“You must always put all your heart and all your soul into everything,” says London singer/songwriter Polly Paulusma, from the temporary countryside residence where she is staying with friends shortly following the release of her sophomore album, Fingers & Thumbs. “People smell fakes. It’s no interest to anybody if you’re not being real, if you’re holding something back. I think that’s the bugger of what we do. You have to show everybody all your crap. But if you don’t, what are you doing?”
It has been a particularly trying few years for Paulusma. Immediately following the release of her stunning 2004 debut, Scissors in My Pocket, Paulusma, who had been trying to have a child with her husband, lost a pregnancy to miscarriage. The couple continued their efforts to start a family as Paulusma toured in support of Scissors, only to miscarry a second time.
“It was quite difficult, because I started feeling like the music, this thing that I loved, was starting to screw up the other thing that I really wanted to do with my life,” says Paulusma. “And people in older generations [of my family] were saying, ‘You should stop. It’s what you’re doing [touring], that’s why you keep having these things.’ …So I guess that was when things started getting really difficult, and it’s not surprising that it started coming out in the music.”
Fingers & Thumbs is a noticeably different album from Paulusma’s debut. Where Scissors in My Pocket was a delicate acoustic album of gentle folk tunes supported by Paulusma’s angelic whisper of a voice, Fingers & Thumbs is a rawer and more exposed work, tackling the emotions she struggled with in the wake of her two miscarriages, as well as subjects such as lost time and sexual abuse. In addition, instead of relying solely on acoustic guitar and lighter instrumental fare, this time Paulusma’s sonic muse took a darker, more electric tone.
“At the same time [as these personal crises], I had a bit of a teenage rebellion against all the things that I’d been listening to for my first album, all the kind of Joni Mitchells and Carole Kings,” says Paulusma. “I suddenly just couldn’t stand listening to them. All I wanted to hear was Kings of Leon and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.”
“You know what it was?” she says later. “We were driving along in Portugal, having just done a gig in this record store … and Neil Young’s “Down by the River” came on the radio. I never heard it before. I had to slam the breaks on and turn around, drive back to the record store where we just played the gig, and buy a copy on the spot, because it just made my heart stop. And it was that moment. That was it. I suddenly went, ‘Oh my god. This is what I’m feeling. These instruments sound like what I’m feeling.’”
From the ringing guitars of “Godgrudge” through the bluesy undertones of “Back to the Start” and the dark drum-and-bass pulse of “Ready or Not,” Fingers & Thumbs bears the marks of Paulusma’s new influences. It is very much an album borne out of personal strife and frustration, and Paulusma says that some find the change of pace a bit difficult to take.
“I think there are some people who are a bit battled and feel a bit betrayed, but you’ve got to follow your heart,” she says. “I really feel that I had to go in this direction. I’m very proud of both [albums] in their own ways, but the first one was very intricate and delicate and quite complicated, and I think that the emotions I was feeling in the interim demanded a much more direct approach. I really wanted to try and tear out the cobwebs and tear out the crap and get right to the point.”
Ultimately, Paulusma’s story has a happy ending. Just as she was preparing to record with her band -- percussionist Rastko Rasic and new bassist Alex Maranca -- after months and months of trying again to conceive she found out that she was pregnant with her daughter, Valentine. Recording of the album commenced in May of last year, just as Paulusma concluded her first trimester of pregnancy, the date after which risk of miscarriage becomes minimal, and continued into August. Coincidentally, Paulusma’s daughter shares both a conception date and a birthday with her mother—conceived on February 14, Valentine’s Day, and born on November 10.
Valentine Constance Mae Paulusma has been joining her mother on tour to support Fingers & Thumbs. She is, as her mother describes her, “the perfect touring baby.” You can hear the absolute joy in Paulusma’s voice as she talks about her daughter, the one to whom this album is most touchingly dedicated. It is the culmination of a lengthy process for Paulusma, but one that has ultimately been worth the persistent struggles.
“The funny thing is that I was writing all this stuff as we were going through it...and feeling like we were the only people in the world,” says Paulusma. “And since this all happened, you find out how everybody goes through their own shit, and no one fucking talks about it. … No one tells us this crap when we’re in our 20s, that there’s going to be this battle. So I’m glad I’ve been able to talk about it. I’ve never been particularly shy. It’s been nice to find out that we weren’t on our own. Other people have their stories to tell of the battlefield.”
--Frank Valish
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Fingers & Thumbs is released August 14, 2007 on One Little Indian Records.
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