Band of the Week: Ratatat

Band: Ratatat (or RATATAT depending on who you ask)
From: Brooklyn, NY
Sound: Imagine majestic melodic 8-bit video game soundtracks played in perfect intervals by Eddie Van Halen and the ghost of Duane Allman
Similar Artists: Daft Punk, Walter Meego, Hot Chip, Trans Am, Laromlab
Listen Now: "Mirando"

Much of the advance word surrounding Ratatat's forthcoming LP3 (out July 8th on XL) has focused upon the record's incremental shift away from straightforward rock compositions in favor of a broader and more worldly sound.

Now if by worldly we're referring to "otherworldly", these reviews seem pretty fair. But the problem is that Ratatat - the duo of multi-instrumentalist/programmer Evan Mast and guitarist Mike Stroud - have never really made traditional rock music to begin with, so any assessment of their evolution from 2004's self-titled debut through 2006's Classics to LP3 has to keep this in mind. When you've already started with a wholly innovative take on the rock formula - symphonic movements the length of pop songs that utilize the electric guitar's brash melody in lieu of vocals - you can only go further down the rabbit hole.

And this is exactly what the band accomplishes on LP3, not so much a dramatic reinvention but a logical exploration further into the nuances and contours of the world they've already created, splitting it open and shaking it up a bit....

Before, Ratatat was the sound of cruising hot asphalt in a Trans Am with T-tops and playing Contra in the basement of a parallel world. Now, Ratatat is the sound of hand claps spattered around sacrificial bonfires at the mouth of a volcano in a parallel world (while still playing Contra).

These are changes in atmosphere, changes prompted by Mast's continued excellence at building pulsing sonic landscapes that bubble and gurgle with electronic bursts at exactly the most rewarding moment. These are changes that largely flow from the variation in percussive sounds and textures on the album, as Mast has introduced a slightly more organic give and take to his beats and rhythms. This isn't to say that Ratatat sounded cold and clinical before; one of the band's main strengths has always been in generating a warm fuzzy pulse to their electronic grooves. Instead, it just suggests that they coaxed a bunch of Ewoks into the Catskills (where LP3 was recorded) to bang on soup cans, knotty tree roots, and whatever else they could find. Tracks like "Dura" display this trend perfectly, blending compressed drum samples with occasional bursts of clattering seashells, while others such as "Mi Viejo" favor layers of hand drums and what sounds like a combo of water droplets in a bucket and a deck of shuffled cards.

The beauty of all this is that Ratatat appears to have further tweaked a winning formula while maintaining what has been so immediately identifiable and transcendent about their music: Stroud's guitar. That trademark wail, channeled and manipulated through god-knows-how-many analog and digital middle men, still commands the spotlight throughout much of the album. That's very much a good thing.

And all of it - the extra-planetary funk, freshly organic click-clacking beats, glistening guitar lines, and throwback vibe to 1980s video game warfare (Predator!) - is on display in this video for "Mirando", the second single from the album. If you haven't seen it, you must; if you have, you must watch it again:



Pre-order LP3 HERE

Listen:
"Mirando"
"Shiller"

See Also:
- Vinyl Triumphs Over CDs (again) + New Ratatat
- Ratatat Live Videos

See Ratatat Live:
07 July - Seattle, WA @ Chop Suey
08 July - Portland, OR @ Holocene
10 July - San Francisco, CA @ Slim's
12 July - Los Angeles, CA @ Echoplex
15 July - Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

Visit Ratatat on MySpace.
--
In the recent past, the following bands have been featured as EAR FARM's Band of the Week:
Steinski
These United States
Kelley Polar
Plants and Animals
All the Saints
I'm From Barcelona
Bombadil
Tapes 'n Tapes


See the entire list of bands featured as EAR FARM's Band of the Week HERE.

Band of the Week: Steinski

Band: Steinski
From: New York, NY
Sound: the O.G. of sample-based hip-hop sound collages
Similar Artists: DJ Shadow, Girl Talk, Cut Chemist, Liam Howlett, RJD2
Listen Now: "The Payoff Mix"

Robert Christgau on Steinski: "He's just a perpetually disillusioned optimist who still assumes that the sounds and images rippling through the American consciousness are, forget copyright, every American's birthright--that we're all free to interpret and manipulate them as we choose..."

Now here's a little story I've got to tell
About three bad brothers you (may not) know so well.
It started way back in history
With Tommy Boy, Double Dee, and our man - Steinski.

Tommy Boy had a little contest, 1983 was the year
Just Double Dee, Steinski, and a quart of beer.
Riding across the land, kicking up sand,
"Play That Beat, Mr. DJ" - they were in demand.

Un-lonely DJ Steinski
All by himself with his boy Double Dee.
The workplace was beatin' down on their baseball hats
Music studio gettin' hot, ad agency gettin' flat.
Lookin' for some fun, they ran into renown,
Turned hip-hop on its face with a brand new sound...

Backstory: Steve Stein (aka Steinski) dropped out of both Temple and Franconia College before finding his way to Madison avenue where he worked as an advertising copywriter for six years. During this time he taught copywriting at The School Of Visual Arts and spent his evenings promoting and DJing dances in Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan hip-hop clubs. Then, one day in 1983, he and partner Douglas DiFranco (aka Double Dee) entered the Tommy Boy Records promotional contest to remix the single "Play That Beat, Mr. D.J." by G.L.O.B.E. and Whiz Kid. They blew the jury away (a jury that included Afrika Bambaataa, Shep Pettibone, and "Jellybean" Benitez) and took first prize with ease with their song titled "The Payoff Mix" (listen above/below). "The Payoff Mix" became the first record in a series now known as The Lessons - Lesson Two being "The James Brown Mix" and Lesson 3: "The History of Hip Hop." An underground sensation was born as the series quickly became much sought after by collectors which, in turn, led to homage records by DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist (among others). However, somewhat ironically, the duo wouldn't see their music officially/widely released until this year due to copyright issues surrounding the flurry of film, music, and vocal samples they employed.

Today: Now, for the first time, Illegal Art has made available a Steinski retrospective titled What Does It All Mean? 1983-2006 Retrospective. The release is split into two discs: the first record contains b-boy anthems, avant sound collages, samples galore, and more than a couple of introspective looks at rap, rock, dance, and the nation which gave birth to the culture of hip-hop. It's legendary when considered as a career compendium - it is the landmark when considered in terms of the impact these songs have had on a generation of producers and DJs.

The second disc contains an hour-long mashup titled "Nothing To Fear: A Rough Mix." This mix was produced for Solid Steel/BBC London and was described by Salon as, "the closest thing to a masterpiece the genre has yet produced." The retrospective is essential listening for anyone who considers his or herself to be in love with music. Period. I'll say it again (for emphasis, you know): What Does It All Mean? 1983-2006 Retrospective is essential listening for anyone who considers his or herself to be a true lover of music. Period. If you fell in love with Night Ripper by Girl Talk in 2006 - if you think Endtroducing... is one of the great albums of the '90s - you owe it to yourself to understand what came before.

The history of hip-hop has been built upon the shoulders of itself time and again. It got its start as a unique genre at house parties and clubs in New York city with MCs rapping over beats provided by DJs who were looping breaks in dance, soul, rock, and funk records. It got its start as an art form a few years later when Steinski "took hip-hop's tradition of reformatting existing material and made it a postmodern funhouse." Postmodern funhouse! Jam on it.

I said jam-j-j-j-j-jam on it.

*above photo from HERE.

Listen:
"The Payoff Mix"
"Lesson 2 (James Brown Mix)"
"Lesson 3 (History of Hip Hop)"

Visit Steinski on MySpace.
--
In the recent past, the following bands have been featured as EAR FARM's Band of the Week:
These United States
Kelley Polar
Plants and Animals
All the Saints
I'm From Barcelona
Bombadil
Tapes 'n Tapes
White Hinterland

See the entire list of bands featured as EAR FARM's Band of the Week HERE.

Band of the Week: These United States

Band: These United States
From: Washington, D.C.
Sound: Delicately dense portraits and hyper-literate lullabies to the American soul and spirit
Similar Artists: M. Ward, Andrew Bird, Iron & Wine, Bon Iver
Listen Now: "First Sight"

You could define These United States most simply as a musical project helmed by D.C.-based wordsmith Jesse Elliott. You could then broaden this definition to include his fantastic collaboration with David Strackany (aka Paleo, the force behind last year's epic 365 songs in 365 days Song Diary project) that resulted in These United States' debut album A Picture of the Three of Us at the Gate to the Garden of Eden. While you're at it, you may as well also include the 30 other musicians who all got their paws on Elliott's muse and wouldn't let go during recording, until we're left with a revised understanding that goes something like this: These United States appears to be a pack of musical gypsies, a life-affirming ethos of goodwill and tall tales, proof of Johnny Appleseed's enduring legacy in 21st century America (don't worry, more on this later), and an all around kick ass band.

Don't take my word for it though. It wouldn't be fair. After all, I was the one dense enough to completely neglect that they were in town two weeks ago AND on the same bill as Plants and Animals at Union Hall*. And now that I come groveling after the fact, reeling from the spellbinding portraits Elliott spins and conjures throughout A Picture of the Three of Us... and demanding more, it's just too damn late. See, the band is off to tour Europe in a few weeks, and any chance of seeing them unfurl their tents, shake the dust off their boots, and set up camp in our neighborhood anytime soon is unlikely.

But there is a silver lining. Elliott took some time out of his Memorial Day weekend to converse with EF via the medium he so enthusiastically commands throughout his music, the written word (fancy talk for email). Check out our exclusive Q&A after the jump...

EF: I was first hoping you could describe the collaborative process between you and David Strackany. For example, were these all songs that you had previously written that he had then taken and added arrangements to or was there more give and take involved?

JE: a little more give and take than that, but that was the basic Idea. I was plunking around on acoustic and electric guitars, worried mostly about Words and Rhythm. Strackany was toying with the thought of becoming a producer - he's got a real ear for sonic landscapes. the two of us together were lookin' to get out beyond the land of folksong, wanted something richer and weirder, but still organic. just started making sounds and layering them on top of these simple tunes I'd written.

EF: I understand there were upwards of 30 musicians contributing to the album. How did you manage to kind of keep the original vision of your songs with so many "cooks in the kitchen"? Or was surrendering and letting go just another element of the songwriting process?

JE: surrendering to people who are better and smarter than me is one of the only things I'm interested in, musically. I'm not really a musician, just kind of a writer in wolf's sheepskin. it's great, cause I don't have to have TOO much vested interest in whatever the original idea behind a song was. things evolve or die. the world's wicked and lovely like that.

EF: At the risk of this sounding like a job interview, your bio states that before These Unites States you were a gonzo journalist. What were the sorts of things that interested you as a writer and what would you report about?

JE: everything. I'd mostly just rant. hence the Gonzo. a polite word for mad dumb hilarious rambles, I think. life, death, current events, game shows. I did a series of pieces on September 11, 2001 - drove out to NYC from Iowa, got there Sept 12 at 4 am in the morning, spent a week walking around the streets talking to people. people are magical. people are really the only thing I ever wrote about. god bless em. so damn strange, what they do and don't to the world.

EF: I bring up the journalism background primarily because listening to your words, it's obvious you're a gifted writer. You paint some incredibly vivid scenes and portraits through the use of some very literate lyrics. How is the songwriting and lyrical process informed or influenced by your background?

JE: thank you kindly, Mike - means a lot to me. I've got panned for using too many words in a lotta places, always nice to hear that a few people out there like words as much as I do. I think I'm going for something that's more purely aesthetic than what people like right now. there are all these amazing emotional and personal songwriters out there right now, the Bon Iver kinda model. and I love that stuff and it's beautiful and it cuts right to my heart the same as it does for so many people, obviously. but songwriting for me is more like collage, or like shooting one frame, 1/24 of a second, of 16 mm film for a week, on a road to Florida, clicking that button once every 30 seconds, say, and then going back months after that week and seeing what transpired, rapid-fire, something overwhelming and nonsensical and yet perfectly a part of its very own warp-speed narrative. I did that once, with film, I mean - and I think it stuck with me in writing. I like words and rhythm and sentences and cadence and phrasing and all that junk more than emotion. does that make me a horrible person?

EF: If forced to choose one (indulge me here), would you identify yourself as a writer, musician, or performer?

JE: I write. that's not to say that I'm the best of the three at that particular task (or even that I'm very good at any of them, really) - that's just what sets my heart racing - that sentence you can really set sail on.

EF: In terms of music, what other current artists and bands have really been clicking you with lately?

JE: we just played a few shows with Plants and Animals, and they really blew my mind. love them kids. there's a great kinda psych-folk-desert-dirge scene in DC right now, as embodied by The Federal Reserve, a collective some of us started, and also Gypsy Eyes Records, a really good local label. I think you're always influenced most by your immediate peers, so for me it's those folks and other random bands like The Great White Jenkins from Richmond or The Cotton Jones Basket Ride from up the road in Maryland.

EF: What about some of your all time favorites?

JE: Beck. Andrew Bird. too obvious to mention Dylan? again, a lot of the more Aesthetic Experimentalists, in my book. number one of all time, of course, would have to be Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. there's prolly no person in this world I've loved more or longer than I loved Jim Henson.

EF: Now, on the literary side of things, what writers or works have you been into these days and what have been some of the most influential in your own development?

JE: I've been reading this really wonderful book of poems by a guy named August Kleinzahler, called Sleeping It Off in Rapid City. I spent the last week out in the rolling Mississippi River valley of northeast Iowa, seeing old friends and family, and it just fit perfectly with the curve of every hill, and even of the whole entire earth, I think.

EF: The concept of America and the legacy of this country seems to be deeply intertwined with your musical identity. From your band's name and its honoring of American folk to where you currently live (Washington D.C.) and the fact that your ancestor was Johnny Appleseed (and as an aside, is that really true?), what do you make of this connection to the United States that runs throughout your own history at a time when it seems cooler to travel Europe with a Canadian patch on our backpacks?

JE: John Chapman, in the family bible in Fort Wayne, IN, I kid you not. I was surprised as you, but my cousin did this genealogical roots thing a few years back, and it checks out, and I guess it makes Good Solid Sense - would certainly explain (in that wonderfully mythological, this-may-have-absolutely-nothing-to-do with-real-life but-isn't-it-a-fun-way-to-explain-phenomena-in-the-world we-will-never-fully-comprehend-anyway kind of a way, y'know?) my love of land and geography and walking and humming (and apples? I guess I sort of like apples. I definitely like seeds.) and, damn it can be hard to say it sometimes, but, yes, still, America. it's the psychological and the physical geography that does it for me, all the beautiful castles of Europe and the easily defensible stances of Canada aside. there's nothing easy about America. John Chapman went crazy. I'll be damned if I'm not gonna try and get every long mile down under my feet before the whole thing explodes in a big old thrilling supernova, though.

EF: And speaking of Europe, you guys are about to head over there for a fairly extensive tour. How are you feeling about that and what's next for These United States afterwards?

JE: we love the UK. the further from Home you are, the kinder Strangers become. I can't wait to tour Indonesia some day. people are wonderful everywhere. there so much of the world encompassed just in that tiny little island strip between Brighton and Aberdeen. probably even more than we'll ever know, even further, up north, down to Plymouth, out to the westernmost of Wales. we get a wonderful warmth off those Brits. they drink like skilled fish. after the UK, back up north, hopefully finally to Canada, which we've not hit up yet somehow in the last 350 shows we've played. then out West again, touch the Pacific, breathe some of that into us, we always need that, the West. into autumn, who knows - a new album out maybe? we are the skilled fish of our own destiny!

*belated thanks to those who brought the fact that These United States had played that Union Hall show to my attention after the fact. Alas.

Listen: "First Sight"

Watch: These United States go on a quest for tequila in Tijuana during SXSW HERE

See These United States Live:
18 Jun - Washington, D.C. @ Rock and Roll Hotel
20 Jun - London, UK @ The Vortex
21 Jun - Norwich, UK @ B2
22 Jun - Newcastle, UK @ Head of Steam
23 Jun - Nottingham, UK @ Bodega Social Club
24 Jun - Cardiff, UK @ UWIC (Tommy’s Bar)
25 Jun - Bristol, UK @ The Louisiana
26 Jun - Bath, UK @ The Porter (Moles Club)
27 Jun - Glastonbury, UK @ GLASTONBURY Festival (Croissant Neuf Stage)
28 Jun - Glastonbury, UK @ GLASTONBURY Festival (Bandstand Stage)
29 Jun - Swindon, UK @ The Vic
01 Jul - Manchester, UK @ The Ruby Lounge
02 Jul - Glasgow, UK @ Oran Mor
03 Jul - Edinburgh, UK @ Cabaret Voltaire
04 Jul - Oxford, UK @ The Cellar
05 Jul - London UK @ The Troubador

Visit These United States on MySpace.
--
In the recent past, the following bands have been featured as EAR FARM's Band of the Week:
Kelley Polar
Plants and Animals
All the Saints
I'm From Barcelona
Bombadil
Tapes 'n Tapes
White Hinterland
Man Man

See the entire list of bands featured as EAR FARM's Band of the Week HERE.

Band of the Week: Kelley Polar

Band: Kelley Polar
From: Sullivan, New Hampshire
Sound: Body-movin' zero gravity pop filtered through the '80s... the 2080s
Similar Artists: Isolée, Human League, Thomas Dolby, Daft Punk, Junior Boys
Listen Now: "Entropy Reigns (In The Celestial City)" (live on "Fair Game")

Imagine music that delivers on the promise of both '70s krautrock and '80s synth-pop at once while managing to highlight the warmth of the human voice in a manner that's as comforting as it is danceable. Music that feels at home alongside The Human League and New Order that isn't strictly derivative of such New Wave landmarks in a way that a band like Cut Copy is - music that's not blown out Zoo TV-style like Daft Punk but still enlivens in a similar manner - and, frankly, music that delivers a jolt of originality and fresh life into a genre (dance) that's most often about predictability, re-hashed ideas, and conformity. As proven on 2005's Love Songs Of The Hanging Gardens, and again on this year's standout album I Need You To Hold On While The Sky Is Falling, the music of Kelley Polar is an expanding universe unto itself in which one "could spend a thousand years just drifting through the atmosphere." Welcome.

Kelley Polar, née Mike Kelley, first showed interest in music at the age of three playing DJ to his disco-loving older sister (musician Blevin Blectum) on a plastic Fisher-Price turntable. Not long after that he was schooled in piano and violin before moving on to his passion: the viola. Adventures playing the Green Kangaroo of the violin family led to awards, an infamous tenure at Oberlin Conservatory, and eventually Juilliard. It's during this time that Mike Kelley met Morgan Geist, he of Metro Area and Environ Records, and assembled a group of Juilliard players (dubbed the "Kelley Polar Quartet") who would soon be heard on some of Metro Area’s biggest tracks. Kelley's stay at the illustrious NYC School would, however, be cut short: he was expelled from Juilliard for the "riot" during his Master's Recital. Consider this misfortune a stroke of good luck for listeners the world over...

After leaving Juilliard, Mike Kelley retreated from his self-destructive city lifestyle by returning to the countryside of his youth in rural New Hampshire where he began work on the songs that would become his universally adored debut album Love Songs of the Hanging Gardens (the Chicago Reader and Stylus both had the record on their respective "Best of" lists, Pitchfork predictably undervalued and ignored it). Live shows and touring ensued and Polar gradually built a devoted fan base who egerly anticipated his next move. They'd end up waiting three long years for the follow-up record, but would be well-rewarded a mere eighty seconds into the first listen of I Need You To Hold On While The Sky Is Falling when Polar lets the beat DRRROP.

While Kelley's first album was admittedly full of hints about his desire to get away from the planet Earth ("Subtle or not-so-subtle messages...I have a planetary claustrophobia that I would appreciate having addressed."), his second album blasts the listener far beyond the reaches of our atmosphere without as much as a single pause. It's an entire galaxy of disconnected fantasia, one that listeners are likely to either adore or detest in a matter of minutes. Polarizing: equally prog-y, disco-y, electro pop-y, heady, sexy, risky, and unique, I Need You To Hold On While The Sky Is Falling just might be the best album released in 2008 this side of the Kuiper belt. With a robotic whisper and double servings of Faltermeyer in the synthesizers, it's the lush organic strings and lovingly placed human vocals that will keep you grounded as the dark energy of Kelley Polar lifts you up; up out of our solar system, into the Oort cloud, and beyond. For God's sake, strap yourselves down!

Preview snippets of nine songs from I Need You to Hold on While the Sky Is Falling HERE, listen to a live version of one of the album's standout tracks below.

Listen: "Entropy Reigns (In The Celestial City)" (live on "Fair Game")

Watch: music video for "Chrysanthemum" over on EARF

Visit Kelley Polar on MySpace.
--
In the recent past, the following bands have been featured as EAR FARM's Band of the Week:
Plants and Animals
All the Saints
I'm From Barcelona
Bombadil
Tapes 'n Tapes
White Hinterland
Man Man
We Barbarians

See the entire list of bands featured as EAR FARM's Band of the Week HERE.

Band of the Week: Plants and Animals

Band: Plants and Animals
From: Montreal, Quebec
Sound: Lush, 70s AM rock gets sprawling, epic treatment with incredible results
Similar Artists: Buffalo Springfield, Arcade Fire, My Morning Jacket, Loose Fur
Listen Now: "Feedback In The Field"

The picture says it all. As if the cover of Sgt. Pepper's came to life and had a hallucinogenic picnic in the backwoods of Middle Earth, the happening depicted above is about the most fitting visual representation of Plants and Animals that I could imagine.

That this is also the cover art for the Montreal-based trio's debut full-length Parc Avenue (Secret City Records) then makes perfect sense, a fitting harbinger of the eclectic menagerie of electric folk, psychedelic boogies, sing-song flower child freakouts and all around damn good songwriting contained within.

The album cover is also as good a place as any to delve into discussing a band that has as much to offer as Plants and Animals. Without getting too preachy about the necessity of listening to certain albums start to finish - or too curmudgeonly by wishing for the bygone era of sitting down with a tangible piece of art in your hands (ie vinyl) - let's just say that Parc Avenue makes a strong argument for the simple joys found in fully losing oneself within the nooks, crannies, and broader landscapes of an entire album. Of all the records I've heard so far this year, this is the one that I'd most like to strap on a pair of vintage cans for, plop down on my beanbag chair, fire up the lava lamp, and listen to while obsessing over the liner notes (you know, assuming my bedroom looked like Greg Brady's).

Plants and Animals seem to not have forgotten the lost art of album listening as an event, and for that reason alone Parc Avenue is an utter standout. Of course, such grand visions haven't always defined the band either...

Formed while Warren Spicer (guitar, lead vocals - eventually) and Matthew "The Woodman" Woodley (drums, vocals) were still in high school in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the complete lineup didn't come together until the two met Nicolas Basque (guitar, bass, vocals) while studying in the music department at Concordia University. The trio put their first batch of songs to tape shortly thereafter, a collection of instrumental jams that would form the precursor to their current pan-optic sound. From these more modest attempts at songwriting, they eventually evolved into a phase their bio refers to as "taming the sprawling wilderness of their sound and sculpting real songs," which naturally meant the introduction of vocals. Thus, Spicer stepped to the mic and "lead the way to a (hitherto unheard of) vocal domination of their material—as if he had been possessed by the ghost of some recently departed soul singer."

Truly, and it's this emotive and dynamic howl that binds much of the disparate sounds and genres on Parc Avenue into a cohesive whole. As such, it's incredible to think that this powerfully effective instrument was the last element introduced and incorporated within their songwriting process. Alongside the crackling rhythm section of Basque and Woodley, Spicer's lived-in voice adds even more warmth and organic familiarity to the material. One moment, he adds snarling Mark Knopfler-esque affectations to the verse of "Feedback in the Fields" while the next leading the sugary sweet chamber chorus of "Bye Bye Bye".

Of course, with track titles such as "Faerie Dance", "Feedback in the Fields" and "Guru" and several songs clocking in at over seven minutes to accompany adventurous instrumental breaks, jam-band conspiracists may cry foul at the band's presumed lack of focus (as though they've gone a bit "too organic" perhaps?); such charges would be short-sighted though. There's an enormous difference between writing a long song for the sake of writing a long song and doing so because the composition requires appropriate time and space to grow, shift, evolve and resolve.

Every song on Parc Avenue unfolds patiently and naturally, and as a result the entire album feels fully realized instead of half-baked, in service of the song as opposed to in spite of it, and always pushing forward instead of treading water. Besides, if you were having this much fun recording the seven-minute album closer "Guru" (see video below), you wouldn't want to stop the jams either:



Luckily, we'll have ample opportunity to experience such revelry firsthand as the band is in the midst of an East Coast tour that includes a pair of New York-based shows this weekend. Plants and Animals and hippie dances oh my!

Listen:
"Feedback In The Field"
"Faerie Dance"

See Plants and Animals Live:
14 May - Philadelphia, PA @ World Cafe Live Upstairs (with Rock Plaza Central)
15 May - Baltimore, MD @ 8 x 10 (w/ Rock Plaza Central)
16 May - New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
17 May - Brooklyn, NY @ Union Hall (w/ Rock Plaza Central)
18 May - Boston, MA @ TT the Bear’s (w/ Rock Plaza Central)
01 Jun - Haarlem, Netherlands @ Patronaat
02 Jun - Utrecht, Netherlands @ Ekko (with Sunset Rubdown)
03 Jun - Njmegen, Netherlands @ Dornrosje (with the Do)
04 Jun - Tilburg, Netherlands @ O13
05 Jun - Dublin, Ireland @ Crawdaddy
06 Jun - Glasgow, Scotland @ The Captain’s Rest
07 Jun - Edinburgh, Scotland @ Wee Red Bar
09 Jun - London, UK @ Big Chill House
13 Jun - Lausanne, Switzerland @ Le Romandie
14 Jun - Paris, France @ Mains D’Ouevre
23 Jun - Seattle, WA @ Nectar
24 Jun - Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
25 Jun - San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop
27 Jun - Pomona, CA @ Glass House
28 Jun - Los Angeles, CA @ Spaceland (with Panther)
10 Jul - Ottawa, Ontario @ Ottawa Blues Festival
16 Jul - Sherbrooke, Quebec @ La Telephone Rouge
18 Jul - Yellowknife, Northwest Territories @ Folk on the Rocks Festival
19 Jul - Yellowknife, Northwest Territories @ Folk on the Rocks Festival
25 Jul - Guelph, Ontario @ Hillside Music Festival
26 Jul - Guelph, Ontario @ Hillside Music Festival
03 Aug - Montreal, Quebec @ Osheaga Festival (Parc Jean Drapeau)
09 Aug - Marysville, Ontario @ Wolfe Island Musicfest
17 Aug - Salmon Arm, British Columbia @ Salmon Arm Festival

Visit Plants and Animals on MySpace.
--
In the recent past, the following bands have been featured as EAR FARM's Band of the Week:
All the Saints
I'm From Barcelona
Bombadil
Tapes 'n Tapes
White Hinterland
Man Man
We Barbarians
The Dodos

See the entire list of bands featured as EAR FARM's Band of the Week HERE.

Band of the Week: All the Saints

Band: All the Saints
From: Atlanta, GA
Sound: Soaring, crashing - all the while buzzing - reverb-drenched rock
Similar Artists: The Stone Roses, Alice In Chains, Black Sabbath, Dead Confederate
Listen Now: "Sheffield"

What is it about Atlanta bands that make them so loud (Mastodon), frenetic (Black Lips, Mastodon again), bizarre (Deerhunter, Black Lips again) and pretty much impossible to pin down (all of the above)?

Best to confer with an expert on the subject...fellow Atlantans (by way of Alabama) All the Saints are well familiar with this phenomenon, displaying more than enough of the above traits to have carved out their own place in the city's impressive music scene.

"Suffice it to say any Atlanta band you find will have more grit than most," All the Saints' Titus told EF back in March. "Honesty too. And this eerie basement trend, where everyone practices and hibernates. Marinating in the dirty-dirty if you will."

So, blame it on the dirty-dirty? Well, if we're to take his band as a case study, the argument makes perfect sense. By fighting the notoriously stifling humidity of Atlanta through the cooler climes of marathon basement jams, All the Saints - Titus, Jim, and Matt (they go by first name only) - have crafted their own indelible sound in the process, the very approximation of what swampy humidity and blasting heat sounds like when channeled through a dark, cavernous cellar. In other words, pretty awesome.

And it's not very often that you cross paths with a band at the exact moment in which the once-distant promise for big things suddenly comes perfectly within reach (and right before your very eyes)...Since we first started corresponding with the band a few months back, they've managed to link up with Dead Confederate on their upcoming tour and also just signed a deal - as in the ink is still drying - with Killer Pimp Records (A Place To Bury Strangers, Blood Money), who will be releasing their debut album Fire on Corridor X on May 27th.

Listening to the album, it's no wonder why great things "suddenly" seem to be coming All the Saints' way. Fire on Corridor X is a remarkably consistent and cohesive album, ten tracks cradled within a dense fog of reverb to create a hypnotic ebb and flow in all the right places. One minute you're floating in the delicate patches of "Hornett" only to be pummeled moments later by its Alice In Chains Facelift-era refrain. Staggered and woozy, it's best to just allow each successive track to wash over and gradually disarm you with the incredible rawness that runs throughout the record.

And if you feel the dark shadows of Sabbath or Zeppelin in the chugging riffs or the exposed-nerve fury of Nirvana's Bleach in the howled vocals, you may be right; or you may be dead wrong. Titus will never tell. "Some people strive for something more, but most are content to rehash the same ideas they or someone else already tried," he said. "Not to say we don't steal either. It's embarrassing sometimes, but no one seems to notice. It's all reinvention, just make it a reinvention of yourself."

Case in point: the origin of the band's name, which - according to Titus - sprang from both "a phrase in an old Dylan hymn and the title of a Verbena song. It stuck nicely too." Indeed, and it was also further reinvented by the band's incorporation of Biblical imagery onstage, as they often perform from behind a large fleur-de-lis statue.

Luckily for us Northerners, All the Saints will be bringing this riotous rock reinvention to our backyards later this month. And never ones to abandon the basements from whence they came, plans for the next album may rely heavily on such temperate locales.

"Anyone can record shit in their room and post it on MySpace, but the ones who care will take the time to do it right. I'd love to do a whole album in our basement and believe it can be done, but for us at this time, the studio was the best way to go."

Judging by the results, we're not one to argue.

Listen:
"Sheffield"
"Fire On Corridor X"

See All the Saints Live:
09 May - Athens, GA @ Caledonia Lounge
10 May - Cabbage Town, GA @ Soundlab 84
28 May - Washington, DC @ DC9
29 May - New York, NY @ Pianos
30 May - Asbury Park, NJ @ The Saint
31 May - Philadelphia, PA @ The Khyber
1 June - Cambridge, MA @ TT The Bears
2 June - Brooklyn, NY @ TBD
3 June - Baltimore, MD @ The Talking Head Club
4 June - Chapel Hill, NC @ Local 506
5 June - Asheville, NC @ The Rocket
6 June - Nashville, TN @ Barley's
7 June - Atlanta, GA @ The Earl

Visit All the Saints on MySpace.
--
In the recent past, the following bands have been featured as EAR FARM's Band of the Week:
I'm From Barcelona
Bombadil
Tapes 'n Tapes
White Hinterland
Man Man
We Barbarians
The Dodos
Hey Hey My My

See the entire list of bands featured as EAR FARM's Band of the Week HERE.

Band of the Week: I'm From Barcelona (slideshow, interview w/Emanuel Lundgren)

Band: I'm From Barcelona
From: Jönköping, Sweden
Sound: Uplifting, joyous bedroom pop to the 29th power
Similar Artists: Polyphonic Spree, Beulah, Bodies of Water, Architecture in Helsinki
Listen Now: "Oversleeping"

You wouldn't think a song detailing the joys of stamp collecting could whip a room into such a commotion as to cause overhead stage lights to come crashing down, now would you? Well, neither would we...that is, until we saw the gleeful force of nature that is I'm From Barcelona blow the roof off Maxwell's last Friday evening.

Seeing is believing. Led by charismatic frontman Emanuel Lundgren, the 29-member ensemble have made considerable strides since "accidentally" forming a few years ago. As the now-famous origin story goes, Lundgren decided to record some songs in his apartment over a month-long vacation from work. To flesh out the tracks, he invited his friends to come over and record various vocals, hand claps, and whatever spare instruments happened to be lying around.

It just so happens that he has more friends than you or I, and the result is a blissful debut album - 2006's Let Me Introduce My Friends - that balances the earnest songwriting and subject matter of someone composing from their bedroom (as was the case) with the insta-party vibe of having your 29 best friends on hand (as was the case).

To truly experience the band though, you MUST see them live. It's as though a stadium-sized show somehow got crammed into a much smaller space, causing a technicolor explosion of goodwill, balloons, smiles, and frantic sing-alongs (and broken lights) in the process. Your last chance for the foreseeable future comes tomorrow at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple. EAR FARM joined Lundgren and a few of his fellow Barcelonians as the band (17 out of 29 of them for this particular tour) prepared for Friday evening's show. After the jump, check out our exclusive Q&A with Lundgren as well as a slideshow of the night's activities AND live video from their insane performance...


(ABOVE: I'm From Barcelona slideshow, created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR)

EF: It must be an absolute logistical nightmare to have to coordinate everyone’s schedules

IFB: Yeah, I like to torture myself, so we don’t have a tour manager.

EF: So who’s responsibility does that fall to?

IFB: (Emanuel points to himself and laughs) Me, I’m the booking agent and everything...I’m so eager to play now because it’s been such a long time planning, and it's been all about everything else except playing so far; I’m so glad we’re here right now and we can finally play some music!

EF: How many shows are you guys doing this tour?

IFB: It’s a small tour because we cant do a four piece band to go on a tour for 2 months. So we do 6 gigs, it’s a 10 day tour.

EF: And you’re heading out to Coachella after this?

IFB: Yeah tomorrow. But I’m kind of sad because I think we’ll probably miss the Prince concert. I love Prince and I’ve never seen him live. We’ll probably be sitting in the parking lot in the bus and hear Prince in the desert.

EF: You could probably still make it, commandeer a golf cart or something...

IFB: Yeah, like “Prince, wait for me!”

EF: (looking at IFB bandmates blowing up balloons) So these are the stage props for tonight? What have we got here, some balloons?

IFB: Yeah we try and entertain the crowd, it's good to have something to do so you don’t stand here like this (stands with arms folded and blank look on his face)

EF: Right, which of course is exactly what New York audiences are known for.

IFB: Yeah but not from my experience, not from last time; they didn’t stand like this (resumes arms folded), it was a wild bunch of people.

EF: Well I think I read somewhere that part of the beauty of your live shows is that there’s a thin line between audience and performer...

IFB: Yeah, yesterday in Philly was extreme, it was very much like a punk rock gig because there were so many people up on stage for half the gig. It was a bit too crazy but I like it like that. But it’s a good contrast with that and tonight and then with Coachella, it's like two different vibes, but I like it like this (small shows), it's easier to communicate with the crowd.

EF: Sure, and you guys have so many members in your band that it must be an advantage when you go and play these enormous festivals, I’m sure you all feed off of each other on the stage.

IFB: Right, when you see a three-piece band on stage, after having been in this band for awhile, it always feels like “doesn’t it feel lonely up there? It's so empty, so much space..." But we often play small stages, and it feels good to play bigger stages so we’re not hitting each other with instruments and everything.

EF: Explain how the band started, it was basically you and your friends, right?

IFB: Exactly, the first record was all about friends. I just invited all the people I hung out with, I didn’t care if they were the best musicians in Sweden, it wasn’t about that, it was just about having fun. And now this next record is all about strangers - I can release that news - I haven’t found the perfect title yet but it will be about strangers.

EF: Is “Britney” (new single released on MySpace) an example of that?

IFB: I guess so, because it’s about the strangers I read about and see on TV; I’m a biography junkie, I love to read biographies about people so I guess I’ve read a lot of them the last two years and the new album is influenced by that. It's more about walking in someone else’s shoes for a change.

EF: So how much of that material is written?

IFB: All the songs are ready and we’re mixing them right now. We’re planning the cover and the video so this fall it will be out, probably September.

EF: Awesome, and do you think there will be another stateside tour to support it?

IFB: I hope so I really hope so[...]And we’ll have to do the thing we’re worst at: we’re so bad at rehearsing, but we have to rehearse new songs. When you’re like 20 people, it always ends up as a party, it's hard to focus.

EF: Well that’s good too though, to always have a party...

IFB: It is good, but you don’t get anything done. We’re playing some of them tonight, we’ll see how it goes.

EF: And then you guys are playing the Brooklyn Masonic Temple next Thursday...

IFB: Yeah, I’m kind of excited about it. As I told you I like to read about stuff, brotherhood and societies, it's always fascinating, I’ll probably sneak around finding weird symbolic stuff and building my own conspiracy theories. We did the pool parties with the same promoter last year and it was amazing[...] Another thing I’m looking forward to is we’re doing a show Yo Gabba Gabba, it’s a children’s program on Nickelodeon, it's an amazing music program (ed note: see recent Shins performance on the program HERE). They want to pick good music for young people, they write their own music and we did a cover of it and are going to perform it there. I think it's going to be amazing because I’ve been thinking of doing a children’s record.

EF: And your music just has that playful vibe to it too...

IFB: Yeah, and I’ve noticed we have a lot of three-year-old fans actually. I think kids are honest, they don’t care, they just feel what’s good; for me, it’s a compliment that a kid would like it.

EF: So what do you have in store for the Brooklyn show?

IFB: I think the theme will be pink….

EF: Pink...so we should tell everyone to dress accordingly?

IFB: Yes, think pink! That’s the concept. So come to Brooklyn and we’ll have a good time together.

Listen:
"Oversleeping"

Watch:
"Collection Of Stamps" (live from this show, YouTube)
unknown new song ("Paper Planes"?) (live from this show, YouTube)

See I'm From Barcelona Live:
01 May - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Masonic Temple
09 May - Brussels, Belgium @ Nuits Botanique
10 May - Diksmuide, Belgium @ Ten Vrede
03 July - Kristiansand, Norway @ Quartfestivalen
04 July - Oystese, Norway @ Bygdalarm
18 July - Poupet, France @ Les Arts a La Champagne

Visit I'm From Barcelona on MySpace.
--
In the recent past, the following bands have been featured as EAR FARM's Band of the Week:
Bombadil
Tapes 'n Tapes
White Hinterland
Man Man
We Barbarians
The Dodos
Hey Hey My My
Amy LaVere

See the entire list of bands featured as EAR FARM's Band of the Week HERE.

Band of the Week: Bombadil

Band: Bombadil
From: Durham/Chapel Hill, NC
Sound: You got intricately arranged indie-pop in my playfully literate lyrics! You got playfully literate lyrics in my intricately arranged indie-pop!
Similar Artists: Danielson, Vampire Weekend, Ben Folds, Sufjan Stevens, Jonathan Richman
Listen Now: "Julian of Norwich"

"the record is a collection of stories
that spans our three years together as a band
i like to think of the record as a coloring book
some of the songs are color by numbers
some are black and white
some you probably dont have to color on
at all" - from my inbox, April 7th, 2008

As if anticipating our mild obsession with synesthesia by an impressive 10 days, Bombadil piqued our curiosity with the above simple (yet cryptic) introduction last week. And insisting on sending said record via snail mail as opposed to a few straggling compressed MP3s, the Durham quartet were making a statement: coloring books, physical album copies, all tangible and tactile, all substantive and worth our time.

And with the arrival of their full-length debut A Buzz, A Buzz on Monday (and out 4/29 on Ramseur Records), I have to agree with them: this is worth your time.

A hand-written note accompanied the album, scrawled on the back of a comic strip and telling us that we had to supply our own crayons in coloring the album. Were this actually a possibility (and still trying to will myself a synesthetic perhaps?), it made me wonder what colors I might have chosen do so.

Probably every single crayon possible...

A splash of yellow to capture the group's upbeat and exquisite harmonies, scribbled over with a burnt sienna to show the depth and muscularity (read: the absence of fey or twee-ness) within these harmonies. A midnight blue to suggest the depth and emotive range behind such clever passages as "sing all alone, singing's just talking in tones, rhymestones, and get off your cellphones because they're tracking you home, skin and bones all alone" (from "Smile When You Kiss"); perhaps a brown and green combo for the earthy acoustic guitars and plaintive vocals that anchor the entire song cycle? True, the end result would certainly resemble the child-scribble fridge-art most likely found in this woman's home, but Bombadil make all these elements work with a fluid grace, in the process sculpting 11 pitch-perfect pop songs that sound even better as a cohesive whole.

Named after a character from The Lord of the Rings, Bombadil first came together three years ago in Bolivia, where Duke alums Daniel Michalak and Bryan Rahija first met and began collaborating on songs (John Michalak and Stuart Robinson would soon round out the band). According to their label's website:

The folk music indigenous to the region lit a creative spark and inspired the two to begin writing songs that incorporated international instruments and styles. That influence, paired with their collective backgrounds in Piedmont blues, psychedelic rock and Robinson’s background as a classical pianist, stands as the driving force behind the band’s unique sound.

Add to this description bouts of circus-like melodies fresh from the Disney Main Street Electrical Parade, spurting woodwinds, traditional American folk, vaudeville, inventively off-kilter percussion bursts, and tribal call-and-response vocals and you begin to get the idea. Like I said, this album takes on every color in the Crayola box.

Of course, a smattering of sounds so disparate could prove disastrous if not utilized in proper doses, and perhaps the band's biggest strength throughout A Buzz, A Buzz lies in their wonderful arrangements and instrumentation. Though it is a "big" sounding album, it never feels overburdened or crowded; instead, every piece works and services the broader song. Listen, for example, to "Julian of Norwich", a perfectly constructed pop song that manages to shake any initial likeness to Vampire Weekend's "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" by multiplying the infectious central melody through layers of fife, Colonial Williamsburg marching drums, cascading banjo, nimble grand piano arpeggios, clattering sea shells (?) and at least a dozen other elements.

Currently touring in support of A Buzz, A Buzz's forthcoming release, Bombadil's immense talent and promise leaves me believing that they really couldn't have come up with a more appropriate and prescient title for their debut (well, except for maybe Synesthesia).

Listen:
"Julian of Norwich"
"Smile When You Kiss"

See Bombadil Live:
23 April - Nashville, TN @ Exit/In
24 April - Johnson City, TN @ The Acoustic Coffeehouse - CD Release
25 April - The Triangle, NC @ 91.5 WUNC's The State of Things
25 April - Carrboro, NC @ Cat's Cradle - CD Release
27 April - Decatur, GA @ Eddie's Attic
29 April - Raleigh, NC @ Schoolkids Records - In-store Performance
30 April - Charlotte, NC @ Fox News Rising WCCB TV 18
30 April - Charlotte, NC @ Manifest Disc - In-store Performance
01 May - Greenville, SC @ Horizon Records - In-store Performance
02 May - Knoxville, TN @ Disc Exchange - In-store Performance
07 May - Baltimore, MD @ Baltimore Chop Shop
08 May - Charlottesville, VA @ Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar
09 May - Easton, MD @ Coffee East
10 May - Washington D.C. @ The Red & Black
11 May - Pittsburgh, PA @ Garfield Artworks
14 May - Grand Rapids, MI @ The Wealthy Theatre
15 May - Columbus, OH @ Rumba Cafe
16 May - Bristol, TN @ Border Bash
17 May - Knoxville, TN @ Time Warp Tea Room
24 May - York, SC @ Sylvia Theater
29 May - Kansas City, MO @ Knucklehead's
31 May - Denver, CO @ Dulcinea's 100th Monkey
04 Jun - Bend, OR @ Old St. Francis School
05 June - Troutdale, OR @ Edgefield
06 June - McMinnville, OR @ Hotel Oregon
07 June - Gearhart, OR @ McMenamins Sand Trap
10 June - Centralia, WA @ Olympic Club Hotel and Theater
12 June - Portland, OR @ Kennedy School
13 June - Forest Grove, OR @ Grand Lodge
15 June - Manchester, TN @ Bonnaroo
20 June - Charlotte, NC @ Snug Harbor
21 June - Winston-Salem, NC @ Summer On Trade
27 June - Boone, NC @ Private Party
28 June - Boone, NC @ Private Party
5 July - Chestertown, MD @ Andy's
10 July - New London, CT @ The Oasis Pub
11 July - Burlington, VT @ TBA
26 July - Floyd, VA @ FloydFest
28 July - Lawrence, KS @ Jackpot Music Hall
01 Aug - Portland, OR @ Pickathon
02 Aug - Portland, OR @ Pickathon
07 Aug - Cottage Grove, OR @ Axe and Fiddle Pub and Music Club
29 Aug - Boone, NC @ Black Cat
12 Sep - Mount Pleasant, SC @ Fiery Ron's Hometown BBQ
19 Sep - Bristol, VA @ Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion
20 Sep - Bristol, VA @ Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion
17 Jan - Riverside, CA @ Private Party

Visit Bombadil on MySpace
--
In the recent past, the following bands have been featured as EAR FARM's Band of the Week:
Tapes 'n Tapes
White Hinterland
Man Man
We Barbarians
The Dodos
Hey Hey My My
Amy LaVere
Beach House

See the entire list of bands featured as EAR FARM's Band of the Week HERE.

Band of the Week: Tapes 'n Tapes ('n EF Interview)

Band: Tapes 'n Tapes
From: Minneapolis, MN
Sound: Jittery, fuzzy, intoxicating rock anthems for those who don't necessarily like "rock anthems"
Similar Artists: Wolf Parade, Modest Mouse, Pixies, Wire
Listen Now: "Hang Them All"

The gents of Tapes 'n Tapes touched down in New York last Monday night to commence the kind of week most bands could only dream of: Virgin Megastore in-store performance on Tuesday (album release party to follow), appearance on Late Night With Conan O'Brien on Wednesday (flight back home to Minneapolis to follow), hometown tour kickoff show on Thursday (everyone back on the bus now), and interview with EAR FARM on Friday (of course, we may have taken liberties as to where this last activity fit within the hierarchy of events).

Such weeks in a band's career don't miraculously materialize from thin air; you know the saying...no guts, no glory. In this case, the "guts" were the months of brainstorming, writing, rehearsing, recording, and prepping that produced Walk It Off, the band's sophomore album and follow-up to 2005's immensely popular The Loon.

The "glory" part is well deserved. Walk It Off finds the band - singer/guitarist Josh Grier, bassist Erik Applewick, keyboardist Matt Kretzmann, and drummer Jeremy Hanson - at their most viscerally aggressive, amplifying the joyous energy and infectious melodic push-and-pull that made The Loon into such a breath of fresh air and streamlining it into a big, loud, dirty, ROCK album.

We've had the pleasure of spending quite a bit of time with Tapes over the last month: eating BBQ and kicking it down in Austin, celebrating the album release last week, and even catching the Conan performance from the studio audience. Throughout all the fun and games, we talked constantly and informally about everything and anything related to music. Of course, when I sat down to begin working on this piece, I realized that none of it was "on the record" so I did what any hard-hitting muckraker would do...woke Josh up with a phone call the morning after the first show of their tour while they headed towards Chicago. Check out our Q&A after the jump...

EF: How was the show last night?

JG: It was so much fun man. It's so nice to be able to play now that the record’s coming out, and it was the first show we’ve had in town where we’ve had Drew (Malamud, sound engineer for tour) doing sound and that was pretty cool, all our friends were like, “whoa, it sounds so much better!”

EF: I wonder why, funny how that “magically happens”

JG: (joking) Oh I forgot, I brought the pixie dust and sprinkled it everywhere (laughs)

EF: Exactly. I guess let’s start, if you don’t mind, after The Loon and before Walk It Off. When did the writing process start? Was it when you were on the road supporting The Loon or after, when you were back home and settled in?

JG: Yeah it happened back in January, there were probably two or three songs that we had the ideas for - or had pretty much worked out beforehand - but I had then forgotten about them. But everything else really was something that came after we had gotten back from Australia, which was in mid-December of 2006, and then we took a month off and during that time I started writing. I basically wrote seven or eight new songs between January and April and then we went on another tour last year and filled in the gaps when we got back, from June through to August.

EF: And then recording started then, in August?

JG: In September, yeah in mid-September we went out for 12 days to Dave (Fridmann's) place

EF: So was everything written by the time you got out there or were there some last second things that came together in the studio?

JG: No, it was basically all written. There were a few little changes that were made to the songs when we were out there, I think like the end of “Blunt” we added another time through that we played the last part or something, and I think we made two or three little changes like that, nothing that was too major but something little that Dave or someone else would be like, “Hey what about this?” but for the most part, the songs were done. Except for “The Dirty Dirty” which I had made a demo of and we had talked about once, and then I had every intention of trying to record it late at night, just to see if we could get a B-side out of it, you know?

EF: Right, so was that an example of a song you had made a demo of and showed it to Dave ahead of time and said, “This is how I want the album to sound”? An advance you sent him?

JG: For “The Dirty Dirty”?

EF: Yeah

JG: Oh no. I recorded a demo on an acoustic guitar and it was only like a two-minute idea that I played for the rest of the guys and we talked about it for a little bit...We never played it as a band together or anything. But I think it was over a weekend there (at Dave’s), Dave always left everything on and open for us after he left the studio in case we wanted to mess around. So one night, we drank a couple of beers and started messing around and recorded some drums, guitars, and some keyboards, then we played it for Dave a couple days later and he was like “oh that sounds great, let’s work on that” and we had a couple hours left on the last day we were there and worked on it and finished it up.

EF: Awesome, so it was like a last minute thrown-together thing? Because there’s a lot of energy coming through...

JG: Yeah, it just kind of came together the last day. The last morning I remember Dave came in and said, “So what do you guys want to do today?” because we pretty much finished up tracking on all the songs and so I was like, “Well, there's that one song that we had messed around with so what about working on that little?” Then there was another song that really didn’t go anywhere, and he wanted to work on "The Dirty Dirty" so I was like, “Well I better go write some lyrics...”

EF: So you just wrote them that day and put them on tape?

JG: I had some lyrics, but not much, but yeah that morning it was like, “Better come up with something!”

EF: Yeah, time to go to work

JG: Yeah, I don't know, I thought it turned out pretty well considering all those things. I definitely don’t feel like it came out half-assed, we were like, “Wow, this turned out pretty fucking cool.”

EF: It's funny that that’s the one that – more than the others –was built in the studio because that’s the song, when you hear it live, it sounds born from a jam session, like it all came together live.

JG: Yeah, we definitely had to “learn it” after in order to play live (laughs)

EF: Right. So, I know we’ve talked about this a few times, but how again did you end up working with Dave?

JG: We basically decided we were either going to make the record on our own or we were going to try and work with an outside producer we haven’t worked with before. So we kind of went through a list of people we were excited to work with and Dave’s name was at the top of the list, but we definitely didn’t think we’d be able to work with him; we figured he’d be out of our league (laughs). Basically we talked to him on the phone a couple times and we got along really well, and we thought it would be really cool and somehow it just ended up working out. He had some time free and it worked out. I’m just really glad it did.

EF: Yeah absolutely. The album just has a nice rawness to it, it's not some huge polished studio album, it's got balls...

JG: (laughs) Thank you

EF: I mean, but that’s hard to do though, you go bore yourself up in a studio, the best thing that could come out of it is to have something with energy and urgency.

JG: Yeah totally. That was definitely a huge issue for me. We recorded it all and took it home and listened to it for a few weeks and I was kind of freaking out a little bit. I was like “This doesn’t sound like it’s live like I was hoping for.” I mean you can get really neurotic about stuff, having recordings and being able to mess with them. I was at home doing all these overdubs and shit in the extra bedroom (laughs). I was definitely freaking out a little, calling Dave probably twice a week and he was just like, “Josh these are rough mixes, its going to be fine” and then of course we went back in and started mixing and it was like, “Ohhh yes, yes, the live energy is so there.” They were just rough mixes...

EF: And so you guys went back out to the studio again for the mixing process?

JG: Yeah we had two weeks off after we recorded then we went back out for a week and mixed it that week.

EF: And then all your fears were put to rest…

JG: Yeah definitely. I mean, there was definitely a lot of thought as to how it sounded and I think, you know, some people may be into how it sounds rocking and live and some people may not be into that. Hopefully it won’t turn too many people off, but it's definitely how I was hoping it would turn out, you know?

EF: Yeah, and it’s a pretty faithful representation of how you guys sound live, which is good.

JG: Right, well that’s what we were going for so, like it or not (laughs)…

EF: What about sequencing? That’s always a huge part of the finished product. Was that something that was always in the back of your mind, like “This should go here, this should go there”?

JG: Well, there were a few things I had in mind early on as to where things should go but sequencing the record was a bit of a clusterfuck, not in a way that was bad but for some reason on The Loon there was a definite sense of where things should go; we did a couple different track orders and it all fell into place. For this record, I felt like things had to be in certain spots, but I mean we must have gone through like 50 or 60 different track orders.

EF: Jesus

JG: Oh yeah it was very frustrating. But you know, in the end I think we got it right. But a lot of thought was put into the pacing of the record. You know, it’s totally a personal thing, like “This is how I want to feel at this point in the record”…

EF: And its also how you’re presenting it to the listener too, kind of important...

JG: Right, you don’t want to put too much rock next to each other, certain other songs can’t go next to each other, it would just be too weird.

EF: Yeah. Well Matt and I have a theory - when we saw you guys at SXSW, Matt in particular thinks that you were listening to a lot of 70s metal riffs when writing the album. Like the hooks on “Blunt” or even “The Dirty Dirty"....are you a closet Sabbath listener?

JG: (laughs) Probably listening more to Black Mountain and stuff. Listening to that, and then going on tour with Ladyhawk, they’re pretty rocking, and seeing Black Mountain live and a lot of other bands that are playing more “heavy rock”, I was like, “That’s just a lot of fun”. And the two songs from The Loon that were like that, like "Jakov’s" or "10 Gallon", those songs are just so much fun to play live. So I think touring a lot and kind of all those things also led to that (the heavier sound).

EF: Talking about Black Mountain, Ladyhawk, and other contemporary bands, you mentioned to me the other night to watch out for Vampire Hands, who are playing the two shows in New York with you guys. Who else is on your radar right now of other contemporary bands that you guys are really feeling?

JG: Um, I don’t know...White Denim, they were awesome last night, I’d never seen them before. They were great, and they’re super good guys.

EF: Right, that was the first show you guys played with them, so that’s all working out?

JG: Yeah, they’re really good dudes, I’m excited to play with them. Yeah, I don't know, it’s weird, I always freeze up and forget who I’m excited about. I think those New York shows with Vampire Hands will be awesome because they’re just really rocking and it will be fun to be able to play with another Minneapolis band out there. And you know what’s funny? The White Denim dudes looked them (Vampire Hands) up because they heard we were playing with them but apparently Vampire Hands had made some post that their drummer had broken his hand and Iggy Pop was going to be playing drums with them at those New York shows…

EF: Iggy Pop?!

JG: Yeah, there’s no way. I mean maybe I’m stupid and I have no idea and they’re not lying but it seemed like the greatest thing ever, like “Oh my god, you guys are hilarious." That would be the most amazing thing ever, I still think that’s a great story. It’s a great thing to come up with, to say Iggy Pop is going to be drumming?

EF: Totally, and you could just prop an old shirtless guy up there…

JG: (laughs) Yeah totally

EF: Let's talk a little bit about Conan: how was it the second time around on national TV (ed note: the band played Letterman in July of '06)?

JG: It was less nerve-wracking for sure. It was a lot of fun. I think on Letterman, well I’ve seen the video of it and I look like a deer in highlights and on Conan at least for me I was having fun. I think part of it has to do with the vibe of playing there, everyone there was very laid back. Letterman was fun but it was very rigid, everything happens to the second…

EF: And its like the Planet Hoth on that set too.

JG: Oh my God yeah, Conan was a little cold but not anything like Letterman. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I actually remember a little more about playing Conan, Letterman was just a complete blur….

EF: And did you get to talk to Conan at all?

JG: briefly, he came up afterwards and shook our hands and he was nice. He was talking to Jerry about his drums. He came up to me and made some comment like under his breath like “Yeah, the guitars sounded right, that’s the only thing that ever needs to sound right, isn’t it?”

EF: Awesome

JG: He didn’t have the bear claw of Letterman though; Letterman’s hands are huge, he crushed my hand...

EF: Right, and of course you can’t make eye contact with him. So, any particular stops on the tour that when you’re looking at the itinerary you’re like, “Yes, I cant wait for that one!”?

JG: New York’s gonna be a lot of fun, it's always a lot of fun. San Francisco, pretty much everywhere in general, just being able to go on tour and play new songs; we’re just having a lot of fun.

EF: At this point, there’s gotta be a few songs from The Loon that you’re like “Eh, I’d rather play the new stuff by now.”

JG: (laughs) Yeah, and we can too! We can be like, “Tonight we’re not going to play “blah”, we’re going to play a bunch of new songs." Yeah, last night was the first full show, you know, and it was cool to choose to not play some of those (from The Loon).

EF: Well, are you excited at the prospect of writing more songs for the next album? I mean is that even on your mind at all?

JG: You know, just in the past couple weeks I’ve started to think about it and I’m definitely getting excited. I think it’s been long enough now since we’ve done the record and it's actually out now and I’m starting to think about songs and so I think I’ll be writing this summer.

EF: Well, thanks for taking the time to speak with me in a professional journalistic setting.

JG: (laughs) Anytime man, it's always fun.

Listen:
"Hang Them All"
"Demon Apple" (from TnT Daytrotter session)

Watch:
"Conquest" by Tapes 'n Tapes live (from Emo's - 13 March 2008 SXSW 2008) on YouTube | download QT

See also:

Tapes 'n Tapes @ Emo's - 13 March 2008 (SXSW Day 2, pics, live video/mp3)

EAR FARM Spring Tour '08: travel itinerary, BBQ with bands, SXSW!

Tapes 'n Tapes - new song, tour/tickets info

Tapes 'n Tapes @ Irving Plaza - 18 May 2007

Tapes 'n Tapes

See Tapes 'n Tapes Live:
16 April - Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground
17 April - Boston, MA @ Paradise
18 April - New York, NY @ Filmore Irving Plaza
19 April - Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
22 April - Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church
23 April - Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
24 April - Chapel Hill, NC @ Local 506
25 April - Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
26 April - St. Augustine, FL @ Cafe 11
28 April - Orlando, FL @ The Social
29 April - Gainesville, FL @ Common Grounds
30 April - Birmingham, AL @ Bottletree
02 May - Austin, TX @ Antone's
03 May - Denton, TX @ Hailey's
06 May - Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress
07 May - San Diego, CA @ The Casbah
08 May - West Hollywood, CA @ The Troubador
09 May - West Hollywood, CA @ The Troubador
10 May - San Francisco, CA @ Fillmore
12 May - Eugene, OR @ Wow Hall
13 May - Vancouver, BC @ Richards on Richards
14 May - Seattle, WA @ The Showbox
16 May - Salt Lake City, UT @ In The Venue
17 May - Denver, CO @ Bluebird
28 May - London, UK @ ULU
30 May - Birmingham, UK @ Barfly
31 May - Glasgow, Scotland @ Stereo
01 Jun - Manchester, UK @ Club Academy
03 Jun - Paris, France @ Nouveau Casino
04 Jun - Brussels, Belgium @ Recyclart
05 June - Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Paradiso
06 June - Nijmegen, Netherlands @ Doornroosje
07 June - Berlin, Germany @ Bang Bang Club
09 June - Hamburg, Germany @ Logo
10 June - Cologne, Germany @ Gebaeude 9

Visit Tapes 'n Tapes on MySpace
--
In the recent past, the following bands have been featured as EAR FARM's Band of the Week:
White Hinterland
Man Man
We Barbarians
The Dodos
Hey Hey My My
Amy LaVere
Beach House
Computer Perfection

See the entire list of bands featured as EAR FARM's Band of the Week HERE.

Band of the Week: White Hinterland (Exclusive EF Interview)

Band: White Hinterland
From: Jamaica Plain, MA
Sound: Summer and winter combined as one: light and dark, complex yet playful... dense and lyrical and jazzy with classical undertones.
Similar Artists: Joni Mitchell, Lavender Diamond, Rufus Wainwright, Vincent Guaraldi, Sufjan Stevens
Listen Now: "Dreaming of the Plum Trees"

If you participated in the world of indie music in 2006 you may remember a charming record title Wind-Up Canary from a young singer-songwriter named Casey Dienel. Her debut album was (rightfully) widely adored; however, Casey wasn't content to just stop there and keep doing the same old thing all over again for her second record. Instead, she wrote a slew of entirely new, more complex, and different songs - put together a band - and renamed her musical efforts White Hinterland. A daring move, perhaps, for an artist already reaching a core audience of people who'd grown comfortable with the songs on Wind-Up Canary.

Unlike her first album, White Hinterland's Phylactery Factory does not offer immediate comfort. Instead it eats away at you like a great novel might. Listen once and you'll be intrigued, but you'll perhaps miss a lot of the nuance. Listen again and again and the record will climb inside your mind and stay there, perhaps until list season, perhaps forever... Frankly, it's an astonishing record that truly rewards repeat listens; and, to say that it's been playing a lot in the EAR FARM headquarters lately would be a bit of an understatement. "Can't stop listening!" would be much more accurate.

We were fortunate to be able to speak with Casey recently about her recent musical efforts... about Phylactery Factory, and about food, and cats, and music in general, and favorite restaurants, and her recent work covering Björk for Stereogum, and, well, food...

EF: So I read somewhere that your van recently got broken into... that was in New York?

CD: Yeah, that was in Bed-Stuy.

EF: Sadly that tends to happen here...

CD: Yeah, we actually had another one happen in San Francisco too. But that time we only lost merch, they just stole CDs and t-shirts and stuff.

EF: I wonder what they did with that stuff?

CD: I'm sure that they thought, like, "aw yeah dude this is going to be great!" and then they opened it and were probably so disappointed and were like "shit man, what the fuck is this White Hinterland stuff?" I can just see all the CDs and they were probably like "well, let's just dump this at the bottom of the bay"... But who knows, maybe there was this big free inundation of White Hinterland LPs in San Francisco.

EF: Right, like an indie-music Robin Hood? Well, speaking of free White Hinterland... recently you contributed to the (free) Stereogum Björk tribute. What was that process like? I assume they contacted you, did you get to pick your song?

CD: It was fun... (a pause - and then a crashing noise and some shuffling and a strange animal sound) #@*! my cat is crazy! Sorry.

EF: Ha! How old is your cat?

CD: She's 10 months. She's a really peculiar cat.

EF: Wait, is that your big white cat in the pictures??

CD: Noo, that actually is my friend's cat... Shawn, who does the artwork with me.

EF: It's a cat model?

CD: Yeah, it's a cat model. I have extreme privacy issues and I don't want anyone to see what my cat really looks like! No, but what were we... oh yeah, Stereogum. No, they requested that we do that song. And I really like Björk, but I've never really listened to her extensively and initially I wanted to say no because I felt like, well, whenever I cover something I don't really want to offend. Like, that I'll take the song and approach it ignorantly I guess?

EF: Sure.

CD: So instead I sat with it and I really liked the record a lot - you know, I got Post and listened to it - and that was one of my favorite songs on it, so it just kind of worked out that I got to cover it.

EF: That's cool. And who else played on the track with you?

CD: It's just me and Matt. Matt plays drums. And I have this Rhodes, this suitcase Rhodes, and we hooked it up to a distortion pedal because we had seen someone with a farfisa that had a distortion pedal on it and I thought that was so neat so we were just playing around with it and also running it through another sort of delay pedal, and then also he has a Casio keyboard...

EF: I saw that - an SK1? Nice.

CD: Yeah, very classic. And it has that organy sound on it that we like so much and then also a little bit of my horribly out of tune piano. And then the rest was all pots and pans. We just took a bunch of cast iron skillets and things and wooden spoons - that was in February and we had the deadline and it was a week after Matt's drums got stolen. And I feel like every time I tell this story it sounds sort of pitiable, but it actually was really fun because it's nice to approach things playfully with a sense of curiosity about things and to and not take it tooo seriously.

EF: Absolutely, and I think all of that really came across clearly in your version, in a successful way. I guess that could go bad too, approaching something like Björk.

CD: I'm sure there are some people who thought we just were dancing on her grave or something. But I think, also looking at it too, I think Björk is a person who approaches things in a very curious way, in a very playful way. I think Björk probably takes her job very seriously, but she takes risks and I think that was what was exciting when we found out who else was working on the cover album. Some of our favorite bands are on it and the reason that they're our favorite bands is because they're all kind of, like, risk takers.

EF: And probably why all of you guys, ultimately, were chosen for the project.

CD: Yeah, for me I'd rather be someone who failed but failed flamboyantly and kind of interestingly than to play it safe. You know, you can have an acoustic guitar and play anything but it wouldn't be a very adventurous thing to do.

EF: Well, speaking of adventurous, one thing that came up a couple of times, that someone from Dead Oceans mentioned to me, is that you like to cook. I noticed a picture of blueberry pie on your blog (pictured above); and, I'm actually friendly with Olga Bell...

CD: Oh my God, you know Olga?!

EF: Yeah! Yeah, I first saw her play quite a while ago here and really loved her music and then got to know her and we became friends and so I asked her before speaking to you, when I noticed that you went to the same school as her, if she knew you and one of the first things she said was "that girl can COOK!"

CD: Haha! Olga's great...

EF: So, tell me about that - when did you first start cooking? What got you interested in it?

CD: Well. My uncle was a caterer and I started cooking when I was 10 or so and I think cooking really suits me, the kind of improvisational aspect of cooking... but also, I bake a lot too. So baking has the discipline, and doing both is really fun. And, I think I woke up to cooking, in a big way, because I lived in France for a while.

EF: Where did you live in France?

CD: I lived in Normandy... and Paris. I graduated from high school and then I went to France for the first time and, you know, I'd never eaten like that before. And not only did we eat, but we would really eat. It wasn't like a microwave meal or anything I was used to growing up.

EF: Well, are there any regional New England specialties from your childhood that you're particularly fond of eating or cooking? Or, do you have a "signature dish"?

CD: Hm. Okay, well I really like chowder actually, you know... classic. And "signature dish"? Well, I have a fennel apple salad that I make all the time. It's really good. It's really lemony and it has pistachios and olives in it. And, I also really like celeriac a lot so I'll cook with that all the time when it's in season. I think my favorite thing is to go to the market and see what looks the best, you know, even if it's something I've never cooked with, just try to take it home and work with it.

EF: Stepping outside of your comfort zone often...

CD: Yeah, I just got an ice cream maker for Christmas so I made a really good vanilla bean custard and I have this plum brandy someone gave me and I put that on top of the ice cream and it's so good. Sooo good!

EF: Wow, sounds like it.

CD: And I made taro ice cream the other day, Dirty Projectors were in town so I made them some ice cream.

EF: That sounds really good too... have you gotten into any crazy ice creams, like Iron Chef stuff?

CD: Um... haha, I haven't done any, like, salmon roe ice cream or whatever, but I wouldn't be opposed. I'm totally the adventure eater, I'll eat anything. I really like sweetbreads and terrines and things that most people would maybe not like. I like things not going to waste. Or... do you like oysters?

EF: I LOVE oysters.

CD: Yeah, oysters are my weakness. They have great oysters around where I grew up.

EF: Oh man, actually, I'll have to pass along this place I went to when I was in Paris last fall - Huiterie Regis - they were the best oysters I've ever had. It was amazing, it was just oysters and white wine... anyway, are they famous oysters around where you grew up?

CD: Yeah, Duxbury?

EF: Oh sure, those are very well known.

CD: Yeah those are from the town right next door. And then Marionports and things like that. They're so good, they're so briny. I think, my last meal, the first course would probably be oysters. I think they're, like, my favorite thing.

EF: Favorite thing in the world? Ever?

CD: If I had to eat oysters, if I had a whole day where I could just eat oysters... that would be a pretty phenomenal day.

EF: Yeah, you know, I can't argue. So, do you have a favorite restaurant in Jamaica Plain or in New York?

CD: Oh there are a few places. There's a bakery called Joyce in Prospect Heights and I think that's my favorite bakery. It's really French-style, and they have these little upside down plum cakes and they're so good. And they have macaroons, which I really like. But the place I really want to go to eat, that I usually try to go to if I can afford it, is Franny's. They always have really good salad and pizza and wine. In Boston there's a restaurant called Ten Tables and it's in Jamaica Plain where I live, it's like right around the corner, and it's the best. It's so good, they use a lot of local ingredients and it's just really good, really neat, food. What is your favorite restaurant?

EF: My favorite? Oh, I can't really say a favorite - too many - but in my neighborhood I really like Momofuku.

CD: Yeah! I almost said that, that's one of my favorites.

EF: Oh boy, I really really like that place. Because, well obviously their menu changes seasonally and is a lot of fun, but literally anything I've had there has been pretty amazing. Including their sweetbreads actually...

CD: Yeah I heard their sweetbreads are very good.

EF: They are! Especially, like, after a show you know, they're open late which is nice, so especially after a concert - if you've been drinking - you go there and get their pan fried veal sweetbreads with cucumbers and chili sauce and then the pork ramen...

CD: Ohh, that sounds really good.

EF: So good. And actually, their music they play in the dining room is generally pretty good too... do you listen to music as you cook? Do you write songs in your mind as you're cooking at all?

CD: Sometimes. I never write songs at the piano. I go on a lot of walks... but sometimes I listen to music while I cook. I usually put on my LPs... I don't know if it's my latent adolescent upsurge but I got this Joy Division record that I really like to listen to - it sounds so depressing...

EF: Well, they're actually one of my favorite bands. What record is it?

CD: I think it's called Still, is that what it is?

EF: Yep. Oh that's a good one.

CD: It's soo good! It's so good. Like, I never listened to Joy Division growing up and then I got the record and went and saw the movie, which was really great. But... it's really good to cook to, Joy Division. And, what else? Warren Zevon...

EF: Haha! Wow. I don't think I've ever listened to Warren Zevon intentionally.

CD: It's not bad! "Rolling the Headless Thompson Gunner" is a good song, it really is. But I have that, I have some Dolly Parton records...

EF: So, when you put your iPod on shuffle it's often going from "Werewolves of London" to Stravinsky to...

CD: Yeah! And then to like, well I really like Wu Tang Clan. I really like them right now for driving.

EF: Sure, that's because they're really good driving music!

CD: It's really good!

EF: Well, how about plans for you for the future... are you planning any more tours for this year or are you writing anything currently?

CD: I'm writing a lot. I'm probably going to stay home for most of April and I'll be writing. And I'm pretty sure we're going to go to Europe in the fall, which is pretty exciting because I've never toured there. And, I really want to make another record before the year closes so we'll see, we'll see what happens.

EF: And would you go back to Portland for that?

CD: I'm debating it. I'm thinking about that and then there's a couple of other people I'm talking to to figure out what would be best because the songs are really rhythmically dense and so I'm trying to find someone to work with that's really good with percussion and kind of go from there. But, the hardest part about making records is that you make the record and then a year later it's released finally... but now with Dead Oceans I have it set up so that I can record a record and then release it within six months; which, sounds like a long time, but it's not really. So, it's pretty special and I'm excited to do something different.

EF: Well I'm definitely looking forward to whatever comes next. And, I haven't yet seen you live so I'm looking forward to that as well.

CD: It's going to be fun!

EF: Yeah, it's going to be like, you know, Wu Tang except less violent maybe? I don't know though, I don't know what to expect. Might be all hard and like "BROOKLYN WHAT!?"

CD: Ha! Yeah, where I lived in Bed-Stuy was right around the corner from ODB's memorial mural, so I've got much Brooklyn love. It should be fun.

**If you live in New York, you can see White Hinterland TONIGHT at Mercury Lounge**

Listen:
"Dreaming of the Plum Trees" (from Phylactery Factory)
"I Miss You" (originally by Björk, from Stereogum's tribute to Post)

Watch:
"Vessels" live at the Bryant Park Project (from NPR)

See White Hinterland Live:
09 April - New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
19 April - Bloomington, IN @ Culture Shock Music Festival

Visit White Hinterland on MySpace
--
In the recent past, the following bands have been featured as EAR FARM's Band of the Week:
Man Man
We Barbarians
The Dodos
Hey Hey My My
Amy LaVere
Beach House
Computer Perfection
Goes Cube

See the entire list of bands featured as EAR FARM's Band of the Week HERE.