“Fleurejak" Laura Kampman and Jeremy Cox releases debut EP 'Through An Open Window'

Jeremy was invited by a friend to a rehearsal space in Brooklyn, where he met Dutch photographer and composer Laura Kampman. A musical composition Jeremy had recently created caught Laura’s interest, and they sparked a friendship, corresponding over the next couple years, exchanging musical compositions with one another. Then they decided to spend 10 days together, the fruition of those days became Fleurejak and the EP Through An Open Window, which is out today.

So tell me who you are, and how you know each other?

Laura is a multidisciplinary artist working with film, music, and photography, currently living in Holland. Jeremy is a musician living in Brooklyn, previously 1/2 of the bands Royal Baths and LODRO.  We met at a rehearsal space in Brooklyn. We started sharing music with each other almost immediately after meeting, quickly developing a creative connection.

When did you decide to write and record an EP together? What was the process like? Challenges?

J: It wasn’t until a couple years after we first met that we considered the idea of collaborating. This idea came from Laura in early 2018. By this time she was living in Los Angeles and I was still in Brooklyn. Laura reached out with the idea of flying to New York to meet me and make something together. We had no idea what would happen, so we stuck to a vague concept; Laura would come to New York for 10 days, and we would write and record a batch of tunes - whatever came out - and then she would leave.

Is it a natural process? How do you find inspiration?

J: It ended up being a very organic process. We set up a bunch of amps and instruments in my bedroom, exploring any idea that came to mind. Sometimes Laura would start playing something, sometimes I would start, and then we would discuss whether we liked something or if we should just move on to something new. It felt like we were creating our own little world; this space and sound that was new for both of us. It was very exploratory and freeing. 

We also went a bit mad halfway through, mentally fatiguing from going in day after day, doing so much in so little time. At the end we were so tired from our rush effort - we would take turns laying on the bed dictating lyrical ideas while the other sat in a chair writing them down and composing. I had the habit of eating cold soup out of a can to save time. At one point I got flustered and spilled soup all over my computer, so we had to switch to using Laura’s to record (somehow my computer was fine after a few days).  

But by the end of all this, we were a happy type of insane. We finished the 10 days feeling like we had started something that expressed a fresh creative perspective for the both of us.

What do you like about each other?

L: What I like about Jeremy… his playfulness, his generous understanding, his transparency and loyalty. Before I got to know him on this personal level I really liked his guitar playing, his world of sounds and composition. I wanted to collaborate with him, not knowing we could become such close friends too. I love that our moody melancholic songs actually have so many layers of humor and playfulness, it’s the most comfortable and enjoyable balance for me. 

J: I love Laura’s thoughtful approach to music and creativity in general.  She goes with the flow of whatever thought is arriving, and accepts it with an intention and confidence that I admire.  I also like our communication - there is an ease and a feeling like we can discuss whatever, which I really value in a creative partnership. There is a mutual respect and trust between us that allows us to hand each other the reins and compromise when it’s needed to move forward with something. Since both of us have strong opinions and feelings, it feels a bit profound to do this, I really enjoy it.  

What feelings did you bring with you to the table? What are your personal stories of recent times?

L:  When I think about it, all songs are about slightly off dynamics between two people. For example: one of the songs is based on my dad’s first childhood girlfriend who, up until this day, acts like she is still in love with him and tries to meet up with him. And 'A Blossom For The Blue’ is about a ghost-like destructive romance. We like to come up with characters, make up stories and names and then make them come alive in our songs. 

J: Nervous creativity, desires to explore several different modes of sonic output, and lots of curiosity. The personal stories change but they are really always the same; I water my plants, I move my furniture around, and I adjust to the new season.  

Your music feels visual. Are you influenced by films or tv shows? Which ones do you draw something from?

L: Coming back to the previous questions, most of the songs are based on character and stories we come up with before writing the song. That might bring a very fictional feel to the music which can make it feel visual. 

J: I sometimes go to a visual space when I play, I like to imagine a fictional place or different colors or characters for different sounds and notes.  Separate from this, I am influenced by the marriage of music and film.  I am always moved by the scores that Johnny Greenwood writes for Paul Thomas Anderson's films, as well as the music Daniel Lopatin has made for the Safdie brothers’ films.  In general, the pacing of a tasty film can attune me to a nice creative headspace, so it can help my writing after I see something good. 

Do you have shared musical tastes? Do you have very different one's too? What are they?

L: I feel like we enjoy a lot of the same composers and musicians from Harold Budd to Sonic Youth and Spaceman3. We have a shared love for intensity but as well for minimal beauty. Jeremy comes from a background of psychedelic rock and I come from a background of minimal/ambient music. But I carry Jeremy’s world inside me and he does carry mine too, which made us interested in working together and discovering how we can glue these contrasts inside ourselves into songs. I feel like what binds our worlds together is our love for experimenting and foolishly coming up with things that initially start as a joke but then actually become a foundational part for a new song. 

J: Yes to both!  Laura has opened my eyes to ambient tunes in a way that no one else has.  I think some of that came from when we were writing together; she allows for so much space within a song - not filling it with rhythm and other noises all of the time - and this was a new way of writing for me.  She has shown me a lot of music that I now love; Grouper, Eola, Hiroshi Yoshimura, to name a few.  We have found that we share a lot of staple musical tastes too; Spacemen 3, Brian Eno, Beach House. I personally have a desire for heavier music, (this might fall into the “different” territory).  I like lo-fi garage rock or stoner doom music, stuff like Royal Trux, Sleep, Suicide. I am thirsty always for different music to match all the feelings in life.  

What does music mean to you?

Music means many different things and serves many purposes for us. Playing / writing music can be a way of expressing things that don’t come easily with words - like abstract emotions, or something that has no direct place in the forms of living that happens on a day to day basis.

Other than being an outlet for expression, we like to use music intentionally - to trigger emotions, like unclogging a canal in our hearts which has been backed up by all the clutter of our minds. Besides the serious emotional bits that it serves, it’s also a fun playground for us. We share the same sense of humor and have a lot of fun working together.

The combination of these two things makes it a naturally favored way of spending time for both of us.

How do you like the songs (EP) to be received?

However the listener will receive them. One of the wonderful things about making music is that it can be received with different feelings other than those being felt during the writing and recording process. There is a freedom somewhere in that misunderstanding, where something is lost in translation, it can be really nice.

What would be your dream project when it comes to music? Together or/and separate?

A dream of ours would be to record a body of work in a beautiful place. Like in the mountains, a desert, maybe somewhere peaceful in nature, or on a boat traveling some long distance. There is something that happens for the creative process if the environment is right and perhaps unusual; more patience for the sounds to come and be realized, more freedom may be felt as you're not moving around in your usual context. 

Laura, do you think you can combine music and photography?

For me, vision and hearing go hand in hand. It’s very natural for me to move from making photos to making music and occasionally meet in the middle to make a video. I love making visuals for the music we’ve made. It's a very satisfying and exciting feeling to have the world we’ve created sonically come to life into the physical world through photographs, artworks or music videos.

Art work by Marlotte Nugteren

Listen to the EP here