When rising singer-songwriter and producer Jordan Whitlock met the cinematic, genre-blurring mind behind Memory Spells, something extraordinary began to take shape. Their upcoming collaborative album, This Is What It Feels Like, promises a mesmerising fusion of dream pop, chamber-folk, and lush, textured production. Ahead of the release, they’ve given fans a taste with “Higher,” a single that pairs Whitlock’s hypnotic, crystalline vocals with Memory Spells’ sweeping, cinematic soundscapes, an introduction to a record that’s as emotionally expansive as it is sonically adventurous.
Whitlock has been making waves with her genre-defying approach, blending folk, choral influences, and pop into a sound that explores love, loss, and personal growth. From features on OVO Sound and Nora En Pure’s Purified to supporting artists like Tiesto, Chromeo, and Cherub, her ethereal voice has also found its way into film and television, including BBC’s Wild Isles. Meanwhile, Memory Spells, the creative project of Matt Bauer, draws from indie folk, cinematic post-rock, early post-punk, and 80s film music, with his tracks featured on Lucifer (Netflix), Carrion Crawler (Showtime), and in campaigns for brands like Barneys and Canada Goose.
Together, they’ve crafted a sound that feels both intimate and cinematic, personal yet expansive, a meeting of two distinct artistic worlds. We sat down with Whitlock and Memory Spells to dig into the story behind This Is What It Feels Like, their creative process, and what it feels like to make music that blurs the lines between dream and reality.
We caught up with Memory Spells below –
How did you two first connect creatively?
I had a piece of music that I’d try to write words and melody to on and off for a few years and sort of held on to it because it felt really special to me and when I heard Jordan’s singing and her lyrics, that’s when I reached out to see if she’d want to write together and it just came together really quickly from there – Matt
What was the biggest challenge in writing and producing remotely?
The first thing that comes to mind is that there really weren’t any big challenges – Matt
I was gonna say the same thing. Yeah, I think in working from home remotely, we both have everything we need in our own setups so it really is sort of just the perfect way for us to do it – Jordan
How does distance shape intimacy in music?
I think for us, on this project, working on the same songs but remotely and separately made it so that we could write about really personal things on our own time in our own space – Matt
Yeah, you can be more open and don’t necessarily have to share all the specifics about what you’re writing about and can just write about it – Jordan
Did you have a shared vision from the start, or did it evolve over time?
It definitely evolved, seeing that we both weren’t even planning on making an album, but just kept writing songs because we liked writing together. And then I think the more we wrote together, the more we were doing it just for fun and becoming more uninhibited with the songs, using more strings or fun vocal parts and I think we simultaneously started getting on that same wavelength – Jordan
How do you approach lyrical storytelling in your songs?
For me, I don’t know if you would agree, but I think less about storytelling and more just about moments than linear stories in a song and capturing feelings or scenes within a story – Matt
I guess it’s similar for me too. For example, with You Tell Me, it started with this feeling that I was having and then trying to describe it through different moments or metaphors – Jordan
How did the album title, This Is What It Feels Like, come to be?
Well, it’s a lyric in two of our songs (in Take Away My Heart and in Bloom). I think we had a couple ideas, one of them being “A Flower Blooming For No One”, but when Matt suggested “This Is What It Feels Like” it just felt perfect. Our record is a collection of a bunch of moments and feelings and so that title just felt right – Jordan
And I think it sort of captures the range of emotion on the record because in one song the line is about the feeling of falling in love and in the other it’s about loss and starting over – Matt
Are there recurring themes or motifs throughout the album?
I think we end up writing about the ocean a lot – Matt
Yeah, and we reference birds and flowers and gardens a lot as well – Jordan
Which instruments or sounds defined the album’s sonic palette?
There are a lot of strings (played beautifully by our friends Alisa Rose and Rachel Ruggles) that are mixed in with string recordings that were sent to cassette tape and resampled. And lots of layered vocals. Jordan’s vocal arrangements are amazing. We kept coming back to a few vintage drum machine sounds too- Matt
Was there a track that came together unexpectedly fast or slowly?
Yeah, All I See Is You came together insanely fast, but there were a couple that we had to come back to a few times – Jordan
Bloom took a lot longer, but mostly because it took a while to get the idea of what I wanted for the string accompaniment out of my head and onto the page in a way that our string players could understand – Matt
How do you know when a collaboration is successful creatively?
I think mainly it’s when you work similarly and are able to find this sort of rare synchronicity. With us, I think Matt fills in my blanks in the songwriting process very well – Jordan
I feel the same. When it just feels natural, and when you feel like you’re finding things together that you never would have found on your own – Matt
Did you draw inspiration from other artists or genres while making the album?
The one thing that did inspire me can be heard in the vocal section at the end of Take Away My Heart. We had the idea of adding a vocalese section at the end, and I love how Caroline Polachek plays with her voice, so I wanted to lean into that a little for this section – Jordan
How do you balance vulnerability with technical perfection in your music?
I think vocally I’m trying to capture vulnerability in the emotion of the vocal, but I’m for sure doing a lot of takes till it feels right. I think there was one song where you could kind of hear a plane go by at the very end and I remember asking you if I should rerecord and you were like ‘no I like the imperfections in it – it feels real – Jordan
If you could perform any track live immediately, which would it be and why?
Something with strings – Jordan
Same. It would be amazing to play Take My Hand or Heaven And Here with a full string section – Matt
Or maybe All To Myself because it’s beautiful and simple and the vocal just sounds so fun to play with live and have this meditative, strong moment in a set. I don’t know, I can picture it – Jordan
What’s the one thing you want listeners to remember after hearing the album?
We don’t really have a message, we were just making music for ourselves that was important to us and hope that connects with people in some way – Matt
Looking ahead, do you see more collaborations between you two, or was this a one-time experiment?
In true Matt and Jordan spirit, even after the album was done we just kept writing. – Matt
Yeah, it’s kind of interesting because we’re not necessarily a band or anything but we keepb writing together, so I’m sure more will come. – Jordan
Jordan Whitlock: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Spotify | Memory Spells: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Spotify
