Mind Over Mirrors: Bellowing Sun

My name is Jaime Fennelly and I perform as Mind Over Mirrors. And I play harmonium and synthesizers. I’ve been working on Bellowing Sun for the last two years.

I wanted to challenge myself to make music that was much more rhythmic but still really connected deeply to what I was doing with just the harmonium.

But also realizing that I didn’t have to play the harmonium because now I have three musicians that I am working with.

And that allows me to address really specific musical ideas that I want to do and kind of delegate through other people’s musical personalities and instrumentation.

It was a very process-oriented way to create a record. We didn’t play all the pieces together after they were all rehearsed—you know, record everything in three days and then mix it—it was a studio construction. So it’s really playing with, for me, ideas around how to present it live but also how to connect where the instruments lie in the piece.

I wanted to be able to continue this idea of the group experience on a stage together and get rid of the proscenium seating. Creating a visual component that was really immersive and filling the space.

Timothy Breen, who is a visual artist and designer here in Chicago, he and I had been talking about, previously, just visual concerns for Mind Over Mirrors. When the option of working on this larger-scale piece came up, the two of us agreed that a zoetrope in an abstract form, would probably fit the bill. When we first hung it and we put the bottom on, I was just like, "Oh, it feels kind of low." But once we set up all the gear and we've been playing under it and rehearsing under it this week, it's felt really amazing. Because you just are washed in all this color and you just feel supported and fully immersed.