The seeds of mmeadows: From late bloomers to industry producers

It’s an exceptionally freezing evening in Boulder, Colorado. The streets are dimly lit, a few people hustling through the dirt tainted slush to avoid the bone-chilling temperatures – myself included. Welcomed by the warmth of eTown Hall, a local Boulder, CO music venue that was converted from a church, a ticket taker and a man sporting a black baseball cap are engulfed in conversation in the lobby.

The man in the baseball cap, Cole Kamen-Green, turns to greet me with a smile that echoes over a decade of industry experience. Kamen-Green, half of the New York City based art pop band mmeadows, introduces himself and leads me down to the green room of this charming venue. 

On this chilly Sunday evening, a cheerful “Hello!” echoed throughout the small dressing room. Sitting on a black and navy chair, the final half of mmeadows, Kristin Slipp, gets up to greet me. With her hair loosely wrapped into a messy bun, the musician dons gray sweatpants and a hoodie. 

“I’m going to be doing my makeup during this, is that okay?” Slipp asked with a warm smile. It was 45 minutes to their set time; the duo joined friend and musician Will Sheff of Okkervil River on his Nothing Special North American Tour. 

With a nod in response, I found myself sitting between the pair; Kamen-Green leaned back into a similar black and navy chair as he held his trumpet in his lap. Kamen-Green has worked with the likes of Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles and Lorde with credits as a trumpet player and engineer. 

Slipp has led her individual endeavors with the acclaimed band, the Dirty Projectors. 

The air in the room is genuine; a one to one embodiment of their work. 

The pair have found themselves consistently working together for over 16 years, New York City based band Cuddle Magic being the impetus for their collaboration. Though, as the pair call it, the “seed” that Kamen-Green unintentionally planted over six years ago was the start for mmeadows.

“He (Kamen-Green) was learning Ableton and I heard something he was working on. I was particularly inspired, like ‘that’s really cool, why aren’t we writing music together?’ This is ridiculous. We’re living together and are both musicians. Hearing that music in the other room coming from my own apartment, it was crazy,” Slipp stated as Kamen-Green entered the conversation.

“That was the seed of knowing that something was possible,” Kamen-Green stated. Early on in the interview, Slipp mentioned with full disclosure that the pair are in a relationship and have been for years. 

“That was the first time that we let ourselves. We’re already spending lots of time together, being in this other band (Cuddle Magic), and relationships need space to flourish. I think there was a part of us that thought, ‘Maybe it’s too much to have a band, just the two of us. Maybe that’s too much and too intense.’ So maybe we purposely kept it separate for a long time,” Slipp stated.

The musician goes on to say that the pair dabbled in working together, but never seriously pursued it – until they put an EP out in April of 2020.

“I see it slightly differently. I don’t think it was purposeful, like we don’t want to do this together, but it was more like, once I started making seeds on the computer and Kristin started hearing them, there was a window that opened that hadn’t been opened,” Kamen-Green adds. 

“Once it seemed possible, then we started to pursue it,” he stated.

The musician adds that this came during a time where the both of them wanted to solidify their voices as individual producers and writers. Kamen-Green mentions that there was a parallel in desire for the both of them to do so at the same time that this window was opened. 

“We’re like late bloomers a bit. I think it took us both a little more time to figure out what we’re trying to say musically,” Slipp adds. She then mentions that the duo both went to college for jazz and she personally put out a jazz record in her early 20s. 

Though, the musician states that through mmeadows, they have found out “exactly” what they want to say. 

As the band began to play shows and record more music, it clicked. 

“This is the most honest, most direct line of creativity for us. We have control over everything and we collaborate really well together. Our collective and individual visions don’t feel squashed – and that is a huge gift,” Kamen-Green stated. 

Slipp elaborates further and offers the sentiment that it provides the whole spectrum of experience, but says that it is also quite stressful. To put everything you have into the project, resources, emotional bandwidth and money, is what Slipp describes as scary. 

“There are times when I’m out on the road with another band and feel like, ‘This is great,’ but sometimes I think, ‘is this really how I want to be spending my energy?,’” Slipp says with a tone that echoes self-pondering. She quickly returns to the thought.

“Though, to have a band that’s really yours,” Slipp says before turning to Kamen-Green, “and really yours too, it’s like a healing balm. It’s so nice to come home to this band.” 

A return to home for the pair, both metaphorically and literally, occurred during the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic. The duo packed their studio gear into their car and left their Times Square apartment to go to Slipps parent’s house in Maine. 

Friends Alex Toth and Kalmia Traver of Rubblebucket put together a song a day challenge named S.A.D that lasted for a week.

30 people were invited to join, including Kamen-Green and Slipp, and if the participants did not turn in their song by the end of the day, they were eliminated. Friends Kimbra, best known for the critically acclaimed song that she did with Gotye, “Somebody That I Used to Know,” Jacob Bergson, producer, composer and pianist who occasionally plays on stage with Kimbra and more were also a part of the challenge. 

“In that week, Kristin and I wrote seven songs individually. All those songs are on the record, except one,” Kamen-Green stated. The record, “Light Moves Around You” is their debut and arrives this Friday on Feb. 3. 

Kamen-Green adds that while Slipp was in her child home, he was not, though it provided a place of solace for the both as it allowed them to get out of the COVID-19 induced funk that touched nearly everyone. This trend of continuing to pursue mmeadows furthered in 2021 when the pair went to upstate New York to write at their friend’s house.

“At the time there were no walls,” Kamen-Green states as he giggles, “rock wall was exposed which was actually perfect, acoustically, and we finished the record up there.” He goes on to recall where Slipp cut vocals for the record and watched deer eat from the bushes.

Slipp turns to join the conversation after facing the dressing room’s mirror for a handful of minutes when two dark streaks of contour lining her cheeks causes an eruption of laughter. 

“Sorry,” Slipp says quietly as she starts laughing. 

“She’s contouring, baby!” Kamen-Green says as he joins in. Slipp tries to resume her original train of thought, but cannot contain her laughter. As the giggles subside, she mentions that it was an incredibly odd feeling to be able to rapidly fire out songs during those seven days after not being sure of their musical direction for years. 

“Things are really slow until they’re really fast,” Slipp stated. 

As the minutes dwindle down to showtime, and the days count down to album release day, the pair reflect on the songs they are most proud of on the record. 

“‘Circling Down.’ That was the last one I cut vocals on and did production for,” Slipp stated as Kamen-Green chimes in to say except for the irish-jig (we’ll see what that means on Friday). 

“That one felt a little more first thought, best thought. I was proud that we ended up with something we didn’t have to labor over,” Slipp adds. 

“For me, ‘By Design.’ I remember Kristin had given me the bones of it and it wasn’t completely resonating with me. When that happens, it can be a little scary because we both want our music to represent ourselves. I loved it, but felt that it wasn’t there yet. I took a dive, tore it apart and brought it back together. When I brought it back together, Kristin was like, ‘what?,’ but then she said she really liked it,” Kamen-Green stated. 

“I have memories of recording the bassline and being really happy that nobody was watching me record it because I looked like a fool,” he stated, emphasizing the word fool. 

Kamen-Green adds that he utilized a handful of production techniques he was wanting to try which included recording mouth noises on a microphone made of vintage telephone parts that their friend made.  

One of these techniques was about beatboxing, a tip given to him by four-time Grammy award winning producer and musician, Timbaland. 

Kamen-Green states as he goes on to recall that he and Slipp had a joke about the ESPN horns that play before a televised sporting event. The two go on to playfully argue over whether it was from ESPN or a TV show, but Kamen-Green settles on the origin being one of two ESPN anthems. 

“It has a bunch of odd references and I felt like this is the best I could do at writing and producing music,” he states as Slipp chimes in to mention how good it feels to make something the best you could possibly do. 

That feeling is mirrored as our time came to a close, Kamen-Green citing that he was experiencing some pre-show jitters, but otherwise went on to play an unbelievable show; Slipp illuminating eTown Hall with her ethereal vocals and keytar and Kamen-Green harmonizing alongside with his Electronic Valve Instrument (EVI), that uses similar techniques to that of trumpet, and his actual trumpet. 

From blooming late to hitting the stage in Boulder, CO, their debut record “Light Moves Around You” will be sure to cement their name as mmeadows.