Bound Stems

What's to say about Bound Stems? They're a band that covers a lot of ground, musically and personally. They're a five-piece, but their music is something grander, something bigger. Their songs are about life; while Chicago is their home, their debut album, Appreciation Night, is more an album of living life with Chicago as the backdrop. Their music is catchy, too, but the band's Janie Porche says it best when she proclaims that "we rock!" Yes, indeed, they rock; they rock in a way that rock rarely rocked in 2006--intelligently. In this bland, boring music world, it's refreshing to hear an album like Appreciation Night, and it's hard to deny that this band is clearly onto something. Their debut release, last year's EP The Logic of Building the Body Plan didn't hint at the greatness found on this debut, and if that's the case, what comes next may very well be even more mind-blowingly wonderful than this excellent album. It's safe to say that they released one of the best albums of 2006, and I'm happy to have talked to a very friendly Ms. Porche during a brief break between tours. Seek their music out; it won't disappoint you.

I've really enjoyed Appreciation Night! I take it you joined the band between The Logic of Building the Body Plan and the debut. How did you meet up with them?

I was roommates with Evan Sult, our drummer. They had all been working together for a while, and they had brought in another girl to see if they wanted to add her backups on another song. Then they decided to take the idea further and add vocals, but she wasn't really the right person for the job. So they asked me to do it, and I said yes. Within a few days, they started bringing in more instruments and adding a lot more layers. They liked my singing, so they added me, too.

Was this your first musical project?

I kind of had been making music on my own, writing and recording songs on my own, but nothing to this extent.

There are a number of songs on Appreciation Night that are...well, I guess the best example of this would be "Excellent News, Colonel," where it sounds like the song is actually a combination of several smaller songs put together, a la The Beatles' "A Day in the Life." Was this something the band intentionally came up with as an approach to songwriting, or is it merely something you tried and worked well?

I think that when you have five really different, creative minds working together and working at five really different day jobs, it leads…well, when we would go to the practice space, we'd have a lot of different ideas to explore. We'd bring a lot of different pieces in. It's not like one person writes something complete that the rest of the band then follows, because we're all open to ideas. Also, when we were writing, a lot of ideas were written in groups. One day, it'd be like, "Okay, Janie and Bobby, you go and work on this," and "Dan, you and Evan go and write something." We'd do that' we'd record in our practice space, and we'd see what comes up. At the same time, we're trying to look for really challenging music. We're not afraid of that.

Looking at the title, "Appreciation Night," and hearing how much Chicago plays into the lyrics, is the album a love letter to the city of Chicago?

I think it's more a letter that we were writing with Chicago as the setting. We've been given a lot of feedback an have been asked a lot of questions about how much Chicago figures in the lyrics, and I think that the city's role is important, but it's not to Chicago as it is about Chicago.

SO it's about living in Chicago, as opposed to being about Chicago.

Right! It's all about how we're making our movements through the city to do what it is we do on a daily basis. Like, we have to go to work and meet friends, we have to go to practice, we have to gather our gear and our coats; we have a lot of things to do, and we're doing them all in Chicago, which happens to be a very audible, sonic sounding city. There's a lot of transit here; there's a lot of movement. I'm sure if we lived and recorded in, say, Oklahoma City, the results would be different from Appreciation Night. Interesting, I'm sure, but entirely different.

I interviewed someone yesterday who had released an album with a lyrical narrative that's similar, involving citizens in a city, a much more stream-of-consciousness approach. From what you were just saying, was a decision made to explore these themes, or did you just write a bunch of songs and then, upon compiling them, you realized you had this theme and you saw what the album was about?

It's interesting. We had a few songs that we chose not to put on the album, because it was already too long. We had all of these songs that we'd written, and we were able to select them in a sequence that flowed together and told a narrative. We made--I have no how idea how many different running orders! (Laugh) We would be in the van, and we'd listen to so many different orders, trying to figure out what it meant for us. So that was a really conscious decision. Also, the transitions between the songs, we thought about them a lot--a whole lot--because we wanted to make sure they were good.

So, then, in your mind, was Appreciation Night a...I hate to use the word "concept album," because it has such a negative connotation...

Well, I don't think of it as a concept album. It was very musically challenging for us. It was something we were exploring--our town. Furthermore, replicating these songs live is very important for us. The fact that these songs rock, it's very important! (Laughs) We listen to a lot of rock music, so we want to make...we're a rock band. What you can take from a concept album is that it has a theme you can take as a whole, so yeah, that's something that can carry over. Also, concept albums are things you have to listen to a couple of times to really figure out, so that's something that holds over, too.

Ultimately, though, Appreciation Night sounds like it was a whole lot of fun to make.

It was a lot of fun! We go out on tours for long lengths of time, and there are things that are really frustrating, like our van getting a flat tire, or being stranded somewhere, or not finding a place to stay, while back home, our cell phone bills are coming due--these are things that happen that are really frustrating. But when we get on stage, we have the most fun that we could ever have. I hope that doesn't go away. We've played a lot of shows, and we're getting better at it. We've had full-time jobs, we've worked long days, and we know what it's like. We understand where we could be in life, and we really appreciate what we're doing. It's a ton of fun, yeah!

Bound Stems' debut, Appreciation Night, is available now on Flameshovel

Tasmin Archer

If there is one song from the early 1990s that is still quite as captivating, it is Tasmin Archer's hit song, "Sleeping Satellite." It's a slinky yet quite catchy number that is both dark and haunting, yet is wonderfully well-written and hard to forget, and it was a wonderful balm in the midst of Grunge and hard-rock. It made an appearance on the US charts during those halcyon Alternative days of 1992, and the album it appeared on, Great Expectations, was full of equally wonderful songs, all of which were as good--if not better than--"Sleeping Satellite," which, to be honest, is quite a feat, considering "Sleeping Satellite" is nearly perfect. It looked like Ms. Archer was set to become a name, if not in households, with those who appreciate good music and the art of excellent songwriting. Great Expectations seemed to be the sort of record that would help build a foundation for a long-term career. In 1994, an EP entitled Shipbuilding was released; this mini-album contained a number of excellent Elvis Costello covers, as well as some live versions of songs from Great Expectations. For those who enjoyed the album, it was a nice treat to tide them over until the follow-up.

Alas, it was not to be. After that, nothing; to those who fell for Great Expectations, her voice sadly went silent. In the United States, she disappeared into obscurity and the inevitable "one-hit wonder" status, yet her career was not over. She released her follow-up album, Bloom, in 1996, but as you will read below, this record wasn't released in the United States, and only in limited numbers in Europe.

For years, I believed that she had gone the way of Vashti Bunyan, Linda Perhcas, or Mary Margaret O'Hara--excellent musicians who made stunningly beautiful debut albums, but who were destined to be hidden treasures, because they disappeared after making that one great artistic statement. It took me by surprise, then, when I learned earlier this year that she had a brand-new album, ON, set for release. Upon learning this happy bit of news, I took it upon myself to get a copy of the record and to talk to her. ON is a wonderful record; it's mellow and pretty, and it moves into a territory that's a bit more electronic than Great Expectations, but it's the lyrical content that really struck with me. The album is full of deeply personal songs, songs about getting older, staying true to yourself, and about keeping your head up high when things don't go right. That's my interpretation, at least. As you can see, I had about fourteen years of questions to ask her, and ask her I did; the interview below is one I'm quite proud of, as it was an honor for me to get her to answer my questions about her career. I think this interview and Tasmin's story should serve as a lesson for younger musicians who are entering into the profession. But enough about that; Tasmin Archer's back, and that's one thing that made 2006 a wonderful year in music!


Great Expectations was a critical success both in Europe and in the US. When you completed it, did you have any notion that it would do as well as it did, or were your expectations about its greatness what led to its title?

No not really, at the time I knew EMI were putting a lot of backing behind us and although that's no guarantee of success it certainly helps. I didn't choose the title because I was expecting great things in terms of sales or critical acclaim. I chose to call the album Great Expectations because I loved the book by Charles Dickens and I felt some sort of affinity with the character 'Pip'.

"Sleeping Satellite" is still a wonderful song. Was it a song that you and your label at the time immediately recognized for the hit that it would become?


The demo of that song, which is a similarly arranged if less polished version of the released one, was one of the tracks that was on our original demo reel when we were first trying to get a deal. Every single major UK company turned us down at that stage. Later, after we'd signed to EMI and recorded the version that appeared on the album, they began to hear its potential I guess.

I remember hearing "Sleeping Satellite" a LOT. Was there a point during the success that you felt like too much focus was being put on the song and not on you as an artist?

I don't recall feeling that way because we were so busy promoting 'Sleeping Satellite' and doing live performances of all the other songs that were on the album. I suppose I was too excited that I didn't really get too bogged down by all of that.


Did life change much for you during this time?

Yes, I would say so. The one thing I'd say that changed for me dramatically was the long periods of time I spent away from home traveling the world & promoting Great Expectations. Before this I had only ever traveled to Denmark when I was at college and then to Italy on holiday. So really this was a big change for me because I had hardly ever been out of my home town growing up in West Yorkshire.

How would you describe your relationship with "Sleeping Satellite" now? Did you ever have a love/hate relationship with it?

We've have grown together and we've always maintained a good healthy relationship. We're fine in each others company and I don't ever remember feeling any animosity toward the song ever.

Tell me a little bit about how Shipbuilding came to pass.

I was always a big Elvis Costello fan. EMI were pressing me to release something in between albums and so I decided to do a 4 track EP of songs I liked of his. Originally it was only intended to be an EP, and in the UK it was, but in the US the label decided to add some b sides and make it more album length.


From what I understand, your relationship with your label started to become complicated. Looking back at it now, what was the root of the problem, and do you think that things could have been avoided?

I wouldn't say it was complicated. For my second album they wanted one thing and we wanted another. They wanted Great Expectations mark II and we wanted to expand our horizons and do something that stretched us as artists. They saw things from a purely commercial perspective, as they would, and we saw it from an artistic one. The two things just didn't mix. I suppose I could of given in and avoided the problem but I'd have been very unhappy so I chose to dig my heals in and stand up for what I wanted artistically.

Were there any early warning signs of problems yet to come?

Not necessarily a warning. We argued for 12 months about it until they eventually, albeit reluctantly, gave in and put Bloom out as it was intended. For a time I thought we'd convinced them we were doing the right thing for the long term but there was a key personnel change at EMI during the whole discussion process and that threw another spanner in the works. I felt I'd had enough success with Great Expectations for them to at least give me a little leeway and support me in a less commercial project but it seems I was wrong. Ultimately they weren't interested in letting me develop as an artist. That's the nature of the business with major labels, even more so now, so you have to accept it and move on.

How was the experience of making Bloom?

The making of Bloom was a very relaxed affair and recording the initial takes 'live' as a band was a more organic way of recording for me. The musicians who played on the album with us were all stunning. They played with real beauty and edge. I wanted to make a more earthy, edgy sounding album and these guys were perfect for that.

Admittedly, I've never heard Bloom--and, to be honest, until a few months ago, I didn't even know about it! How do you feel about the record now?

The US EMI label declined to release it so this is probably why you hadn't heard of it. It's also not available on US iTunes. Bloom never achieved the same level of commercial success as the first album because it isn't a 'commercial pop' album which was my label at the time. I felt with the right support it could have crossed over into other areas but it didn't get the same backing as Great Expectations in the marketplace. I am still intensely proud of it, probably more so than Great Expectations because I think it's better than that album from a songwriting and musical perspective.

After Bloom, you went silent. Was this because of disillusionment with the music business, did you intend to retire from music altogether, or were you following in the steps of artists like XTC and Michelle Shocked and going on strike against your record label?

I'd just had enough of the music business so I decided to take a break. I only really intended on taking a year out but it turned out to be more. I never planned to be away for so long, it's just the way things panned out.

I have also seen that in the interim, your former label released a hastily-compiled 'best-of' and rarities compilation album that quickly disappeared from labels. Did you have a hand in this collection, or did you stop it, a la Aimee Mann?

I don't know anything about that. They don't inform us when they are to re release any of those old recordings that we did when we were signed to them. They own all those old recordings so they do what they like, when they like and never get in touch to seek our approval. We never know what they're up to.

During this silence, did you continue to make music?

Yes. We never really ever stopped writing we just never finished anything. I was still inspired to write and so the ideas just kept piling up and piling up.

I read somewhere that in the last few years, you suffered from writer's block. Do you think a lot of that was based in a deep-seated reticence from your experiences within the music industry and of making music?

I don't really know if it was totally to do with that. All I know is I was exhausted and needed a break away from the business side of the music industry, but the block happened after the break that I had planned which obviously extended it.


How did you break the block's spell?

I found out as much as I could about these type of things. I did other practical things that were creative outlets for me like painting, moulding clay and dabbled a bit in Shamanic Journeying. I had to do something artistic that would enable me to see an end result and this is how I worked my way through the block.

Jumping ahead to the present: how was the creation of ON for you? Being thoroughly in control of your destiny and your music must have been a totally new, invigorating experience, in light of your previous records.

When we started shaping the songs that are on ON we made work in progress versions available as free downloads for fans. We received some good feedback which was very encouraging because back then we weren't even thinking of putting an album out, much less putting it out on our own label. We were just feeling our way in the dark a bit. We were starting to really enjoy demoing and developing the songs and we wrote a ton of material during this time. As time went on, step by step, we found certain songs were standing out as if they might sit well together as an album so we thought why not put it out.

We had no intention of giving up creative control to any major label ever again so we eventually decided to set up our own label for this purpose. It was, and still is, all new territory for us but we're learning about all that side of it as we go along. It was a steep learning curve for us at first, even the recording and producing of the album at our home was a challenge. In the past we had worked with some really good producers in the best studios so it was a real challenge just trying to get the sounds we wanted and the best performances. It all took time but it was an enjoyable experience and rewarding. As well as co writing all the songs on the album John Hughes did all the recording, all the production and mixing, as well as playing the majority of the instruments on the album. The only other person appearing on the album was Bruce Thomas (of The Attractions) who played the bass.

The songs on ON read like letters of hope--not just to the struggling, depressed, or downtrodden, but also to you yourself. I take it that with the message of staying positive and focused and seeing a brighter day ahead of you, that this is a deeply personal and meaningful collection of work for you.

Yes. This album, like all I've done, defines me in the present or at least recent time. A lot has happened during the making of this album. My mum passed away in January 2004, so some of the songs on this album have a deeper personal meaning because they are strong reminders of that time. The songs are largely inspired by life and are at their root observations about the different lives people lead and the different emotional situations they encounter in today's world. The songs are, to an extent, informed by my own personal experiences but include a sizeable dollop of poetic license. I like all albums to be more than just a collection of unrelated songs and for each song to have some common connection. I like to think of ON as a self contained piece of work with each song being analogous to a chapter in a book. I will admit that I do get a sense of satisfaction that we did it all by ourselves.


I know I've focused on a number of negative aspects of the past decade or so of your career, but what were some of the good memories from your success?

There are lots. Performing all the songs off Great Expectations and Bloom live was a great feeling. Appearing on live music TV shows alongside wonderful great artists was a thrilling experience for me too. Traveling has given me a wider outlook and perspective on the world. Having the opportunity to work in the best studios with truly great musicians & producers was also informing and really good fun. These are just some of the great highlights for me but I have many wonderful memories of that time. In general all the musical side of things were rewarding while the business side of things leaves a lot to be desired.

What are you working on now, and what do you have planned for 2007?

We are constantly working on developing new material. We are considering spending some time early next year doing some small stripped down gigs in the UK. We're also progressing with other projects and pursuing commissions to write music for film and TV which will hopefully finance the production of the next and subsequent albums.

Finally, what advice would you give to young artists entering the business?

Be true to yourself. It's hard enough to deal with the business side of the music business as it is, so if you find yourself compromising your music just for commercial success you will more than likely become uncomfortable with it.

Tasmin Archer's wonderful new album, ON, is available now on Quiverdisc

Charalambides

Over the last 15 years, Charalambides has quietly become an institution in American experimental music. Together, the core duo of Tom and Christina Carter (with the assistance of various third members) has amassed a huge discography full of songs that blur the lines between composition and improvisation, between noise and melody, and between the haunting and the downright scary.

Their penultimate album, 2004's Joy Shapes, represented both a changing of the guard and an artistic peak. Not only was it the last album that Tom and Christina recorded as a married couple, but it was also their last collaboration with former member Heather Leigh Murray. I can't help but feel that these upheavals affected the tone of their music. On Joy Shapes, Tom's guitar playing reached new levels of wooziness and dissonance, while Christina and Heather let out wails of banshee-like disembodiment and fury. On that album, the band's penchant for psychedelic droning became a vehicle for emotional bloodletting. I'd heard nothing like it before, and I haven't heard anything like it since.

After Joy Shapes, longtime Texans Tom and Christina moved to separate parts of the country, and Heather moved to Scotland. Fortunately, the Carters' commitment to making music together remains unabated. This year's Charalambides release, A Vintage Burden, may be the duo's most straightforward and conventionally pretty album yet. Although the duo tones down the screeching and wailing on Burden, the songs still retain the deliberate pacing and beautiful layering that characterizes all of Charalambides' work. In keeping with their prolific nature, the Carters already have a follow-up to Burden in the can!

I was fortunate enough to see Charalambides play at Emo's in Austin on November 15th. The last two times I'd seen them live, Tom and Christina played sitting down. They improvised their sets by leisurely coaxing unearthly sounds from their guitars with an array of pedals and prepared objects, from bows to bowls. This evening's set, though, was markedly different. Most of the songs the Carters played were recognizable as A Vintage Burden tracks, but they were played with an aggression that recalled Joy Shapes. Throughout the set, the Carters prowled the stage like hunters in search of game. Tom slashed away at his guitar, alternating between vast minor chords and harsh volleys of white noise. Christina pushed her voice as far as it could possibly go, until it sounded like she would burst into tears at any moment. At the end of the set, Tom threw his guitar on the ground and kicked his amplifier over. Watching them play gave me the same feeling of unexpected catharsis that listening to Joy Shapes did two years ago.

Before the show, Tom and Christina were kind enough to talk to me for about a half-hour about their music. You can read an edited transcript of the conversation below:

I listened to Joy Shapes and A Vintage Burden back-to-back recently, and noticed a striking difference in tone between the two records. I hope that you don't take this the wrong way, but Joy Shapes used to give me nightmares. [Christina laughs loudly] I had a very strange relationship with the record. I'd always listen to it late at night, because that's when I listen to Charalambides the most --- when I want to relax. I'd fall asleep to it, have a really weird dream, and then wake up right in the middle of one of the album’s most dissonant moments, such as the midsection of "Here Not There," or the midsection of "Natural Night." On the other hand, A Vintage Burden seems a lot more even-keeled. I was wondering if the differences between the two records --- the level of dissonance and the intensity of the vocals --- were intentional, or if they were prompted by circumstance.

Tom: It was sort of intentional. I think we both decided that we didn't want to make a record that was as intense as Joy Shapes...or maybe we wanted to make a record that was as intense, but not as dissonant or freaked-out. I always think that Joy Shapes was a much more consuming record. It was physically exhausting to work on in some ways, and I kinda wanted to avoid having that experience again. It didn't have anything to do necessarily with the kind of music I wanted to be on it, but I definitely wanted something that was a bit easier to listen to, though maybe just as complex, or equally arranged.

I definitely noticed a lot of layering on A Vintage Burden, so I don't think there was a difference in complexity. I read up on the making of Joy Shapes, and found out that it took about a year and a half to finish tweaking.

Tom: Yeah, that includes a lot of downtime. I think we started recording it in 2002, and I think I finally finished it in early 2004. It wasn't quite a year and a half; it was more like a year. A lot of that was due to mixing and things like that. At the time, I thought I was doing a lot of layering, but A Vintage Burden ended up being a lot more complex, at least on some songs. I was also kinda learning how to use ProTools during Joy Shapes. There was also a long period between recording the instrumental tracks and recording the vocals, partially because Christina was gone a lot.

How long did A Vintage Burden take, from gestation to completion?

Tom: A little less than a year...maybe eight months.

Christina: Yeah, that's what I was gonna say.

Tom, I know that you live in California now and Christina lives in Massachusetts. How did the two of you overcome your geographical separation to record A Vintage Burden?

Christina: I flew to California to visit Tom. For the new one we just made that isn't out yet, Tom flew to Massachusetts to visit me.

Are there any significant differences between the music on the new one and the music on A Vintage Burden?

Christina: Yeah, because for A Vintage Burden all the songs were written beforehand, and on this new one, nothing was written beforehand.

Tom: That’s not entirely true.

Christina: It's not?

Tom: No, one of the songs is old --- "Good Life."

Christina: Oh!

Tom: Yeah, it’s seven years old...

Christina: ...but all the rest.

Tom: All the rest were improvised.

Was A Vintage Burden the first time that the two of you came to a session with prewritten material, or has that happened intermittently throughout your history?

Christina: It tends to happen every once in a while. Joy Shapes has prewritten stuff on it.

Tom: Yeah, but half of Joy Shapes' stuff we'd been playing in our sets --- more than half, maybe three-quarters of it. A fairly large chunk of the album was improvised, too. A lot of stuff was kinda composed on the four-track before that. You might have one guitar part, and you'll lay that down, lay something else down on top of it, and then arrange as you go.

How much of a role does editing play in your work? Have you ever had to whittle stuff down or take it out?

Christina: Oh, yeah. Totally!

Tom: I do that a lot more now, especially with the computer. It's a lot easier.

Christina: We don't have any rules, so there's stuff that completely live to tape, with no editing whatsoever, there's also stuff that's very highly edited, and everything in between.

Tom: On the new album, I edited a lot for length --- not A Vintage Burden, but the one we're working on right now. I don't do as much of going on and taking out one note here and there. I do it on some songs, but not many.

How does geography in general factor into the sound of your music? I know that in some of your earlier work, particularly Houston, there are lots of references to specific places. When I listen to your earlier work, I often visualize the arid, wide open spaces of Texas, and the tension that lies beneath the nothingness. Do you think that this musical atmosphere was a by-product of both of you living in Texas at the time? If so, do you think it still seeps into your music now that you’re both gone?

Christina: I think the references in Houston were more after the fact, as far as titling and things like that.

Tom: We would go back and impose that stuff on the music later.

Christina: Yeah. I don't know if the geography specifically affects the music.

Tom: Yeah, people have always thought that about the older stuff, but to me we were living in a big Southern city. Our experience was very urban, and most of it took place indoors, so in some sense it’s more of a suburban experience, though we occasionally got the intrusion of the city. I didn't really have any concept of wide open space until I moved to California and traveled through the Southwest. Before I did that, Houston was as far west as I'd gotten. If anything, I think our early work was more influenced by the heat. [laughter] If any geographical effects are taking place now, maybe it's a little more pastoral. Christina, you live in a very...not really rural, but rainy kind of small town, a very relaxed space. I live in a big western city, but it's also surrounded by lots of incredible natural beauty. I'm sure it contributes something to my mental state, if nothing else.

What prompted the both of you to move out of Texas in the first place? Since moving, have you found other like-minded musicians in your areas to record and play with? I've listened to a number of the collaborations that both of you have done with others, but I rarely find information about the other musicians. Do you collaborate through the mail, or do a lot of traveling to facilitate these collaborations?

Christina: I guess that's mainly more for Tom. I don't really collaborate with that many people. Where I live, there are a lot of really creative people, so there's certainly no shortage of like-minded people. I'm not really super into a whole bunch of different collaborations at this point.

Tom: Yeah, all the people I've been working with are all West Coast-based, for the most part. I don't really like collaborating by mail so much, so it just usually happens when I record with someone when they're around. If anything gets done by mail, it's mainly mailing edits back and forth, just to get an idea of what the other person wants and achieve a compromise in that way. I would say that in the Bay Area, there are tons of like-minded musicians. It's almost a difficult situation, in a way, because not only are they like-minded, but they're also pretty busy, so it's hard to get everybody on the same page as far as recording and playing...

Christina: ...but it seems like everybody there is really open to it.

Tom: Yeah, there's definitely a very collaborative sort of thing that goes on there. A lot of people that I play with are improvising musicians.

Christina: They don't need a commitment to an ongoing project that has to practice the same things.

Tom: Right. The only exception to that would be Badgerlore, which is a group I'm in with Rob Fisk, this guy who used to be in Deerhoof and Seven Year Rabbit Cycle; Ben Chasny of Six Organs of Admittance; Pete from the Yellow Swans; and Clint Donaldson from Thuja and Skygreen Leopards. It's a pretty big band, and everybody's always doing other stuff, so it's a real trip to get down to doing stuff together. There is sort of a commitment there to rehearse somewhat. Some of us will rehearse and kind of fill everybody else in later. Otherwise, we just get together with somebody and record for a couple of hours, and edit that down to 30 or 40 minutes of music for release.

What do the two of you feel makes Charalambides' music what it is, as opposed to the music you make when you're working by yourselves or with other people? How do you account for that synergy?

Christina: For me, I think in Charalambides there's a great deal more flexibility than playing with other people, because of the range of Tom's guitar playing and what he's capable of doing --- from what would be considered conventional playing or rock playing to way-out stuff --- and there's a lot of guitarists that don't have that. That's fine, but the contrast between Tom's guitar playing and mine, I think, is also what makes it different.

Tom: I think we've been playing together for so long and shared so much of our musical evolution together that our languages are really complementary and similar in some ways...a lot of ways, actually. I think we just naturally fit together better. We always sort of know where the other person is, whereas in other collaborations you don't always know. You don't know sometimes what's going on...

Christina: ...or how the other person is feeling about what they're playing, or about what you're playing.

Tom: I know that I can go pretty much anywhere I want, and the music will follow a sort of internal logic because of the way we think. Yeah, there's a little more license in Charalambides' stuff.

Have the two of you ever listened to a piece of music you were working on and disagreed about which direction it should go in, and if so, how was it resolved?

Tom: We definitely have disagreed, but I don't think either one of us are into having a protracted battle about those things. I might want to leave something in that she wants to take out, and I'll go ahead and take that out, but only in order to stick up for something I want somewhere else. There's always a bit of that going on, but I don't think we have a super amount of disagreements.

Christina: Usually, if one of us has a strong opinion, we'll make the case for our opinion, and then it gets resolved.

Tom: Yeah, we tend to go by consensus. Eventually, we usually come to the same place. There's an instrumental track on A Vintage Burden that I originally mixed with some field recordings in it, but Christina wanted them taken out. I went ahead and did it, and listened to it, and could kinda follow where she was coming from about what it did to the record to have them there. The field recordings sort of diluted the direction that the record was going in. Eventually, we just come to an agreement when it comes to stuff like that.

As far as your guitar playing is concerned, what is a technical or musical goal that you would like to focus on in order to get to
"the next level"? What is something that you wish you could do on your instrument that you haven't done yet, or that you're still in the process of doing?

Christina: I wish I could disassociate taste from my playing. I wish I could somehow get to more of a point where it's more automatic, and not so filtered through conceptions of taste.

Tom: ...like your own taste?

Christina: I wish I didn't have this automatic thing of thinking toward what sounds right or sounds acceptable. I think I still have pretty conventional melodic or harmonic ideas, and I wish I could free the censor between my brain and my fingers more than it already is.

Tom: Sometimes, when I'm playing I feel like I'm trapped in a little box that I've made for myself, and I'm playing very much in the pocket of what I know how to do, and that anything I play outside of that is a mistake. I'd like to be able to...do kinda the same thing as Christina. I'd like to be able to encompass all of that fluidly, and go from one thing to the other without worrying about being in key or whatever.

Christina: Right, that's exactly what I was trying to talk about. There’s too much judgment happening naturally.

Tom: Yeah, a lot of it's subconscious.

Do you either of you have any specific musicians or artists who've reached that level, where there isn't as strong of a judgment mechanism between their brain and their fingers? Are there any people whom you look at and say, "They're where I'd like to be"?

Tom: I don't necessarily ever feel like I want to be in a place where another artist is, but I definitely feel like there are people who've kind of attained either a level of mastery where they encompass it, or they're able to throw up puzzles or obstacles for themselves, and then drive them into something else. I guess a good example of that would be John Coltrane or Albert Ayler. Almost any great jazz musician can do that, and make it seem completely effortless or flawless. Charlie Parker used to be able to hit a wrong note that would send him flying into another key, and he would work his way back. That's one example of somebody who sets up obstacles for themselves, and it's a little harder to do on the fly. I definitely think there are people who are able to put themselves into different situations, whether it's like switching instruments or changing your tuning or whatever.

That actually brings to mind something I read about one of Christina's recent solo records, Electrice. You had specifically made the record with all of the songs in the same key and in the same tuning. What musical goal were you trying to accomplish with that stricture, and do you feel that you were successful in achieving it? I personally love it, but you know... [laughter]

Christina: I've read a few reviews where they said it was a gimmick, and it really wasn't a gimmick. I wasn't really trying to accomplish a specific goal. It was just what I was in the mood to do, so the idea came to me really naturally. I just followed the idea. It seemed like a good idea. I kinda wondered subconsciously how different or distinct I could make a song or how I could make the same song sound distinctly different...and, at the same time, how similar they could be while still being different. I feel like I accomplished that, because there are two songs that sound very similar, but have a very different feeling, and then two songs which sound really different than the others. It wasn't really an intellectual gimmick. It was more like a feeling about sound and about how that's sort of what living is all about --- things being so similar yet so different, or even people being very different from one another, but being so similar...or how different one day can be from the next. It's not like I wrote out a thesis about it. [laughter] It's just the way I think about things.

Tom, have you done anything on your own recently where there's been an underlying concept that you applied either before or during the recording process?

Tom: Not so much. Usually that kind of stuff happens during editing, if at all. The only time I think I've ever recorded anything with a concept is solo stuff, and I usually don't do that with collaborations because they just go where they go. I think the last record I did like that was Glyph, and the concept was very vague. I wanted to put a lot of acoustic stuff on there. I guess I often conceive of my records spatially, and a lot of times they’re symmetrical --- two shorter pieces bracketing a long piece, or two long pieces and a short piece in the middle. I conceive Charalambides records like that sometimes, but I would say that it's very vague and general.

How far are you along on your current tour?

Tom: We're about halfway through it.

What are some of the most memorable experiences, good or bad, that you've had while on this tour? How long has it been since your previous tour?

Tom: The last tour we did was in England, and it was during the summer. It hasn't been that long. There haven't really been any terrible experiences on this tour, aside from having back problems the whole time. They're kind of constant anyway, but the timing was just really terrible. I really fucked up my back, and basically couldn't lift anything. It was hard to move. I was having some serious problems during the first week, but since then it's kinda gone down to a dull ache. [laughter] As far as good experiences, I think all the shows have been good in a way. We had a really good show in New York. That was probably my favorite so far, because the energy was really good.

In what venue did it take place?

Tom: The Knitting Factory, in their little downstairs bar. They've got a bunch of different rooms in that place, and I think we played the middle room.

Christina: I guess Northampton, because it seemed like everything there was going wrong, but then we sort of opened things up.

Tom: We kinda pulled it together.

Christina: Having a piano to play in a few places. I didn't know it was going to be there; it just happened to be there, so it was a nice surprise. It's sort of funny: I feel like I'm in sort of a mid-tour slump, which happens to coincide with being in Texas. [laughter] It makes being here more difficult to deal with, because there's so much history to experience and distract you. There's the whole question of how you feel around people who know you in a certain way, as opposed to how you feel about yourself in the present. This might be memorable for how it affects the rest of the tour. I think that moving around on stage and trying new things this time that you've never tried before has been really cool.

What have you tried on this tour that you haven't before?

Christina: I've never played piano in front of people before. I guess I used to stand up when I used to play in Houston sometimes, and I haven't done that for a long time. I kinda felt nailed to the chair for a long time.

Tom: It's the first time you've ever really stood up and just sang without playing guitar.

Christina: That's not true. I used to do that on those Siltbreeze tours.

Tom: Right...but I mean that it's the first time you've done it and sort of emoted.

When I play live, there's a difference in how I feel physically and in how the music comes out when I play sitting down as opposed to when I'm standing up. It's like a blend of more nervousness and more confidence. I was wondering if there's a psychological difference for you when you adjust the way you play in manners like that.

Christina: Definitely. It was pretty exciting to stand up and sing for the first time like that on this tour, but now that I've done it a couple of times, I don't want to get to the point where I expect myself to do it every time.

Tom: When you do something the first time, it's exciting and new, but after you've done it a couple of times it starts to become a shtick or something.

Christina: How do you avoid that?

Tom: Yeah, how do you make it natural...

...as opposed to routine?

Tom and Christina [in unison]: Yeah!

Tom: I think tonight we're going to stand up, just because we can't find chairs. [laughter]

I have one more question, and then I'll get out of your hair. What is one thing that has excited the both of you lately that has nothing to do with music?

Tom: Oh, my. [Christina laughs] It's hard to think of something that doesn't have anything to do with music. [more laughter] We're each waiting on the other person to say something.

Christina: I don't think there is anything! Everything's pretty much related to music.

Any books or movies?

Tom: Well, I've been reading a lot of William Vollmann, and that's been pretty interesting. When I first started reading his work, I found it really annoying and impenetrable, but once I read more I started getting into the swing of things a bit. His most famous book is probably The Royal Family, which is like a private-eye novel/social-history fiction of prostitution in San Francisco. He also wrote a book called The Rainbow Stories, which about the skinhead scene in the mid-'80s in San Francisco. There's also Survival Research Laboratories, and various countercultures. He also writes a lot about violent behavior.

Christina: I sort of relate everything to each other, so I don't think there's anything that I'm excited about that isn't related to music. Animals? [laughter]

Yeah, talk about animals!

Christina: I get a lot of happiness from watching animals, dogs and cats. That's something that's really immediate. It's directly experienced, and it doesn't have any relation to anything else, really.

Well, I think that's it. Thanks for letting me interview you! I hope it wasn't too much of an ordeal.

Christina: No, it was fine!

Charalambides' latest record, A Vintage Burden, and Christina Carter's solo album Electrice, are both out now on Kranky.

The Little Ones

Lesson one of interviewing: make sure you have fresh batteries! My talk with Edward Nolan Reyes, lead singer for The Little Ones, gets somewhat cut off prematurely, because the batteries were bad and the tape became inaudible. But what I can tell you about them is this: they are a great band that show a lot of promise. Just one listen to their debut Sing-Song will tell you that. It's poppy and slightly trippy and catchy as all get-out, and it's hard not to listen to their music without getting a very big smile on your face! So, in spite of the dead batteries, we got some pretty good information out of Ed.


You first released the EP about a year ago, correct?

We initially self-released it on our own label, Branches Recording Collective, and we put it out ourselves in April of this year.

How did you hook up with Astralwerks?

Pure chance. We had some shows at the Mercury Lounge earlier this year and we played a couple of other shows and they were there, and they came and it kind of came out of that, a chance meeting after we played.

It seems like a somewhat unusual label for you guys to be on.

Yeah, I was as surprised that they were interested as well. But they are a good label, and they were really nice to us, and we felt comfortable with them.

Plus, they're good for giving you momentum on a national level.

Yeah, which we could have done, but it's really, extremely hard to do on your own, financially speaking.

That's true, especially if you're an independently-based band. Have you started working on your full length debut yet?

Yeah, it's going great! We've actually been working on it bit by bit for a while now. Right now, it's going to be a little bit tough, having to schedule things between tours, which we plan to do when we have some time coming up and we hope to have it finished pretty soon.

How did you guys meet up with David Newton?

When we formed the band, we'd recorded ourselves on various tracks and boards, but we decided that we wanted to record some demos at a studio with somebody. My friend Paul, who works at Better Looking Records, suggested David. He has the same vision for our songs that we do. Initially, the songs on Sing Song were merely demos. But then, when we heard them, we really liked them and we decided to release them as they were.

I kind of got the feeling that you guys were bursting at the seems a little bit, like you were on the cusp of going for bigger, louder, more orchestrated sound. Is that something you're envisioning with the full length?

Yeah! I think so. Obviously, we're really proud of the songs on the record, but we were really constrained by time and money. But now, with the label support, we're going to be able to pursue those ideas. I think there will be more orchestrated parts on it. We've already started talking about these things. You'll hear a little more percussion, a little bit more in terms of textures--it'll be really well thought-out.

What I've really enjoyed about Sing Song is that the music seems quite kaleidoscopic, with sounds swirling and tumbling and every time I listen to it, I hear something a little different than the time before. It's definitely a record that grows on you--not in the sense that it's not good upon first listen, but it's just that you hear something new on each consecutive listen.

That's something we tried to do. I've always liked music like that. I can remember hearing records by bands that I liked, but then I'd start to discover new things within the songs, and listening to them over and over again made them blossom more. I want to do that, too, with my music.

At this time on the tape, it becomes rather inaudible, thanks in part to dead batteries! But go and catch them live soon--they'll be on tour in select cities for the next few weeks and in the UK in January. Visit their Myspace for more information on where they will be playing.

The Little Ones' debut Sing Song is out now on Astralwerks

Annuals

What's more impressive about the music of Annuals? That their music is so big and expansive and lush and pretty and complex, or that the band is incredibly, incredibly young? Of course, it doesn't hurt them any that they are extremely talented, and that their debut album is one of this year's true pop treats. But like many young bands, Annuals have been subjected to comparisons with other bands, bands they don't necessarily sound like. What's that like? We had a nice little conversation with bass player Mike Robinson about this and other issues. It's a fascinating look at a talented young band. You read about 'em here…well, not first, but most certainly best!


Tell me a little bit about how you guys got together.

It goes back about seven years. Myself, Adam, the front man, and Kenny, the guitar player, we've been playing music together since we were thirteen or so, and it's always been the three of us. We started out playing pop-punk and little kid music, basically. We stayed together through high school. Zack came on then. We were originally playing under the moniker Sedona--and it still exists, but it's more like a studio project than anything else at this point--but we were all involved in that. Annuals was kind of Adam's thing while we were all doing Sedona. Adam was the drummer in that band. Drums are not exactly an expressive instrument by any means, so he just started writing his own stuff, and it just really caught on. His stuff was way poppier. The Sedona stuff was much more of a technically-based type of thing, and while everybody agreed that the music was good, it just never caught on like we wanted it to. So, you know, we've been together for, like, forever, and Zach joined about three years ago. Anna, the keyboard player, she is Zack's girlfriend, and Nick, the drummer, is an old friend of Zack's. So basically when Zack joined, he brought the rest of the band with him! (Laughs) It's just what we've done, like, in all of high school, we just played music and didn't pay much attention or mind to anything else, for better or worse.

It seems like you guys are getting a lot of attention. How did this come about for such a young, unknown band? Were you playing out a lot?

Yeah, we've been playing locally forever, and then, just by total chance of luck, we were actually on a self-booked tour last summer, a really scrappy situation, where it seemed like every show was impossibly far away from the next, but we took everything we could get, really. But then we got a phone call just as we were leaving Naples, Florida, and it was JC at Ace Fu. Apparently, they'd found us online at Pure Volume, and it really all just fell out of the sky and into our laps. At the same time, it couldn't have come at a better time. We'd been playing together all through high school, and we were ready to hit that crossroads where we were about to get out of school and try to figure out what we were going to do with life, and then they got in touch with us at the most perfect time, and it just got the ball rolling. Since then, other random people have taken interest, and fortunately there's been a lot of good response from a lot of people in the industry, and from there it cumulated and now it's spilling over into blogs. It's really surreal, to be honest with you. We've been on the local band level for so long, and all of a sudden, it's happened. But in a way, it seems like it's taken forever.

It seems like you were not necessarily seeking out all of this attention. I saw Pitchfork and Spin and was impressed by that.

Yeah, and stuff like that, I don't even know where it's coming from, you know? It's just been popping out. I don't even really understand it.

I've seen a lot of comparisons to bands that you don't necessarily sound like. Does that worry you?

It doesn't worry us, because to us, it seems like…well, to mention us in the same sentence as Arcade Fire? Initially, we thought, "Well, Arcade Fire, they're a really great band!" We really like them, but they're not an influence to us at all. We've been playing music this way before we even knew who they were. We first started listening to them, like, last summer. It's very flattering, you know? Very flattering, don't get me wrong. But at the same time, these bands don't really go into the formula that we have in place. I definitely attribute our sound much more to names that no one's ever thought of mentioning. Our most direct influences are ones like Mike Patton, Radiohead, Bjork, and Aphex Twin, and other things like that. It's all chased up into what we're trying to do, but it's way poppier than them. It's really cool, being compared to Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene and Animal Collective, that's really cool. And we're really flattered. But at the same time, no, we don't sound like them and we don't want people to think that we do. We don't want people to hold us up in their shadow. Yeah, so it is a little worrisome, but it's also very flattering.


My take on it is this: from a band like Arcade Fire springs up a hundred bands who want to be Arcade Fire. But only one band is good enough to actually be Arcade Fire. So when I saw the comparisons I was a little concerned, but when I heard the album, I didn't think you sounded like a lot of the bands you were being compared to, and I just wondered where these people were getting such ideas.

Yeah, I guess with Arcade Fire in particular, I think the initial reason why they keep coming up is the way our songs are, they're somewhat similar to theirs, because we try to make it where our songs move around and reach a certain climatic moment where things then kind of explode. We're into that. We're into songs that have a momentum built into them, and Arcade Fire is masterful at that. At the same time, that's also why I worry, because we don't want people to listen to us and then hate us for every reason we don't sound like Arcade Fire. I dunno, it's kind of a weird double-edged sword.

It's cool to be up there on that level, but at the same time, you don't want people thinking that you're merely copying or trying to be something that you are not.

Exactly! We just strive so much to hammer out a unique sound, and I think we've done a decent job, hopefully. It is a little disheartening, I guess, but it's going to happen anyway. To be compared to somebody, that's just the way it is. At least we're being compared to these really great bands. It could be a lot worse. We're appreciative, but at the same time, there is a little bit of trepidation.

I don't really hear one influence, but I hear vibes of sounds, like one moment I'll hear a Sixties vibe, then a more modern vibe in the next song.

Yeah, we kind of try to have each song touch different areas. We listen to everything. Even Brad Paisley, we've been listening to him a lot, just because we never knew about him and we discovered he's an incredible guitar player. We try to bring it all in.

The information I have on you makes it look like Adam's the mastermind, but I don't really get that sense from talking to you.


Adam writes the songs, and he plays damn near every instrument that appears on the record and he records it as well. But Kenny, our guitar player, he's incredible, and he adds a lot into the sound as well. I'll then come in and work on bass parts--it's really a very collective approach, but at the same time, Adam is definitely holding the reins, yet is definitely a group effort and the record wouldn't sound the way it sounds if there wasn't a group effort going into it. Kenny, in particular, he's the highest talent in the band, by far. It's just insane, the technical, complex things you'll hear on Be He Me, and it's thanks to Kenny. He's just incredible at music. And Adam? He's a savant producer, honestly. Me and Adam, we took audio classes in high school, and it was really weird. It was kind of a bullshit class, honestly; like, football players took it and a football coach taught it, but at the same time, we had access to ProTools. We'd skip class and hide out, recording. We had a really great friend who helped us purchase our own recording equipment after high school. Just being on ProTools all the time, Adam has developed an insane sense of recording and producing. You'll hear all kinds of little tricks on the album, and that's all Adam, just going insane. He's got this uncanny ability; he can stay in one place and work on one thing for, like, twenty hours. And he does, all the time. You can really hear it. It's very meticulous, a total OCD approach.


When you perform, how difficult is it for you to reconcile the obvious differences from the studio recording?

We strive harder than anything else we do to make everything sound as much like the record as we can live, but there's a little bit of a twist live. A lot of people say they like us better live than the recording, just because live is much more of a rock and roll experience. It's much grittier and much more energetic and there's a lot of movement, and we try to be as entertaining as we can. We try really hard to make a live show as much like the record as it can be, and I think we do a pretty good job. We've never gotten bad feedback, except for the people who caught us at South by Southwest earlier this year, who caught us in probably one of our worst performances ever! (Laughs)

South by Southwest is sometimes a difficult place to have a good show.

Yeah, that's what we'd been told. We were real bummed out, because we'd never done anything like that before, and we still are a relatively young band, and we hadn't played out of state a whole lot, though we have a small amount. We were really looking forward to it, and then, it ended up being what it was…When we got there, it seemed to me that everybody knew it'd suck except for us, and then we found ourselves on this tiny stage at what I would assume was a jazz club. Basically the stage was able to fit the two drum sets we have when we play live. Everyone else spilled off of it. We couldn't hear each other at all, and it was a really horrible experience. (Laugh) We're definitely a "club" band. If we're on a stage that we can all fit on, we usually do extremely well. But often we do have to struggle to try and overcome from smaller places. Hopefully, we're about to graduate from such places, maybe to a medium venue class with stages that make sense. But we are a big band. The reason we have a lot of stuff -- an annoying amount of stuff, actually-- is because we really are striving to make it sound like the record. Every time we show up to a club, the sound guys are always like, "Oh, my god!' (laughs) We really are, admittedly, a production nightmare. We do what we can, but it's kind of tough.

I did an interview with the band Evangelicals. Their first record was mainly the work of the band's mastermind, recording it by himself, and he didn't really bring in the aspect of the live stage to his recordings, so when they play live, it's nothing like the record.

When people see us live, I think that's when people really get the sense that anything they've read about the band being led by Adam…there's a really wide range of personality in the band, and when people see us live, it really sticks out. I think people put it together, like, "wow, this is really a band," because there's all of us onstage, and it all holds up, and it's not just Adam.

Since the live element of performance is starting to come into play a lot more now, do you think the writing you're doing now reflects that and the limitations that the live element presents?

Honestly, I don't think it's really going to change what we're going to do all that much. There have definitely been many moments during recording, where somebody does something, then we delete it instantly, because we think, "There's no way we could do it live, no matter how cool it might sound." So we do stop ourselves whenever things get to be a little too much, but a lot of the crazy effects and noises like that, we tend to figure out something. On some of the songs, like "Ida, My," since we can't do a total Aphex-wannabe beat live, that part is turned into an overwhelming rock part, and the energy is still insane, and it's a lot of fun to play it that way. So we find a way--I've heard it said that we "rock" live a lot more than you'd expect. That's because we've always been in rock bands, so that element is there.

Plus, I think it's healthy for a band that is performing live not to completely reproduce the studio recording. Obviously, retaining the same elements to the song is important, but changing it up a little bit.

When we do play live, it's very much a whole different element. If you've heard the record, you're going to be entertained, but it is a whole other thing. Even if only minute things change in comparison to the album version, the songs are in their own element. It's its own thing.

Annuals' debut album, Be He Me, is available now on Ace Fu

Westbound Train

I have to admit to an instant love of Westbound Train's third album, Transitions. On first listen, I was immediately reminded of the classic English Beat, which, as you will read below, is understandable. Their record is more than a mere imitation, though; it's a pleasing, hard-to-dislike record that's mature and mellow and, ultimately, was one of this year's best releases. And I have to hand it to lead singer Obi Fernandez; he is an excellent singer. I also have to give him some credit for talking to me when he did. After a month and a half of missing connections with him, when I finally did get a hold of him, he was suffering from laryngitis, and he sounded terrible. If the interview below seems a little stiff, please forgive him; he was kind enough to speak to me, and what he had to say was quite interesting. I thank him for sacrificing his voice a little bit just to talk to me. Go check out their record; I doubt you'll be disappointed.

Transitions was the first time I had heard Westbound Train, and when I did, my very first reaction was, "Wow, these guys remind me of English Beat!" Then, when I looked at your Myspace page, I thought, "I'll be darned, they're actually touring with English Beat!" How was it, touring with them?

(Laughs) Touring with them, I can honestly say that it was the most fun tour I have ever been on so far, and for many reasons. A: Being on tour with English Beat. B. Not just touring with Dave Wakeling, but also The Specials' Lynval Golding and Selecter's Pauline Black. Just being on tour with your heroes, people who influenced you, it really couldn't get any better. Every day was really incredible, just getting to share the stage with them.

Considering the major influence they have on your music, I'd imagine playing with Dave Wakeling was like a dream come true. Did he give you any advice or life lessons from his years of experience?

Oh yeah, he taught us a lot of things. He showed us his styles; he talked about going out every night and doing our jobs. He talked a lot about going out and making things happen for ourselves, not to depend on other people, and that if you want something, then you should just go out and get it done.

When I think of ska, I'm usually reminded of the ska-punk trend of the mid-to-late 1990s, which was really youth-oriented. But your sound is much more mature. Do you find that your audience is older, or are ska audiences a bit older now?

I think that when we play shows on our own, we'll see an older crowd. But we've been playing a lot of package tours and playing to an audience that's a lot younger. I think it just depends on where we are playing and what's going on.

On Transitions I noticed that almost every song starts with an apology or a defense or some form of contrition. Even the title, Transitions, reflects change. Was this a really personal record for you to write?

Yeah, it was a deeply personal record for us to write. Transitions, I think, was possibly the most descriptive title for not just myself, but for the rest of the band as well. We went from being a band that only toured a little bit, with all of us trying to finish up our educations first to being a band that was on the road a little bit more, and then suddenly we were a band that was on the road full time. A lot of stuff happens to you when you make that jump in commitment to the road. Not just in my personal life, but in everyone's personal lives. The cool thing about Westbound is that we're all really, really close; we're all really good friends, and we have a big family vibe, and we have a connection. With Transitions, I had a lot of songs that detailed these feelings, and I just tried to write about what was going on.

I went back and checked out some of your older material, and while it's good, it didn't quite have the same vibe as Transitions. Do you personally see this album as a major growth in your songwriting?

Oh yeah, yeah. With Transitions, we had more time to work on it, but like I said, in the time surrounding Transitions, my life was totally different. Here I am, I'm seeing the world a whole lot more. My mind opened up, my ears opened up, my eyes opened up. All of these people in the band, it's affecting their worlds in different ways, too. It's like a different world for us, and now it's like I have a hold on a world I didn't have before. It's like I kind of have the world at my fingertips, and at the same time, I'm totally immersed in it. The only thing to do is to write about it, you know? But definitely, yeah, there was a big jump in the songwriting. Our first record, Searching for a Melody, we were just learning our style, and I was just learning my style. It was taking a risk, but we were just learning how write songs. For Five to Two, I was dealing with more introspective things than before, but I didn't allow myself to be fully honest with my songwriting, and I think it shows. There are still some pretty good songs on that one, though. Transitions, though, I think it blows those other two away, not just musically, but I think it's also more autobiographical and more honest, too.

I really respect artists who are willing to mature their sound as their audience matures, instead of treading the styles of their earlier recordings.

Yeah, that was a goal for us for this record, and it's one for our future recordings. For Transitions, there were a few songs that I had that didn't get brought to the recording table, and the others have songs, too. So in a way we are really looking forward to recording our next record, because I think it'll sound real cool.


I take it your main objective and priority now is lots of touring?

Touring...we're going to be touring until we're blue in the face. We've got the Reel Big Fish tour that we're doing now, and then we're going to take a little time off in December, so we can kind of screw our heads back on. Then we're going to do a headlining tour on our own, a short, short run of shows, and then we're going back to Europe with Reel Big Fish, and then we're coming back home with high confidence!

Westbound Train's latest record, Transitions, is out now on Hellcat Records

Adem

Perhaps Adem Ilhan is still best known to underground music fans as the bassist of Fridge, an English trio whom this website’s editor jokingly but accurately calls “the Slint of IDM.” Over the course of four albums and a multitude of singles and EPs, Fridge made music that fused the tense repetition and deliberate dynamics of Slint with the sonic trickery of “intelligent dance music.” It’s telling that after the band went on hiatus at the turn of the century, guitarist Kieran Hebden made a name of his own with his electronic side project Four Tet. (While I’m on the subject, I have to add that Fridge recently reunited, and plan to release their fifth album next year. Be excited!)

On the surface, it seemed as if Adem took the exact opposite route with his own solo career. Homesongs, his 2004 debut, was a foray into singer/songwriter territory: its plainspoken paeans to love and friendship were constructed around the skeleton of Adem’s surprisingly confident tenor and supple acoustic finger-picking. Closing track “There Will Always Be” is one of the most heartrending expressions of loyalty I’ve ever heard. Shortly after the album's release, saw Adem open for noise-pop quartet the Double at Northsix in Brooklyn, NY. When he and his backing band started playing that song, I couldn't stop the tears from falling.

Adem’s new album, Love and Other Planets, is similar to Homesongs is that it examines relationships through easily understandable perspectives. Its first song, “Warning Call,” laments mankind’s inability to learn from the mistakes of the past. “Something’s Going to Come” and closing track “Human Beings Gather ‘Round” are expressions of faith and optimism despite trying times. Conversely, “Launch Yourself” and “Last Transmission from the Lost Mission” are expressions of abandonment and loss after the demise of a relationship. Last but not least, the title track is an ode to the simple pleasure of star-gazing with the one you love.

Where this album differs from its predecessor is that Adem takes more chances with production and arrangement, thus showing off more of what he learned during his time in Fridge. Adem’s vocal harmonies are lusher, and the addition of live drums give many songs a propulsive kick. Other songs de-emphasize acoustic guitar in favor of instruments such as cello, harmonium, kalimba and toy piano. The biggest example of Adem’s newfound boldness can be found on “X Is for Kisses,” whose lyrics form an abecederian acrostic. Adem arranges the background harmonies to match the first letter of each line perfectly. When Adem sings “beware,” the chorus behind him chants “buh-buh-buh”; when he sings “save me,” the chorus chants “suh-suh-suh.” It’s a percussive effect that would make Steve Reich smile.


I saw Adem live again on October 26th, when he opened for brilliant Argentinian songstress Juana Molina at the Parish in Austin, TX. Although he played solo this time, but none of the songs suffered from the absence of a backing band. In fact, the solitude freed him up to be more versatile with his instrumentation. When playing songs from his albums, he switched from guitar to kalimba; during “Human Beings Gather ‘Round,” he played both at the same time! At one point, he grabbed some toy bells and improvised a new song using lyrics from a children’s book that Juana had given to him as a gift; at another, he played a nearly perfect cover of the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” on a ukelele. He complained at one point about having a sore throat, but it didn’t have a noticeable effect on his singing at all. The audience, which consisted of about 150 people, was appreciative and enthusiastic...and deservedly so!


Adem was kind enough to let me interview him before the set. You can read an edited version of our conversation below:

I read the diary on your website, and saw an entry from April 19th of this year in which you wrote about dancing to A-Ha at a bar in Austin, and having a really good time. I want to know more about that, and about your previous experiences in Austin. Were you here to play a show? Who did you meet? What else did you do?

Well, [the entry] was actually from a year before, but it slipped in accidentally and I quite liked it. I came to play South by Southwest. I was here with a bunch of friends, and I had a lovely time. I spent the whole of SXSW on the floor. I was on a friend’s floor sleeping, meeting loads of great musicians, and messing about with music. It was just a really nice moment when no one was cool. We were robot dancing to stuff, and then A-Ha came on, and we just had an absolute whale of a time dancing and punching the air when the lift came. I love it when that sort of thing happens, when all the pretense drops and everyone’s just being nice. It’s great.

Have there been a lot of moments like that on this tour so far?

I think apart from spending a lot of time with someone, which always does that, I think that having huge drives together --- stuck in a little minivan together, and suffering from sleep deprivation --- puts in the strangest situations...where you haven’t slept for 30 hours, and it’s four in the morning, and you’re in the middle of nowhere with a population of 40. [laughter] I think there have been some great moments like that.

What is the longest drive you’ve endured so far on this tour, or on any other tour?

On this tour, it was from Salt Lake City to Seattle, which was kind of a mission. It was like 15 hours, I think. That was quite a mission. [Tim, Adem’s tour manager, turns to us and says, “800 hours.”] 800 hours! It was pretty monster. The longest ever was probably about five years ago. I drove with Fridge, a band I’m in, from Seattle to Chicago. That was a serious drive.

Ouch. How do you manage to keep yourself entertained during long drives like that?

You’ve just gotta make sure the company’s right. With good company, everything flies by, and all the hardships and annoyances you endure, you endure them together. When everyone’s in the same place, and you’ve got an understanding, it’s great. There’s a familiarity to these long drives to me. When I was very young...my dad’s Turkish and my mom’s English, so I was brought up and born in the U.K. Every summer we’d drive to Turkey across Europe, and that’s a good 2,500 miles. We did that every summer.

That’s like driving from one side of the States to the other!

It’s close to that, yeah. It was kind of a mission, but really lovely.

When’s the last time you visited Turkey?

It was a long time ago. I haven’t been for many, many years now...but when you’re touring, every trip’s a trip like that, you know? Everything’s a mission. You get from one place to another, whether it takes two hours or 25 hours or three days. You come across the same things.

You mentioned Fridge, and I just wanted to say that my first exposure to anything that you’ve ever done was when Fridge played here at the Parish.

I was just reminiscing about that earlier to myself. I remember having a really nice time here.

It was a really wonderful show. I still listen to Happiness [Fridge’s last album]; I put it on last week to help soothe myself to sleep.

That’s great!

I recently heard that you guys finished a new album, and that you played a show at the Temporary Residence fest in New York.

We did, and it was our first show in five years!

How did that go? Was there a bit of nervousness?

It was a bit nerve-wracking. It was mad! When I was setting up all the equipment and plugging in my cables, I had a massive flashback to touring in the US before with Fridge. I must admit, I felt really OLD. [laughter] ‘Cause it was five years earlier that I had done this stuff, and about seven years before I had started doing Fridge, you know? It was a LONG time ago...but then I looked up at the audience, and I realized that it wasn’t an age thing at all. It was a generation thing, so everyone watching was the same age as me as well. They’ve kinda grown up with the music as we’ve grown with the music, so it was a bit of a relief there. ‘Cause I thought that this was music that the kids should be playing, this is where the energetic youth should be, really feeling into this and bringing new ideas. I kinda thought that maybe I was faking it. I realized that that totally wasn’t the case at all, and that wasn’t how it works. It’s a relief! [laughter]

I know that the two Adem albums represent the first time that you’ve sung and played basically solo. I’m pretty sure that it was a weird transition from playing in a band.

It was incredibly strange. It was the most amazing, uplifting and freeing experience. I could do whatever I wanted...but, at the same time, it was so lonely and depressing. It was really lonely not to have my best friends around me, whose opinions I trust inherently to say “That’s rubbish” or “That’s great.” Not to have those opinions to turn to was really difficult.

I read somewhere that Kieran assists you with the mixing of your songs.

I’m completely deaf in my left ear. I only have hearing at all in my right ear. I have no experience with what stereo is. I have no idea what space in terms of a mix is. I can only do so much mathematically, but there’s loads of detail that I want to put in there but just don’t have the physical ability to. So, I turn to Kieran, who’s got the best pair of ears in the business, and say, “I want to do this; what do you think?” He’ll have suggestions, and we try things together.

Was the condition with your left ear something that you were born with?

They think so. Basically, the nerve from my ear to my brain doesn’t work. It’s like a telephone wire that’s been cut, so nothing goes through. They found out when I was about two or three, but they think it was from when I was born.

Before I ask the next question, I want to say that --- in an odd coincidence --- the only time I’ve seen Four Tet live was last year, when he played with Jamie Lidell here...and Jamie’s playing here again later on tonight, after your show! I really enjoy both of those guys’ records.

Yeah, they’re brilliant.

Was the transition from playing solo to playing with Fridge again just as awkward as the reverse?

It was wonderful. We’re the oldest of friends. We’ve known each other since we were, like, 12. Because of that, making music with Fridge is an extension of hanging out with your friends. It’s great to have an excuse for three busy people to get together and hang out and mess about together and just make music. ‘Cause we’re all really busy --- Kieran’s got Four Tet, Sam the drummer is studying politics at Harvard at the moment --- we’re all really full-on, so for us to actually set aside the time and say, “We’re gonna spend some time together,” is brilliant. If that has to be an excuse to make a new Fridge album, then bonus!

When listening to Fridge’s material, I do get a pretty laidback vibe from it. I can visualize the three of you just sitting in a room doing that...

...and trying stuff out, yeah! Absolutely.

I notice that the lyrics to “X Is for Kisses” form an abecedarian acrostic. I wanted to know if that was difficult to do, and if you’ve tried any other word games in your lyrics.

It wasn’t hard to do. If it started to get hard to do, I really wouldn’t have done it. It would’ve sounded forced. I strongly believe that about all of my lyrics. If it feels unnatural or difficult or forced, it won’t translate and people won’t believe you. People won’t connect to it...so no, it came quite naturally. I like the idea that kinda flows through it. Yes, there are lots of other details and stuff across the album --- lots of playing with meter and with the flow of things. I like doing that. It’s part of what I really wanted to do with Love and Other Planets. Homesongs is really an album that has lasted over time. It’s something that just sticks with people. With Love and Other Planets, I wanted to make a record that develops with time, that grows with time. The more you invest into it as a listener, the more you get out of it. If you put time into it, you get more and more out of it. There are nice little word games and sonic games and things with the music and stuff like that. It’s all there to be discovered or interpreted, and some people have said, “Ah, you did this --- this is great! You did this, this and this,” and I didn’t actually MEAN to do that! [laughter] It’s brilliant when that happens. There’s lots of little stuff in there...lots of counting to be done.

I look forward to hearing you play the new stuff live tonight. I have to say that “There Will Always Be” on Homesongs --- I saw you perform that in New York City, when you played a show with the Double at Northsix, and when that song came on I boo-hooed like a baby. [laughter] Every single time I make a mix CD for a friend who’s down in the dumps, I always put that song right at the end. That song means a lot to me, as a statement of unconditional loyalty.

I agree; that’s how I felt when I wrote it. It’s so important to have that sentiment. With Love and Other Planets, I was scared that through being a little tricky with the production and the ideas, [the album] would lose that personal attachment...but it doesn’t. That’s the difficult thing: to get people to come back and listen to it three times. That’s when you start getting those details, whereas Homesongs was quite immediate --- you were drawn in. I wanted Love and Other Planets to grow deliberately. It’s a bit challenging to get into. I think that over time, it’s gonna really make it more worthwhile.

Did you use the same setup that you used to record Homesongs to record Love and Other Planets? I remember reading that most of your songs were recorded on a busted-up computer really early in the morning, when all of your neighbors were asleep.

I used the same equipment, but with two years more of experience. I deliberately wanted to push the production side of things, and challenge myself as a producer. I tried to get into recording new sounds, like drum kits, for this record. Yeah, it was definitely the same setup, but with a different head on...so it’s a completely different setup, in effect! It’s the way you use things that describes what they are.

That reminds me of a little manifesto I read written by a group called the Country Teasers, in which they chastised people for giving up their four-tracks to record in professional studios. How do you know that you’ve exhausted every possibility with what you have before you move on to something bigger?

Totally. I agree, but I also think that sometimes it is intriguing to get something that’s completely out of the ordinary, and explore that too. Get your four-track, but why not get a mad octave pedal and see what that does too? Just because you’ve got a guitar doesn’t mean that you have to play just guitar all the time. You don’t HAVE to exhaust all the possibilities of the guitar. The whole point is that you need to complement it and work with it. I understand where they’re coming from, but I would challenge them on a couple of points.

That’s good, and I appreciate that. What prompted your decision to write about “love and other planets”? It seems like every song on your new album has some sort of space-related metaphor. What inspired it?

It kinda just happened --- the same as Homesongs. Both of them are “concept albums.” That’s a dirty word, and for it to be a space-themed concept album makes the word doubly dirty.

Well, it’s not a prog album! [laughter]

But if someone tells you that they’ve done a concept album about space, you immediately imagine a ‘70s guy with long hair playing synthesizers. It’s not, though, and that’s the point. I wanted to get away from that...but I didn’t make the decision until a few songs in. [It was] the same with Homesongs --- I just was writing songs, and realized there were continuous things coming through. I decided that that was how I’d push it. I find that if I write one song about something, it gets my brain ticking, and I think very deeply about what I want to say about that subject. Three to five minutes just isn’t enough to say what you want to say. Love and Other Planets is about perspectives, and seeing things from various angles. In order to do that, having many songs about the same subject made more sense...

...with each song taking on a different nuance!

Yeah, another aspect of it...and sometimes, they counter each other or suggest counter-arguments, or support arguments, or look at it from a slightly skewed glance. I think that’s very important. As a result, hopefully, the album as a whole --- which I strongly believe in when making records --- will be coherent, not only through thematic links, but also through musical links.

That reminds me of the last interview I did, with a lady named Khaela who sings for a duo called the Blow. Her album is called Paper Television, and she writes about human relationships through various metaphors. One song uses economics as a metaphor, another uses the digestive system as a metaphor, and another song uses politics. There’s a lyric in it that says, “My love is a nation, but it cannot survive against your dissent.” She uses each song to say the same thing in different ways, and I think Love and Other Planets does that as well.

Some people think the metaphors are a bit tenuous or heavy-handed, but I don’t mind that at all. I think there’s enough subtlety within the heavy hammer blows to dissuade anyone from thinking that it’s not thought through.

Sometimes you’ve got to tap them on the shoulder, and sometimes you’ve got to whack them upside the head. [laughter]

It’s true! You don’t want to lose your sense of fun as well, and be totally po-faced.

I have two more questions, and then I’ll get out of your hair.

Oh, go for it!

How did you get the opportunity to get your music in a Levi’s commercial? I saw your cover of Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line” on YouTube, and I was surprised. How did that come about?

Very randomly. A friend of mine works in an ad agency, and he’d sometimes say, “Could you do some guitar on this?,” and I’d help him out from time to time. It’s never been used; it’s usually just demos and whatever. I kinda just did the male voice bit, in case they’d go for the male voice idea, and then they could think about it properly, and I did the production on the music. Levi’s turned around and said, “That’s it --- that’s what we want.” It was a really weird decision for me, and it was quite a challenge for me to think, “Do I really want to do this? Is it right?” In the end, I thought, “Well...I wear Levi’s jeans, and a whole bunch of people are gonna hear it.” I’m not gonna announce that I’ve done it --- if people explore it, they can find out about it. It hasn’t been officially announced, but people just find out about it from wherever. But yeah, it was completely random. It’s just the way it works sometimes. I’ve done music for movie soundtracks lost of times, and they do or don’t get used. It just varies.
My final question is: what is one thing that has excited you lately that has nothing to do with music?

When you say “lately,” how far back can I go?

As far back as you want!

Touring around America at this part of the year, when the weather’s gone crazy, has been completely, outrageously inspirational. Driving up New York State through autumn was fantastic, and then a few days later we drove from Toronto to Cleveland through that Buffalo snowstorm. Two-foot snowfalls...that’s insane! And then, to go to the West Coast and here, where it’s baking sunshine, has been quite shocking to the system. I really enjoyed that shock. Another thing is that I’ve read “Cloud Atlas” by David Mitchell, which I recommend.

Have you caught cold driving through all of these extreme weather conditions?

No, but I’ve gotten really tired, and it takes a toll. We’ve flied a couple of times, and it takes a toll. Today, I’ve got a really sore throat from flying and not sleeping, so I’m gonna do some heavy warmups and drink lots of water...and gargle.

Good idea. By the way, what is “Cloud Atlas” about?

It’s about interlinking souls over various ages. You’re following six stories that kinda cut each other off, but link intrinsically to each other. I really recommend it; he’s a fantastic writer. I like the concept of a cloud atlas, because clouds are constantly changing and shifting, and actually trying to map them. He kinda relates clouds to souls, and he’s trying to map these traveling souls. It has a bit to do with reincarnation, or going back into other situations, and also to do with humankind or human folly, and how it repeats itself over and over again. It kinda goes from being a historical document to a political thriller to sci-fi, and the different stories are in completely different styles, but they’re all completely intrinsic to each other. It’s very, very subtle and very clever.

Well, thanks for letting me interview you!

Thank you very much. I’ve really enjoyed speaking to you. It’s nice to have someone who’s got informed questions and interesting ideas.