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Coming to Milwaukee When: Wednesday, October 26

Where: Cactus Club 2496 S. Wentworth Ave. Milwaukee, WI

Tickets: Buy tickets here The latest Little Scream album, “Cult Following” was released this year via Merge Records. Radio Milwaukee caught up with Laurel Sprengelmeyer prior to her Eaux Claires performance, while she was pulled over at a roadside petting zoo. We talk about the new album, the various cults we find in our lives, Milwaukee memories and more.

88Nine Radio Milwaukee

The basics Where they’re from: Montreal, Canada

Their song 88Nine is playing: “Love as a Weapon”

RIYL: Prince, feeling joyful, Arcade Fire 5 questions with Little Scream 1. How did Little Scream get started? I started making music when I was young. My grandma was a piano teacher. I started playing guitar when I was 11 or 12. I played violin in school, public school education. Nothing serious in terms of studies like university or anything. As soon as I started playing guitar, I started writing songs. I was about 18. I started playing cafes in my late teens, but I really didn’t start getting out there as Little Scream until my late 20s. Who did you used to cover? I did David Bowie covers, Velvet Underground, Brenda Kahn. I went through a period of really getting into her. She was someone that a friend passed along a tape way, way back in the day when I was younger. She was a 90s generation of new folk music from New York City. Brenda Kahn – “I Don’t Sleep, I Drink Coffee Instead”

2. “Cult Following” feels very different from your first record. How have you evolved? I had a really open, exploratory approach – that was the same for both records. This new record came after touring a bunch where I did a lot of opening sets which pushed me to do less of the quiet, gentle stuff. There is still some of that on this record, but I wanted to have more joy in it. I’m a joyful person and I wanted to reflect that in my music. I learned about the recording process on this record. Almost in a painful way, but I just got really, really sucked in and got really hands-on. From a production standpoint, it got more ambitious in terms of what I was expecting from it. I was interested in exploring where I could go with it and whatever sonic references I was paying attention to at that time. That is how this record got to be the size and shape that it is from the production side of it. Richard Parry made the record with me and he had a huge hand in it when it comes to the production side. He has loads of experience and tons of ideas, but we really worked collaboratively on a lot of those things to make certain soundscapes. He’d throw an idea at something, and I’d throw an idea at something and it would get all jumbled up in there, but I was really hands-on.

Love and relationships can become a cult. Anywhere we’re getting our sense of meaning and identity

3. You are a visual artist also; do the two art forms inform each other? Now they do for sure. This record had a really analogous creative period with paintings I’m still working on. Much like the record, the paintings I’m finishing are super layered. They come from a similarly imagined jumping off point. The album cover artwork is a 3D scale model that my friend Mikel Durlam and I built in New York City. It’s based on a painting I’m working on. I had a sketch of this painting and we built a scale model for me to stand in and then we projected the sketch on top of me.