The Olympia band was started by songwriter Nicolaas Zwart, and the music’s topography reflects his rolling memories and past.  His love for mid-century American literature chimes through the songs, John Updike and Thomas Ford swim through the music in a “really obscure way,” he says, “It’s there through the lyrics, the feeling through the movement.”  The panoramic fantasy of the real Desolation Wilderness that borders Lake Tahoe in California, near to Zwart’s childhood home, is reflected in the band’s ambience.  The topography of the band’s music lazily follows the geography of lakes and mountain vistas and meets Updike somewhere upstream in the retro haze wafting amid what Zwart calls his “punk-rock ethics.”  “It’s where the sound does not drive [the music],” he explains, “The morals and ethics do.” 

Desolation’s next full-length album is scheduled for release in August.  They’ve offered a tasty nibble to hold you off till then in the form of their advanced single No Tomorrow, just released last week.  You can also download gems streamed with cameo appearances of friends like Ashley Eriksson and Eli Moore of LAKE and Shelby Turner (now Desolation’s bass) of Sundance Kids from the archives of Daytrotter.

Molly is a freelance writer and a recent graduate of New St. Andrews College with an interest in postcards and goldfish.  She interned for The Loop 21 and keeps – sporadically – the blog A New Amsterdam.

The video for “Heaven” from said record contains soulful woodland dancing, slowful wildlife, and surprise guitar duets. Please enjoy.

LAKE – Heaven from Weston Currie on Vimeo.

Also, check out Stereopathic’s interview with Lake.

The seven members of Lake share a connection that spreads through the audience.  Each member is a unique artist on his own right.  They play musical chairs with their instruments like they are having a good time with friends at a house party – Ashley picked up a guitar here, put down a tambourine there, and moved over to the keyboard in between chiming in with vocals and garden bells during their show at the Fontee Fest – and their obvious charisma invites the audience in to join. 

“We’re like a band, a real band,” Eli Moore, a fellow Lake member, chimed in.  “We’ve been trying to do things more old-fashioned, with everyone playing at once rather than doing things over and over.”  Ashley told me that they aim for a friendly sound that has a “life to it, a breadth,” and I completely agree that they are right on the mark. 

Eli tells me that a creative role model is the producer and musician Karl Blau, a close friend of the band.  “We work with him and we really look up to his music, and his ethics,” he says.  “In recording, [this] has a lot do with embracing happy accident, things you didn’t plan.  Taking things for what they are, value things that happen by chance.” 

“When I moved to the Northwest was when I started going to lakes a lot,” Ashley explained, and the name seems to cover the gist of the ideas behind the band.  A lake represents the Northwest, peace and summer, spending time with your friends, she said, a lot of ideas converged into one general picture of happy times.  It’s the sort of serendipity that the music of Lake communicates. 

Lake is coming to Moscow:  March 25 2009, Wedn., 8:00 p.m, The Nuart Theatre (516 S. Main St., Moscow ID 83843).  Check em out: MySpace, Heaven Vimeo, Ashley & Eli (Water Island)

 Molly is a freelance journalist and a senior at New St. Andrew’s College with a special interest in postcards and goldfish.  She writes for The Loop 21 and keeps the blog A New Amsterdam.