Chosen One: Jim White and Marisa Anderson

“Let’s say we are improvising a piece of music, is it the moment when your mind is still (calm) that is the best, does stillness relate to transparency of what’s behind it?”

—Jim White

The resolutely unique sound of Jim White’s drumming has long been one of the most beguiling, breath-taking sounds to ever come across: whether it’s from the mythical Dirty Three songbook, or his (more recent) collaboration with George Xylouris (as the legendary duo Xylouris White) or the endless songwriters and musicians he has collaborated with over the years (Cat Power, Bill Callahan, Nina Nastasia, Nick Cave, PJ Harvey). The Australian drummer’s fluid, expansive drumming – whether it’s heard on record or witnessed during a live performance – creates a timeless and utterly shape-shifting experience. The artist’s fingerprint is forever forged inside these recordings; which reflects the unique artistry at hand. The drum also waltzes.

This year sees the arrival of the legendary drummer’s latest collaboration, alongside his close friend and esteemed guitarist Marisa Anderson. ‘The Quickening’ (released earlier this month on the prestigious Chicago-based Thrill Jockey label) documents the coming together of two wholly unique musical voices, which in turn, creates a rich, poignant and highly emotive sonic voyage of boundless horizons.

The rolling thunder of White’s drums serves the perfect opening lines of ‘Gathering’, before Anderson’s cathartic electric blues merges in perfect unison. The guitar and drums as the shared lead instruments. Immediately one feels the electricity and sheer intensity come flooding from the studio’s walls.

The dynamic range of this album is one of its rare feats. How the soft spun of acoustic guitar on the heartfelt lament ‘The Lucky’ is followed later by the psych rock rhythms of ‘Last Days’ is a joy to savor. In between, reverb guitar hangs in the air amidst White’s call-and-response drum patterns of ‘Unwritten’.

The lyrical folk gem ‘Diver’ feels like a long lost parable from ancient times. The album’s title-track highlights the vast riches of this sumptuous collaboration. Introspective moments steeped in beauty, showcasing the deep telepathy between these two remarkable musicians.

As sublime percussive flourishes of ‘November’ are interwoven with crystalline guitar bliss, ‘The Quickening’s rich musical journey comes to a fitting close.

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‘The Quickening’ is out now on Thrill Jockey Records.

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https://marisaanderson.bandcamp.com/album/the-quickening

https://thrilljockey.com/

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Interview with Marisa Anderson & Jim White.

 

As a duo, I feel the deep musical telepathic connection between you both throughout these utterly hypnotic and compelling recordings. Firstly, can you recount your memories of first crossing paths? It is obvious from the stellar musical paths you have individually embarked on thus far, how natural and logical this collaboration would become. What were your primary concerns and objectives from the outset?

MA: We first crossed paths in 2014 when Xylouris White and I shared a bill in Portland.  Then in 2015 we went on tour together for 3 weeks. Jim was usually the DJ during the long rides between shows and my early impressions of getting to know him are based on his musical selections in the van.

From the outset of the collaboration, one of my primary goals was that the drums and the guitar have equal roles and voices; that there be no foreground / background instrument. My other main concern was dynamics. I want dynamic range in everything I do. For these recordings I was thinking in terms of fast/slow, loud/soft and the different combinations you get from mixing and matching those four elements between the two instruments.

JW: Xylouris White and Marisa Anderson shared a bill together in Portland in the early days of Xylouris White – around the time of our first album Goats. A friend loaned me a kit with calf skins on it that was so fun and warm sounding, the bounce of the stick is less and the sound much warmer than the synthetic heads. My first impression was Marisa was self-sufficient, her and her guitar and amp. My impression was that Marisa was self-possessed and interested which has been borne out. A year or two later we, Xylouris White and Marisa Anderson shared a tour and vehicle. It was a good trip and I listened to her set often. Before playing two traditional songs she talked about them from a different perspective than that of the obvious protagonist. Marisa and I share a lot of points of view but often have come from a different perspective to get to them, and I like that. We listened to a lot of country music in the car.

Somewhere along the way this idea of playing together came about, for me it was important to not have to make a product out of the attempt to play together. When I was on the west coast of USA I went up to Portland and we played in Marisa’s house once and then in Type Foundry studio. A couple of the songs on the record are from there, and it was enough of a start that later we decided to try to make a record. Marisa spends time in Mexico regularly and I was happy to go and be there. It was a good location because there were no disturbing distractions, we’d get a taxi to the studio, play, listen back, work on sounds at the start and as we went along, have a break, do some more. We listened back and checked and marked some pieces as we went along.

We didn’t want to make up pieces by taking an idea and consciously constructing it, we wanted to take the pieces as they happened. Intentions matter but the music wasn’t belaboured. I think we both had our eye on the overall picture. We didn’t enter into any arrangements where we were committed to a product in anyway, it was no one’s business but our own what we were doing. I didn’t have any externally driven dialogues in my mind. Everything about the record has happened with intention but not stress. As it happens we have what feels like a record. After the session we took the files away. I think I went on tour and Marisa went through the files and sent me more selections and some back and forth and we ended up with this record. Sometimes a record is so besieged by overwork you can’t listen to it for many years without feeling the struggle it was and all its associated memories. This record doesn’t have a lot of peripheral stress in it, not in the action of recording it, no struggle of taking a preconceived idea and trying to realize it in the studio, even though that is, hopefully, one of our skills as musicians – to get into that moment of translation. I can listen to the record without baggage and I’ve noticed that coming back to it now later, in the corona virus isolating period, that its taking on more emotional qualities as time goes past, that’s a good thing. To me.

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Aesthetically, the richness and intensity of the music is really striking. Can you talk me through the opening half of the record, from the opener ‘Gathering’ into ‘Unwritten’? The latter could be my personal favourite with its subtle flourishes and many nuances that blend so well together. Also, ‘The Other Christmas Song’ could be vintage Dirty Three with its spellbinding ripples.

MA: In ‘Gathering’ I was playing with a technique of trying to fret all the strings in places that could create as many perfect intervals (octaves, fourths  and fifths) as possible in one position. From there I was playing as many strings as rapidly as I could and moving between positions that gave me those intervals. I wanted to find perfect stillness (my left hand/the intervals) inside rapid movement (the fingers of my right hand).

‘Unwritten’ is a more intuitive piece, I was trying to grab a mood and turn it into a melody.

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The first recording session took place at Portland’s Type Foundry. I’m surprised by the fact these songs were borne from improvisation, with no rehearsals taking place prior to the sessions. Did you feel progress was made immediately once you were in the room together? Which of the tracks were formed here?

MA: We recorded Unwritten and November at Type Foundry. We made the decision to record everything from the start for a couple of reasons. I find that first takes on  improvisational musical ideas are often very fruitful and it is almost impossible to recreate those moments. Better to catch them as they happen. Also, we did not decide that we were making a record until after the Type Foundry session. We didn’t go into the studio with the pressure of having to make a record; we went into the studio just to document what we might make together, and once we found that it was fun and interesting, and that we enjoyed the process, we decided to keep going.

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Later on, you recorded songs in Mexico city’s Estudios Noviembres. I can imagine the acoustics of this space was special and proved an inspiration? What happy accidents, so to speak happened musically during this period in Mexico City?

MA: I spend a lot of time in Mexico City, and it’s a place I love. In my experience, it is a city of extremes. The apartment where I stay when I’m there is in the center of the city, and during the day it is unbelievably busy, crowded, noisy, constantly in motion, but in the wee hours of the night it is dead quiet, completely still. When I’m awake at that hour I’m aware that I’m in a silence at the center of 20 million people. Like all cities, Mexico City has a pulse; a current that hums through it that I enjoying trying to tap into.
The studio was kind of a time capsule of the late seventies. I don’t know when it was built, but it had been a recording studio throughout the seventies and maybe into the early eighties? Until something unknown happened and it had to close up overnight. It stayed closed until a few years ago when a trio of young engineers found out about it and tracked down the owner, who was in his eighties, and persuaded him to let them open it back up. You definitely go back in time when you walk through the doors.

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Can you describe your mindset and headspace as you improvise- and the inner dialogue that ensues?

MA: In the ideal situation there is no inner dialogue while I’m playing. If  I’m aware of myself talking to myself than I’m in the way- I’m not fully in the music. At best I hope to be immersed, operating beyond language. When things are going well I can see/hear a few beats ahead, I know where my fingers should land, I know what the sound should be. But as soon as I become aware of being in that space, it is gone. So it’s best for me not to think too much about it.

JW: I read an article on a scientific experiment involving brain monitoring. It discovered that when you think for example, to stand up, that actually your body has already decided to stand up, the scientists can see the message going from the brain to your leg and it occurs a tiny fraction of a second before you think that you want to get up.

Presumably you have thought about standing up before in your life and if you are going to the fridge for example you are aware what you bought at the shop. You also learnt that you shouldn’t stand up when the ceiling fan is over your head and really low for some reason, you know all these things, maybe later on you will regret that decision to open the fridge and get that beer and that will be taken into account next time, I don’t know but does that answer the question?

All the decisions, intentions, conversations, are in there but they aren’t gonna help you now. Like yeah, tell yourself what you want to do but don’t look at it in your mind directly, sneak a look from the side maybe, perhaps. Ideally, improvising is no different to anything else. Your body is improvising, not your mind – at that moment, but what you talked about at lunch will affect it, how that happens is your question I suppose. Let’s say we are improvising a piece of music, is it the moment when your mind is still (calm) that is the best, does stillness relate to transparency of what’s behind it? Or when you suddenly wake up and you realize you’ve been in the zone or whatever the athletes call it, was that the good stuff? Or was it just before you got to that, or just after or actually when you were in some horrible struggle trying to get somewhere intentionally which I’m not discounting either. No idea.  

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The contrast between the quiet bliss of those introspective moments to the intense maximalist roaring and resounding moments is one of the hallmarks of ‘The Quickening’. Did you have a big canvas of songs to cut down to, in terms of the finished album? Once the recordings were completed, how did you find the process of selecting the final recordings?

MA: There were many hours of music to carve the songs out of. Between the two studios we did about 7 days of recording. Much of that was easy to weed out immediately. I had a couple of weeks after Jim left Mexico to comb through the recording files and pull out what I thought were coherent ideas and work within them to find beginnings and endings and dynamic flow. After that initial weeding, I sent Jim my ideas for what might work and we basically figured out the rest going back and forth on email. I haven’t returned to the bank of recorded files since putting the record together. I worked as close to the moment of creation as possible to find the pieces that made it onto the record.

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Finally, what is your musical philosophy?

MA: Wow that’s a big question! I don’t think I’ve ever tried to put words to that idea…

Maybe the closest thing I could say is -Try to sound like yourself-.

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‘The Quickening’ is out now on Thrill Jockey Records.

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https://marisaanderson.bandcamp.com/album/the-quickening

https://thrilljockey.com/

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Mixtape: Fractured Air – April 2020

It’s been a while. The beautiful light of spring has finally descended upon us; filling the void (of current circumstance) with birdsong, blooming flowers, blue skies and all signs of glittering life. Even though nature does not mirror the dark surface that permeates all of our lives at this present moment; remember all things must pass. These days offer moments of introspection and quiet: to be at peace with your own self during this slowed down, prolonged period.

The art of music remains a trusted constant. Light In The Attic’s lovingly assembled compilation of Seattle-based recording engineer Kearney Barton is an exceptional document of divine pop, soul and R&B spanning the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. ‘Architect of the Northwest Sound’ is filled with a seamless array of timeless musical discoveries.
Another essential compilation is Morr Music’s soon-to-be-released ‘Minna Miteru’: collection of hard to find music from the Japanese independent scene, compiled by Saya, who plays in the iconic duo Tenniscoats. We have an exclusive track (peformed by Takako Minekawa and Dustin Wong) on this month’s mix.

The L.A-based composer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s shape-shifting sonic explorations continue to evolve on her Ghostly debut ‘Expanding Electricity’: an epic and enriching foray into visionary fourth world dimensions. Essential. Russian electronic musician Kate NV’s forthcoming full-length ‘Room for the Moon’ on Brooklyn music institution RVNG Intl represents another singular voice in the contemporary musical landscape of today.

The debut collaboration of Australian drummer Jim White (Dirty Three/Xylouris White) and renowned guitarist Marisa Anderson arrives soon on the legendary Chicago label Thrill Jockey (and first single ‘The Lucky’ offers the first glimpses into this enchanting body of work). Cellist Helen Money’s new Thrill Jockey full-length and Rebecca Foon’s latest Constellation solo release are things of beauty and boundless magnitude.

Inventions is the immense collaborative duo of Matthew Robert Cooper (Eluvium) and Mark T. Smith (Explosions In The Sky). Their new single ‘Outlook for the Future’ is a joyous, uplifting sonic voyage. “What is your outlook for the future?” is asked beneath colourful woodwind patterns and rhythmic pulses, before an elderly female voice responds: “I don’t worry about the future”. Live in the present: in the here and now. Music never ceases to surprise and awaken something deep inside of us all.

 

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Fractured Air – April 2020 Mix

01. Ann Wilson & The Daybreaks ‘Through Eyes and Glass’ (Light In The Attic)
02. Maki Asakawa ‘No Ga Kowai’ (Honest Jon’s)
03. Takako Minekawa ＆ Dustin Wong ‘Party On A Floating Cake’ (Morr Music)
04. Kate NV ‘Sayonara’ (RVNG Intl)
05. Inventions ‘Outlook for the Future’ (Temporary Residence)
06. Group Listening ‘A Little Lost’ (PRAH)
07. Cate Le Bon & Group Listening ‘Here It Comes Again’ (Mexican Summer)
08. Hamish Kilgour ‘Crazy Radiance’ (Ba Da Bing!)
09. Arthur Russell ‘You Did It Yourself’ (Audika)
10. Yves Tumor ‘Gospel For A New Future’ (Warp)
11. El Michel’s Affair ‘Rubix’ (Big Crown Records)
12. MF Doom ‘Ninjarous’ (30th Century Records)
13. Four Tet ‘Something in the Sadness’ (Text)
14. Cucina Povera ‘Saniaiset’ (Night School)
15. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith ‘Expanding Electricity’ (Ghostly)
16. Laraaji ‘Hare Jaya Jaya Rama II’ (Numero Group)
17. Drab City ‘Working For The Men’ (Bella Union)
18. 24 Carat Black ‘You’re Slipping Away’ (Numero Group)
19. Pentangle ‘Light Flight’ (Sanctuary)
20. Jim White and Marisa Anderson ‘The Lucky’ (Thrill Jockey)
21. Enablers ‘Even Its Lies’ (Lancashire And Somerset)
22. Helen Money ‘One Year One Ring’ (Thrill Jockey)
23. Rebecca Foon ‘Ocean Song’ (Constellation)
24. A Winged Victory For The Sullen ‘Adios, Florida’ (Ninja Tune)
25. Brian Eno ‘Deep Blue Day’ (Editions EG)
26. Tropical Rainstorm ‘Flying Bird’ (Light In The Attic)
27. Aoife Nessa Frances ‘Less Is More’ (Basin Rock)
28. Dark Arts ‘The More Things Stay The Same’ (STROOM)
29. Windy & Carl ‘Crossing Over’ (Kranky)
30. Colin Self ‘Once More’ (RVNG Intl)

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Guest Mixtape: Sarah Louise

The Asheville, North Carolina-based guitarist and songwriter Sarah Louise presents an expansive mixtape which delves deep into new age, spiritual jazz, folk and indie territories. This year marked the release of Louise’s breathtaking solo album “Deeper Woods”, out now via Thrill Jockey Records.

May 2018 saw the release of “Deeper Woods”, the latest album from the American guitarist and songwriter Sarah Louise, via Chicago’s Thrill Jockey Records. Significantly, “Deeper Woods” is Louise’s first LP which predominantly features her own vocals, offset magnificently with her trusted 12-string guitar, a sound which has come to be synonymous with her oeuvre to date, much like fellow Thrill Jockey artists Glenn Jones and Marissa Anderson. “Deeper Woods” also features contributions from Thom Ngyuen (drums) and Jason Meagher (bass) while Louise produced the album at her home-studio in Asheville, North Carolina. As well as recording as a solo artist, Louise is also one half of the duo House and Land – alongside Sally Anne Morgan (who also plays fiddle with The Black Twig Pickers) – who effortlessly fuse Appalachian folk traditions where harmonies forge and coalesce to soul-stirring effect. Thus far, the duo have released their self-titled LP last year via Thrill Jockey. Presented here is an extensive mixtape compiled by Sarah Louise, which – like her own wholly unique musical output – similarly shares both a timeless reverie and profound mysticsm; music which quietly speaks directly to the heart of the listener. Like the respective songbooks of musical visionaries from both of the past and present – Alice Coltrane, Mary Lattimore, John Fahey, William Tyler – Sarah Louise’s artistry and art is nothing short of transcendental.

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Sarah Louise – “Inner Space” (Fractured Air Guest Mix)

01. Alice Coltrane – “Radhe-Shyam” (Warner Bros.)
02. Midori Takada – “Mr. Henri Rousseau’s Dream” (Reel-2-Reel to Digital conversion) (WRWTFWW Records)
03. Joni Mitchell – “Woodstock” (Reprise)
04. Kate Bush – “The Saxophone Song” (EMI)
05. John Luther Adams – “The Light that fills The World” (Cold Blue Music)
06. Anne Briggs – “Fine Horseman” (CBS / Earth)
07. Pärson Sound – “Blåslåten” (ti’llindien, Subliminal Sounds)
08. Heron Oblivion – “Beneath Fields” (Sub Pop)
09. Shirley Collins – “Bonnie Boy” (Polydor / A Wing & A Prayer Ltd)
10. Blind Mamie Forehand – “Honey In The Rock” (Anchor)
11. Solange – “Cranes in the Sky” (Columbia)
12. Trees – “Sally Free and Easy” (Sony / CBS)
13. Elvie Thomas – “Motherless Child Blues” (Mississippi Records)
14. Twin Sisters – “Sidna Myers” (Clawhammer) (County Records)
15. John Adams – “Phrygian Gates” (performed by Andrew Russo) (Sanctuary Records Group)
16. Meredith Monk & Collin Walcott – “Fear And Loathing In Gotham: Gotham Lullaby” (ECM)

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“Deeper Woods” by Sarah Louise is available now on Thrill Jockey Records.

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https://sarahlouise.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/sarahlouisemusicmusic/

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Chosen One: The Sea and Cake

“When you hear something come about like that they’re instantly recognized as potential as a song and it took like a few minutes.”

—Sam Prekop

Words: Mark Carry

This week marks the eagerly awaited new studio album from beloved Chicago indie pop luminaries The Sea and Cake. ‘Any  Day’ showcases a band at the peak of their powers, conjuring up an abstract canvas of bewitching and absorbing song cycles wrapped in sublime beauty and poetic expression.

Following on from 2012’s ‘Runner’ LP, The Sea and Cake continue to explore new sonic terrain with a renewed clarity and rejuvenated spirit. ‘Any  Day’ is the first album recorded as the trio of Sam Prekop, Archer Prewtitt and John McEntire; the result is a wonderful minimalism running throughout the ten compelling sonic creations, with a rich, organic feel emanating from the breathtaking musical landscape.

A charged immediacy is enveloped within the glorious album opener ‘Cover The  Mountain’, conveying a deep, near-telepathic connection between the poly-rhythms of McEntire and intricate guitar interplay between Prekop and Prewitt. Chris Abrahams (of Australian jazz trio The Necks) once said “there’s something balanced about a triangle” and this rings true for the Sea and Cake’s latest sonic venture: a state of equilibrium is forever attained as the dynamism and ripple flow of textures, nuances, timbres, colours ascend beautifully into the pools of your mind.

Prekop sings “I had to follow the moonlight, follow it against the ocean” on the song’s opening verse. Rich poetic prose is masterfully etched – like a painter’s deft touch of hand or a photographer’s innate vision – across the sprawling canvas of rhythmic pulses and gorgeous guitar textures. Equilibrium or furthermore, a kind of liminal state is somehow attained with no trace of effort or conscious thought.

The abstract, non-linear nature of Prekop’s songcraft is one of the great hallmarks of The Sea and Cake’s immaculate songbook – and ‘Any  Day’ conveys the Chicago songwriter’s finest lyrics to date. ‘Cover The Mountain’ invites the listener on a journey: to follow along the waves of the ocean. A heartfelt lament packed with an array of immense beauty at every turn, with Prekop’s moving vocals on the song’s moving rise: “Waiting here with nothing to say” with Prekop’s delicate vocal refrain before pristine synthesizer flickers like stars dotted across a night sky. “Crooked smiles are broken” resonates powerfully amidst the charged electric guitars and thundering polyrhythms of McEntire’s trusted brushwork.

The achingly beautiful melancholic lament ‘Any Day’ – the towering title-track – seeps through your every heart pore with its gorgeously floating spell and early 70’s kaleidoscopic pop splendor. The intricate arrangements is a joy to savor (each and every divine moment, from the captivating woodwind arrangements to the airy melodies and jazz inflections).

‘Occurs’ displays the masterful inner dialogue that ensues between Prekop and Prewitt’s soaring guitar lines. Prekop yearns to “hold on” on the song’s deeply affecting chorus. The phrasing is sublime, especially on the verses, with the syncopated rhythms forming the gripping foundations. “I’m beginning to trust in getting nowhere” is yet another immaculate turn of phrase. An extended jam – from African sunsets or the Brazilian tropicalia movement – serves the track’s fitting outro.

The rich aesthetic flow is integral to any record, and ‘Any Day’ epitomizes just how feel flows (to coin a Beach Boys creation) throughout. For instance, the soothing guitar instrumental ‘Paper Window’ invites deep reflection of the innermost kind with gorgeous, clean electric guitar tones interwoven with warm percussion. The synth effects and soaring melodies of the pulsating post-rock indie gem ‘Day  Moon’ with its infectious chorus refrain “Seal the night / Not just anyone”.

The tempo is slowed down on the heartfelt acoustic ballad ‘Into  Rain’ with masterful addition of layered organs on the song’s soul stirring rise. Perfect pop songs such as this make you think have you known these songs – at once beautifully familiar and mysteriously unknown – your entire life, like remnants of a faded dream.

‘These Falling Arms’ is one of the band’s strongest songs thus far (a songbook which spans over two decades and eleven vital albums). Prekop asks to “follow my thoughts” amidst the warmth of floating guitars and gentle beat. It is just how each of the music’s elements is melded together so effortlessly, from the beautiful Americana lead guitar lines to the deeply moving poetic prose of Prekop’s near mystical vision. ‘Any Day’ is another timeless odyssey of meticulously crafted, singular pop songs from one of independent music’s most beloved bands.

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‘Any Day’ is out on Friday 11^th May via Thrill Jockey Records.

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https://www.facebook.com/TheSeaandCake.0

https://www.facebook.com/ThrillJockey/

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Interview with Sam Prekop.

 

Congratulations, Sam, on the latest Sea and Cake album; it’s another incredible release from a very special band. I’d love if you could go back to the making of the record and your memories of the particular recording sessions? It’s interesting how you found yourselves with a new challenge of the core group being a trio during this time?

Sam Prekop: Well, thanks I’m glad you like the record. It was quite a bit different making this record than earlier ones. I mean in a weird way it felt the same and completely different simultaneously. So, the big changes were John McEntire moved to California, which he’s been thinking about doing for quite a while and he finally did it but he did that [laughs] while making this record. We recorded the basic tracks all together in the studio and stuff but after that point I worked solo for a month on the vocals and stuff like that. And we actually mixed it over the internet as well which wasn’t the optimal situation but that’s how it came to be. We were really hoping to be able to get together but with John in California, the logistics didn’t quite work out. We were so late meeting the deadline anyway but I think it came out pretty well.

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For the title-track – which was the first taster of the new album – the arrangement is wonderful and how intricate all the components are but it still very much has this minimal framework to it.

SP: Those are my favourite kind of songs. So I spend a lot of time just playing the guitar and coming up with ideas and they become pretty solid and have parts that changes and all this stuff. And for that song ‘Any Day’ Arch and I spent quite a bit of time just playing together and that is one of those songs that sort of happened while we were sitting around playing. When you hear something come about like that they’re instantly recognized as potential as a song and it took like a few minutes. All the work beforehand went into like to make an effortless, instant composition; I wish all of it was like that actually. But anyways the basis of that track is born out of improvising situations like on the side, here’s a handful of chords and rhythms that we like and we just made something out of it. But it’s just one of those that wrote itself and took on from there. And it is quite minimalist really, it’s really only two parts and it depends more on the feel than anything else (than any overriding structure). It felt like the right thing to do. And to have that gliding, floating arrangement keeps it wide open for me to try a bunch of different vocals: not just ballad singing but also nice rhythmic punctuation phrases. When a song like that is so open I’m able to take different tacts on different parts of the song so it’s a nice pay-off for the open type of arrangements.

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I love how the album opens with ‘Cover The Mountain’with its immediacy and really feels like that perfect opening line.

SP: That song was probably the complete opposite from ‘Any Day’ in that it went through many iterations quite laboured over. My initial idea I threw out half of the song just because it wasn’t working, it was like two songs put together. So that was a pretty major transformation from an initial impulse. I will say I was quite happy with the vocal hooks and lines that I came up on that one. I think lyric-wise, it’s some of the more pointed, visual lyrics that I was able to conjure up; I like that song as well.

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I’d love to gain an insight into your songwriting process and whether the process itself has changed in any way over the years? It’s this beautifully abstract nature of your lyrics and with the phrasing, how it melds with the different parts of the music.

SP: I think my technique and strategy I don’t think has really changed with how I get started going and approach it. But I feel like I’ve gotten more refined with it. It’s very particular and how I write it’s a very personal technique and strategy. I don’t think anyone else would come up with anything remotely like it [laughs]. I don’t know if that’s good or bad but it’s worked for me. I’m not entrusted in narrative songwriting; that’s not my strong point . So I think I figured that out early on so I could find another way of writing interesting songs without having to convey a narrative or typical content. I don’t think the way I arrive on something has changed but it’s become more refined over the years.

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I love the placing of the songs and the flow with how each one comes into the next. For instance, the placing of the instrumental ‘Paper Window’ in the middle of the record. You already touched on how some songs are formed without much effort; I can imagine how you and the other members have this really deep chemistry between you that things just naturally occur while you are in the room together.I wonder would you have many conversations in terms of direction and so on, or is it more just to leave the music do the talking?

SP: It’s a combo of both. So that instrumental is another one of those like automatic happened at rehearsal songs. So there’s three on the record: ‘Any Day’, ‘Paper Window’ and the last song as well was also another, ‘These Falling Arms’ was another written in the moment and it just stood out instantly. And it’s really simple and straight forward. Other songs, despite our long history and naturalness with just hanging out and working together, some songs posed different challenges. I would say ‘Occurs’ was definitely a hard one to pull off somehow and I’m not exactly sure why but I think it came out fine in the end. It was a struggle; mainly with the bass stuff and so not having a bass player posed some exciting possibilities but also some difficulties and that was an influence on that song I think. Whereas John was doing most of it but he’s not really a bass player; of course he’s a really fine musician but sometimes you need someone who has years of experience of playing bass to pull it off.

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With regards to your solo work, I love your synthesizer-based music you’ve been creating. I wonder was it a conscious decision you knew from early on that you would step away from adding synthesizer to the album (or a very minimal amount) because there is mainly organic elements to these latest songs?

SP: It was a bit. I mean I recognized that the record was going in that direction so I was following it as it was leaning more that way. I’m still really active and involved with making the synthesizer music with the modular and all that stuff. But I think I just felt like I should focus as much as possible on the singing rather than augmenting or decorating the music with added on stuff so I just felt  that if I could get it strong enough where I didn’t feel like I needed to do that kind of stuff, it would make for a better record. So when I started writing the record it wasn’t neccessarily the case, I just recognized that that was the direction it was taking during the process and I just stayed with that concept basically. Normally, I think if we had mixed it together that’s when we really like to come up with stuff in over-dub situations. So I think had we done that it’s possible that there may have been more organ and synthesizer types of things but since we weren’t able to do that it didn’t quite happen. I don’t feel like it’s missing anything though.

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The Sea and Cake typify this, in the way there are so many wonderful off shoot projects and releases from each of the band members (in between the band albums). I wonder do you see things all in the one way or is each one a separate entity that you find is linked to each other?

SP: I guess a little bit. I work a lot on photography and the synthesizer music so I think it’s a case that all the different projects feed off each other and inform the other one and so on. So I feel like if I hadn’t made those solo synthesizer records, the latest Sea and Cake record would be different. I can’t help but believe that would be the case; that everything is a part of a big puzzle and it all adds up. So had I not been making these modular records, with the latest Sea and Cake record I probably would have tried to get [laughs] more of that into it (perhaps, I don’t know). I think it all feeds off each other, enhances and interplays between all of the disciplines.

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The music community of Chicago is obviously synonymous with so many great bands and musicians and you’ve been involved in different collaborations with other musicians over the years. I’d love to gain an insight into the nature of the music community in Chicago and how it has thrived so much (and continues to do so)?

SP: I think being in Chicago is really important, more so when I was starting out. The community aspect of it and there were plenty of places to play and to build an audience; enough people to pay attention to what was happening (that was super important I think). I think that’s a benefit of the size of Chicago; it’s a big city and cheaper than New York or LA so that combination makes it a very good music town. But I’m from here so I didn’t come here from somewhere else. And I don’t know if that’s a benefit or not but Chicago is where I’ve always been so I don’t have any outsider looking in perspective. I mean it has worked out for me but I don’t know anything else [laughs]; I don’t know how bad it could be if you lived in St Louis or somewhere. But I will say now that I’ve been doing it for so long I’m less active on the scene than I used to be – not entirely but somewhat – I have two little kids  that I watch all of the time so becoming a father has changed my hanging out at rock bars and stuff like that. And another thing is I feel like I don’t collaborate with a huge variety of people as much as other people. I mean it seems like it but I feel like I’ve got a pretty solid close-knit stable of people I work with over the years. Other people are really good at collaborating on the spot with a wide range cast of characters and that’s never been quite my thing.

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Going back to the formation of The Sea and Cake and the early days, looking back on things as a group, would you have had defining records or certain people who you felt were hugely influential and that led to your overall sound?

SP: When I was starting with my first band Shrimp Boat; big stuff from that time was like the Velvet Underground and Tom Waits was an early influence on that music which carried over into the Sea and Cake stuff as well. For The Sea and Cake, I think a big part of it was that I was always interested in a pretty wide variety of music, so I wasn’t exclusively only into rock bands. At that time I think it was somewhat perhaps unusual like I listened to a lot of improvised music, jazz and soul (of course this is completely commonplace now but back in the early 90’s things were more compartmented like if you were a rock band, you listened to other rock bands [laughs] and that’s what you did). So for Shrimp Boat and Sea and Cake that was not the case and we were a rock band basically and we attempted to play jazz or improvized music and we were also influenced by Brazilian stuff and electronic stuff. With the Sea and Cake, Stereolab was a big deal I think for me during that early time, it was quite influential along with a lot of Brazlian stuff (like Caetano Veloso) and even The Velvet Underground and all that kind of stuff. I’d say though in terms of influences it’s never a straight line. I get into some record and it would immediately inform my music, it’s more lke an osmosis process; it warms itself in without me knowing it.

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Did you have any important musical discoveries or personal favourites that you always come back to in the past few months or so?

SP: What’s wierd is while I’m working on music I don’t listen to much other music, so the whole year has been quite bankrupt of new music [laughs]. I find that I listen to a lot of techno and electronic stuff (more so than singer-based stuff which people might find unusual). My tastes for listening are much more experiemental and electronica. I guess one recent band – well they are a duo – that I like quite a bit is Visible Cloaks and through them I got interested in a lot of this 80’s fourth world Japanese stuff. It’s not vocal-based, it’s instrumental; I guess ambient (for lack of a better word). But I go back to all kinds of stuff… I really got into that Popol Vuh re-issue from two years ago (on Soul Jazz Records). One thing that I’ve been into though – and I’ve always really liked her but never had been in constant rotation – has been certain Joni Mitchell tracks which I think is more than I’ve recognized before has been quite influential in what I try to do. I think her singing and phrasing is quite amazing; rhythmically along with melodically.

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With the new album and the touring it must be exciting, again with a band armed with such a great back catalogue; and the chance to mix new songs with the older ones? Would this be an aspect that you would relish in the sense of how the new songs translate to the live setting and how they combine with the older songs?

SP: Yeah, so that’s what we’ve been working on lately is bringing together the new show. And I’m excited about playing most of the new record I think will be part of the set. So there’s a handful of older songs that we’ve played for years and years and we’re planning on changing that up a bit so that’s exciting to pull out some older songs from the catalogue. One that I’m working on now is ‘Four Corners’ from ‘One Bedroom’ and that’s always been one of my favourite songs from our back catalogue but we’ve never been able to really pull it off live for some reason – I mean I don’t think we tried much, maybe one or two times and I’m excited about getting that one up to speed. So there’ll be some different selections from the back catalogue like we always have to play ‘Jacking the Ball’and stuff from that record; so it’ll be like twenty years of songs I guess [laughs].

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‘Any Day’ is out on Friday 11^th May via Thrill Jockey Records.

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https://www.facebook.com/TheSeaandCake.0

https://www.facebook.com/ThrillJockey/

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Chosen One: Colleen

Interview with Cécile Schott.

“This decision actually made me feel a bit more confident that a fully electronic album was the way to go, since it would introduce a human element of non-exactness, something I value in music. ”

—Cécile Schott 

Words: Mark Carry, Photographs: Isabel Dublang

The world-renowned French artist Colleen has crafted one of her most captivating, absorbing and empowering works to date in the form of ‘A flame my love, a frequency’. The latest record marks Colleen’s first fully electronic-based album, having departed from the viola da gamba instrument (which was integral to the last two sonic treasures ‘Captain Of None’ and ‘Weighing Of The Heart’). The results are nothing short of staggering whereby Schott’s singular melodies shimmer across the radiant warmth of shimmering electronics and textured rhythms, creating, in turn, eight resolutely unique and stunningly beautiful sound worlds.

The delicate synth tones of ‘November’ immediately transports you to an ethereal dimension that serves the perfect prelude to the album’s lead single ‘Separating’. The gorgeously rich polyrhythms of Schott’s trusted Pocket Piano and Moogerfoogers creates mesmerising soundscapes that encapsulate the French artist’s achingly beautiful vocals. A charged immediacy and striking intimacy exudes from ‘Separating’s  masterfully interwoven sonic tapestries. As Schott sings on the opening verse: “Separating from the world /Is like a drop of rain/Falling to the ocean floor”, it reflects the artist’s emotional response to the inevitability of death and life’s impermanence. The hypnotic refrain of ‘Separating’ emits a healing force as a myriad of utterly transcendent moments continually fill the human space like stars dotted across the night sky.

The stand-out instrumental  cut ‘Another World’ forges a deeply moving journey into the depths of the human heart.  A piece of music such as this truly reflects the singularity of this remarkable musician, forever pushing the sonic envelope and exploring new avenues at each and every turn. The production’s richness and warmth is a joy to savor, which continually evolves and mutates into various shape-shifting patterns (a cross somewhere between Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s Black Ark studio productions and Nils Frahm’s synthesizer works). The ambient bliss of ‘Another World’ feels just like that: co-existing in some far-reaching stratosphere of unknown dimensions.

‘Winter Dawn’ is steeped in the darkness of anguish and pain: “The world had nearly ended and the sky was blue” is sung beneath rhythmic pulses of synthesizers. The glorious rise in the song forms one of the utterly transcendent moments of ‘A flame my love, a frequency’ as Schott laments “O dear soul, flesh and bones/Love alone is your home” beneath intricately layered and sumptuously crafted electronic passages. The dichotomy of light and dark permeates throughout as Schott pleads “Deep and warm, golden dawn/Shine some more of that light of yours”. An intensely beautiful and soul-stirring tour-de-force.

The gripping heart of the latest full-length comes with the achingly beautiful duo of ‘Summer night (Bat song)’ and ‘The stars vs creatures’. ‘Summer night (bat song)’ is an intimate, heartfelt lament that conveys Schott’s deep love for nature. Lyrically, I feel there’s a closeness with the timeless songbook of Sibylle Baier or Townes Van Zandt in the innate ability to create an entire world – with such striking emotional depth – within a song. A deep sadness is etched across the “descending milky night” of Schott’s masterful poetic prose wherein the metaphor of the bat’s mystical movement conveys the necessity of change. A masterful song-craft.

Nature’s peace flows throughout the sublime ‘The stars vs creatures’. The glistening blue of a kingfisher by a river or the rare sight of a terrific red fox in the early night sowed the seeds for this magical song-cycle. Lyrically, the song feels more like a parable – a message of divine wisdom – that reminds us to savor life and appreciate each moment. The blazing light of hope shines forth like a million stars.

The album closer – and sprawling title-track – is yet another defining moment of this monumental work. This meditative lament casts a spell like no other as Schott’s beguiling vocals ascends into the atmosphere with eternal rays of optimism “so stillness now can reign again”. The extended electronic sections (a key part throughout the record) swells like that of the ocean waves as they traverse the vast human space. As the sun-lit horizon looms in the distance, we – the listener – are reminded just how far the journey has taken us: “I will call you when the sun has reached the final hour”.

‘A flame my love, a frequency’ is a precious and divine work of art. To coin Carl Sagan, music such as this can “break the shackles of time”.

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‘A flame my love, a frequency’ is out now on Thrill Jockey Records.

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Colleen’s tour dates (including America and Europe) are listed here.

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http://colleenplays.org/
https://www.facebook.com/colleenplays
http://www.thrilljockey.com/

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Interview with Cécile Schott.

Congratulations firstly Cécile on your truly moving and groundbreaking new album “A flame my love, a frequency”. It’s a real pleasure to ask you some questions about this latest sonic marvel of yours. This sixth studio album represents something as close to a concept album as you’ve ever done. Rather than having to recount your specific memories of being in Paris – your hometown – during those atrocious terrorist attacks of November 2015, please shed some light on your mindset and outlook when it came to the immediate aftermath of this harrowing experience? For instance, you began to compose and make music again after a (much-needed) silence post these awful attacks, I would love to gain an insight into the feelings, colours, musical language that you soon found yourself heavily immersed in (and what would be the inception of “A flame my love, a frequency”)?

Cécile Schott: In July 2015 I had just finished the Captain of None tour and enthusiastically acquired a Pocket Piano by the brand Critter and Guitari and a Moog filter pedal from the Moogerfooger series called the MIDIMuRF. I experimented throughout the whole summer with the combination of the two and my Moogerfooger MF104M delay pedal (the one I already used on Captain of None), the initial intention being to create rhythms with the Pocket Piano + Moogerfoogers, which would form a kind of basis on which to play my viola. But somehow the two sounds did not seem to “gel” and I couldn’t find the excitement and freshness I had felt when playing the viola on my previous two albums. Instead, I did start to have little kernels of songs born just out of the synth and pedals, and I recorded these initial tests and took notes as I went along. This initial work period was suddenly interrupted by the illness of a close family member whom I had to go and visit immediately in France. I returned to Spain briefly, then went back to France again, and when I had to go back to Spain again, on the way back stopped in Paris on November 13th. So that when I came back, I found myself in the situation where I knew I had to work on a new album, but it felt like both a superficial and impossible task in the light of all the things that were happening on both a personal and more global level. For two weeks our flat stayed completely silent except for the online TV news, even listening to music just felt wrong. However, little by little, I realized that not working was not the solution, and that perhaps working on a new album might be helpful in taking my mind off the things that worried me so much. I felt an intense need for what I could call a joyful sound,and that’s when the basic ideas for the first songs were born: the instrumentals “Another world” and “One warm spark”, and “Separating”. “November” was also created early, as well as the basis  for “A flame my love, a frequency”.

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The choice to have “A flame my love, a frequency” as your first fully electronic and keyboard-based album works so wonderfully on so many levels. The stark intimacy of your new song cycles – as your fragile vocals are masterfully embedded in sumptuous layers of electronic tapestries – and the cosmic quality of this latest voyage is further heightened by the minimalist nature of the new music. It’s this sacred space that your songs forever inhabit that makes for such an enriching, empowering and deeply affecting experience for the human heart and mind (which becomes the essence of the new album). Can you trace back to your decision as to remove the viola da gamba from your musical world (for now, at least) and I’d love for you to describe the various electronic instrumentation and studio set-up for the new album?

CS: I think that as a musician who has worked for more than 2 decades now, even if the first 12 years were not professional, I have a pretty fast understanding of when something is working or not. You always have to fully test out your ideas and give them a chance, but there comes a point where if something really feels forced, then you’re just wasting your time and not looking for alternative solutions that might work. I just remember that at one point it dawned on me that perhaps this album would have to exist as a purely electronic album, and because of the gravity of the situation, this drastic musical decision did not actually seem so drastic to me, or at least did not scare me as much as it might have done otherwise. The one thing I knew, from a composition and production point of view, was that if I was going to leave the viola behind for this album, then I needed to make sure I didn’t lose any of the characteristics of my music, which I see as a certain type of asymmetrical song structure, the combination of pop or at the very least melody and experimentation, and a warm sound.

As for the gear, I first saw the Pocket Piano at King Britt’s studio in Philadelphia during the Captain of None tour, and was immediately in love with its small portable size, and I was able to test the MIDIMuRF briefly twice, once again in King Britt’s studio and also at the house of my old friend French musician Dominique Grimaud. The Septavox came later, as I realized I wanted to expand the possibilities already contained in this extremely small but versatile setup. Pretty soon I made the decision that the album would have to be recorded live, because cutting into electronic soundwaves to correct mistakes (something I’ve always practiced in my past albums but always on acoustic sounds) is something that is extremely time-consuming and sometimes bordering on impossible. This decision actually made me feel a bit more confident that a fully electronic album was the way to go, since it would introduce a human element of non-exactness, something I value in music.

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Many melancholic shades and textures shimmer across these new recordings, Cécile but I feel there is an undeniable light of hope and strength and beauty that radiates from the depths of darkness. Aesthetically, I just love how you place several instrumental tracks among the vocal tracks (obviously something not new here) but it really feels like one of those dub treasures from the 60s/70s as one hears these beautiful, transporting instrumental tracks alongside the richly poignant ballads. For example, how the ethereal, blissed-out instrumental ‘Another world’ follows precedes the deeply affecting (and latest single) ‘Winter Dawn’ – and the many intricate arrangements and moments within moments that effortlessly occur – creates such a profound listening experience. I’d love if you could discuss more in detail about these intricate transitions that occur between tracks (and within tracks of course) and the aesthetic quality of “A flame my love, a frequency”.

CS: Thanks for your kind words Mark. Because the subject matter could not be anything other than the very large question of life and death and our fear of death and illness, I immediately felt that this would almost be a concept album, and my feeling was reinforced by the limited instrumental palette – something I’d already tested on Captain of None. The idea in the case of a restricted instrumental palette is not that the songs will be similar, but the reverse: *because* theoretically you are limited in terms of the variety of sound, you cannot hide poor compositional ideas behind a lushness of diversity of instrumental timbres. Instead, the song structure itself, melodies and chords, effects used dynamically to truly shape the direction and mood of the song, the choice to include lyrics or not, and the actual lyrics themselves – everything needs to contribute to the diversity of the album. And to make extra sure that I wasn’t using the same sound combinations over and over again, I kept a precise account of what synth settings I was using (which mode and type of wave), what pedals I was using and what for (just the filter pedal / just the delay one / both, was I using preprogrammed filter patterns, LFO, etc). I really became lost in this electronic soundworld and found it immensely enjoyable, and was surprised at how I did not miss the viola da gamba once: it just felt like exploring a different country and thinking that it was worth a visit in its own right, without comparing it to other beautiful places you’ve visited. Exploring the various combinations was endless, time-consuming too, and not always fruitful, but regularly I found a combination that really spoke to my ears and heart and each time they became a new composition for the album, and little by little I started to get a clearer idea of the tracklisting, which follows a rough chronological timeline: November obviously refers to the worst month of that year, Winter dawn to the subsequent period, Summer night (bat song) already leads to a more peaceful period, and The stars vs creatures and the title track are more about the remaining uncertainty that one realizes will always accompany life, this emotional rollercoaster that life will always be: there simply is no way of evacuating death from life, it is part of it, and we have to learn to live with it.

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The gripping heart of the new album comes with the achingly beautiful duo of ‘Summer night (Bat song)’ and ‘The stars vs creatures’ on side B. ‘The stars vs creatures’ is one of the most profound and moving ballads I have ever heard, one that reduces me to tears upon every visit. Please recount your memories of writing these particular songs, Cécile? The natural world and this magical, otherworldly realm that ‘The stars vs creatures’ inhabits exudes this remarkable source of intense healing. The lyric of “a single one of my feathers is worth a million stars or Venus” represents one of the most magical, celestial moments of ‘A flame my love, a frequency’. 

CS: These were part of the 3 songs that were born with the Septavox during the second half of the making of the album: Winter dawn, Summer night (Bat song), and The stars vs creatures. Summer night (Bat song) is one of the darkest sounding songs on the album, and yet it was inspired by a moment of profound peace: in the summer of 2016 I once again visited my parents in France and was lucky enough to find exceptionally good weather, so spent my afternoons either outside in the garden or inside my childhood bedroom with the windows wide open, giving me a great vantage point to watch birds and do birdwatching-related readings or listenings (something I’d planned on doing for a long time). In the evening after dinner I particularly looked forward to watching the house martins flying high in the sky and sometimes flying right above our house, but the moment I loved even better was waiting for the last bird to fly and for the first bat to appear. There are only two or three bats every night, so seeing them always feels quite special, and over the past couple of years I’ve grown more and more fascinated by these incredible animals, and the fact that they appear right after the last bird seen flying, sometimes within seconds, strikes me as an amazing symbol of a passage from the world of the day and light to a world of night and darkness, which in spite of the commonly associated negative themes is actually brimming with life.

One evening, as I sat in my room, one of them literally nearly flew into my room, and turned around at the last millisecond. I marveled at the dexterity and perfection of its flight, and reflected that I wished that I as a human being were able to do the same thing with my thoughts: just stop them when they’re going in the wrong direction. I knew there and then that I would need to make a song out of that experience, and out of the peace that I felt in that room so loaded with memories.

The stars vs creatures is indeed like another chapter in those reflections on the power of nature and its redeeming beauty: I really do see a kingfisher regularly in a river not far from where I live, and I had a chance encounter with a red fox in Switzerland while birdwatching in a low mountain area – a fleeting second in which I saw him and he saw me and then was gone, a second that filled me with an immense joy that lasted for weeks, the sensation of having had a privileged glimpse into the life of a wild animal where he’s really supposed to be.

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Were there challenges posed with the electronic instrumentation and particularly when this provided the sole musical backdrop (excluding your vocals of course)? For instance, I presume some the Moog pedals were used on your previous ‘Captain of None’ tour and I presume you acquired some new equipment to be added to the mix for the new record?

CS: The Moog pedals were really crucial in giving width and analog warmth to the synths, and I used my favourite panning, 50% Left 50% Right, on all stereo returns from the pedals, so that the music sounds like it’s kind of dancing between your ears. I also added my favourite plugins which I’d already used on Captain of None, one is a spring reverb emulation and the other a tape delay.

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I must ask you about the gorgeous album-title and how you came about choosing this deeply poignant title (which embodies the music so perfectly)? Also, please talk me through the song itself, it’s one of those meditative laments that maps the impending sunlit horizon. I also love how there seems to be a strong correlation between the album’s title-track and the lead single ‘Separating’, feels like they are sister songs. The title-track reminds me of ‘Lighthouse’, with its hypnotic, meditative feel and the everlasting light of hope that shines forth. Also, this organ sound that melds with your voice creates such a heavenly, soul-stirring sound.

CS: I had the core of that title song early in the making of the album, but the words came to me right towards the end, and in general, this album’s lyrics were hard to write given the serious subject matter. I knew I wanted to stay on a “poetic” (for lack of another word) level because that’s really the only way I manage to write lyrics, and the image of the flame seemed to work for me as a symbol of something that we need to keep alive in times of hardship: some people use a physical flame to represent life or the loved one in times of mourning, but in my title I use the flame more as a metaphor for anything that we hold on to make us survive fear and pain. The frequency was obvious because it’s literally what I did when making the album: I got lost in a world of sound to make myself feel better, and I know that music plays that role for so many people. And since I was in love with the filters’ sound on the MIDIMuRF pedal, I knew I wanted to have a song where the ending would be just that, a play on frequencies appearing and disappearing, with a final resurgence at the end, like a sun coming back from behind the clouds, as a musical symbol of hope.

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You must feel deeply proud of this magnificent new album, Cécile. Looking back over the making of ‘A flame my love, a frequency’, I wonder did one song (over other ones) form a gateway into the rest of the album, which allowed you to nearly see the path you were navigating, in a way? Or in some ways, did mistakes or happy accidents occur during any of the sessions that found their way on the final album? 

CS: I actually think the whole process of making an album is a combination of disciplined persistent work and loose explorations where you should just let go and let so-called accidents happen, and electronic music-making is actually the ideal playing field for this approach: there are so many parameters that can change a sound, and with analog gear, there is no way of saving settings, so it’s all about capturing the moment. I take notes because I know I’m going to take the album to the stage later on, so that is also a fascinating activity, learning to know how your machines react to try and replicate something that can be very fleeting. I just loved the learning curve to this project, and I really feel that a new door has been opened in my music-making.

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‘A flame my love, a frequency’ is out now on Thrill Jockey Records.

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Colleen’s tour dates (including America and Europe) are listed here.

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http://colleenplays.org/
https://www.facebook.com/colleenplays
http://www.thrilljockey.com/

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