Lara Laeverenz. “I think that’s why we needed to start booking rehearsal rooms to practice in: is it gossip time or are we singing a song?!” But the confluence of those things is also exactly why the choral trio functions so well. “The reason the band exists and continues is because of the friendship, which also came together from the music,” she says. “They flow together.”
As many bands do, Woom formed at the pub. But unlike many bands, the plan wasn’t to take over the world in a racket of guitar and drums, but to offer something quieter. Lara, Alice Barlow and Isobel Risk had all been aware of each other’s work in different projects around the south London scene – Alice also performs as Arlo Day, and is signed to Domino; Lara was singing in Jerkcurb. One night around eight years ago, says Alice, “we were quite drunk, and we all talked about how nice it would be to sing together, to practice harmony, with no intention of it being a band or anything.”
Then a four-piece – Gray Rimmer recently left owing to a job that routinely took them overseas – Woom started out rearranging well-known songs, such as Angel Olsen’s Unfucktheworld and a medley of Frank Ocean songs from Blonde, collected on their 2021 EP Into the Rest. Everyone took equal ranking in the lineup. “It was more like we were singing together than being in a band,” says Isobel. “No one sings the main line; maybe it interweaves so someone else then takes over.”
That setup prompted them to listen more closely, says Lara. “There was also a gentleness to it, almost like meditative, because you really have to listen when you’re singing harmonies.” They cite Dirty Projectors as an influence – “no one feels like the main character, which is amazing,” says Lara – along with the cult singer-songwriter Linda Perhacs and Björk. Lara tries to recall something Björk said about collaboration: “It’s like a happy collision because it might not last – you’re capturing the moment.” Over time, true friendship blossomed.
This year, Woom started releasing original material for the first time: the calm, beautiful To Slow You EP, bolstered by instrumentation from other musical friends. It wasn’t so much a leap in ambition as a natural shift, says Lara. “When you’re arranging songs, you’re creating new harmonies. So we were building these tools, learning about each other and how we create, and a lot of that came from improvisation. We really wanted to push ourselves and see what we can do. It was scary at first because it’s so safe picking a song that’s amazing and being like, right, where do we start with this incredible sound? But starting from scratch is cool because you can make it anything you want.”
That’s why they chose to produce To Slow You themselves, going away to a house in Norfolk to record. “So often with production, it’s like, ‘Who’s going to produce this?’ Which means, ‘Which guy is going to produce this?’” says Alice, a relationship that can lead to the artist’s creative desires being overpowered. “When actually, all of us have so many ideas and skills and we know how we want things to sound. Being able to do it ourselves meant that we really could follow our instincts to the end, even if they didn’t work.” It let them be unorthodox: “We did some singing where we weren’t near the mic at all,” says Lara. “We were chilling on the sofas, yelling really far away from the mic. Those things don’t come as easily if you’re in a fancy studio.”
They are proud of the band’s non-hierarchical setup, and how “decentralising” the self creates space for greater possibility. “It allows everyone to feel they can bring their creativity,” says Lara. “Our voices all have quite different tones and we use our inflections and phrasing in different ways. Without decentralising, those things wouldn’t be able to shine through so much.” When Woom formed, they hardly noticed any other pure vocal acts. “But there’s so many singing groups and bands that do harmonies now – on TikTok you’re always seeing people harmonising together,” says Alice. “The fact that it’s now so popular does show that people were craving to share the voice – there was a collective consciousness there.”
For Lara, sharing equal harmonies is also “reflective of how we live as people”, she says. “We live alone, but we also very much live in a society, and it’s so nice to work and live in that way. I could never have done what we’ve been doing alone. There’s no way any of it would exist. The whole point is to do it together.”
Join us for a performance from Woom at the TOAST Festive Market at Kachette, Shoreditch on Saturday 6 December at 6pm.
Lara wears the TOAST Round Neck Cotton Velvet Jacket, Isobel wears the Cotton Linen Neat Jacket and Alice wears the Orla Donegal Wool Sweater.
Words by Laura Snapes.
Photography by Billy Barraclough.
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