Rania Woodard of LANNDS on Psychedelics, Rebirth, and Normalizing Black Indie Musicians – Vanity Fair

On June 23, Rania Woodard tweeted a deceptively simple sentence: Normalize people of color in alternative/indie music. It was something she fired into the ether without much thought, spurred by her own experience in the music industry and by a news cycle centered on protests against systemic racism and police brutality. But it quickly racked up thousands of likes and retweets, signaling that shed hit a cultural nerve. More important, dozens and dozens of Twitter users replied with recommendations for indie bands fronted by musicians of color. Woodard, one half of the dreamy, synthy duo LANNDS, said the tweet represents a duality that exists in her mind as a Black, queer indie musician. On the one hand, it makes sense to highlight the fact that shes a Black female lead singer. Thats fucking cool. And its also kind of like, damn, I wish it was normalized to the point where we didnt have to make that emphasis.

The first time I saw Woodard play was at an open mic in Brooklyn in the summer of 2019, at a bar with the worlds smallest backroom. People were crammed together in a way that was normal for New York pre-COVID: at tables and booths lining the walls, seated on the concrete floor in front of the raised stage that was barely more than a step, lining the rear of the room out into the back hallway. Woodard sat at the edge of the stage with her guitar in her lap, everyone craning to look at her. Her chords were simple. Her voice was pristine. As she played through an acoustic version of her 2016 release Still, I started to cry. Looking around, I realized I was far from the only one.

Woodards haunting vocals and lyrics are part of what makes LANNDS, her collaboration with Brian Squillace, so compelling. The other part is Squillaces psychedelic sonic sensibility, which at times evokes an acid trip (in a good way). After the bar-weeping incident, I streamed the bands first two EPs, Wide Awake in a Sleepy World and Legends, nonstop for the rest of the summer and into the fall. (Full disclosure: Woodard and I kept in touch and became friends.) And last week, after an extended period holed up in Jacksonville, Florida, writing and mixing and mastering, LANNDS released their third album, lotus. The album itself is an exploration of sound in the way Woodard and Squillace intendedan embodiment of a fuck itIm just going to say how I feel mentality Woodard references several times over the course of our interview, the same one so evident in her summertime tweet. It verges from triumphant (ninety four, lotus) to melancholy (o.o.w, not in a good way) to straight-up chilled out. Here, we discuss what went into making the album, her experience with psychedelics, and what its like to belong to an industry that can feel equal parts hostile and revolutionary.

Vanity Fair: What was your writing process like for lotus?

Rania Woodard: I have a light in my apartment that goes off at 9:30 every other day, and I just get out a notepad and start writing. Ive been doing that probably since the beginning of this EP, and Ive stuck with it. Its a lot of free-form, and then Ill try to sit down and make it make sense.

I try to go off of a feeling. When I wrote not in a good way I was going through a tough timeI was going through a breakup. I remember having a conversation with Brian where I was like, I dont want to make this song sound like black-and-white thinking. And he was like, Dude, just say how you fucking feel. Its my least favorite song because its the most vulnerable. It really does capture how I felt. And the vocals are so up-front, in-your-face. Theyre so dry.

Youve talked a little bit about your use of psychedelics in songwriting. How does that work?

Im not an advocate for thisI dont use psychedelics at parties. [But for me], they change the way you listen to music. They distort time and really put you in the moment; you have no choice. But its not a scary thing. You start to notice every small detail in songs, and thats what makes it so moving. Its like a texture, all these different parts that make up a sound.

I remember Brian telling me he had a trip where he listened to Tame Impalas Currents. He was like, We should do this together. Itll be a cool experience. I know its clichd, but it was eye-opening. Brian was literally on my floor, and I was on the floor in another room, and we were just listening. Were fucking hippies.

For me, I was scared to step outside the box and let go of what it looks like to be an artist. But it doesnt specifically look like anything. Thats what I took with me from that experience: Lets make something true to ourselves. This EP was the first time we were like, Okay, cool. Were going to do stuff we dont normally do.

I was struck by the recordings of your conversations mixed into the albumlike at the end of lotus when it sounds like Brian is talking about a tree, or at the beginning of ninety four.

Oh man, when hes talking about the tree, that was from one of our first shoots. I live right on the water, and theres a little park, and on the left side of this park is this tree. Its on the side of someones house, but its still growing. Its in a weird spot. And it was nighttime, we were sitting on the water, and we looked over, and Brian was like, Can we talk about this tree? And then I think he cut it off because I started laughing like an idiot. But in the audio hes like, This tree is living its best life. Its just hanging. A lot of those excerpts are from when we were tripping or recording music; theyre just us saying some weird shit. In the beginning of ninety four when hes like, Fuck it, well just start over, that was a reference to us scrapping a previous EP. That was a regular studio session. We set up the mic and I was like, Say the first thing that comes to your mind. Go.