Garnett hits the floor with his Huss & Dalton dreadnought. The guitars are hand-built in Staunton, Virginia, at the company founded by Jeff Huss and Mark Dalton.
Garnett manages to not imitate anyone on record or in his burgeoning performing career in the progressive acoustic arena. With electronic overlays, judicious use of noise, and passages of richly composed chamber music, he pushes the avant-garde boundaries of the string-band sound. And within this album lies the story of a guitar player who’s evolved from instrumental rock, through formal jazz studies, to cutting-edge acoustic music—all with intuition and skill.
Garnett established himself as a Nashville pro playing guitar in the band of bluegrass-star bassist Missy Raines. He also joined the newgrass quartet Circus No. 9 and launched a jazz trio that interprets a repertoire linking Miles Davis to Bill Monroe. So, at 28, with a unique set of influences and a head full of ideas, the time was right for Garnett to make a personal artistic statement. It wasn’t an easy or quick journey, but the result is both enthralling and challenging.
Ben Garnett - "The House on Wisteria"
Early in knowing Ben, I discovered he lives at a musically important address—a place folks call the Bluegrass Compound in Madison, Tennessee, just north and east of famously hip East Nashville. It’s an old fishing camp getaway from the early 20th century with lodges and houses made of stone and timber that’s become a musician’s enclave. Ben shares a house on a bluff overlooking the Cumberland River, just a few doors down from the home where string-master John Hartford lived and died. Over the years, musicians from the Grascals, the Sidemen, the Infamous Stringdusters, and Chris Jones and the Night Drivers have lived there, and it’s been the site of some epic picking parties.
“It wasn’t until halfway through college that I discovered the whole acoustic thing.”—Ben Garnett
On one visit, I noticed a stack of volumes from John Zorn’s Arcana: Musicians on Music book series, an exploration of advanced music theory that one wouldn’t generally see on the coffee table of a bluegrass picker. On another occasion, Garnett hosted a house concert featuring Circus No. 9 and the balladeer banjo and guitar player Joe Newberry. There were no amplifiers or microphones, just the natural resonance of the old room, with its wooden ceiling, walls, and floor making it one of the most ideal sonic experiences of my life. While most guitarists playing progressive string band music are building on a bluegrass background, it became clear Garnett was the opposite—a jazz guy learning bluegrass as an adult, and I found that novel and exciting.
Nashville has long been an epicenter for virtuoso string instrumentalists, but the city is enjoying a new golden age. The members of newgrass quartet Hawktail alone would distinguish the scene, with fiddler Brittany Haas, mandolinist Dominick Leslie, guitarist Jordan Tice, and bass player Paul Kowert. Kowert’s other job is playing with Chris Thile and Punch Brothers, and his brilliant guitarist bandmate Chris “Critter” Eldridge lives in Nashville with his wife, the folk singer Kristin Andreassen. Critter and Kowert play a huge role in Garnett’s story and his debut record. But that just touches on the acoustic talent and energy in town among pickers under 40. Bluegrass is being showcased at bars and venues far beyond its most traditional stage, the Station Inn. Molly Tuttle and Billy Strings are now mainstream stars. So, while Garnett’s in the right place at the right time, how did he get here?
“Early on, I knew that I wanted some kind of X factor element to the music,” says Ben Garnett. “I remember in high school being obsessed with Björk and Radiohead, and, like, folktronica.”
Photo by Emilio Mesa
Born in Arlington, Texas in 1994, Garnett started on piano before switching to guitar at about age 12. He soon discovered that his older cousin was acclaimed instrumental rock guitarist Andy Timmons. At a time when Ben was catching fire for the music of Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, having Timmons nearby gave him guidance in that flamboyant, electric style. Timmons, Garnett says, is “so expressive with the electric guitar. That definitely stuck with me as an influence, whether that’s controlling the notes in a certain way or thinking about touch. And it’s been interesting, as I’ve transitioned more to an acoustic guitar player, to try to hold on to some of that stuff.”
Timmons was one source of encouragement to study music formally in college, but so was Garnett’s proximity to the nationally renowned jazz program at the University of North Texas—a launch pad for Norah Jones, Snarky Puppy, and others. “It wasn’t until halfway through college that I discovered the whole acoustic thing,” Garnett relates. Ben was already a fan of the lyrical modern jazz guitarists Bill Frisell, Pat Metheny, and Julian Lage. Then Lage made Avalon with Chris Eldridge in 2014, an album that brought the flatpicking guitar duo into the 21st century. Says Garnett, “That record changed my life.”
That taste of neo-traditional picking sent Garnett down the rabbit hole of Tony Rice, Grant Gordy, and David Grier. Another pivotal experience was the Savannah Music Festival’s Acoustic Music Seminar, a week of collaboration and instruction for emerging talent. Garnett enjoyed mentoring by Eldridge and Lage, as well as Bryan Sutton and Mike Marshall. “Utterly formative,” is how he recalls it. “It was really my first time playing in string bands with like-minded people that were into this stuff. I was like, okay, whatever I can do to feel this way all the time … and honestly, moving to Nashville made the most sense.”
A core element of Garnett’s new album is natural samples that he manipulated in programs like Ableton Live. One motif on Imitation Fields, for example, is samples of rustling paper that have been twisted, filtered, and reversed, with an ASMR-stimulating kind of crackle.
Music City met him more than halfway when he landed his slot with Missy Raines only a few weeks after relocating in 2017. While her band Allegheny today leans to traditional bluegrass, then it was called the New Hip, and blended bluegrass, jazz, and a songwriter sensibility. Not only was Raines a source of interesting work and a ticket to the acoustic music circuit for Garnett, she began urging him to make a solo album. And as 2018 became 2019, he began consulting Kowert about songs and a way forward. Then Kowert urged Eldridge to step in formally as producer, and he was excited by the prospect. “Ben just had this beautifully learned relationship with music, but he had also clearly come to love string band music,” says Eldridge. “I thought this could be really interesting and edifying for me as well. Ben just had such a fascinating relationship to music, with so many cool, big ideas. I thought it’d be really fun.”
“I remember in high school being obsessed with Björk and Radiohead, and, like, folktronica.”—Ben Garnett
The sessions for Imitation Fields, which took place just before the 2020 shutdown, were built around three fourths of Hawktail, with Kowert on bass, Brittany Haas on fiddle, and Dominick Leslie on mandolin. Garnett also brought in Billy Contreras, a jazz and country fiddler with a fondness for playing outside with Coltrane-like extravagance. Banjo was by Matthew Davis, Garnett’s friend and colleague in Circus No. 9. Instructions for the musicians came through a mix of traditional charts with heads, audio demos built in GarageBand, general instructions for improvisational concepts, and some through-composed sections for a supplemental string quartet.
“Early on, I knew that I wanted some kind of X factor element to the music,” Garnett says. “I remember in high school being obsessed with Björk and Radiohead, and, like, folktronica. I’m also a big lover of early electronic stuff, like musique concrète and taking found sounds and layering them in different musical ways. And I would honestly say that some of that was more of an influence on the way that this record turned out.”
What followed was months of integrating the acoustic performances with electronic textures, something Eldridge says didn’t come easily. “If you have sounds that were captured off of acoustic instruments by microphones that are 18" away, the microphone also captures the room, the space around it, to some extent,” he says. “But if you have something that was generated by a synthesizer, the way that operates in the sound field is very different. It can sound very present. It can kind of take over the acoustic instruments.”
Ben Garnett's Gear
On his new release, Ben Garnett shares, “I’m a big lover of early electronic stuff, like musique concrète and taking found sounds and layering them in different musical ways. And I would honestly say that some of that was more of an influence on the way that this record turned out.”
Photo by Kaitlyn Raitz
Guitars
- 2013 Huss & Dalton TD-M Custom
- 1944 Martin D-28 (owned by Chris Eldridge)
- 1935 Martin 000-18(owned by Chris Eldridge)
Strings
- D’Addario Phosphor Bronze Mediums (.013–056)
Picks
- Blue Chip TAD 50
Garnett scrapped a lot of his synthesized sounds in favor of natural samples that he manipulated in programs like Ableton Live. One motif on Imitation Fields, for example, is samples of rustling paper that have been twisted, filtered, and reversed, with an ASMR-stimulating kind of crackle. We hear some manipulated vinyl crackles in places as well, and these sonic ideas nest and cradle the acoustic musicians in a kind of aural bubble wrap. “I am not aware of a record where those elements are as integral to the kind of core DNA of how the entire music functions—where those sounds are reliant upon the acoustic sounds and vice versa,” Eldridge says.
“If you have something that was generated by a synthesizer, the way that operates in the sound field is very different. It can kind of take over the acoustic instruments.”—Chris Eldridge
As I noted at the outset, the opening track acts as a kind of prelude/appetizer, priming the listener for surprise and a bit of healthy disorientation. But with the heart of “Thirty One Mouths,” we’re on more familiar ground conceptually, evoking the David Grisman Quintet of the 1980s. Next, “Open Your Books” sets a quick pulsing mix of instruments against some pretty, manipulated sounds. Kowert’s string bass is particularly thick and mobile in one of the central sections. Solos take place over a sweet, swooping feel. This tune inspired the first video single by the same name that Garnett released for the project, a visual journey that uses a mirror, bending and twisting, in natural locations, like fields and forests—an unstable frame within a stable one. It’s a clever and economical special effect that captures the looking-glass quality of the music.
“Moriarty” is slow and serene, with warm chords, long fiddle lines, and some antique spoken-word tape sampled from the internet and filtered. The song is broadly a slow waltz, but it takes a lot of turns in its 8 minutes, ending with a gradual crescendo of string noise and skronking that gets huge before vanishing to nothing. It’s one of the best examples of how Garnett’s designs work around the thoughtful use of dynamics. And then there’s “Nepal,” one of the signature pieces on Imitation Fields. Garnett plays looping, cross-picked passages mingled with chordal sequences, establishing a bit of a Middle Eastern vibe that’s picked up by Haas’ fiddle. The middle features a guitar solo that gives way to the bass, and then a lyrical full-ensemble surge and finale that’s among the lushest passages on the record.
Garnett’s chance to make a first impression as a leader is a success, but not an easy one to define. He’s not vying for the space cleared out by Bryan Sutton as a bluegrass/studio virtuoso or standing in the jamgrass shadow of Billy Strings. His flavor isn’t Grisman’s “Dawg music” (exactly) or another prog-grass supergroup like Strength in Numbers (though passages will remind fans of that seminal one-off all-star album and band). We’re hearing someone minted in rock and jazz with a passion for electronic and modern composed music on a journey in the new Nashville.
Newgrass and new acoustic music have been thriving for 50 years now, long enough that you think you’ve heard it all, until a Ben Garnett comes along to show us how much more there might be.
Ben Garnett & Skyler Hill - “Today Into Night”
Ben Garnett (left) and Skyler Hill play their composition “Today Into Night,” providing a close focus on Garnett’s organic playing technique.
The Free Form Funky Freqs—guitarist Vernon Reid, bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, and drummer Calvin Weston—never play a note together before a show. Not even during soundcheck.
Owing to pandemic isolation, however, Hymn of the 3rd Galaxy was the first FFFF project to unfold asynchronously. First, Weston laid down his drums. Tacuma responded on bass. Reid brought up the rear with a pair of signature model Paul Reed Smiths and an abundance of digital and analog stompboxes, amp modelers, guitar synth floor units, and laptop-driven software synthesizers. There were no rules, save for this ironclad dictum: one uninterrupted take per track, no fixes, no overdubs. If it’s not “an organic improvised scenario,” in Tacuma’s words, it’s not Free Form Funky Freqs. It’s something else.
“I always dig an amp that’s gonna shake the room.” —Jamaaladeen Tacuma
“I just closed my eyes and pretended I was onstage with those guys,” Tacuma recalls. “The key was to keep the integrity of our process,” says Reid. “It was kind of like a self-imposed honor system.” This is, after all, a band that makes a point of not soundchecking together at gigs. “We have to explain this to house engineers,” Reid continues. “We’ll get sounds, then maybe check bass and drums, then guitar and drums. But we make it clear that the three of us are going to play only when it’s actually time to play.” To do otherwise would corrupt the method.
While their previous albums were live shows, the new FFFF opus was improvised in the studio—one artist at a time!
This improvisational purism makes sense given the band members’ overlapping histories in what Reid calls “the loose circle around Ornette Coleman.” The legendary alto saxophonist and free-jazz pioneer hired Tacuma for his groove-oriented ’70s band Prime Time, when the bassist was only 19. He later hired Weston, as well, at 17. “I was playing with [founding Prime Time drummer] Ronald Shannon Jackson,” adds Reid. “Calvin had played with Blood [experimental blues guitarist/singer James ‘Blood’ Ulmer].” There was a shared vein of experience in the contemporary avant-garde, and yet, as Tacuma observed to Reid one night, the three had never played together as a unit.
“We have to explain this to house engineers. We’ll get sounds, then maybe check bass and drums, then guitar and drums. But we make it clear that the three of us are going to play only when it’s actually time to play.” —Vernon Reid
Reid, of course, had also ascended to rock stardom with Living Colour in the late ’80s and cofounded the innovative Black Rock Coalition. For decades, each one of the Freqs had straddled genres and blown open the conversation about creative music in their time. It was practically fated for this band to form.
Vernon Reid’s Gear
Vernon Reid freqs-out on one of his PRS Custom Signature S2 Velas.
Photo by Sound Evidence
Guitars
- Two Paul Reed Smith Custom Vernon Reid Signature S2 Velas (one with EMGs, one with DS pickups)
- 1958 Gibson ES-345 (on “Earth”)
Amps
- Line 6 Helix
- Kemper Profiler
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario NYXLs (.011–.049)
- Dunlop 205s, Brass TeckPicks, V-Picks
- Graph Tech TUSQ 2.0 mm (“It’s kind of a fetish,” Reid says of his fascination with picks.)
Effects
- Moog MF-107 FreqBox
- Red Panda Tensor
- DigiTech Space Station
- Eventide H9
- Chase Bliss Tonal Recall
- Chase Bliss Dark World
- Boss SY-300
- Roland GI-20 Guitar MIDI Interface
- Spectrasonics Omnisphere software synth
- Arturia Pigments software synth
Studio production for FFFF has been divvied up evenly: Reid produced Urban Mythology, Vol. 1, Tacuma took the helm on Bon Vivant, and Weston brought the remote recording of Hymn of the 3rd Galaxy across the finish line. Each album bears the imprint of its producer in some way.
Weston named the new album and the individual tracks as well, and the meaning of it all becomes clear when you pull up a map of the Milky Way (one of three galaxies, along with Andromeda and Triangulum, that dominates what is known as the Local Group). “Near Arm,” “Outer Arm,” “Norma Arm,” “Perseus Arm,” “Sagittarius Arm,” “Orion Spur,” “Scutum Centaurus,” “Far 3 kpc”—these are names that astronomers have given to the Milky Way’s various regions. In this environment, “Earth” and “Sun” (two more track titles) are just infinitesimally small dots.
“Bill Connors’ playing is so full of fire, but it’s also emotionally vulnerable in a way.” —Vernon Reid
The album title is also a conscious reference to Return to Forever’s 1973 album Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy—the fusion supergroup’s one recording to feature guitarist Bill Connors. “That record was very important in my development,” says Reid. “Bill Connors’ playing on it is so full of fire, but it’s also emotionally vulnerable in a way. I was very affected by the compositions, as well. When Calvin mentioned the title, it put this project into a frame for me—the idea of spatial ambience—and that did affect my choices for sounds.”
Those sounds are an amalgam of raw, plugged-in lead guitar crunch and otherwordly sonic glitter: notes that start as notes but become starbursts, or decay like pyrotechnic embers; chordal shapes that overlap and gather into big nebulous clouds. With his seemingly limitless tech-heavy rig, Reid has all frequencies covered.
Jamaaladeen Tacuma’s Gear
Jamaaladeen Tacuma brings his epic funk at the 2003 Ponderosa Stomp festival in New Orleans, where he performed with James “Blood” Ulmer and FFFF drummer Calvin Weston.
Photo by Joseph A. Rosen
Effects
- Korg ToneWorks G5 Synth Bass Processor
- JAM Wahcko
- JAM WaterFall
- JAM LucyDreamer
Strings
- La Bella various-gauge sets
The groove is just as essential, and Tacuma and Weston know how to bring it, whether it’s a slow shuffle (“Perseus Arm”), a mid-tempo Meters-like vibe (“Norma Arm”), or an outbreak of fast, full-tilt abstraction (“Far 3 kpc,” “Sun”). Regardless of feel, Tacuma’s criterion for a bass sound is straightforward: “I always dig an amp that’s gonna shake the room. I mean, I need that room-shaker. Coming up in Philly, hearing R&B groups at the Uptown Theater, which was like the Apollo, as long as that bass was shakin’ the room, that was the most important thing. Aguilar has proven to be a wonderful addition to my setup for the clarity and punchiness, and the ability to dial in certain sounds that I want.” Holding up the Korg Toneworks G5 synth-bass unit that he used on Hymn, during our Zoom call, he adds: “I’m not really a pedal guy, but now and then I’ll bring one out for a special black-tie occasion.”
Ultimately, what explains FFFF’s ability to create together on the fly is musical intelligence and empathetic listening. When Reid’s guitar is more enveloping and spacious and legato, Tacuma’s playing might get busier, and vice versa. “If you go outside right now,” Tacuma observes, “somebody’s walking, somebody’s running. Somebody’s listening, somebody’s talking. Somebody’s eating, somebody’s drinking. All these things are happening, and with music it’s the same thing.” For Reid, as well, deciding when to go for maximum synthesized mayhem (“Galactic Bar”) or a cleaner, more identifiably guitaristic tone (“Earth”) is a matter of attending to the moment. “It’s different than dealing with songs that have a verse-chorus-bridge,” he says. “This is a whole different kind of flow.”
“I’m not really a pedal guy, but now and then I’ll bring one out for a special black-tie occasion.” —Jamaaladeen Tacuma
When discussion turns to Tacuma’s other projects, such as his 2017 album Gnawa Soul Experience, the bassist suggests a link between the FFFF worldview and the time he shared with ethnic Gnawa musicians in Essaouira, Morocco. “Musically, I learned so much,” he recalls. “When they play all night and they don’t have anything written in front of them, and they’re just grooving and going higher and higher in the music, that’s basically what we do, when you put it in perspective. People relate to that; they can understand that.”
With every Freqs encounter, the three bring new elements and ideas they’ve absorbed in the interim, and this keeps the music fresh and evolving. Tacuma and Weston continue to nourish their local Philly scene, mentoring and giving exposure to younger players. Tacuma’s annual Outsiders Improvised & Creative Music Festival always provides a burst of energy. Living Colour is still percolating since the release of Shade, its sixth album, in 2017. Meanwhile Reid has kept additional irons in the fire, including the Zig Zag Power Trio (with bassist Melvin Gibbs and Living Colour drummer Will Calhoun) and other projects. If he, Tacuma, and Weston keep up the pace, they could soon hit the big 100—the Freqs’ centenary performance. Stay tuned for that album.Free Form Funky Freqs Live | Ch0 | 2012
All hail the groove! Sure, this 2012, Ljubljana, Slovenia, performance by Vernon Reid, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, and Calvin Weston is freaky … but the funky vibe dictates the flow of its ambient sounds. Catch Tacuma freestyling on the mic at 4:00.
His astounding number of extracurricular musical pursuits include a critically acclaimed album of duets with jazz guitar wunderkind Julian Lage (2014's Room) and an ambitious double-disc concept album called Lovers, which not only found Cline a home at the revitalized Blue Note Records, but might be the only album ever to feature covers of songs by both Henry Mancini and Sonic Youth. And let's not forget his imaginative CUP duo project with his wife, Yuka C. Honda of Cibo Matto.
While there have been countless liaisons and contributions to the albums of others throughout it all, Cline's true musical home—even before he joined Wilco—has always been his own cleverly named instrumental outfit, the Nels Cline Singers. With the Singers' latest, Share the Wealth, Cline's chameleonic, cinematic guitarwork and compositional chops have been thrown into exciting new territory again, thanks to an expanded lineup of improvisational sparring partners whose skills may have inadvertently spoiled the guitarist's grand vision for another concept record, but to absolutely wonderful effect.
When Cline first hatched the idea for what would become Share the Wealth, the plan was for the freshly expanded Singers lineup—now a sextet—to record a batch of minimally guided improv sessions, which he would then chop up and reimagine via the wonders of DAW editing into a sort of sonic collage—something with a '60s Brazilian-psychedelia flavor in the vein of Os Mutantes.
Cline also planned to have the squad take a stab at some of his more concrete compositions. Brazilian percussion ace and composer Cyro Baptista (Trey Anastasio, Herbie Hancock), avant-garde tenor sax antagonist Skerik, and keyboard wizard Brian Marsella joined Cline and longtime Singers bassist Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle, John Zorn) and drummer Scott Amendola for two days' work at Brooklyn's the Bunker Studio.
Despite the impressive resumes of the Singers' new additions, Cline was unsure if the sessions would yield anything album-worthy, as this lineup had no gigs under its belt, making its chemistry as a unit a major unknown. However, when Cline listened to what the band had captured during those improv sessions, he found something magical. In fact, the guitarist was so impressed with how well the raw material worked in its unedited form that his plans for a chopped-and-screwed sonic collage went out the window altogether. Tchau!
On Share the Wealth, those improv jams now appear—and blend remarkably well—with the Singers' take on some of Cline's originals. And despite the lack of major editing, the album'sfinal formis still a psychedelic-tinged aural adventure in which Cline and company take the listener on a journey through impressively executed and dynamic musical arrival points.
Share the Wealth is not only a fine display of the uncanny playing chemistry and clairvoyance that exists between Cline and his Singers—it's also one of his most approachable releases. The album boasts Brazilian-tinged guitar vamps (“Segunda"), playful backbeat groovers (“The Pleather Patrol"), a pair of somber but beautiful ballads written for a fallen friend (“Passed Down" and “Headdress"), and a stunning, meditative Kubrick-gone-free-jazz odyssey (“A Place on the Moon").
Cline's guitar often plays a supporting role on this album, creating unique textures, dancing around and coalescing with Skerik's wild saxophone outings and Marsella's perpetually morphing keys. While this might leave fans of his formidable linear chops a little flat, the results are extremely musical and mature. Of course, there are still shining moments of guitar mastery that see Cline reaching for exotic harmony on the Tuareg-influenced album closer “Passed Down" and a few blasts of the man's signature off-kilter free-jazz weirdness, but it's applied in a decidedly less confrontational way.
Premier Guitar spoke with Cline by phone as he enjoyed the solitude of his new home in upstate New York, where he reflected on the process of recording the Singers' new release and discussed the relatively simple (for a man with a famously ever-expanding guitar collection) selection of gear he brought in for Share the Wealth'ssessions, the mastery of improvisation, staying sharp as a musician at a time when most of us can't play with others, and his endless love for the abstract nature of sound.
I love your original concept for editing improv sessions into a William S. Burroughs-esque cut-up Brazilian psych album. What made you abandon that?
I honestly didn't even know if we had a record after we finished the sessions. The thing is, we've never even played a gig with this expanded version of the Singers. Listening back to what we did when we were just improvising and messing around, I really loved the chemistry there and what we'd done. I really liked hearing us arrive at these musical places and make these shifts very naturally as a band. A lot of the transitions and shifts on the album sound like edits, but they're just what came out. I didn't set out any specific parameters for the improv during these sessions, other than for the session that became “A Place on the Moon," and I just said to everyone “space" on that one. On all the other songs, the other guys were just given BPMs that I chose randomly as click tracks in headphones, thinking that I would have everything on the grid so I could do these bold, jarring juxtapositions that I was envisioning.
TIDBIT: Ambitious and free-ranging, Cline's new album took just two days to record at Brooklyn's the Bunker Studio, with engineer Eli Crews.
What's the ratio between improvised work and composed stuff on the album?
The record's maybe a third improvised, as far as what I chose to include. Nobody had played any of the written material prior, and we did it all in two days. I had to time compress songs because some improvs were over 30 minutes, but I didn't edit the trajectories of how any of the improv sessions went at all. There are three complete improvs on the record: “The Pleather Patrol," “A Place on the Moon," and “Stump the Panel."
The original improv that became “Stump the Panel" was well over 20 minutes, and Scott Amendola forgot to put the click in his headphones, but it worked really well. I would just randomly say a BPM to our engineer and co-producer, Eli Crews, and he would put the click in our headphones for the areas of free improv.
For “Stump the Panel," Scott started out playing all this wild stuff and we were all looking at each other like, “what is going on here?!" So we just turned the click off and did our thing, because he'd just taken off and all this cool stuff started to happen in that jam. When I listened back to this really long improvised jam, I was like “Wow, I really like this! I like this more than the tunes that I've written!" It was a delightful surprise.
This group moves as a unit in a way that genuinely sounds like you've played together a lot. You do a lot of support playing this time around, too.
I felt the same thing, and I do have a long track record of playing with Scott [Amendola] and Trevor [Dunn], and even Cyro [Baptista] and I have toured together a bit, but how well Brian Marsella and Skerik worked in the mix was really a pleasant surprise. Brian and I had played together and he'd done an expanded lineup gig with the Singers at the Victoriaville Festival a few years ago, and that was where the seeds for this lineup were planted. I had a desire to have musical foils in the treble clef area, to take some attention away from my playing and help me relax a little bit. I was becoming quite daunted and fatigued with being the lead guy in power trios all the time. I really like to play off of somebody.
I didn't really know what the role of the guitar was going to be in this version of this band. Once I got in the studio, I realized I didn't really feel like standing out. My head was in a more supportive role and I was focused on doing a lot of looping and sound making and harmony on-the-fly, rather than the single line blazing or finger wiggling that people expect from guitarists who lead bands. I'm not super comfortable listening to myself do that kind of thing at this point. There's a little bit of that playing on the album. “Headdress" was something where the guitar and the keyboards are really hard to distinguish from one another, because they're meshed into the same sonic realm deliberately. I did overdub the melody that Skerik's playing at the end to add some emphasis. That was my big production touch!
