Charlotte Day Wilson Has Found Her Flow State

If you listen closely to a Charlotte Day Wilson song, you’ll hear Charlotte Day Wilson singing atop a sea of other Charlotte Day Wilsons. The formal term for this is vocal stacking, and it’s something the Toronto-based musician has always been particularly fond of – a tactic she picked up from one of her greatest musical influences, D’Angelo.

“There’s something that happens when you can sing into yourself that makes the performance come out differently,” Wilson shares with us on an overcast New York City afternoon. “For me, if I’m singing into a barren musical landscape, I feel too exposed. I want to feel like I’m singing into other me’s. It’s like a cushion, almost. A little support system.” The entirety of her most recent EP, Patchwork, is stacked.

Released back in February, the seven-track studio project is also, like its sonically stacked form, Patchwork is a deeply true-to-form tapestry of feelings, experiences, and lessons learned. “It’s an attempt to summarize things that I’ve dealt with my entire life, but at the same time, it also leans into more current things,” explains the musician, who feels as though she’s currently in one of the healthiest, most focused places of her personal life and music career.

Finding herself inspired by imperfection and, as a result, most aligned with her authentic creative self and process, Patchwork materialized unintentionally, a byproduct of the artist just making music without any end goal. “It’s all about not overthinking things and allowing them to be imperfect,” she adds. “I really just wanted to throw the EP out there into the world without overproducing it or overpromoting it. It’s just an offering, take it if you want it.”

Take me back to the original idea for Patchwork.

I was making music without intentionally working toward a project. Sometimes, when you’re in the studio with the mindset of, “I have to make an album” or “I have to make an EP,” it can taint the purity of your self-expression, so I started just making songs for the sake of making songs. I had just finished a separate full-length project that’s not out yet, so Patchwork was the other end of the spectrum: making songs just for the fun of it. Eventually, I realized I had about four or five songs I really loved, but still, I didn’t want to put an album together, so I decided to do an EP.

What sort of feelings, emotions, and experiences is this EP a patchwork of?

It’s an attempt to summarize things that I’ve dealt with my entire life, but at the same time, it also leans into more current things. I’m at a different stage of life now. I’ve shed the skin of some toxic people from the past and am so happy to be in this place. I’m building a family and a home that I share with my partner, and learning how to be a committed person and a better friend. This project is really a patchwork of a lot of things.

What is the main theme of Patchwork?

It’s all about not overthinking things and allowing them to be imperfect and thrown together. On that note, I really just wanted to throw the EP out there into the world without overproducing it or overpromoting it. It’s just an offering, take it if you want it.

What about imperfections as a concept speaks to you? Why did you want to focus this album on that?

I realized it’s a more inspiring headspace to be in creatively. I get more out of myself and my abilities when I lean into imperfection. I reach a truer version of myself and my creative expression than I do when I’m putting too much pressure on things.

How is that process, with that “take it or leave it” mindset, different from that of making a more “polished” album?

There’s a lot more at stake when putting out a full-length album. In a lot of ways, if you work with a label or distributor, everyone puts a lot more resources and effort into promoting an album, but on top of that, an album also feels like a bigger notch in the belt in defining your artistic identity. There can be a lot of pressure on how you want to present yourself, and that’s why I really like putting out EPs. They feel a bit more true to me and who I am as an artist. I can be a little freer and more creative and experimental without worrying about the project being a big presentation of “Here I am, this is me.”

Your first project ever is an EP, CDW, which is still my favorite of yours. I oftentimes forget that it’s an EP, and not an album.

I was intentional in making my first formal project an EP. The second project I put out was another EP, Stone Woman. A lot of people at the time were begging me to make it an album, but it was too much. All of our attention spans are shot at this point, and if I’m intentionally sitting down to listen to an album, there’s a 50% chance that I’ll make it all the way through – as a listener and as a creator.

You said you were working on another project right before making Patchwork. How did you decide which tracks were going on which tracklist?

The album I made leading up to Patchwork is a fully collaborative album, so that was the distinction.

You’re quoted as saying that on Patchwork, you “said f*ck you to pressure” and reverted to your “original process of creating.” That must be a lot easier said than done. Walk me through that.

Because I’d basically been exhausted and at the complete other end of experiencing the extreme pressure, I’d finally realized that it’s completely unsustainable to exist within a place of constantly wanting to please people. It’s not healthy. Your body and your spirit reach a limit, so once I reached the end of that limit, I slowly started finding my way back.

What does that pure Charlotte Day Wilson creative process look like?

A big thing that I value in my creative process is time. I allow myself to take time with everything. If I’m working out a chord progression on the piano and it’s not quite there yet, I will take four or five hours to figure it out. I have a strong vision, and my abilities are limited, but if I take my time with it and I’m patient with myself, I usually can find my way there. Something about allowing myself to take time and get into a sort of flow state of puzzle-solving, I’ll end up finding a lot of other ideas in that time and process.

How do you know when a song is finished?

I don’t. Like I said, it’s a puzzle. I don’t know how to describe functionally what it’s like, but my brain feels satisfied.

You’re also quoted as saying that on Patchwork, you are “most aligned with yourself.” What does that feel like?

I only know what it feels like because for most of my life, I’ve experienced the opposite. I’ve felt so much pressure, so much feeling like I’m not good enough. There’s a lot of imposter syndrome. As a woman, we often feel the need to accommodate everyone else. I’m a hyper-vigilant person, like I will be completely aware of everyone’s mood in the room. I pick up on the smallest details and micro-reactions to things. Now, I feel so much less impacted by my environment. It’s a beautiful thing.

What were some of the lessons you learned on that journey?

To listen to those visceral physical reactions. Listen to your gut, because I aligned myself with certain people who didn’t make me feel good before.

“High Road” is my personal favorite on the album. Could you share more about how that song came to be from start to finish?

When you take away the flourishes on the piano, the core of the chord progression is very simple. It’s kind of like a pop chord progression, but there’s something about adding flourishes, passing chords, and colors within the harmony that just makes it feel juicy, but at the core of it, it’s simple – and that’s often what I am trying to achieve.

Usually, I’ll play the instrument first, so here, I recorded the piano first. I recorded it all on the iPhone, and then I brought my iPhone demo into Ableton, and just sang gibberish on top of it. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the vocals, which is rare. It’s the best feeling as a songwriter when you feel called to a melody. It’s really special. It feels so good.

Do you have a favorite song on the project?

It’s too hard to say. It changes month to month. If someone asked, “Play me a song from your record,” I would probably play “If Only.”

How did you plan which ones would be the singles?

It’s funny, actually. I obviously consulted my team, but I changed some things at the last minute. In the past, I’ve regretted the ones that I’ve chosen to highlight, so this time, I went with the tracks that felt most true to me.

I know you had a deep connection to D’Angelo’s music. Could you tell me more about how his discography informed the creation of Patchwork?

Patchwork was finished before he passed, but he’s definitely one of my biggest musical influences, especially in vocal production. Something that I’ve felt strongly about since early on, when I first started creating music, was the way D’Angelo stacked his vocals. I really liked how my voice sounded when it was layered with multiple tracks of my voice. A lot of producers over the years have tried to get me to strip it down to a singular vocal down the middle, and anytime someone tries to pressure me to do that, I just remind myself, “D’Angelo was the ultimate vocal stacker.” He’s one of the best vocalists ever – the falsetto, the tone, the tambour, the runs – yet still he wants to be supported by a little bit of pillow of his own voice.

There’s something that happens when you can sing into yourself that makes the performance come out differently. For me, if I’m singing into a barren musical landscape, I feel too exposed. I want to feel like I’m singing into other me’s. It’s like a cushion, almost. A little support system. All of Patchwork is stacked.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but your music seems riddled with your raw emotions. Could you expand upon how your personal life translates into your music?

Yeah, definitely. Recently, I think the fact that I’ve found the right relationship has played a big role in that. It’s a foundational relationship, and everything that I do stems from that. Also, my friends are everything to me. I’ve been putting out music for 10 years now, and for the first five years, I didn’t have supportive friends around me. Now I’m surrounded by people who truly have my best interests in mind.

You host a lot of intimate listening parties, DJ sets, and IRL gatherings centered around live music. Why is this togetherness important to you?

I think there’s a very human and natural desire to be understood and accepted, and when you are an artist or someone who presents themselves publicly, the public only sees such a small sliver of who you are. They perceive you based on this very, very limited sample size of what you’re willing to share. For me, a big part of what I want to share is my musical DNA, just because you can only express yourself so far through your own music. Being able to share what I’m made up of musically through other people’s music is also really important, so that’s why I love to DJ.

Last year, I did this concert with the Red Bull Symphonic and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the thesis behind the performance was weaving together my music with the music that has shaped me, and we covered some of my favorite songs of all time. I just have a strong desire to share music with people and share what my musical makeup is. It’s a big part of how my soul speaks.

How does your approach to making a mix differ from that of getting in the studio to make a song for a long-form project?

I have a kind of obsessive thing about mixing things that are in the same key. If I’m mixing things, they have to mix well in terms of being in the same or relative keys. It’s very satisfying. I’m always racking my internal library of things that will be complementary to each other.

Looking at your artistry as a whole, how would you describe your style and approach to fashion?

I really like functional clothing. I like comfortable things. I’m quite simple with my style. I also don’t have any tattoos. I just can’t commit to anything with my body like that. I think fashion is so dictated by our body types. I didn’t realize this growing up. I wish someone had told me that you can’t just look at someone else and be like, “I want to dress like them.” It doesn’t work that way. A lot of my style is influenced by what looks good on my body and what I feel comfortable in. If I put on, like, an IG baddie outfit, people would be like, “Why don’t you dress like this all the time?” And I’d be like, “It’s just not me.”

Do you read what other people think about your music?

Once the music is out, I kind of never listen to it again, because by that point, I’ve overdone it. In terms of reviews, I’ll read some of them for sure, but I get a better understanding of how it’s landing based on talking to the people I’m closest to – like, my cousin telling me that she cried in the grocery store listening to the project is what means something to me.