When you’re an upstart artist working on finding your voice and your way into the scene, a common refrain that you’re likely to hear is that you have to settle on one sound or one style and commit to doing one thing well instead of exploring of the different flights of creative fancy that float your way.
But that’s not how a lot of artistic minds work. For many, the appeal of creativity is the opportunity to explore the diverse and disparate styles that have moved you, and to let inspiration and curiosity be your guide, rather than staying confined to just one form.
In fact, that might be the single guiding principle behind the perhaps ironically named Confined to a Singular Form, an Oklahoma City-based band or project or partnership that alternates between evocative, experimental ambient music and widescreen 80s-style pop.
An ongoing – and maybe ever-shifting – project of duo Jackson Pierce and Corbin Taylor, Confined to a Singular Form made quiet waves in the OKC underground with 2024’s impressionist, ambient “Floral Arrangements,” but have followed it up now with the brand new “The Bodies I Hide,” a collection of propulsive, vocal-forward indie-pop songs.
According to Pierce, that ability to jump back and forth across genres and sounds might be the most appealing thing about making music.
Jackson Pierce: The idea was after we did this ambient-folk-indie record, whatever it was, was like “let's 180 and do pop” because a big thing for us is not being confined to a singular form, you know? So we want to do it differently every time.
Brett Fieldcamp: While the sound of “The Bodies I Hide” might seem like a pretty dramatic departure from the previous album, Pierce feels like it’s all just about different ways to express a lot of the same feelings and to continue the stories and explorations that were begun in those earlier, more experimental works.
But whereas those heavily atmospheric, ambient releases required some deep, emotional mining to interpret their most challenging feelings as sound, the new songs allow them to express themselves more verbally and vocally with more accessible hooks to pull in listeners in a different way.
Jackson Pierce: We started working on different material, and in terms of ambient music, that can mean whatever you want it to mean. It’s so interpretive.
And so once it gets done, like all those bad feelings you had put yourself in, and those things you had put back, like, I was just exhausted, and I had kind of gotten back into doing that kind of pop stuff we had done before.
And I was telling people, when we told them for this next album we weren't planning on doing that, they were like, "Why?” They were like "You sound really good. Why would you change that?” And I'm like “because I did the best I could doing that right now. If I continue doing it, it's just going to be a worse version of that.” But there's things that I know I can do that I've really been diverting, that I really want to put my attention on.
Brett Fieldcamp: But that doesn’t mean that “The Bodies I Hide” is all easy-listening or pure, simple pop music.
It’s all still progressive, still unexpected, and still full of sharp turns, inspired by some of the most genre-crossing and boundary-smashing artists that have been formative for the band, and by their aim of creating a full album experience in the age of streaming singles.
Jackson Pierce: You know, there are some pretty aggressive switch-ups where you think the album's going a certain way, and then out of nowhere, it stops going that way, and it almost feels like it's looking at you. So it's not just a straight-up pop album.
But my favorite artwork form is albums. You know, I just I want to make the best albums I can at the time, and that doesn't require perfect production, perfect recordings, perfect performance. It's just it's all about the emotion of it, you know?
Ultimately, that truth of emotion is the goal for Pierce and for all of Confined to a Singular Form’s offerings.
The complex feelings and emotions that go into making music are so fickle and so widely varied, that maybe the only way to do them justice is to cast off all adherence to one sound, to keep following those new avenues, and to keep being yourself no matter how often that person changes.
Jackson Pierce: To me, I want to succeed. I want to be able to play on big stages and make money from doing this, but I don't want to do it by being inauthentic.
There's a way of saying that you've changed, you're different now, while still being like “but my messaging was intentionally this, and this is how I meant it.”
Because it's you. To me, art and music are you. If you go back on that, then not only are you contradicting yourself, in a sense, but you're also rejecting that version of yourself. And the most important thing to me is to express myself in my music.
Brett Fieldcamp: “The Bodies I Hide,” the new album by Confined to a Singular Form, is available now exclusively on Bandcamp, and you can follow along with the band on Instagram.
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