Meg Baird is a singer-songwriter who first rose to prominence as part of storied psych-folk outfit Espers, a Philadelphia collective whose three full-lengths crystallized the sound of the more somber and sonically kaleidoscopic elements of the mid-aughts “Freak Folk” scene. Between Espers’ second and third records, Baird released Dear Companion, an understated but deeply affecting solo record consisting primarily of covers and traditional songs. Those who fell immediately under Meg’s spell had to wait an excruciating four years for the follow-up, Seasons on Earth, which arrived on Drag City this Fall. Some songs find Baird joined, variously, by Marc Orleans, Steve Gunn, and Chris Forsyth on guitar. The focus on originals and the inclusion of other musicians expand the sound ever so slightly, though it’s still grounded in Meg’s signature playing style and voice. I spoke with Meg just before she played a show to celebrate the release at Brooklyn’s Union Pool.
VR: Your first solo LP, Dear Companion, was just your voice and guitar. What was the impetus to bring in additional players for this record?
Meg: It happened pretty organically. It was all people that I knew and it was like, “Oh, we should play together,” and then just following through. I didn’t know Marc [Orleans] too well at first but I’ve gotten to know him through D.Charles Speer & The Helix. Steve [Gunn], he actually lived in Philly, so I’ve known him for a long time.
Guitarist and composer James Blackshaw is a singular force in underground music. From his earliest releases on standard-bearing labels like Digitalis and Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, to the expansive, stylistically diverse sound of his two most recent full-lengths for Michael Gira’s Young God Records, Blackshaw has simultaneously explored the sonic possibilities of the guitar and the outer reaches of his own considerable compositional talent. The result is a discography defined by Blackshaw’s virtuosic playing, with each record a finely focused exploration of a playing approach or atmosphere. Blackshaw has just release his latest,All Is Falling, and has embarked on a brief North American tour in between stints supporting Swans in Europe.
Blackshaw’s tourmates are the accomplished electronic and processed guitar duo Mountains, old friends who make for a solid double-bill for interested punters. “Generally a lot of people are really interested in both even if they didn’t know one or the other beforehand, it’s a good match. Its been a lot of fun and I enjoy watching their sets night after night which I can’t always say. Even if you like something, it can be hard to watch people play sets ever night. Its been really good, though.”
Recent supporting slots for Swans have found receptive audiences in Europe and the UK, “Swans have quite a diverse fan base but I was concerned that a big chunk of people – if it’s not super loud they’d be like “What the hell is this folky shit?” – you know, this nerd up on stage. But they went really well. Generally speaking, it seemed like a lot of people who went to see Swans ‘got it,’ which is as much as I can ask.” Not all UK shows have gone as well throughout Blackshaw’s career, however. “I think UK audiences cans be really tough. I think I can say that as one of us. For years and years, truthfully, I didn’t massively enjoy playing London for example. Its gotten a lot better, I think people have become more receptive and interested in what I’m dong. I’m from London and I love London and I like Londoners but we’re not always the warmest people.” (more…)
From Harmonia to Neu!, early Kraftwerk to his solo recordings, Michael Rother is a living legend in the world of experimental music. After Harmonia, his project with Cluster’s Hans Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius, made its final live appearance last year, Rother resurrected the music of Neu! in a living tribute called “Hallogallo 2010”. Formerly a duo with the late Klaus Dinger, the group now consists of Rother on guitar and electronics, bassist Aaron Mullan (longtime Sonic Youth sound engineer and guitarist/vocalist in the band Tall Firs) and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, who has also recently appeared in Pete Nolan’s Spectre Folk project.
Live, the Hallogallo experience is a combination of grooving uplift — provided by Mullan and Shelley’s expert rhythm work — and maximalist processed guitar maneuvers by Mr. Rother. Rother has a long association and appreciation for All Tomorrow’s Parties, and has participated in ATP events on three continents. “I like the ATP family. I’m friends with quite a few of the organizers and it’s great to see their faces again everywhere. I’ve seen them in the UK, America, and Australia. They have a good selection of music and [the festival] has a very pleasant feel.”
Although music is at the heart of ATP, the event is distinguished by its diverse selection of extracurricular activities. “I was too late to baseball, I haven’t played cards yet, but we played tennis yesterday,” explains Aaron Mullan. “Hard court, it’s good. Not too many people [at ATP] are actually good at sports.” Despite his renowned sound-mixing abilities and longtime association with Sonic Youth, Mullan is such a modest guy that we wonder how he was drafted into Rother’s Neu!-reviving supergroup. (more…)
Greg Fox is an incredibly busy Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist who participates in the groups Teeth Mountain, Guardian Alien, Liturgy, and his solo project GDFX (among others), and runs the Infinite Limbs record label. Guardian Alien performed at the second day of NY Eye & Ear, and their mesmerizing set of processed vocals, explosive percussion, and expert Japan Banjo playing had me itching to pick Greg’s brain on a number of issues. Topics discussed include Blues Control, the amoral New York Post, and Fox’s upcoming July 4th blowout at Shea Stadium.
Max Burke: Tell me about the genesis of the GDFX project – how it came to be, and where it is currently.
Source of Yellow are a (mostly) Brooklyn-based trio who play a tightly focused strain of experimental music with a concentration and passion atypical of many improv units. The group consists of Nawi Avila, Nick Hasty, and Peter Kerlin. As the opening group on day two of the NY Eye & Ear Fest, they effectively roused me from my early afternoon stupor with a blistering set that barely topped 15 minutes. The group has just self-released their debut on vinyl and I got to speak with them about the challenges and rewards of putting out your own record, the pleasures of Charleton Heston’s The Omega Man, and their own personal low-end theory.
Max Burke: How long have you guys been together?
Peter Kerlin: Two years. Nawi and I had been in another band called The Holy Childhood and then I stopped playing music for a while and then I met Nick in this graduate program we were in; he was a student of mine, and we started playing. Nawi and I were fantasizing about having a band that would be all low-end — Nawi playing baritone sax, me playing bass…
I would describe the experience of doing an interview with Cameron Stallones of Sun Araw as both thrilling and nerve-racking. Thrilling in that you’re likely to end up with something really thought-provoking and surprising. Nerve-racking because considering how much care Stallones puts into his output, I knew that I really had to bring my A-game. After several hours of bleeding over questions, several spirited email exchanges, and much anticipation, I am at last able to present to you the interview you see here, along with the track “The Stakeout: Reprise” off of ON PATROL, Sun Araw’s latest album. I don’t know about you, but I think this song could be the soundtrack to the buddy cop movie that exists somewhere in my subconscious.
Samantha Cornwell: I know that you do all of your own album art work for Sun Araw, and seem to have a pretty clear vision of how you want your music to be represented visually. How do you feel this aesthetic unity effects the Sun Araw experience and sets it apart from other musical projects that you are familiar with? Have you applied a similar rigor to previous musical projects of your own?
Cameron Stallones: I want the zones to flow all the way through, start to finish, eyes to ears, brainpan to inner visions. That’s really powerful and important to me. I just can’t help but get stoked about the object-creation side of it anyhow, such a heavy scene! Not to mention the ability to physically realize for others the inner-zones that you’ve been dwelling in so long while recording. Thankfully, in most of the other bands I’ve been in, people have been down and had similar goals. In Magic Lantern the artwork is always a collab, but those dudes like getting down into it, making something really thorough. I guess those are complicated ways of saying I can be super picky, though. But a lot of the bands I idolize are those that were super singular in their aesthetic visions as well as their music. I just see it as preparing the way for the jams, folding them in love. (more…)
Back To The Future The Ride, s/t free mini-l.p. on Deathbomb Arc
It seems an almost weekly occurrence in the music world: a luminary of the punk/avant-garde/whatever scene invents a pseudonym and starts a meditative side project that can be lazily tagged “drone” or “synth” or “ambient.” It’s easy to become quite jaded with all of this cerebral material. Just a few years ago, going noise was the most cynical move in the book; most of the strivers figured out there wasn’t any money in it and moved along. Next-wave artists who have channeled the kind of introspection that five years ago would almost certainly have been plowed into contact mics and redundant delay pedals have started picking up vintage keyboards and “going deep” on a seemingly endless stream of cassette labels and collector-baiting ultra-limited vinyl editions, while many noise veterans have hitched their wagon to the inexplicable but lucrative goth dance craze.
Entering the fray is Brian Miller, Los Angeles underground scene stalwart, Deathbomb Arc label-runner, and founder of the late, lamented forward- thinking punk collective Rose for Bohdan. He used to run around with legendary improv unit Gang Wizard, and currently heads up the stunning four-drummer revue Foot Village. Bottom line: he’s been making Los Angeles cool for well over a decade. Oh yeah, his cat has a blog too. I’ve known Brian for a long time. Full disclaimer: I used to intern at Deathbomb Arc in the mid-00’s, which at that point he was still running out of his parent’s Burbank garage – an effortlessly punk setup. When I heard he was doing a new project, and already had three releases planned, I was excited but a bit skeptical. The solo drone/ambient project under an ironic moniker schtick seemed a bit too trite for Miller, a musical lifer who has toured all over the world and seen many a hyped scene come and go. (more…)
One of the things I was really looking forward to at SXSW was sitting down for a chat with some of the artists I had been following for a long time but had only had the opportunity of corresponding with over the internet. Rangers‘ Joe Knight, who released a stunning record of “pop songs” on Olde English Spelling Bee earlier this year, was high on my list. Sadly, the interview I had planned to conduct out with him out there never came to be. It was such a hectic week for both of us that somehow we only managed to say a quick hello as he and the other members of the SXSW Rangers “band” — which had convened for the first time in Austin that week — were lugging their gear out of the backyard where the Micro-Pixel-Rites showcase was hosted. Fortunately, we were able to catch up on the information super highway when we both got home.
Last week was a big week for Rangers, marking not only your first appearance at SXSW, but also some of your first live appearances period. How would you describe the whole SXSW experience? Anything weird or unusual happen?
Dunno. It was a lot of fun. I guess it was random how it came about. I’m from Texas and have been to SXSW a bunch and I was tentativley planning to go just for fun and to catch up with some friends from back home. Then I started to get some offers to play shows, so I started to throw the idea around with my friend Peter and we were trying to think of the best way to swing it. We had some friends who were down to go and ready to practice; we practiced a bit and that was that. We had a great time. (more…)
Mountains, Live at Le Poisson Rouge, Unsound Festival, February 10, 2010.
The first major snowstorm of 2010 in New York City occasioned one of the most noteworthy nights of the Unsound Festival. The festival, which originated in Poland and is making its stateside debut this year, is a two-week series of concerts, film screenings, talks, and other special events in Manhattan with a focus on experimental dance and electronic music. Tonight’s concert took place at Le Poisson Rouge, a relatively new downtown venue that seeks to bring classical and experimental music to the beer-swilling masses in a club setting. LPR is relatively small with an impressive sound system suited to avant garde musics, which often hinge on subtle gestures and deep listening for success. (more…)
Death Unit at Coco66 in Greenpoint, January 29, 2010
At the midpoint of the last decade, it seemed possible that noise music was ready to reach an audience beyond a core group of hardcore scene aficionados, record collector nerds, other musicians, fringe Euro art enthusiasts, and Midwestern basement hangers-on. Wolf Eyes toured with Sonic Youth and released the epochal Burned Mind after signing with Sub Pop. Carlos Giffoni inaugurated his first No Fun Fest with a mind-boggling line-up of artists from all corners of the scene. Giffoni’s own No Fun Productions tracked the development of noise from 2005 onwards with a carefully curated selection of just over fifty releases in five years, a surprisingly lean number of offerings from a scene known for its sometimes comical prolificacy. Lightning Bolt was gaining some overground attention with a brand of hyper-charged punk that merged noise and thrash metal with the strong aesthetic appeal of the legendary Fort Thunder collective. (more…)
Mountains, Live at Le Poisson Rouge, Unsound Festival, February 10, 2010.
Death Unit at Coco66 in Greenpoint, January 29, 2010
