Music
is pretty fun. Of course there are
a lot of pressures for bands to top themselves or please their fans or have the
coolest hair (I don’t know. I’m
not in a band.) But at the end of
the day music is a fantastic expression.
I think this shines though in Blanche Blanche Blanche. After discovering these guys a few months back I decided to try, and catch up with these guys to see what makes
them tick. The results of the
interview is as follws:
What genre would you consider your
music?
Sarah:
i wouldn't do that if i were you.
Zach:
respect to working musicians, but we aren't trying to win anyone over with our
vibe or stake our brand or help you chill out. we're not even trying to open
your mind, it's already open. we're gonna get you some actual new music and try
and play it fast and loose. There will be a lot of it, because there is so much
possibility between decisions. And hopefully musicians like it, hopefully the
soundwoman likes it or the doorman likes it. If Cloud Becomes Your Hand like it
then we’re okay. “If Ruth likes it” is the genre we play. "i've never
heard that rhythm before, i've never heard that structure. i've never heard
someone say those things in a song. What a bunch of freaks" and hopefully
raise the novelty bar for all of those things. the willingness of so many to be
boxed in is unsurprising given the modes of identification that predominate
today. look at the so-called "social media." but we're not gonna cave
in and speak that language, we’re not even gonna inflate big enough to be asked
to.
You
guys are certainly very different from anything else I’m hearing right
now. What musicians do you draw inspiration from?
Zach: you hear a record and it shocks
you. the attitude of someone is shocking, it's radical and it changes the way
you hear music, the way you look at things. there are so few contemporary role
models... a lot of ours are holdovers who have stayed productive, stayed fresh
in their approach to life and keep bringing that to their music. Jennifer and
Neil from Royal Trux, Tori and Reiko from Maher Shalal Hash Baz. E-40. The
Minutemen, the Clash, the Comateens, the Ambitious Lovers. Annette Peacock.
Gary War, Ariel Pink. Inc. D'Angelo. and our friends most of all: Chris
Weisman, Ruth Garbus, and Kurt Weisman from Brattleboro VT. Ryan Power. Son of
Salami. Big French. Hartley C. White. Happy Jawbone. Jon Appleton. the list is
long
Was
there one moment when you guys realized “Wow, we’re really making music professionally?”
Sarah: that moment hasn't come. we both
have jobs & do music because we want to.
Five albums they'll have released on
four different labels in 2012?!
How do you guys find the energy?
Sarah: music is a fun way to hang out.
Zach: working on new stuff is where
it's at -- if you hammer the same nail too much it'll disappear to the other
side.
This
music really makes me think of a younger, simpler time. Is that the same
for you guys?
Sarah: not at all.
Zach: you can’t go back into your mother.
But isn’t it already whatever time you want it to be? Music isn’t so
complicated, you get together and you work on it and you get better at getting
better candy & scorpions into bigger card castles
How
do you think being a two-piece changes up your dynamic compared to a larger
ensemble?
Zach:
we're working with more people now. Keep your eye out for Big French
Sarah:
we are a one-piece suit
How has being based in Vermont affected
you guys musically?
Sarah: i moved
out of that hell hole
Zach: this should help: http://www.osr-tapes.info/sounds/brattleborosampler.zip
Zach: this should help: http://www.osr-tapes.info/sounds/brattleborosampler.zip
Give
me an overall theme for “Wink With Both Eyes.”
Zach:
our recording skills caught up to our songs on that record, and so we willfully
worked on a "good sound," unwittingly skirting dangerously close to
some contemporary musical tropes -- which has paid off in the sense that people
are like "oh a synth band, synths, yeah" check out the record and
find that there's actual content in there, you know, real songs with a lot of
weird shit going on internally. we wrote "That's Siberia" about our
friends Happy Birthday going on tour, we felt the business thing they were
going through. I wrote and tripled solos, etc. and then we got politicized
about the obsession w/ aesthetics and the art-world infrastructure / art-world
conceptual vocabulary haunting music today and made three very
bare-clean-opaque records (Papas Proof, 2wice 2wins, Our Place) where we worked
on different structural approaches to songwriting & arranging &
recording & fought "sound": block the roses. it was necessary to
get out of that framework, do some recon on the outside, etc., and now we're ready
to storm the aesthetic Bastille so to speak. No more synthesizer records, I'm
gonna wail on a drum and stop talking so much
Sarah: i was really sick when we made
that record & so that's all i remember.
Thanks
again to Sarah and Zach for taking the time to talk with us. Check out their website and facebook here.
You should like the blog on facebook for updates and also check out some of of our other recent interviews with Kemp and Eden, Ed Schrader's Music Beat and Spider Bags
