Cascadian Yule is an Olympia-based festival that begins on the longest night of each year. Performances run from dusk until dawn over the course of two nights. As its website states, Yule “gathers acts of sacral intent from along the west coast spanning the genres of folk, black metal, EDM, soundscape, dance, mythtelling, theater, and beyond.” People come from around the world to take part. It is my pleasure to have been invited to participate in its production for the third consecutive year.
The event is RSVP only, so if you are interested, check out the website and let them know you would like to attend.
Post-Americana‘s Bandcamp description states that it “is dedicated to everyone who has ever thought about hurtin’ themselves over now seemingly silly feelings.” That is a fitting summation of the tone of the album: moving forward while looking back, growing to see the world as a more fun and inviting place despite the pains that come with being a part of it.
Sawtooth in August 2015
The album title is a suitable description of its own genre. Post-Americana is folk rock with a healthy dose of Olympia weirdness. It’s slightly offbeat without ever getting obtuse, managing to be accessible without ever getting boring. Some artist comparisons that could be made are Neil Young, Buffalo Springfield, The Beatles, and early Dr. Dog. At times, the album is reminiscent of transitions, overcoming, or being on the road (Dead Dog Eyes, Life Is a Book, I Don’t Need No One to Win My Freedom), while at others it sounds contemplative and wistful (Memorial Day Crossroad Blues, Florida Blues, Empathy/Apathy). Some songs are snarky and fun (The River Because, Leave Me Be), while others are dark and brooding (Florida Blues, Kindness Comes). These vacillations seem to be a central theme of the album.
At the time of recording, the band consisted of Stevie Smitty (guitar and vocals), River Nason (guitar, keys and backups), Tanner Dunn (bass), Josh KoKo (drums), and Emily Metcalf (cello). Each musician has a good sense of when to step forward and when to step back so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Though the vocal style is subdued, Smitty keeps it interesting by imparting an earnestness in his performance. The lyrical content is surreal, artful, and open to interpretation, which leaves the listener with a sense of curiosity. Sometimes the vocal harmonies are three or more layers deep, enhancing their depth. KoKo’s drum parts are groovy and always maintain a good musical sensibility, while Dunn’s basslines provide a solid glue between percussion and melody. Metcalf’s cello additions provide emotional weight to the songs on which they are featured, and Nason’s keyboard parts complete the sound, laying in a retrofuturist bent. This anachronistic addition somehow fits right into place.
Track by Track
The album begins with the anthemic Dead Dog Eyes. It nods to Pachabel’s Canon in D, immediately conjuring a sense of familiarity, welcoming the listener. The very first line (“They came in through the front door…”) seems self-referential. The song is reminiscent of traveling, changing, and looking ahead.
Memorial Day Crossroad Blues arrives thereafter, and the tone changes to become more contemplative and pensive. This song brings to mind life-changing decisions and the repercussions that all choices have (“My mind knows which way to go… at the crossroads”).
The River Because moves back into that sense of forward motion, this time with a fun and almost snarky attitude. One highlight is when Smitty sings, “And I will eat my slice of cake,” which Nason punctuates with a quick chord from the keys. The song’s end is one of the most satisfying musical resolutions on the album.
Please Excuse Me (4th Ave Blues) returns again to a more reflective state, and it becomes apparent here that this cycle is a theme of the album. The song evokes images of kicking rocks down a country road. The cello work stands out in particular on this track.
Leave Me Be‘s beginning is hard to resist; one can’t help but want to whistle along. The song has a plucky quality on the guitar, cello, and keys. There’s a sense of subtle irritation (“Leave me be, just leave me…”), but also one of trying to get along regardless.
Rendezvous on North Roger Road then functions as an interlude for the album. Its instrumentation is very different from the preceding songs, featuring just a piano, a kick drum, and a very lo-fi nylon guitar. The laughter left in the background is a nice touch. This song provides time for the listener to take a breath before the album’s epic.
Life Is a Book returns to that traveling spirit developed earlier, a sense of restlessness and the desire to wander and discover. It goes from light to dark, and when Smitty sings “How does the blood in your mouth taste?” the song takes on a cathartic nature: justice was somehow served.
Florida Blues provides a second interlude on the opposite side of Life Is a Book. It’s the only instrumental on the album. Its lost, brooding character is an interesting dynamic addition to the more upbeat quality of most of the songs.
I Don’t Need No One to Win My Freedom brings the album to its final upswing. This song evokes feelings of rejecting the norms and doing your own thing, reflecting the process and content of the album as a whole. The keyboard solo toward the end of the song is Post-Americana‘s climactic moment.
The album begins to wind down as Empathy/Apathy arrives with its nylon guitars. The song warns of getting too calloused as a result of being hurt, calling for the listener to remain brave. The outro in this song is the strongest of all of them, highly reminiscent of The Meat Puppets’ Plateau.
Kindness Comes closes out the album. The nylon guitar returns to its lo-fi sound, and the bass is conspicuously absent, as though Dunn took off early because things fell apart. It’s an interesting choice for the closer track. One would expect a triumphant, driving piece to finish it off, but instead we get melancholy and mellotrons. The subversion of expectation has a greater impact than if the album were closed out with something more like I Don’t Need No One to Win My Freedom, Life Is a Book, or Dead Dog Eyes. The album quietly dies instead, as if everything took a turn for the worst. It’s a surprise punch in the gut.
Gaspard de la nuit was written in 1908 by the master of impressionist music, Maurice Ravel. He was 33 years old at the time. Each of its three movements are based on poems from Aloysius Bertrand’s eponymous 1836 poetry collection Gaspard de la Nuit, fantaisies à la manière de Rembrandt et de Callot.¹ This composition is fascinatingly complex, and at times its technicality borders on absurdity. Despite its focus on instrumental mastery, Gaspard de la nuit never fails to remain emotional and beautiful.
Though the piece is notoriously difficult to play, Croatian pianist Ivo Pogorelich performs this rendition brilliantly. This recording was made in 1983 when Pogorelich was 25. His interpretation and performance of the composition show virtuosic control of the piano, a brilliant sense of balance, and deep psychological insight into the music. It is obvious while listening that he loves playing the piano with all of his heart.
Gaspard de la nuit is a whirlwind of emotive content. It is a dynamic journey that, at the time of composition, broke the mold of what was possible with melodic and rhythmic content in music. Despite being written 108 years ago, it still sounds startlingly fresh. Ravel was a strange man, and his quirks shine through in the music.
The most recognizible features of Ondine (0:00) are its floating glissandos and its juxtaposition of quick, sharp chords with more drawn-out melodies. The section is mostly linear, with small repeated sections throughout to ground it and provide moments of return and deliberation. It is reminiscent of calmly floating on a cloud or down a river, but also at the same time of being driven slowly to madness. It sounds like not quite having lost your mind yet, but definitely being lost within it. The atmosphere is wistful, full of thoughts of earlier, simpler times. Yet there are also feelings of agitation and frustration. A dark genius is being consumed quietly by their own strengths.
Le Gibet (7:36) then eschews the linear structure in favor of a different musical method, one more focused on repetition and reflection. The piece slows down and skulks about, lying low. One gets a sense of an introspective recognition of descent. It evokes images of subsistence living, but nothing more. It is as though an attempt is being made to turn things around, despite the recognized possibility that it may already be too late.
The final section, Scarbo (14:28), is marked by adventurous passages sprinkled with staccato interjections. The musical structure returns to one of linearity with small moments of self-reference and deliberation. It begins with what sounds like an itch that cannot be scratched, a pain that cannot be relieved. A person is on the edge; their eye twitches incessantly. But this state is not to last. The final explosion occurs. It is the grand escape, or perhaps the final flight into madness. The music remains carefully elusive and ambiguous, allowing the listener to draw their own conclusions.
This resolution is beautiful, but also so much more than merely that. This is true for the piece as a whole. Beauty without substance is banal; Ravel, being the master that he is, never fell into that trap. Ravel’s works defy being nailed down with adjectives. For every descriptor that you attach to it, another ten could apply in other ways. His work is complex and worthy of serious study, thought, and consideration. Gaspard de la nuit is a breathtaking piece and a brilliant work of art, deserving thoughtful appreciation from a new generation of listeners.
¹ As these pieces were written from poems, Ravel composed with specific imagery in his mind accompanying the music. This analysis is written from a metamodernist perspective, and freely borrows ideas from Barthes’ La mort de l’auteur without necessarily adhering to them completely. The visual interpretations presented later in the text, therefore, do not reference Ravel’s intended imagery.
My newest solo album. 6 tracks (36 minutes) of impressionist piano. Tracked, edited, mixed, and mastered at Big Name. The album was recorded and mixed entirely analog on the Tascam 388 and TEAC A-1200U tape machines.
CDs and cassettes made in the print shop. The cassette version was mastered straight to tape and has never entered the digital domain.
I was recently interviewed by New Jersey based label Choke Artist.
From the site:
Jon is a musician living in Olympia WA that I got to get to know on Invalids’ past tour. We did 10 days with his band The Lunch and they were fantistic. This was recorded at some point during our 10 hour overnight drive from Salem OR to San Francisco CA.
We talk about his studio and bands, giggin in Indonesia, the mystical Horse Party online community, life in Olympia WA, and more.
Check out his Olympia WA based studio “Big Name Studios”
And check out his bands The Lunch and A God Or An Other
