Selles’ “Fading Moments” uses an ambient, chillwave atmosphere to reflect the frailty of life in its structure and tones. This psychedelic trek is led by a droning synthesizer with tones that fade in and out, like a flickering memory of the past that appears dimmer with each passing moment. The halfway points kicks the song into more of a groove that paints imagery of a nighttime city scene. “Fading Moments” reflects on one of life’s greatest struggles: time. The beauty of “Fading Moments” is that it leaves the final resolution of time’s passing imminence to listener interpretation. Still, considering that the percussion stutters and stops very much like an unstable heartbeat toward the track’s conclusion, the frailty of life is certainly one possible theme.

Selles’ debut LP, We Were Giants, is available through a few mediums. Check out Selles’ Bandcamp to purchase the album, or stream it below. The frontman, Michael Jakucs, also makes music under the name The Stars Above. You may remember his name from an interview he did with Obscure Sound last year, which provided a peek at his songwriting process.

The post Selles – “Fading Moments” appeared first on Obscure Sound: Indie Music Blog.

Ryan Kearns: What inspired the formation of Bree and The Whatevers?

Bree Klauser:  It all started when an East Village hair dresser approached me singing in a gay bar about co-writing and recording some dance pop tracks. I had been singing for years and most of my roots were in jazz and musical theater, but I had never seriously considered writing my own music. That short-lived experience gave me my first taste of how satisfying it was to write, perform, and record your own music. After that project wrapped, I bounced around for a year or so with a few collaborators, writing music that was much more reflective of my jazz influences and perhaps the 1970s songwriting styles that have been absorbed through osmosis from my mother’s music tastes. As I sang these songs in restaurants and some dead end spots around town, the music got better, but the collaborators easily strayed away and so many times I found myself starting over again. Eventually, I came to my senses and fell on my good friends and most importantly, family; particularly the very talented guitarist who I had lived with for over 14 years of my life: my brother Matthew Klauser.

We have been playing together for the past year or so and during that time the project has shown the most consistent growth. Last spring, we decided we needed a “project name” because going under my name alone gave people the wrong impression of what our music was, i.e. a lot people will hear the name of a female singer as the project and think “Meh”.

As we were wrapping our brains to find the right name, our drummer at the time said “How ’bout just Bree And The …..whatevers!?” The name was deemed appropriately suitable and sticks to this day

Ryan: When you speak of your jazz influences, can you pinpoint any artist that has a particular influence on your music?

Klauser: Yes! Vocally speaking, Dinah Washington. I’m obsessed with her tone, phrasing and all the like. Overall, I draw a lot of influence from the singers of the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s. We have been described as sounding like a mix of Amy Winehouse and The Doors. Our guitarist Matthew directly draws his influence from the heavy blue rock styling of Jimmy Page. as compositional influence I suppose I am affected by a wide variety of artist and genres,because a large part of writing music is reinventing things you’ve heard before that you liked.

Ryan: Speaking of influences, your music seems to stem from things like personal experiences to favorite anime characters. With a wide range of song subjects, where does your inspiration come from when it comes to song composition?

Klauser: I guess anything that affects me strong enough I can right a song about. I have a tendency to get zealously obsessive about things (and occasionally people). A lot of my earlier stuff was directly from events in me life. I found ways to dramatize or romanticize these instances. Lately, I tend to meditate on a topic and think in a piece meal (i.e. I’ll think of a hook or core idea of a song instantly by some visceral stimulus, but may take weeks or months for me to flesh out the rest of that song or “thought process’”). This isn’t to mean that I don’t believe that certain songs can’t just be trite and fun. I love coming up with hooks along the lines of  “lalala lets fuck!”, but even in the tritest song there needs to be some truth; it can be relevant to your own personal experience or of someone you know. I also like to write narrative songs in which i’m an outsider looking in, even if the main character is me. (Spoiler! This is the perspective I take on “Isolde”)

Ryan: Your band gigs around the highly competitive New York scene, what has your experience been like doing shows in the New York scene?

Klauser: I feel like shows in NYC can sometimes be hit or miss. You can never be in it for the money because the fact of the matter is there are a million other groups that are fighting for the same fans attention. I am so lucky to live the city where live music is ingrained in to our culture. In this town, I’ve played shows for 80 people and I’ve played to a room of 8, but some times even those 8 people shows can be just as exciting depending on the crowds energy. Playing live is my bread and butter.I love that here in New York there are so many opportunities to play out.

Ryan: From my experience, bands either stick to a set list or play songs according to how they feel / how they are reading the crowd’s energy. How do you go about doing live performances in terms of sticking to a set list or not?

Klauser: Usually, I try to order a set list in a way that raises the energy up and down as deemed appropriate for the show. There are times to kick it up and there are times to draw them in. That being said, I don’t like to stick to one model of a set list. There are certain songs that have become bookends for our sets, but other wise we like to mix it up. The one time we decided  to change the set on the spot was at the Make Music New York festival. It was an outdoor festival and we spontaneously started a round robin of high energy songs with band playing across the street, Toys and Tiny Instruments, culminating in a grand finale of both band playing “Alabama Song” together.

Ryan: That sounds awesome! You guys recently ran  an Indiegogo in order to help fund your first recorded EP. Could you go into more detail about the detailed process of the campaign?

Klauser: Well now that we are on the other side of it, I feel much more confident talking about it. We were approached by a very talented engineer/producer to make our next EP with. My brother and I felt it was a good idea to ask for the support of our friends and fans in order to help supplement the cost of making a quality recording. We tried to keep it personable and informal, as made obvious by our livid, silly campaign video, but I got to say it’s a lot harder to ask people than it looks. It was larger endeavor than we imagined, but we were lucky to receive enough funds to at least get us into the studio, which we plan to do later this winter. We are so grateful for everyone who helped spread the word and contributed to our goal.

Ryan: In a book written by Eric Nisenson, a question about the nature of all art was addressed when talking about John Coltrane, the question being : “Is it a means for an artist to exorcise his demons, a kind of therapy or method of self-investigation? Or is it intended to be a form of communication between the artist and the audience?”. What do you think art is for you as a musician?

Klauser: I think it could be all, but the emphasis is on the audience connectivity. One may exorcise their own demon through writing and performing a song, but it is done for the sake of the audience. By writing that song you are making yourself vulnerable to an audience, giving them free reign to interpret that material which ever way they like. The hope is that through investigating or exorcising ones own experience, some people will be able to exorcise their own woes by having a relative experience or allowing us to show them a good time. I suppose for me all art should have some means of catharsis for the audience member.

Ryan: One of my favorite tracks of yours is Lemme Go Back, could tell me more about how that song came to be?

Klauser: It came out of desire to have someone …back: an ex months after everything fell apart, wanting to have things the way they were. Wanting to get off on mere memory of someone’s touch. This desire became diluted into a chant or a prayer, just as one does in a gospel/spiritual song. The result is a dirty soul/ gospel song driven by lust, fantasy and desire.

Ryan: What has been the most rewarding aspect of your career so far?

Klauser: Wow, I would say its a toss up between getting the chance to play and learn from so many talented musicians and gratitude I get from fans when they come up to us after a show or someone across the world sends a kind note when they download our music. For me, it is the energy and ecstasy of a live performance that makes all the nitty gritty BS worthwhile.

Ryan: Where are you looking to take your career in the coming future?

Klauser: It’s really funny you ask about the future because I think for us we are taking it one day at a time. We and myself definitely have big ambitions to write more music and play to more people, Hopefully, one day all over the world The short term goal is to record an epic EP this February with engineer/producer Denise Barbarita with a new line up of musicians sans my brother and I. We’ve got some exciting shows coming up for the new year including Tammany Hall on January 20th and a free show March 22nd at Spike Hill In Williamsburg. We hope to have a kick ass record release show sometime in April or May.

Facebook

The post Interview: Bree And The Whatevers appeared first on Obscure Sound: Indie Music Blog.

Ryan Kearns: What gave you the initial push to start your musical career?

Brook Pridemore: My grandma reminded me, a few years ago that, when I was a kid, I would sit in front of the TV, playing with toys, or whatever. I’d ignore the programs, but drop everything to sing along with the commercials. I don’t remember that, but I DO remember wanting to sing, as I got older. I wanted to be a singer, like Boyz II Men, or Nirvana. But, since I only really fit in with other nerds, and it would be years before it was considered cool to be a nerd, I thought I couldn’t be in a rock band. I thought Rock and Roll was something you were born into. In Winter, 1993, I heard my first They Might Be Giants record. They wore street clothes onstage, and the guitar player wore glasses. Best, their songs were about something besides sex and drugs. I didn’t know what their songs were about, but that was part of the intrigue.

That same Christmas, I got my first guitar, and my first Dead Milkmen CD. The Milkmen were an important discovery because they were nerds, like TMBG, but they were pissed. I started stumbling forward, into a life of creating music. I had never had a method of self-expression, before I discovered music. I am still socially awkward, offstage. But, through song, I have a way of getting ideas across to people.

Ryan: You are affiliated with the anti-folk scene. To be honest, I know nothing about it. Care to explain to what the scene is about and your experience taking part it in?

Pridemore: The real answer to this question takes hours to deliver, is really boring, and is entirely up for debate. What follows is what “Antifolk” has come to mean to me, as a songwriter, over the past decade.

I came to New York in 2002, after I finished college. At my school, I was one of two guys on the folk scene who wrote original songs. Neither of us were any good, but there was me and another guy, and everybody else just did covers. I thought I was creating high art, and would turn my nose up, at the other guys. I knew about Antifolk, after hearing Jeff Lewis’ first album. I knew I had to find these people. When I arrived in New York, I thought the Antifolk scene would be my ticket to overnight stardom. Turns out, it’s been a whole lot more.

My first Monday night Anti-Hootenanny (held at the Sidewalk Cafe in the East Village, and understood to be ground zero for Antifolk), Kimya Dawson and Langhorne Slim were among the first five performers. I was listening to Ryan Adams’ “Heartbreaker” on endless repeat, trying to be a sensitive folk guy. These people were edgy, funny and smart. I realized pretty quickly that I had to either step up my songwriting game, or find a new method of expression.

Thankfully, Antifolk is nothing if not forgiving. Matt Roth said it best when he said that “Antifolk is about process, not product.” It’s essentially a community of like-minded people who get together to workshop the newest, freshest work in their catalog. Some are better than others. Some start sloppy, but grow. For a long time, I didn’t consider a new song to be “officially debuted” until I’d played it on Monday night. For me, Antifolk is where I cut my teeth, where I made my best friends and musical collaborators, and where I can still go to try out new stuff.

Sound-wise, don’t get me started. If you want to be Antifolk, start calling yourself that. No one is going to stop you. I consider it a self-diagnosed genre.

Ryan: Your first LP Metal and Wood dropped in 2003 and your latest LP Gory Details scheduled to drop this year would make it a decade between your debut LP and current day. How has your songwriting changed over the past ten years?

Pridemore: Well, Metal and Wood is a collection of earlier material, recorded before I moved to New York, and filled out with some solo acoustic stuff recorded in fall 2003. I had met Dan Treiber, then the head of Crafty Records, at a show I played with King Missile and Corn Mo in summer ’03. Dan wanted to do an album with me, but didn’t have the money to do new full-length. I suggested we release a compilation of earlier work.

Metal and Wood is important to have around because it reminds me how much I’ve learned about song structure over the past ten years. Several of the songs top the six minute mark, and it’s almost 80 minutes long, which is twice as long as the second longest album I’ve released (A Brighter Light). My favorite moment on it is the song “Teeth,” which I had finished writing in the car, on the way to the studio. I still can’t tell you exactly what it’s about, and I wrote it.

Since then, I’ve been moving toward this ideal of an album having a beginning, a middle and an end, wherein the narrator undergoes a crucial psychic change. Also, I’ve tried to make albums that rock progressively harder, that reflect my current influences without openly aping them, and to try new tunings and new instruments. By circumstance and necessity, my last three albums have all had a different rhythm section, too.

When I started writing Gory Details, I knew I wanted the songs to all be in relative keys to each other. So basically, if the first song was in D, the second song would be in G, and the third in C, and so on. I presented myself with a challenge, setting out to write a series of vignettes that related closely to one another, and flowed in a way that wouldn’t be immediately apparent to the average listener. My favorite aspect of Gory Details is that it begins and ends with a single strum of a D chord and, while each is deliberate and desperate, each manages to convey a different emotion.

Ryan: Speaking of Gory Details, how has the experience been bringing that album to life and what can people expect from the album?

Pridemore: Crafty Records folded. It was really time. All of the other bands on the label had either broken up or decided to take their music elsewhere. I told them I was going to do my next album without them. As it happens, Dan Treiber was an important part of the making of Gory Details, and we still work together on a vastly reduced basis.

I finished the songs in Winter 2011. I had been playing with this band, who were called Brook Pridemore’s Gory Details. We kicked ass. While I was on a European tour, though, the other members’ lives got too big to continue playing with me, and they moved on. I spent a while figuring out what to do with the new album. I very nearly made it a solo acoustic album. I very nearly sang the songs into a tape recorder, mailed one copy to the girl who’d inspired them, and walked away from it. I very nearly played all the instruments, myself. I talked to twenty drummers and fifteen bassists, all of whom were game, but seemed wrong for it. It finally occurred to me that I could just get the guys from the band to play in the studio, and worry about the live band, later. Doug “Bermuda” Johnson and John Telethon were readily available for a couple of sessions, and I recruited Pope James Gibson Telfer IV after I saw him playing upright bass, one night. Brian Speaker and I recorded the songs at SpeakerSonic Studios. Brian’s the best at what he does. We recorded very slowly, for what I’m used to. The whole process took about six months, we were very meticulous, and got everything right.

And then, a funny thing happened. We finished recording in February 2012. I hadn’t written a song in over a year (that’s a very, very long time, for me). I had no clue how to get the record in the hands of a new label, and I knew I didn’t want to self-release it. I thought I was done writing songs. I decided to send my last batch of songs off with a bang. I had had fun making music videos before, so I thought it would be fun to try and make a video for every song on the album. We’ve shot eight of them so far and, wouldn’t you know it, somewhere in there, I started writing songs, again. I was able to start a new band, with Telfer on bass and Daniel Muhlenberg on drums. We’re heavier and tighter than any band I’ve played with, before.

If and when my manager and I finally find a home for Gory Details, I hope listeners find it as funny, heartbreaking, smart and dance-able as I do. I really am incredibly proud of this work.

Ryan: There has been a legislation recently introduced in Congress called the Internet Radio Fairness Act. This legislation will allow Internet radio services such as Spotify and Pandora to pay reduced royalties to artists and record labels. The main way most people enjoy music is through these services and bands get a fairly low royalty rate as it is. How do you feel about this situation? In addition, how do you feel about these services revamping the music industry?

Pridemore: I have never been paid a dime for my music. Literally every cent I have made off my records and touring has gone into the vault to pay for the next record and the next tour. That said, no one else is making money off my music, either. In that Rodriguez documentary, his daughter says, “He is not a rich man in terms of money,” and it has only recently dawned on me that that is becoming my truth, as well. No amount of money can buy the world I’ve gotten the chance to see. However, were this music to become a money-making commodity, my palm had better be the first one to get greased.

Ryan: I must say that I enjoyed the video for your song Celestial Heaven. How was the video developed and is there any underlying messages that the viewers should pick up from watching it?

Pridemore: Casey Mathewson and I bonded over our shared love for edgy comics and huge portions of mutton. He was a photographer, and wanted to break into film. I suggested a music video, and he came up with the basic message that, from waking up to showtime, Brook Pridemore plays music through it all. He wanted to include footage of me eating a taco, because he thought I looked funny while eating.

The song is about a dark period in my life, where I knew I had to find a God to believe in; specifically, a weird couple of months wherein I attended a Spiritualist church, prayed to leprechauns and researched the Mormon church. The conclusion I was led to was: You have to believe in something. Whatever you choose is fine, because it’s all the same thing, anyway.

Ryan: Where do you find your source of inspiration for songwriting?

Pridemore: Life. My friends. Walking around. The most consistent way I make up a melody is walking around, humming something in my head. If I can keep it, I’ll try to flesh it out into something. I’m also in tune with what I’m listening to, and use that influence to craft my songs. I knew I wanted Gory Details to be punk like The Promise Ring and folk like Neil Young, so I listened to a lot of both artists. “Celestial Heaven” is an obvious example of that, what with the “Doot doot” part, at the end. I wear my influences on my sleeve, because we all have them, and my enthusiasm about some weird old record might spurn someone else’s curiosity about something they haven’t heard.

Ryan: One of my personal favorite songs of yours is “The Reflecting Skin”. How did the song come to life?

Pridemore:“The Reflecting Skin” is a 1991 movie, directed by . I’d seen it once, in college, and had been deeply moved by some of the movie’s more graphic scenes. It’s a pretty bleak film, about post-war life in a small Great Plains town. Some of the lines in my song were lifted directly from the movie.

While I was writing this batch of songs, I started outliving friends of mine. Between Spring 2004 and Fall 2005, three friends of mine passed away by their own hands. I had fallen out of touch with all of them and wished I could have helped. As the months passed, though, I realized that every man is responsible for his own actions, and I was powerless to save any of those men. I vowed then and there to live my life to the fullest. The line about the bathroom is intended to give the listener an idea of the dive bars I was playing in (and still do play), and the line about being good without a fight is my battle cry: that I will not go gently into that dark night.

Ryan: One of my favorite musicians, Brandon Boyd, believes that art and music are a great means of driving social change. Do you follow the same mindset or do you differ?

Pridemore: Well, yes. Art can effect social change. My music can, in the right (or wrong, I guess) have a profound impact on social change. But I don’t spend a lot of onstage time talking politics, because I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about politics. As a performer, I’m more concerned with making people’s lives a little brighter with my songs, than anything else. I hope no one gets hung up on what opinions I may express offstage, or on how my lyrics can be interpreted. My opinions change, and while my lyrics don’t, they do come to mean different things, with time.

Kurt Vonnegut once said something like, “The job of every artist is to make people forget about how awful life is, even if only for a little bit.” I consider myself charged with that task. How people interpret my songs is none of my business.

Ryan: When I listen to your music, the one thing really drew me to appreciate it is that it reminded me of John Darnielle’s work. How big of an influence is he on your career if at all?

Pridemore: Yeah, I’m a big Mountain Goats fan. The only thing I’ll say in my defense- if someone suggests I’m a little too derivative-is that I sounded like this before I heard them. But yes, I buy every record the day it’s released (I want there to always be record stores), and I’ve seen them live, like ten times. John has three of my records, and I hope he likes them.

Brook Pridemore’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/brookpridemoremusic

The post Interview: Brook Pridemore appeared first on Obscure Sound: Indie Music Blog.

Ryan Kearns: Since you are such a young musician still in college, what gave you the initial push to form this project? What gave you the inspiration to name it The Stars Above?

Michael Jakucs:  It was for that very reason that I began The Stars Above. College is a very interesting time and I wanted to have a way to chronicle the memories, feelings and emotions that run through the four years. The newest release Shoreline features songs that I wrote throughout my four years of college. Each song represents a different time and memory. I guess it’s fitting that I released it this year near the end of my senior year. Also, I have always been interested in astronomy and the potential that space offers. I often gaze at the stars to lose myself and remember that there is so much more to the universe than any problem I am facing. I felt that a dense soundscape was fitting to capture my thoughts and the essence of my impression of the world around me.

Ryan: There has been a legislation recently introduced in Congress called the Internet Radio Fairness Act. This legislation will allow Internet radio services such as Spotify and Pandora to pay reduced royalties to artists and record labels. Now, the main way most people enjoy music is by the use of Spotify or Pandora and bands get a fairly low royalty rate as it is. How do you feel about this situation? In addition, how do you feel about these services revamping the music industry?

Jakucs: From an artist’s standpoint, I can understand the disappointment and anger, seeing as it is their work and a company rather than the creators are benefiting  however, it is not fair to have one’s music used by a company for profit while the author is not getting paid. I rarely use services like Pandora or Spotify because I prefer to discover music on a more personal level, such as delving into the influences of band’s I am currently listening too. I discovered bands like Godflesh, Isis, and Cave In, which have had a big influence on my music, by this very method. In the Internet age,some people have a tendency to want everything handed to them, and they can grow complacent and detached from the work and message intended by the musicians.

Ryan: What has the experience been like bringing this project to life?

Jakucs: It has been a wonderful journey. As I said before, I began this project to chronicle memories, and decided to share it for anyone who may be interested in listening or going through the same things. It has been very humbling and rewarding to see how far it has come and it leaves me hopeful and excited for what the future will bring. There will always be good times and bad times, but without the bad, there would never be value to the good.

Ryan: How has the writing process changed between the project’s debut LP Clouds and it’s most recent release Shoreline?

Jakucs: The ideas for the songs of Clouds and Shoreline share a very similar creative process. I would come up with a riff or idea on either the guitar or piano and then build it within pro tools. They also shared the same mindset and goal of mixing alternative, post rock and electronic aesthetics to create something more unique. I am currently working on new songs, which have been taking on a completely different mold. They focus more on organic sounds, odd time signatures, and a more dynamic rise and fall within the song. Rather than building an idea with multiple instruments, I am initially writing these entirely on a guitar or piano and then adding on the accompaniment that seems most relevant around it.

Ryan: Normally, the music that someone composes for a song matches the mood of the lyrics effectively portraying the song’s message. In your song “As You Crumbled”, the lyrical content is rather somber, while your musical content is joyous. Were you trying to express the concept of finding joy in sorrow or were you trying to push artistic boundaries?

Jakucs: The chorus was the first idea for that song that popped into my head, and the words seemed to write themselves immediately. It wasn’t a conscious push for a joy in sorrow type of concept; rather it was letting the song speak for itself. With the concept of deconstruction in mind, the binary of joy and sorrow cannot be understood without each other. In that way, the melancholic lyrics are made more apparent by the joyous instruments and vice versa.

Ryan: As the use of technology in music has advanced in the past few year, do you suppose this more focused use of technology in music hinders the creativity of musicians or expands it?

Jakucs: I think technology, like anything, can be used for both progression and regression. There are bands that push technology and really show the possibilities music can now achieve, and then there are the cookie cutter types of music that follow a set mold and use a mouse and key to take away any sort of human quality from the music. Technology has allowed me to achieve the arrangements I want. It also allows for easy experimentation, sonic exploration, and a greater social reach via the Internet. One of my dreams is to use analog equipment at some point in the future, but the digital age has definitely worked for me so far.

Ryan: On your bandcamp page, the track “Farewell (For Now)” is described as being “for that special girl while I’m in Ireland”. Care to elaborate on the story behind that?

Jakucs: I studied abroad there for a summer, and was in a serious relationship at the time. I find music is a much better way to communicate than simple language, so I wrote the song for both of us to have something to listen to and remember the good times while I was away.

Ryan: Since you run the entire process of writing the band’s material, do you feel like that makes it harder because of the work load being greater or easier because you are allowed to have your creativity run wild?

Jakucs: It is definitely a little bit of both, but I prefer it this way. I recently had a conversation with a good friend of mine who is adamantly opposed to “one-man bands,” but I think it’s the best way to get a personal message channeled through the music. I was in multiple bands in high school and my biggest gripe was having to compromise on the music. As an artist, it’s nice to say exactly what you want to in every part of a song without any compromise. At times it can be a little tricky when trying to write interesting parts for every instrument, but the challenge is also very rewarding.

Ryan: One of my favorite musicians, Brandon Boyd, believes that art and music are a great means of driving social change. Do you follow the same mindset or do you differ?

Jakucs: Personally, I don’t want to get involved in trying to bring about social or political change; but rather encourage people to think for themselves and formulate their own set of beliefs. I tend to make instrumental music because I want the listener to create his or her own meaning. When I do put lyrics in a song, they are always deeply personal and really intended for my own contemplation. It’s my own way of figuring out my own beliefs, and hopefully it does the same for those who listen. There are a lot of great musicians that put social messages into their lyrics, but I’d rather encourage the listener to think for, and about themselves.

Ryan: Where are you looking to take this project from here?

Jakucs: I’m currently in the process of putting a band together to play some shows. I am also in the thick of recording next album and writing more for my next project. There is definitely a shift in sound and tone in my latest work,but it remains true to the purpose of the project, which is the importance of memory and reflection.

MP3: “Shoreline“, “Limbo”

Bandcamp /Facebook

The post Interview: The Stars Above appeared first on Obscure Sound: Indie Music Blog.

Ryan Kearns: Your band is described on its Facebook and website as a weekly music and art project. Would you care to elaborate what is meant by that?

Josh Kirby: This band was started as an experiment to try out new models of music distribution. The idea was to write, record and release a new song every week and pair each song with an original poster done by Nicholas Pizzolato (Moving Mountains).  The ten songs that make up Year.01 are a result of that experiment, one song a week for ten weeks with ten original designs. Soon after the tenth song I became really busy with with touring and wasn’t able to keep up with the project so I placed it on hiatus and haven’t been able to restart it since.

Ryan: With only one album release, the band is still a young band in the scene. How do you see the band going from here into the future?

Kirby: Currently, since the project’s on hiatus and since I’ve been busy with other projects, I’ve just been writing and demoing a lot. Once my life settles down a bit I’d like to return to a version of the “song-a-week” model that I was working with before.

Ryan: In a recent interview with Pitchfork, My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James said “you relate to it because it’s so painful, but I’m tired of being in pain”. When he said that he was talking about his love for Nirvana, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young. That being said, a good bit of your music talks about pain, but in a good way instead of a whiny way. How do you feel about the way music deals with pain? Does it help the artist and audience contend with it or does it do more harm than good?

Kirby: I’m generally a pretty happy guy, happier, I’d say, than most and in my own experience, the pain that comes across through my music is almost always by accident. I’ll write something in a very stream-of-conscious way and then look back and think “Holy shit, what’s wrong with me?” I guess it’s just my sub-conscious’ way of balancing out my personality.

As a listener, music is a great way to deal with anything negative. If you’re feeling crummy about something and you hear a song where the artist is talking about feeling crummy about something then you feel unified in your “crummy-ness” and that usually makes you feel better. The danger, though, can be looking too deeply into the specifics of what the artist is actually talking about. Finding out a song you connect with on an incredibly deep level is actually about a cat or about a cheeseburger can be super disappointing  For me, it’s better to just interpret the way it best relates to you and let the artist keep the true meaning to themselves.

Ryan: In a book written by Eric Nisenson, a question about the nature of all art was addressed when talking about John Coltrane, the question being : “Is it a means for an artist to exorcise his demons, a kind of therapy or method of self-investigation? Or is it intended to be a form of communication between the artist and the audience?”. What do you think art is for you as a musician and artist?

Kirby:For me it’s a little bit of both, the process of writing is very much a process of self-discovery (which is sometimes therapeutic but mostly a frustrating dive into the worst things about yourself) but then choosing to put that art out into the world is my way of trying to communicate to an audience.

Regardless of how an artist views the nature of their art I think it’s very important that it’s always a representation of themselves and their views. If you’re not creating art first and foremost for yourself then you’re not really an artist, you’re just trying to be the best version of something else, and when you do that you will always fall short.

Ryan: When listening to your album Year. 01 I began to feel like one of the major influences on the band’s material on the album was the band, Brand New. How much of an influence was the band on the sound and construction of Year. 01? Also, what else has influenced you as a musician?

Kirby:Brand New has definitely been a major influence on my entire career as a musician, they’re one of those bands that’s sort of ubiquitous as an influence to every band out now, especially in this scene.

Influence for me isn’t usually a linear progression of “I like this band, now I’m going to write a song like this band.” Most of the time I can’t really tell where my influences came from until a song is completed and I can go back and say “That part sounds like this band and this other part sounds like this band mixed with this band.” It’s also not really dependent on what I’m listening to either, I could be influenced by a song I’ve only heard once and not be influenced by something I actively listen to every day.  There’s no real way to control what filters out into what I’m writing. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve written something and then later thought “Shit, is that ‘Call Me Maybe’?”

Ryan: Since you run the entire process of writing the band’s material, do you feel like that makes it harder because of the work load being greater or easier because you are allowed to have your creativity run wild?

Kirby: Solo projects like this are kind of a double edged sword. There’s no one to have creative conflicts with during the writing process but that also means that when you’re stuck or you have writers block you have no one to lean on. Creativity is weird like that, especially for me, it doesn’t usually flow like this ‘magical life-energy’ like most people think, it kind of sputters and coughs and chugs along randomly like an old old car. I would say probably 85% percent of the time I’m “writing a song” I’m really just sitting in a chair holding my guitar and staring at the wall.

Ryan: One of my personal favorite tracks off of Year. 01 was the track “onceevertwiceover”. How did it come to life and how did the songwriting process go?

Kirby: That song, like most songs I write, started with some random strumming and humming that was probably pretty indistinguishable from a dying animal. In that mess somewhere I found a little sliver of something that I liked and I used that as the starting point for my next round of strumming and humming. Then after probably about an hour of this iterative loop of messy garbage a melody or a structure or a chorus or verse starts to bubble up to the surface.  At that point I usually record the little bit of a song I have so I don’t forget it and walk away from it for a little while. Then when I come back, usually the next day, I make sure I still like what I had and then I continue the loop until the song’s done, however long that takes.

Ryan: Most bands name their albums off of a song from the album. How did you come up with the name Year. 01 since there is no title track?

Kirby: The album was actually named before any of the songs were written.  My ultimate vision for the project was to be able to do a song a week for most of the year and build this catalog of music over time (year.01, year.02, year.03…) but I ended up getting too busy to keep up the pace of a song a week so “Year.02” hasn’t materialized yet.

Ryan: How did you happen to name your band Mount Carmel and The End Of The World?

Kirby: It’s actually a line from the book “Good Omens” by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. There’s a character in the book called Death who’s speech is written in all caps and there is one page where he only has two lines “MOUNT CARMEL” and “AND THE END OF THE WORLD.”

Ryan: Now in this day and age with the internet being both a blessing and curse to musicians, why are you a musician? 

Kirby: I’ve been playing music since I was two years old so at this point it’s not really a choice to be a musician, it’s just part of living.

The internet is only a curse to people who decide it’s a curse and give up on trying to innovate. I’ve met so many musicians on the road who complain about how many more records they would be selling if people weren’t stealing their music online but fail to realize that it’s exactly that word-of-mouth file sharing culture that made their band popular in the first place. In my mind, the exposure that musicians have gained because of the internet has opened far more revenue streams than it has closed. Sure, no one is buying records anymore, and that sucks, but since artists now have a direct link to their fans they can utilize that to figure out what fans are actually willing to spend their money on and give that to them instead. Artists can print special edition merch for their fans, do limited edition art, stream live concerts from their bedrooms, sell weird crafts that they make, make goofy YouTube videos, promote their blogs…. what ever else they’re into besides music that they can use as a revenue stream and embrace the internet’s ability to turn their music-fans into their personal-fans.

The post Interview: Mount Carmel and the End of the World appeared first on Obscure Sound: Indie Music Blog.

NJ-based five-piece Their Planes Will Block Out The Sun show great strengths on their upcoming EP Brasil. A track on the EP that reflects the band’s name starts with a guitar quietly flying off a small repeating riff, with a bass line that smooths things out and transforms the feel into ’90s alt-rock nostalgia. When Victor Fernandes’ fluid vocals emerge, his first lyrics tout the band’s full name: “Their Planes Will Block Out The Sun.” Even more self-aware, the lyrics include the name of the band’s bassist, Wayne Green. With these direct mentions, the track suggests that Their Planes is reflecting on how their lives have progressed since childhood. Another aspect that makes this track memorable is its phenomenally restrained song structure. It commences with a slow, subdued feeling that is at its core rather emotional, while still feeling contained. Then around the 3.5 minute mark the song starts to take off, signaled by the lyrics “see you at the meltdown.” However, the structure remains patient, avoiding clichéd explosive hooks. The art of restraint is one aspect of modern music that often goes overlooked. Many can write a song that explodes and takes off like a cheetah. It is when you find an artist writing a song that seems to be in control of itself that true musicianship shines most brightly. This track, along with another EP effort “The Hunter”, show this well.

RIYL: Merchandise, Sebadoh, Slint, DeVotchKa, Dinosaur Jr., Guided by Voices

Official Site / Bandcamp / Facebook

The post Their Planes – “The Hunter” appeared first on Obscure Sound: Indie Music Blog.