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sinceileftyoublog · 10 months

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The Pines of Rome Interview: Sounding the Alarm

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Some reunions happen off the cuff, a band simply finding themselves in the same room again, missing what they had and immediately deciding to get back together. Others, like that of Rhode Island slowcore band The Pines of Rome, seem to happen over a number of years, a result of shifts in modes of thought. Yes, the pandemic caused guitarist/vocalist Matthew Derby to finally reach out to guitarist John Kolodij, but events in his circles both close and broad was what lit the spark.

20 years ago, The Pines of Rome played what was then supposed to be their final show. While they were never a political band, Derby was always involved in the local arts community in Providence, a scene that’s long been uniquely closely intertwined with political organizing through organizations like AS220. Over time, though, not playing music, Derby became less and less involved, ultimately feeling “detached,” as he told me over the phone earlier this year. A day after Donald Trump was inaugurated, one of the stalwarts of the local arts community, writer and activist Mark Baumer, was killed by an SUV while walking barefoot across America to raise awareness of climate change. Though Derby mourned Baumer’s death, he took the time to self-reflect and started to become involved again in the local arts community. And when he started writing songs again, he knew he had to write one about Baumer, which turned into “I am a road”, the first track on what would be come the first The Pines of Rome album in 20 years, The Unstruck Bell (Solid Brass).

After Derby and Kolodij started jamming, they contacted the band’s drummer Rick Prior and recruited a new member, bassist Steven Kimura. They entered the studio with prolific producer Seth Manchester, knowing they had something, not necessarily an album, but a collection of songs that at least continued on the post-rock journey they paused decades prior. “The By & By” featured an interplay among exploding distortion, mammoth snares, and gentle harmonics. “Slick Enhancer” was deliberate, too, featuring guitars that were at once rounded and raw. The comparatively twangy “White Ships” chugged along, but used silence and space like you’d expect from a band inspired by the slowcore acts of the early 90′s. Eventually, though, they decided to shake things up a little bit. “REDACTED” spotlighted shuffling electronic tape loops. “Siren” and “I am a road” featured acoustic, finger-picked guitar. With a little bit of reigning in from Manchester during times they wanted to go too over-the-top with instrumentation (Derby recalls the band wanting to put a harmonium on “I am a road” simply because it was there in the studio, Manchester standing firm and saying no), it turned out The Pines of Rome did, in fact, have an album. The Unstruck Bell was released in May.

The Pines of Rome also have returned to the stage, playing with contemporary kindred spirits like Cloakroom and an album release show at the Columbus Theatre in Providence last month. But before Derby even practiced for those shows, he started writing new material. The band plans to go back in studio with Manchester later in the year. He’ll probably have to be honest with them about their loopiest instrumental ideas. In the meantime, though, they were able to do what they wanted live, and yes, their sets purportedly included a full-band version of “I am a road”.

Read my interview with Derby, edited for length and clarity, below. He speaks about how it feels to be back, the state of post-rock, political music, and being inspired by new bands.

Since I Left You: Despite the presence of your new band member, does it feel like you never left? Or are you starting anew?

Matthew Derby: There is an element of that kind of cliché. There’s just something about the way John and I write. There’s some alchemy happening with our two guitar parts I’m never able to replicate on my own. When I try to write my own stuff, it ends up sounding like the worst kind of Journey ballad, which is dignifying them too much. Neither of us were able to achieve on our own what we got out of playing together. When John and I started playing again, we picked up right where we left off, and it was a tremendous relief. I didn’t know what I was missing. It felt really powerful to be able to have that articulation or musical language that really only works when we’re collaborating.

SILY: Do you feel like you had any newfound inspirations or influences this time around, whether instrumental, thematic, and/or lyrical?

MD: That’s a really good question. Definitely, in terms of influences, in our first incarnation, the combination was largely the Saddle Creek-style folk stuff that was happening in the late 90′s, and post-rock, which we were really heavily influenced by, bands like Rex, June of 44, and Bedhead. We were trying to combine those two influences. In the 90s, [I thought] that post-rock bands [were] going to stay around and keep making music forever, and [the] new form [would] become folk or jazz or whatnot. Five years later, it was gone completely. All of those bands disappeared. In a way, we started [The Pines of Rome] again because we were missing that. I personally wanted more of that kind of music in the world. At the same time, our tastes have changed over the course of 20 years. The genre striation that was around in the 90s has given way to a much more permissive musical culture, where genre distinctions are quaint and old fashioned. One of the bands we look to as a model stylistically and lyrically and musically is Big Thief. They’ve merged so many genres into this new Americana that’s hard to pin down and describe but feels very much like their creation.

SILY: Post-rock can go two ways, as does slowcore. The Bedheads of the world get the Numero Group treatment, while the cleaner, atmospheric bands like Explosions in the Sky or Mogwai soundtrack commercials. And sometimes you can get more metal or jazzy with it. Do you feel like that’s true to the spirit of the original post-rock, this genre-less style of music?

MD: I don’t know that I would have articulated it that way, but it’s a good summary. There’s more to explore in that space, and we felt compelled to push it in new directions but also retain whatever unique spin on it we could provide to add our voice to the chorus of people still trying to explore that stylistic train.

SILY: The bands that endure or endured, like Low, Yo La Tengo, and Lambchop, are unafraid to embrace things once looked at as cheating, like AutoTune and drum machines, and put it in their music in a tasteful way. It speaks to that lack of purity you refer to.

MD: Invoking genres [in general], there’s a way in which, like AutoTune, you’re bringing in a stylistic quality that’s been celebrated and maligned. Once the hype and the backlash has died down, it’s another way bands can express themselves. When John and I started playing again, one of our rules was, “If it feels good, keep doing it.” It seems like the most obvious aesthetic you could possibly make, but the initial hesitation of, “Are we just going to sound like Bedhead?” or any band popular 20 years ago that sound really dated, was replaced by, “Let’s just pursue this to our logical conclusion.” Run through our filter, it might not sound like anything we’re afraid of imitating.

SILY: Is there a song on the album where the rule of, “If it feels good, keep going,” led to something unexpected?

MD: The first few songs that we wrote were the last song, “Slick Enhancer”, and “White Ships”, which are slow tempo, open and spacious, with this culmination in big, crashing tsunami waves. To us, that was where we naturally go. We started, and thought, “Let’s go with it. This is what we do.” We play these slow, deliberate songs where we carve out negative space and fill it in at dramatic points in the song. Then, we thought, “Uh oh, we’re on the verge of writing a fourth song that does that same thing.” At that point, we deliberately changed course. There definitely is a point where you have to break your own rule because you don’t want to make every song on the album sound the same. We started to challenge ourselves. We said, “Let’s try to write a song in a completely different style.” Someone said, “Let’s write a krautrock song!” John started to come up with a riff that eventually turned into “Redacted”, which is not something anyone would listen to and say, “This sounds like Neu!” Its genesis, though, came from our desire to not want the album to be one note and to explore a different sonic terrain. We took a left turn, and what came out is not at all what we tried to put in, which was a lesson to us. We can try to deliberately rip off anyone we want, but it will always come out the other end sounding like what we do. We loosened up, and have been doing a lot more of it since the album was recorded.

SILY: In hindsight, that shuffling at the beginning of “Redacted” reminded me a little of maybe not Neu!, but Tortoise. It does chug along.

MD: Yeah. The initial impulse was the song “Hallogallo” from the first Neu! album. We originally played it where we all had volume pedals and tried to manually ramp up the volume. It was originally 8 minutes long and...started with the drums barely playing. [When] we brought it into Machines with Magnets, Seth Manchester said, “Guys...I don’t think this is the spirit of the song. Let’s find another way in.”

SILY: It’s an effective second single, though, because if the first taste of the new music was “Slick Enhancer”, which sounds like you never left, this one is a bit more unexpected.

MD: That was what we were hoping. I’m glad that came across.

SILY: What’s the inspiration behind the lyrics of “I am a road”?

MD: There was a poet and activist in Rhode Island who used to teach at Brown, Mark Baumer. He was a really influential creative person in the Providence arts community in the early 2000s. He was in the MFA Program at Brown and taught poetry. He was rigorously experimental and did all kinds of weird things. One day, he showed up to his poetry class in his coveralls and just cowered in the corner and pretended to be scared of the class, and that was his poetry class. He was also really involved in organizing. He was part of this group called The FANG Collective, an abolitionist group. They were originally protesting the [Iraq War] and [War in Afghanistan], and he actually chained himself with a bike lock to the door of the headquarters of Textron, a company in Rhode Island building cluster bombs causing horrendous collateral deaths in Afghanistan. He was arrested for that.

He was a really influential figure. I knew him and was always kind of intimidated by him. We’d go to readings together, and I’d say a few words to him. He had this practice of walking across America barefoot to bring awareness to climate collapse. He went around the country once and raised a bunch of money. In 2016, around the time of Trump’s election, he went out again, and on the day Trump was inaugurated, he was hit by a car and killed. To me, it really felt like he was the first casualty of the Trump administration. The whole Providence arts community was totally heartbroken. It was the beginning of my realization that I had given up a lot. We had stopped playing in the band, and I had drifted away from the Providence arts community. I had become detached. It was a wake up call. I became more active in local organizing and the Providence arts community. The song came out of that.

[Mark] was also an early vlogger. He has hundreds of videos of himself going across America. There is this last video of him on the day he was killed. Because that was the start of a change in me, I used that as the material for that song.

SILY: Are you still involved in AS220?

MD: Not really. Friends of mine are. They’ve gone through a bunch of radical changes over the past 10 years. They’re doing amazing work.

SILY: What sorts of changes?

MD: They’ve always been about supporting the arts community, but once Trump got elected, [they started to ask questions like,] “Whose community are you representing here?” They’ve taken huge strides in becoming inclusive and representing and inviting a greater and more accurate version of what the Providence arts community looks like, demographically and politically. Those things weren’t on the table prior to this recent spade of changes.

SILY: What’s the inspiration behind the record title?

MD: It’s related in a way to “I am a road” and the influence that Mark had on me. We were thinking about the idea of this alarm that hasn’t yet sounded. The potential that a bell holds. It’s a little pretentious, but the bell has all of the potential in it to sound the alarm, but someone needs to strike the bell in order for the alarm to sound. It was a gesture at this moment. John doesn’t want me to reference the pandemic, for good reason. This isn’t a “pandemic record.” The effect the pandemic had in something is undeniable, and we felt like we were experiencing in real time this climate crisis, and it’s possible that we’re already living in a climate apocalypse and we just don’t know it. That’s where that concept of the unstruck bell came from.

SILY: I don’t know whether this album is your attempt to sound the alarm, but, at the risk of sounding reductive, it’s interesting that this style of music could sound an alarm, this slow music. Do you think about that?

MD: Yeah. It’s something I struggle with a great deal. I do recoil at music that is overtly political or tries to push an agenda. My aesthetic sensibility tells me to stay on the John Prine end of the spectrum of making a song that might plant a seed in someone’s mind that would motivate them to take some kind of action, but not urging them to do so. Slowcore and post-rock aren’t traditionally the vehicles--you’re not going to go to a protest and start singing songs from Spiderland. It’s not really attuned to that. But as I’m getting older, the ways in which all of these systems are interconnected, I’m interested in that place where we can create something aesthetically interesting and new [that] tries to take genre tropes in a new direction. Part of that new direction asks, for instance, “Can we just write a simple love song in the time we’re living without it spilling over into all of the other things going on in the world?” It’s something I think about a lot, and I don’t know that we’ve carefully delineated the Venn diagram of talking about and raising awareness of an issue and songcraft, trying to make a song that people want to sing around a campfire. I don’t know where we fall in that.

SILY: If one of the main purposes of art is to create empathy, which I think is inherently political, the observational, humanistic, earthbound songwriting of John Prine falls into that. At the same time, music that’s slower in pace that requires patience to listen to deeply, there’s an inherent humility in that act, too. That’s where I see the Venn diagram.

MD: I really love what you said about patience and listening. Trying to slow things down is an act alone that triggers a different way of thinking. That’s really beautiful.

SILY: It can exist at the same time as the urgency. It has to.

MD: Totally.

SILY: What’s the story behind the cover art of the record?

MD: John is friends with Will Schaff, the artist. We’d been an admirer of his work. He did the [art for the] Godspeed You! Black Emperor record, [Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven]. He did a [Songs: Ohia] record. He also started to embroider during the pandemic and would post these works he’d been doing on Instagram. I grew up in a Catholic family, and my mom was really involved in the church, and she did a lot of banners and tapestries for the church. The embroidery kind of recalled some of that work. We didn’t really think it through that much, and we gave Will the album title. I think John gave him the songs in their raw state and asked him to make an interpretation. That’s what he came up with. It was a collaboration without constraints. I really love how it came out.

SILY: Do you know what shape your new songs will take?

MD: This might end up being super pretentious and we might back away from it, but our goal is still to split the record sonically between one side all acoustic and the other all electric, as an organizing principle. That’s helped us shape the songs. We found that there were certain things we could get away with stylistically in an acoustic setting we weren’t able to do with a full electric setup. We may continue down that path, but [it could be] a cool idea that has no substance. We do plan to record a bunch more acoustic songs this time around. We’re trying to push out on both ends of the spectrum. We have songs that are a bit more aggressive, like the big middle third of “Slick Enhancer”, and much quieter songs. We’ve really been into the band caroline, and the way they’re able to play this one riff for 7 minutes and make this hypnotic hymn out of it with different movements. I don’t know how they do it, but we’re experimenting with songs closer to that feel.

SILY: What else is next for you?

MD: We’re trying to figure out whether we can get out on the road. Solid Brass, the label that put the album out, are awesome. They’re good friends of ours from a long way back. They’re also just starting up, figuring out how to work a label. We’re trying to figure out to what extent we’ll end up able to get on the road. Honestly, to me, when we re-joined, my single ambition was just to play with the band again and start writing and recording songs. We didn’t have any aspirations of putting a record out, even when we first recorded with Seth. We love working with him and just booked time for the pure enjoyment. We’re trying to keep that same spirit for the next record, keeping expectations of where it will go out of the equation. Once I start thinking about that stuff, it makes it harder to write the songs we want to record and that we’ll have fun playing and figuring out.

SILY: Anything else you’ve been listening to, reading, or watching you’ve enjoyed?

MD: We’ve been super into the band Wednesday. It was one of these moments where they’ve found a way to perfectly merge shoegaze and country music that felt surprising and cool. The lyrics are the best kind of David Berman, incredible plays on words, clever and funny while totally heartfelt and devastating. It’s a lot of what I aspire to and am still working toward.

SILY: A quintessentially Southern voice.

MD: Yes! And not a cliched one. Crystal clear in terms of the poetry and lyricism of it.

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dustedmagazine · 4 years

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Ezra Feinberg & John Kolodij — S-T (Whited Sepulchre)

Ezra Feinberg & John Kolodij by Ezra Feinberg & John Kolodij

This split EP from artists Ezra Feinberg and John Kolodij offers placid pools of wavering sound, a gorgeous liquid calm that spreads from edge to sonic edge. This is not music to wake you up or get you ready for the hurly burly, but it’s perfect for retreat, contemplation and psychic healing.

There are four tracks, all rather lengthy, two from Feinberg followed by two from Kolodij. Feinberg is perhaps the better known of the two, having led the guitar-centered Citay and lent a hand in the folk-rocking Dry Spells, but now engaged in ambient drone solo works like Recumbent Speech, of which Bill Meyer noted in last week’s Dust, “The synthesizers shimmer and cycle like something from a mid-1970s Cluster record, resting upon a pillow of vibraphone and electric piano tones, which in turn billow under the influence of undulating layers of drums.” John Kolodij records as High Aura’d and Gemini Sisters. His If I’m Walking in the Dark, I’m Whispering reviewed at Dusted in late 2018 was mysterious and beautiful, building “songs out of watery, indefinite washes of sound, sudden brightly focused elements and oblique references to traditional folk and blues.”

Feinberg leads off with “Figure and Ground,” an undulating interleaving of sustained tones that slip over one another like transparent sheets of color, creating new hues as they meet and separate. If I had a speculate, I’d say the slow blooming synth tones are the ground, the flute, played by Robbie Lee, who is perhaps best known for his work with Josef Van Wissem, stands in as the figure, though Jonas Reinhardt also sits in on analogue synths and makes a mark as well. Feinberg’s second track, “Castle Sand,” foregrounds the guitar a bit more, though surrounding it in the same sort of drift and swirl and echo, and also brings in a bit of soft, resonant piano.

Kolodij’s tracks are likewise serene, though a bit less tethered to unaltered, organic sound. His “Beyond the Fragile” takes shape out of barely audible oscillating squeaks and hums, coalescing in a shifting penumbra of deep toned guitar sound. Acoustic guitar traces a Takoma-style picked path through surreal atmospheres and ghostly roars. “The Geometry of Space” also begins in quiet, a whoosh of air surrounding notes just short of subliminal sound. The piece edges closer as you listen, with bell-like notes dropping amid a faint turbulence of bowed sound. Dylan Baldi from Cloud Nothings blows in with a bit of sax, long fluttery notes skittering across the deep quiet.

Both artists work patiently with sounds, staying present in moments that stretch on indefinitely, without seeming to long for resolution or catharsis. This is music for sitting absolute still, looking inward.

Jennifer Kelly

#ezra feinberg #john kolodij #whited sepulchre #jennifer kelly #albumreview #dusted magazine #ambient #guitar #improvisation #high aura'd #citay

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postambientlux · 3 years

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BEST AMBIENT OF 2020

the 100 BEST AMBIENT ALBUMS of 2020 curated by @holsgr

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the 50 GREATEST EP's of 2020 curated by @holsgr

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#8 : Bby Eco • Gen (Slagwerk)

#7 : Lucy Gooch • Rushing (Past Inside the Present)

#6 : Slow Meadow • By The Ash Tree (Self-releaed)

#5 : Nick Malkin • A Thing in Middle Distance (Self-released)

#4 : ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ • W.S. (Self-released)

#3 : Lensk • Unseen, Uncertain, Whole (TAR)

#2 : Glass • L.U.C.A (Santé Records)

#1 : Snorri Hallgrímsson • Landbrot I (Moderna Records)

HONORABLE MENTIONS

William Ryan Fritch - Solidum

J. Peter Schwalm & Arve Henriksen - Neuzeit

Tyresta & Ruan - Elements Return

Ana Roxanne - Because of a flower

Lauge - Nothingness

FRKTL - Excision After Love Collapses

thme - That's What It Will Be Like

Carlo Giustini - Colla

Omni Gardens - Moss King

KMRU - Peel

Forest Robots - After Geography

Francis M. Gri - The Ropes

Phil Tomsett - The Sound of Someone Leaving

Christian Kleine - Touch & Fuse

Autechre - SIGN

Gallery Six - Blue In The Midsummer

Alessandro Cortini - Memorie I

Bad Stream - Sonic Healing

Perko - Galerie

Helios - Domicile

Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd - Another Flower

Mattew Halsall - Salute to the Sun

Constantine Skourlis - Eternal Recurrence

Pepo Galán & Sita Osthermeier - Contact

LCM - Signal Quest

Ivano Pecorini - Barons Court

Carlos Ferreira - Six Postcards and Other Stories

Monogoto - Partial Deletion of Everything (Vol. 1)

Echo Collective - The See Within

Matt Atkins & Slow Clinic - Enfolding

Skin Graft & John Wiese - Accessible World

Vieo Abiungo - At Once, There Was No Horizon

Andrew Tasselmyer & Anthéne - Progressions

Thugwidow - A Figure of Speech

Lauge - Oceanography

Mute Branches - The Detective Is Dead

Ausklang - Chronos

Steve Roach - Back To Life

John Monkman - ASRIEL

Reid Willis - Mother Of

Luis Berra - On Silence Act I & II

Chronovalve - Light

offthesky - Psalm of Solum

Crystal Thumbtac - Jazzosism

Jörgen Kjellgren - Invisible Summer

Skarv - A Memory Like Any Other

Bartosz Dziadosz & Tomasz Mrenca - Black Lake

Hainbach - Light Splitting

Selvedge - Bloom In Rust

Max Loderbauer - Donnerwetter

Stuart Chalmers & Alan Courtis - Rtuals of Cmmon Lnguage

Teruyuki Kurihara - Echoes CatalogIII

Koji Itoyama - I Know

Marc Ertel - [Overtures]

Claire Deak & Tony Dupé - The Old Capital

Ben Frost - Dark: Cycle 3 (Music from the Netflix Original Series)

V/A (Touchtheplants) - Breathing Instruments

Bentley - Ford Pliner

Ólafur Arnalds - some kind of peace

Christina Giannone, zakè & Tyresta - Vision Transmissions

Simon Posford - Flux & Contemplation: Portrait of an Artist in Isolation

Pun Collins - Dying Together

Ishmael Cormack - The Sunday Project

Daniel Herskedal - Call For Winter

Shinpal - Momentary Disappeared Memory

Lionel Marchetti - Planktos

Tim Koch - Scordatura

Julianna Barwick - Healing Is A Miracle

Baldruin - Die halluzinierte Welt

Nick Storring - My Magic Dreams Have Lost Their Spell

ABADIR - Liminal

Attilio Novellino - Strangar

Fire-Toolz - Rainbow Bridge

Noise Trees - Paper Songs

Maze & Lindholm - A River Flowing Home to the Sea

Thet Liturgiske Owäsendet - Det Var Folk Dar Ute. Dom Ar Borta Nu.

Jeremy Bible - Human Savagery

Paul Schütze - Without Thought

Rutger Zuydervelt & Bill Seaman - Movements of Dust

Saåad - Elijah

Frans De Waard & Miguel A. García - Interior Sounding

HOOR-PAAR-KRAAT - The Place of The Crossing

TIBSLC - A Shell-like Object

Pina - Buit

Michel Banabila - All Connected

Resilience -Forgotten World

Madeleine Cocolas - Ithaca

Ludovico Einaudi - 12 Songs From Home

Jo David Meyer Lysne & Mats Eilertsen - Kroksjø

John Wall - SC Editions 2

Deathbed Convert - Debris of Echoes

Hirotaka Shirotsubaki - Still Life

FFT - Total Self-Fufilment

...From The Benthic Zone - Fjord Genus

Henrik Meierkord - Refuge

Hirotaka Shirotsubaki - slowdance,lowtide

Ancient Loops - An Abandoned City

Nils Frahm - Empty

JC Leisure - Mutations For

Corey Fuller - Sanctuary

Sam Gendel - Satin Doll

Jan Bang & Eivind Aarset - Snow Catches on Her Eyelashes

36 & zakè - Stasis Sounds For Long?-?Distance Space Travel

Aria Rostami & Daniel Blomquist - Sketch for Winter VIII: Floating Tone

Jóhann Jóhannsson & Yair Elazar Glotman - Last And First Men

Sary Moussa - Imbalance

Martina Bertoni - All the Ghosts Are Gone

The Alvaret Ensemble - ea

Nyx Nótt - Aux Pieds de la Nuit

Simone Gatto - Harmonic Resonance System 432 Hz

Oliver Coates - skins n slime

Klara Lewis - Ingrid

Ben Bondy & exael - Aphelion Lash

Halftribe - Archipelago

Jocelyn Reyes - Overland: Biomes

Anna von Hausswolff - All Thoughts Fly

Experimental electronic & Ambient music blog made by Hermann Holsgr. linktr.ee/postambientlux

Sharing ambient music since 2016 on social media.

Music is the perfect healing of our hearts and has the power to save us in these though times we live. Listen. Connect. Feel... Ambient is in the air! It's the comforting companion whispering in our ears, at every moment, filling everything with pure and divine melody. Just dive into the oceans of sound that are waiting for you. Listen...

Thank you musicians. Thank you listeners.

See you in 2021!

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aquariumdrunkard · 4 years

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Ezra Feinberg & John Kolodij

Multi-instrumentalist John Kolodij seems to be quietly slipping out from behind his High aura’d moniker. Next month sees the release of First Fire • At Dawn, a cassette of slowly blossoming compositions that sound like he slowed down the recording of an Appalachian folk ensemble tuning up to a gorgeous crawl, and recently, he unveiled a split EP with fellow audio explorer Ezra Feinberg. For the first time, Kolodij is releasing both under his own name.

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doomandgloomfromthetomb · 5 years

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High aura’d & Josh Mason - Lower Yr Voice

Dronemaster John Kolodij (a.k.a. High aura'd) returns with another immersive affair, this one a collaboration with ambient musician Josh Mason. At times, Lower Yr Voice is soothing and beautiful; at others, it sounds like menacing vibrations emanating from the Black Lodge. Either way, it’s a wonderful listening experience that reveals new layers and deep textures every time you tune in. A sublime frequency, indeed.

#high aura'd #josh mason #bandcamp monday

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tinymixtapes · 5 years

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Premiere: High aura’d & Josh Mason - “Silver”

In an interview with Ohio-based John Kolodij, who records as High aura’d, he said of his recording process, “I often try, when working on a piece to envision myself, somewhere else: in a desert, at the edge of an ocean, nighttime in Sonoma, crossing a footbridge in Miami, wherever feels evocative, and then trying to score that moment.” Scroll a little further down the page and you’ll feel like the sounds and images that unfold in the video for “Silver” were crafted simultaneously, along a walk through the woods, crouching along a stream, watching nothing and everything. In a new collaborative project with Florida drone/noise kingpin Josh Mason, the duo explore, as they put it so eloquently, “static electricity and gorgeous distortion” on their debut LP, Lower Yr Voice, which is out June 28 via Whited Sepulchre. Peep the beautiful video below, which features equally ear-splitting feedback and soothing ambient tones. Premium, *limited* silver LPs are available to pre-order now. http://j.mp/2WflvSJ

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theparanoid · 3 years

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Ezra Feinberg - Castle & Sand

Album: Ezra Feinberg & John Kolodij - Ezra Feinberg & John Kolodij (2020)

[Ambient, Drone, Experimental, Neo-Classical, Post Rock]

#music #ambient #drone #experimental #neo classical #post rock

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richurds · 4 years

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#Spotify

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kevindurkiin · 4 years

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John Kolodij :: First Fire • At Dawn

The post John Kolodij :: First Fire • At Dawn appeared first on Aquarium Drunkard.

John Kolodij :: First Fire • At Dawn published first on https://soundwizreview.tumblr.com/

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dustedmagazine · 5 years

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High Aura’d — If I’m Walking in the Dark, I’m Whispering (Unifactor)

If I'm walking in the Dark, I'm whispering by High aura'd

The two long tracks on this EP take shape out of a dark miasma of tone, a swelling, tactile baseline hum that surrounds you like a soft squishy padded room; you feel you could poke at the edges with your finger and feel the boundary of perception give a little. Out of that soup of possibility, recognizable instruments emerge—primarily guitar in the first one, guitar and piano in the second—though really, the sounds almost all come from guitars, even the tumbling, loose-skinned tom drumming that paces “If I’m Walking in the Dark.” Elsewhere guitar (and pedals) make sounds like a pipe organ, like a string orchestra, like the thrum of live power wires.

This is the second High Aura’d release this year for Cleveland-based composer John Kolodij, and he also released the really lovely Gemini Sisters record early in 2018. Like that Gemini Sisters recording, If I’m Walking builds songs out of watery, indefinite washes of sound, sudden brightly focused elements and oblique references to traditional folk and blues. The main difference is that Gemini Twins uses heavily processed vocals as a route to unearthly aura; these cuts rely almost entirely on guitar.

As in Daniel Bachman’s The Morning Star, American primitive style picking flits and filters through a hall of mirrors, sounding like a dream of the blues, a half-corroded memory of folk music, as it threads through glowing unreal landscapes. As with the Bachman, the real world occasional makes a cameo appearance. A hint of sirens keens in the side B, “I’m Whispering” though miles and miles away.

This is not a record you can rush through. On side A, you wait four minutes and 36 seconds for the first unaltered strum, but it is well worth it. The guitar tone is hauntingly clear and lucid, like Hisato Higuchi. With time, it gains weight and friction and dissonance, a rasp of conflict in two overlayered melodic lines. And then, it pulls in on itself, folding back into a sea of drone, an inchoate tide of tone lapping up around guitar sounds and slowing covering it over.

“I’m Whispering,” the one with piano, lets high notes ice through the gloom. They ring luminously amid smoke banks of soft amorphous hum. The effect is not quite classical, but nowhere near folk either, serene and simple like Max Richter’s piano compositions. In the last third of the piece, a breezy, bucolic guitar enters in, changing the piece entirely and making it more accessible. Yet even as the flurry of folk-picked melody makes you comfortable, a strange echoing drone brings on a chill. The music is lovely, but not quite what it seems.

Jennifer Kelly

#high aura'd #if i'm walking in the dark I'm whispering #unifactor #jennifer kelly #albumreview #dusted magazine #john kolodij #american primitive #drone #guitar #piano

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williamchasterson · 7 years

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NPR News: High Above Ohio With The Ambient Americana Of High Aura'd

NPR News: High Above Ohio With The Ambient Americana Of High Aura’d

High Above Ohio With The Ambient Americana Of High Aura’d John Kolodij sketches a future past with rugged Americana smoked in tea leaves, sheer drones wrapped in muslin cloth. Watch a video for “Black Grasshopper.”

Read more on NPR

View On WordPress

#Most E-mailed Stories #NPR

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xlostboi · 7 years

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highaurad

@clavendr I hope it was this version....https://t.co/GUYwOWiuGa

— John Kolodij (@highaurad) August 26, 2017

August 26, 2017 at 07:52AM via Twitter https://twitter.com/highaurad

#IFTTT #Twitter

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doomandgloomfromthetomb · 5 years

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High Aura’d - If I'm Walking in the Dark, I'm Whispering

Great stuff from John Kolodij’s High Aura’d for your Bandcamp Monday -- a stellar follow-up to his recommended 2017 LP No River Long Enough Doesn’t Contain A Bend. This one is made up of two lengthy and fully absorbing excursions. Jon is adept at atmosphere — at times you’ll think of Miles’ beautifully ominous “He Loved Him Madly;” at others, you’ll get a distinct whiff of Lynchian dread; or maybe a little of Uncle Neil’s Dead Man soundtrack comes to the fore; when the acoustic piano shows up, I got a pastoral Florian Fricke vibe. Whatever you get from If I’m Walking in the Dark, I’m Whispering, you’re going to dig it.

And hey, while you’re here, you can check out the latest installment of my Bandcamping column over on Aquarium Drunkard. It covers more or less the same releases as Bandcamp Monday, but they’re all handily rounded up over there. Thank the lord for Bandcamp.

#high aura'd #bandcamp monday

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tinymixtapes · 7 years

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Interview: High aura’d

When you listen to any of John Kolodij’s releases under the High aura’d moniker, American Primitive mixes with scorched blues rippers, subtle drone freakouts, and dark ambient excursions. For fans both old and new, Kolodij’s latest LP, and first for Seattle’s Debacle, No River Long Enough Doesn’t Contain a Bend, is as accomplished a record as he’s ever released. Save for the final track, featuring Angel Olsen’s vocals, No River is an understated showcase of Kolodij’s acoustic and electric guitar instrumentals, coupled with adventurous experimental song-scapes. In the run-up to the release of No River, John and I emailed back and forth from his current home base of Ohio, discussing the history of the project, his work as a chef, and how his home state’s natural beauty inspired the new record. --- I want to focus primarily on the here and now of the High aura’d project, but tell me a little bit about yourself, and how the project came into existence? I’m 44 years old. I grew up in Trumansburg, NY, right outside of Ithaca. The Finger Lakes — what people toss off as Upstate. I’m married to a wonderful, creative woman, who is also the mother of our three girls. High aura’d began as a duo, but then quickly became a solo path. I had always been in bands, and still clung to the idea that I needed someone to bounce ideas off, and fill space with. Due to an imminent tour with Barn Owl, and some new technology, I quickly fleshed out my ideas and was able to get the density of sound I wanted by myself. Listeners have the High aura’d discography to sink their teeth into, but what is your view on the evolution of the project? Any releases that would have surprised you when you first started? It’s purely an evolution. My earliest work was more meditative in conception, and I’ve been feeling a need to reclaim that, but again, it all represents who I am, and was at that time. That day. I don’t think I’m surprised by anything I’ve recorded. I’m truly grateful some people enjoy listening to my work, and I always will be. I’ve been very lucky to work with some fine people and have their support and encouragement. Finally hearing it on vinyl was the kicker… It has this warmth that I was always hoping to hear; and the art, which is photography of mine, but treated by Kevin Gan Yuen and incorporating the work of William Cody Watson; it’s a beautiful, singular package that I hope will make people want to own it. In a 2015 interview with Decoder, your previous collaborator Mike Shiflet mentioned that you were a chef. I would love to hear more about it. Are you still a chef, and what kind of foods were/are you specializing in? I was a professional cook. Chefs are owners. This all comes from the military system of rank. Chef being “chief.” I did not attend a cooking school, but I did unpaid stages for a chef in Boston where I was living, for a year on the weekends, and she offered me a job and I ran with it. I had just wanted to learn how to cook like someone’s great-grandmother, to intuitively know what to do and how to put ingredients together, to think seasonally, and cook from a whole food prospective. I’d always gone to farmers markets as a child, and we had a decent vegetable patch at our house. I’ve always been into Japanese and Vietnamese cooking — all of the places I cooked were New American (minus one very high end Italian place, which was trying to push that envelope) — local-sustainable, worked with local farmers and purveyors to raise and butcher or source as much as possible. We also had the flexibility to incorporate new techniques and ideas. But now, I have four clients, and I try to keep that as happy as possible. I still aim to cook like an elder would, just maybe one from Hokkaido, or a Buddhist temple cook. I try and stay up to date as possible regarding what’s going on in food trends, and I’ve got my various noodle soups locked down. My pho is pretty on-point. When you say, “to intuitively know what to do and how to put ingredients together,” I can’t help but think of music, composition, and songwriting. Do you see any connections between the way you approach cooking and music? In as much as they are, or should be creative crafts, yes. I’m often drawn toward minimal ingredients presented in their finest way; Pickled mackerel, a foraged mushroom. A tomato in late summer, with fresh basil that grew next to it, dressed in great olive oil. I only eat tomatoes when in season. I hate the false flavor a hot house tomato brings. I listen to tons of dub in the summertime, drink more tequila then as well. Are these linked? Your music, especially the new album, combines established sounds of blues and Americana with drone, noise, and other modern flourishes. Blues and roots music is associated with travel, migration, and movement. With a recent move from Rhode Island to Ohio, how did you approach your songcraft with your lived experience of migration? I think unless you’re trying to push your art in an unnatural direction, it’s always a reflection of the sum of your experience up until that point. I’ve moved around a good deal; Ithaca, NY, to Providence, Rhode Island; Brooklyn, NY, and Boston for a dozen years; Narragansett, Rhode Island, for two years, and now right outside Cleveland, Ohio, going on three years. I’ve been in bands since I was 13, my first being a ridiculous thrash-metal band. My next bigger band was super shoegaze, and then next was a slowcore-/country-influenced quartet with a cellist [ed. note: The Pines of Rome]. I feel like all that is in me at anytime. A lot of this record is done with acoustic guitars at the core, but there’s still oversaturated electric guitars, pedal steel, piano, and even acoustic drums, so it’s just me. I don’t feel I honestly consider fans’ expectations, or part of a musical tradition. I just try and hone in on whatever interests me in my work and dig out and polish what I like and present the truest version I’m able to. No River contains traces of both classic tropes of Americana, but mixed with modern drone and ambient composition. How do you balance carrying on the traditions associated with acoustic and blues guitar, while finding new ways to push the boundaries of fans’ expectations? Robert Johnson was probably my first guitar crush, from probably the most embarrassing point of entry, the 1986 Ralph Macchio vehicle, Crossroads, which featured sweet shredder Steve Vai as well. America was in love with hair metal, but I got this Robert Johnson boxset for Christmas, and I was hooked. I’ve always dug Bukka White, Blind Willie Johnson, John Lee Hooker…and this eventually led me to John Fahey, which led me to Gastr Del Sol, and then to Loren Mazzacane Connors and Keiji Haino which led me… all without The Interent! But on a parallel line, Sonic Youth led me to Bill Frisell, Bad Brains led me to Scientist, Led Zeppelin led me to Annie Briggs and Fairport Convention, King Crimson led to Fripp & Eno, Coltrane led me to Alice Coltrane and beyond… I don’t feel I honestly consider fans’ expectations, or part of a musical tradition. I just try and hone in on whatever interests me in my work and dig out and polish what I like and present the truest version I’m able to. Debacle wrote that you “dove into discovering the old forest and rivers of Steelhead Alley” after your move to Ohio. Did you find that exploring the surrounding natural area spilled over into your songwriting? I’d hope it has. Cleveland has the worst reputation nationally, and it’s completely undeserved. The people (as much as they are human, which is to say, as much as any other place) are open minded and kind. The natural wonders around here are spectacular. The forests are grand, the rivers wondrous, and the sky is intense. I’ve become an avid fly fisher, catch and release, and it’s truly amazing being out in the middle of a river and only hearing & sensing the natural world. I often try, when working on a piece to envision myself, somewhere else: in a desert, at the edge of an ocean, nighttime in Sonoma, crossing a footbridge in Miami, wherever feels evocative, and then trying to score that moment. I’ve been in love with cinema forever, and I just try and score everyday life. A lot of cinemas host screenings with live or newly composed scores. Have you had your eye on a film you feel you could do justice with your sounds? I love snowy films. John Carpenter’s The Thing, Paul Schrader’s Affliction, even Tarantino’s The Hateful 8, The Revenant, Fargo, A Simple Plan, The Shining… So perhaps something like that? Most of those are rather perfect as they are. I have performed quite often to films others have made for me, often over-saturated color rich impressionistic pieces. I love doing that. When you lived in Rhode Island, were you playing live often? Was there a venue or scene you were associated with? Have you established a new musical space or community in Ohio? I did play often, perhaps more in Boston at first, but I got out at least every 2 months on average. I played at Machines With Magnets quite a bit, bringing some shows there. I played a bunch with Work/Death (Scott Reber is simply the best). If you’re asking if I was down with Fort Thunder, I was down with Fort Thunder in real time. As far as Ohio, I’ve been playing out less, much of last year, as High aura’d because I wanted to focus on freeing my guitar playing up, and trying to expel learned or histrionic playing — I wanted to get free. There’s a wonderful music scene here with multiple layers and venues. I’ve been playing with some more improv/free people, which is well represented here by New Ghosts and venues like The Bop Stop and Dan Wenninger’s monthly nights. There’s the classic experimental people like John Elliot, Prostitutes, Machine Listener, Chromesthic, Talons, & Trouble Books. And great suppostive record shops/distros like Bent Crayon, Hausfrau Records, and Experimedia. As a listener, it’s fitting to dive into No River Long Enough Doesn’t Contain a Bend as fall kicks into high gear. Do you have ideal conditions or times of day well suited to working on and recording new High aura’d material? I like to try and work on music as early in the day as possible — my mind is as uncluttered as it’s going to be at that point. I do also enjoy relaxing, later at night, and watching really slow movies with grand cinematography and just free associating on an acoustic guitar. I often try, when working on a piece to envision myself, somewhere else: in a desert, at the edge of an ocean, nighttime in Sonoma, crossing a footbridge in Miami, wherever feels evocative, and then trying to score that moment. I’ve been in love with cinema forever and I just try and score everyday life. Is most of the material on No River based off of improvisation? How long did you spend on this project? If you mean recorded improvisation that became a song, 3 songs on this would qualify. Most others were worked on, over the course of 2-3 years. The move to Ohio, slowed me a bit, not that I’m swift to begin with. Finally hearing it on vinyl was the kicker. Helge Sten, who’s work at Deathprod and is a member of Supersilent, mastered the LP, and he just added this magic sheen. It has this warmth that I was always hoping to hear; and the art, which is photography of mine, but treated by Kevin Gan Yuen and incorporating the work of William Cody Watson; it’s a beautiful, singular package that I hope will make people want to own it, and not just download. Music was meant for more than laptop speakers. I’ve seen how other writers, labels, and musicians play drone and noise music for their kids, whether as a way to help put them to bed, or just to see how they react to it. How do your children respond to your work? It’s always strange to think of what our parents do as “cool,” but I imagine hearing some blaring guitar and drones growing up can make quite the impression on a kid. When our first child would need some help falling asleep, say while we were out doing something, and they were tired, but no quite there yet, we’d put on Tim Hecker’s album Harmony in Ultraviolet, specifically “Chimeras.” It would always do the trick. Plus it’s like another favorite, Aphex Twin’s “Stone In Focus,” it just has this glorious decaying motif. They love music, and they’ve all just recently started playing instruments they chose: ukulele, viola, and guitar. We never forced anything on them, they just have always had access. I’m sure to one degree they think my work is strange, but they also are keenly aware of all the spooky music in television and films. And they mostly think it’s too loud. My kids were more responsive to the band my wife and I had together, a fuzz/pop band called WORKING. They love pop music, and we listen to a bunch of that constantly, but I listen to a lot of hip-hop and soul, and they humor me there. Also, spare bits of metal. I think everyone enjoys spacing out on Arvo Part or Ryuichi Sakamoto, no? I know they enjoy it to some degree. My eldest daughter’s favorite record for a while was John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, so I did something right. How did No River find its home on Debacle? Sam [Melancon, Debacle’s founder] has wide ranging tastes, but there are several records in the catalog (Hayden Pedigo, Elkhorn, Daniel Bachman) that, like you, take American Primitive and blues outside the box. Where do you see your place within the label and its ability to document varying scenes and movements within underground, D.I.Y. communities? I’ve long admired Debacle’s streak of representing what they like and giving at a physical manifestation. Their varied tastes are easily viewed, from records by my old friends Kevin Gan Yuen, Golden Retriever, and Daniel Bachmann, to Total Life, and Chambers, which features Gabriel Saloman of Yellow Swans. [It] reminds me in all the best ways of my former label Bathetic, who purely pushed what they dug, simply. With the record’s impending release, do you plan to tour? What’s next for you and High aura’d? I don’t plan on touring, but I do plan on getting out, radially, from here. I’d like to hit Chicago and play with some friends along the way. As far as what’s next, I have some great collaborations finished, looking for homes, one with Matt Christensen of Zelienople, and a brewing LP2 with Mike Shiflet. I may retire the High aura’d moniker, or keep it strictly for more sound/drone recordings. I hope to start work on a new collection soon. I feel like this year has had numerous wonderful records released and this is a glorious time for new music. I’d like to collaborate sincerely and seriously more in the coming year, and keep growing. And to do so freely. http://j.mp/2hWpQES

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