The debut album from this UGA grad took six years to make. See it performed live this weekend.

When Avery Leigh Draut returned to Athens from a March 2022 performance at the prestigious South By Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin, Texas, the debut album from her band, Night Palace, had yet to come out. Those who would consider the scenario to be a result of pure luck or good timing have no idea of the journey Draut took to get there.

Released on April 1, Night Palace's 11-song LP "Diving Rings" will be performed live at Buvez Euro-style cafe on Sunday supported by Chicago-based indie rock artist Mia Joy before the band embarks on a brief tour that will find them back in Athens for a June 24 performance at the AthFest Music & Arts Festival downtown.

Snellville native and University of Georgia Hugh Hodgson School of Music graduate Draut corresponded with the Banner-Herald via email for a Q&A that detailed the six-year recording process of "Diving Rings" and the air of mystery surrounding Night Palace's beautifully cinematic music videos.

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Andrew Shearer: What is Night Palace's origin story?

Avery Leigh Draut: The earliest demos were born in my old house on Nantahala Avenue in 2014. I wrote them on my Magic Genie electric organ that I found at the Athens Habitat ReStore the summer after I graduated from college. Without the intensive, full-time schedule of rehearsals and performances I'd had in music school at UGA, I was definitely floundering that summer and the year after.

For the first time, in a visceral way, I felt the expansiveness of having my own space and time as an adult. All these melodies and lyrics and musical ideas that had been in hibernation started bubbling up. This was maybe the first time my brain was quiet for long enough to start to play with what my ears had been hearing my whole life. 

I shared my secret living room organ demos with a close friend, and we pulled together a couple friends and started playing around under the name WANDA. We played fashion shows, zine release parties, a show or two at Avid and the beloved Caledonia Lounge. WANDA became Avery Leigh's Night Palace in 2016 when we started recording, and the name was shortened to Night Palace in 2021 when we made the plans to release the album with Park the Van Records.

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Shearer: You are credited with vocals, clarinet and keyboards on "Diving Rings." Who else is in the band?

Draut: With the exception of a handful of New York City shows that I played with a NYC "version" of Night Palace, a group of Athenians played as the core band on "Diving Rings" with me and played all Night Palace shows from 2016-2020: bassist Zack Milster, drummer William Kissane and guitarist Dillon McCabe. They also appear in the "Enjoy the Moon!" music video as the band on the bed.

The current core collaborators in the sometimes slightly rotating cast of the Night Palace live show are Milster, Kissane, of Montreal member JoJo Glidewell on keyboards and synth, and Paul Stevens on vibraphone, synths and occasional drums.

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Shearer: Night Palace has a very unique, retro aesthetic that reminded me of filmmaker Anna Biller's ability to conjure vintage Jacques Demy. Is there a specific vision behind this?

Draut: What a compliment! I feel like I live at the aesthetic intersection of "Star Trek" and a middle school production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." I love for these videos to rest in liminal spaces, inhabit otherworldly scenes. World-building is intertwined with music-making, and I've really loved sinking my teeth into the visual aspect of the "Diving Rings" world. With those music videos, I feel like I've been able to complete the picture of each song by almost balancing its sound world with visuals that can add a little bit of tension, a little bit of play, something a little eerie, an element to challenge the music.

I am drawn to stylistic elements (in wardrobe, set, etc.) that aren't tied to style to a certain time period, or that have re-emerged in multiple eras: I am inspired by the cyclical nature of fashion, and I think using something like 1960s fashion, which is so steeped in a renaissance style, can highlight a slightly uncanny setting.

It's been a really incredible joy to do my first directing work on these very personal pieces. Over my four years as a production assistant at the Metropolitan Opera's Live in HD series, working with the TV director's scripts proofing shots and prepping scores, I became familiar with the world of directing through that unique lens, and I'm so thrilled to be in a place where my different worlds are converging so excitingly.

Shearer: What was the process like for creating "Diving Rings" and what was the timeline?

Draut: Zack, Dillon, William and I started recording at Chase Park Transduction studio in 2016 with my co-producer and now dear pal, Drew Vandenberg. I had been enchanted by Drew's work with of Montreal and Kishi Bashi, and I knew he was working on Kristine's Mothers record, which was exciting. I had nervously reached out with some rehearsal recordings, incomplete demos and a wildly vast, almost unhinged array of references.

In a moment of weird timing, I moved to NYC that year also, pursuing some opera and theatre opportunities alongside our work on "Diving Rings," but I was back often and we would record on my trips back. In a way, I relished having this regimented time off in between recording so that I could listen to what we'd made so far, leave it, return to it, and consider what to layer on next, or what to take away. The record grew up with me over a few years, in this way. 

We recorded the woodwinds, strings and celeste at UGA in the same hall where I gave my senior recital a few years before, which was special. I was on the floor, scrambling to write up the orchestral parts, up until the minute we started recording. I was very much in a procrastinating era, and those mornings were stressful for me, but those are some of my favorite parts on the record now. 

As far as production goes, I leaned toward overbuilding on this record, tracking anything I could ever want, and then sifting through, fitting little pieces exactly where they would shimmer the most. Over the next four years, we added to the songs and recorded more with Drew but also with Andy Lemaster, at whose house we tracked lots of vocals, synths and bass. The basic tracks for "Nightshade" and "Jessica Mystic" were recorded with Jesse Mangum at The Glow, where we also added a touch of harpsichord to a couple tracks. We wrapped in 2020, just in time for the pandemic to throw us off of any conventional release path.