Taylor Hughes on the long journey to pure xtc’s debut full-length

pure xtc. //photo by Amina Shaw

pure xtc’s the women I loved, the songs I kept is out Friday, October 23. You can pre-order the album at her webstore. pure xtc also plays the Bottleneck on Sunday, November 22, with Grizz Lee, Terran Rae, and Neon Signs.

Over the past few years, Taylor Hughes’ musical project pure xtc has been a force to reckon with. We’ve had the joy of seeing Hughes move to Kansas City and develop pure xtc from the floor up, and with this Friday’s release of her debut album, the women I loved, the songs I kept, Hughes gets to share her full vision with the whole wide world.

While some of the tracks on the full-length have been released previously, with “Mood Ring” coming several years ago, Hughes feels like now is the time to make a statement.

“I feel like I finally have cracked the code,” Hughes explains. “When I was writing ‘Fall Apart’ and ‘Mood Ring’ and ‘Drive,’ I’m like, ‘These feel so much different than the work that I’ve put out previously, and I can tell these are leading me somewhere, and I just need to ride the wave and put out a full body of work.’”

A full-length release is something Hughes has always wanted to do, as none of her previous projects have ever had them. And, as she puts it, “It’s time. I just need to do it.”

Even though these songs which make up the women I loved, the songs I kept have been released over several years, they work together sonically and feel like one work. However, they weren’t all recorded in one go. Hughes describes herself as “very meticulous,” and notes that makes her slower at production.

“I literally just finished recording the last song of this album not even two months ago,” she notes wryly of “Midnight Snack.” All the songs are recorded in Hughes’ home studio, and then she sends them out to one of he producer friends.

“I’m like, ‘Hey, I’ve taken this as far as I can. I think it still needs a little candy on top,’ or whatever,” Hughes says of her production work “I also don’t trust myself to mix. I’m too close to it, and if I mix it, every song is just gonna be bass- and drum-heavy. There will be no room for anything else.”

The thing that makes the women I loved, the songs I kept such a gift is that the songs which comprise the record breathe. Hughes makes use of open space in ways it’s impossible not to appreciate. While the lyrics to all of pure xtc’s music are always really important to the songs and how they come through, on this album, it feels as though she’s really trying to make sure that people hear what she has to say.

“And that’s another thing–it takes me a minute to write lyrics, as well,” points out the musician. “So that’s another reason these songs have kinda trickled out over the course of several years.”

It takes Hughes a minute to find what she has to say, she muses.

“Or actually, no: it takes me a minute to find how I wanna say it,” Hughes clarifies, saying she knew what she wanted to say, but just didn’t quite know how to phrase it.

“And that, God, that bleeds into my personal life too,” she says dramatically, joking, “Just ask my wife.”

As a married person, we have to ask Hughes about that album title. the women I loved, the songs I kept is an interesting title for a married person to name their debut record. However, it suits what Hughes sees as a reflection on where she was versus where she is now.

“Everything is nostalgia, I feel, on this album,” says Hughes. “My wife has jokingly called it a love letter to New York because like all of these experiences were things that happened while I was there, and the people I met along the way.”

The third song on the album, “old wounds,” is what Hughes calls “the happy song” on the women I loved, the songs I kept and is for her wife. Sonically, however, the album is where that early to mid-’00s emo would have gone if they would have let women have a say. Aside from Paramore’s Hayley Williams, this album sounds like this is where things would have gone lyrically if all the songs weren’t by straight white dudes, and we tell Hughes as much.

“Oh my God, high school me is screaming right now,” she responds delightedly. “I love that, and I love that I’ve taken those roots with me, as well. I listen to pop music now. I listen to more electronic or indie stuff, and the emo roots are still relevant. They’re present for sure.”

pure xtc. //photo by Amina Shaw

After this long a wait to put out a full-length, we ask Hughes how she’s feeling, knowing that soon, people will actually get to hear all of these songs together.

“I’m excited, I’m terrified, I hope people like it,” she says in one go. “I think it’s more vulnerable than I’ve ever been.”

Hughes points to the song “killing my youth” as “an open wound for me,” then takes a deep breath.

“Ooh, I’ve never talked about this publicly,” she says, and pauses to collect her composure. “So, I lost my dad to alcoholism, and that song was like seeing that in someone else that I was in a relationship with–but also, in some ways, myself. I’m like, ‘Ooh, I’m liking this a little too much, I need to pull back.’”

We asked Hughes if there’s a certain fear that, when you put this much of yourself out there in one space, you might worry about how it’s received.

“I feel like everybody’s really responded to the singles pretty well so far,” Hughes acknowledges. “It’s been really good so far.”

Hughes also points out that she works for MerchTable, the company through which people can order her album, and that looking at the back end during pre-orders has been kind of wild.

“Just seeing so many people from different eras of my life purchasing this album, I’m like, ‘That’s crazy. I didn’t know they still followed me or paid attention or whatever,’” she says. “And I think that’s really cool. I think it’s gonna be hilarious if some of the people that the songs are about pick up on it.”

That’ll be the really interesting part, Hughes laughs: “That’s probably the fear right there. I’m like, ‘Please don’t come at me.’”

pure xtc’s the women I loved, the songs I kept is out Friday, October 23. You can pre-order the album at her webstore. pure xtc also plays the Bottleneck on Sunday, November 22, with Grizz Lee, Terran Rae, and Neon Signs.