Rose’s instrumentation doesn’t own the beat; Miss Gibson’s voice chimes in around the edges like she is on tip-toe. That is not a draw-back: it is a choice seeping with sublety. These songs are not commanding because they are residual. Gibson’s and Rose’s extraordinary collaboration is an exploration of mystery – and, down, deep deep down, an exploration of belief. It is an exploration of discovery that challenges your conceptions of music and listening. The music is resonant, and the nuance causes Bridge Carols to emanate come-hither like Lauren Bacall.

Take, for example, “Knife,” my favorite song on the album. The song is about cutting a shadow with a very sharp blade so that you can hold it, save it, dress yourself in it – and, perhaps, not hear its reflection echoing in your mind. “Knife” evokes the memory that defines a life – explores the options of out-growing it, leaving it behind, or learning how to embrace it as a piece of your own self-heritage. This theme of self sine qua non reverberates throughout the album, and makes it a volume of required listening for the inquiring listener.

Like every other person in the audience at Laura Gibson’s show last week, I was enraptured by her stunning performance. This is art, this is magic, I knew. Laura herself is a work of art, but, the rest of the band (drummer Micah Rabwin and electric organist Sean Ogilvie) were equally – uniquely – mesmerizing. Rabwin and Ogilvie share their own band, Musee Mecanique, pictured left. Musee is a collective dedicated to producing pure voodoo. Prepare to fall under their spell.

Sean Ogilvie’s voice is as soft and sleepy as his eyes, which close while his hands canter gracefully across instruments, three at a time, or look somewhere else, far off. His music sounds as though it comes from a distant place – from a time already passed, but from a land that hasn’t yet made the map. “We like putting things together,” Ogilvie said, and it clicks like the ticking of clock.

His music is an almost-finished puzzle, waiting for you to lay down the last piece if only you can find it. Musee Mecanique gives us the adventures of someone who used to be young and daring, but now lives only in black and white photographs, cracked with yellowed corners. As one of the illusionists, he plays the keyboard, accordion, glockenspiel, and meanwhile smokes the melodica through a hose that looks like a hookah. Micah Rabwin is the other, drummer and player of musical saws.

Ogilvie and Rabwin appreciate the sounds of nostalgia and the magic of the perfect fit, and turn to over-looked instruments to cast their spell. “We like different timbres, different colors, different pieces coming together,” says Ogilvie. A while back they saw a street musician with a musical saw and were fired with inspiration: a week later, they had ordered one, and a week after that, Rabwin had it mastered. “He has a good ear,” Ogilvie said of his friend modestly.

He and Rabwin grew up together in the San Fransisco Bay Area, exploring the titanic modern ruins of the Sutro Baths and frequenting the mechanical wonderland of the Musee Mecanique, a private collection of turn-of-the-century toys and mechanical entertainment. Ogilvie told me about the penny arcade gallery, pinball machines, and a Wurlitzer Organ. “They come from an old time when people, before television, would put a penny in the slot and it would display some kind of show or the orchestrian band in a box would play,” explained Ogilvie, “It’s just very fascinating.” Although they did not take any musical influence directly from the Musee, the voice of the past is there like the hum of a lawn-mower in the field behind, entrancing and hypnotic. “When Micah and I started making music a couple of years ago, the music just had a feel of music box, kind of folk, kind of all the pieces of these different songs,” mused Ogilvie. Appropriately, their CD is titled Hold This Ghost.

Inside of the Wurlitzer at the Musee Mecanique

“I like the idea of antique music,” says Ogilvie, “things simple, but not so common.” Musee Mecanique is the Prestige of music, materializing magic through heirloom discoveries and bygone advances in science.

Musee Mecanique – Like Home mp3

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

First, here’s a brief review of Beasts of Seasons that we posted a few weeks back on the Stereopathic blog. My question is, did we land anywhere near what you intended with the record?

Thanks for that review. It’s deeply encouraging when someone writes about your music, and is able to explain it better than I could explain it myself. The line that struck me most was “Beasts of Seasons gives us a gracious portrait of an artist who looks inward and finds other people, who looks outward and finds herself.” I hadn’t thought of it in those words, but that rings so true to the ideas/feelings that inspire me. I like the idea of looking inwards and seeing other people, and looking outwards, and seeing ourselves.

From what I’ve read of yours, you seem to be very precise and deliberate about your songwriting process. “Sweet Deception” and “Come by Storm,” as they exist on Daytrotter, bear a basic resemblance to their much more ornate versions on Beasts of Seasons. Given the volume of collaborators you had on the various songs, how precise and deliberate can you be in the recording process?

I like to go into recording having some things, very specific and sure and known…and then a few things left up to mystery. In working with other musicians, I like the idea of letting them improvise, and them create their parts “in the moment” with the songs. Other parts were developed over the course of playing with a band over the past two years. More than anything else, I tend to be very protective of space, when it come to the recording process. Space and silence are so wired into my music-making. I love orchestration, but want the songs to take deep breaths. That feels important to me. I feel so fortunate for all of the musicians that gave their time and talents to this record, but would never want to lose the lose the songs in the quest for grand arrangements. Structurally, very little changed between the original versions and the versions on the record.

I do tend to be very deliberate in my song writing. Maybe, sometimes, too deliberate. I’ve been challenging myself lately, to let my writing go a bit, to have more of a stream of consciousness. But ultimately, I suppose it’s a good thing to be disciplined with songs.

Given that you “take great care with words”, and seem to have a strong ability for poetic thought, why set it to music? In your opinion, how does setting these thoughts to music change them?

I suppose I approach songwriting in a couple of different ways.

The past year I’ve tried to focus on writing for the sake of writing. Writing without thinking of the end product. I keep notebooks of thoughts, or words that I like, or phrases that come to me. Some writings trickle down into songs and some don’t. I try not to worry about where things will end up, initially. Words find new meaning in the contexts of songs, and little phrases become parts of larger narratives.

Certain lyrics, though, would never have come to me outside of the context of music, without the inspiration of notes and strumming the guitar.

What singers do you admire, and who do you hope you sound like?

Well, I hope to sound like myself. I think to hope for anything else would be a failure on my part. I do admire old Appalachian folk and Delta Blues music. I am also inspired by old Jazz singers, the way they use their voice as an expressive instrument.

You grew up in a small logging town in southern Oregon—which one, might I ask?—and now you live in Portland. What imprint did/does your upbringing have on your music? You seem to be in a certain community in Portland, a community of people that seems to have something to do with one another, at least musically. Was the small town a place where you had community? When did you start to feel situated in a certain group of people?

I grew up in a little town called Coquille. It is near Bandon and Coos Bay, in the South Coast region of Oregon. For better or worse (mostly for better), community is the essence of living in small town, and definitely influenced my understanding of the world and of relationships. I didn’t play music within the indie music community, for my first few years in Portland. Mostly, I was intimidated by the idea of a scene. I didn’t keep up with music, and rarely went to shows. It seemed really foreign to me. My first few years, I felt set on making music in a different context. I played “shows” every Tuesday night at a residential AIDS care facility called Our House of Portland. Those two years, more than any other time, influenced my understanding of sharing music for people.

I guess I began to feel at home within the community after recording my first record. I timidly approached Adam Selzer about recording some songs for me. Adam has made some of my favorite records with his band Norfolk and Western. I was a fan of his, and he agreed to record some songs. Adam brought in most of the musicians, and by the end of that record-making process, I had a handful of new friends. All of the musicians that played on my record were also playing in other bands. I got to know those bands, and so on and so on. I think my initial reluctance to approach the music community was partially misguided (based at least partly on fear). Some of the sweetest, most genuine people I’ve ever met, are people playing music in Portland. I feel supported, and feel a genuine sense of belonging. It is such a precious thing, community. I am reminded, almost daily, how fortunate I am.

Does the place, the physical place, with its smells, weather, history—terroir , as a vintner might summarize it—affect your music in ways you’re aware of?

I believe place certainly affects my music, in ways that I am aware of, and maybe more so, in ways I am not aware of. I read a few interviews with bands recently, where they stated that because of the internet and touring, there is no such thing as a “Seattle band” or a “Brooklyn Band.” I would have to disagree. I am not a band per se, I am just one person making music, but I can’t imagine my music would be the same had grown up in New York or the Southwest. I am really sensitive to space, it affects my mood, my thoughts, the way I interact with people. If I am going to be authentic in what I do, place will always play a part in what I am doing. Similarly, when I travel, I am missing a different home than a band from New York or Austin, and that longing for home is a part of me.

How hard is it as a touring musician to be rooted in the place where you live?

I have traveled so much in the past few years, I imagine it affects my music as much as it affects my mood and understanding of life. My family all lives in Portland now. That is a very tangible “rooting”, more so than any sort of scene I belong to.

Beasts of Seasons is divided into two sections—Communion Songs and Funeral Songs—and you have spoken of how you saw two themes emerging as you wrote these songs. I think the “funeral” theme is in plain sight, but how does the Communion theme make itself known? It’s a theologically-charged word—how familiar are you with those associations? If so, did you mean to draw those in? Why unequal time for Communion Songs and Funeral Songs?

Actually, because the first song, “Shadows on Parade” is so long, the parts are pretty equal in length.

I use Communion, both in the theological sense, and in the non-theological sense. I suppose I meant connection, but wanted the word to have some connotation of the sacred or transcendent (and besides, “connection songs” sounds pretty cheesy). I grew up in the Episcopal church, and communion was one of my first experiences with the idea of sacredness. I have friends who grew up in other traditions and have a completely different vocabulary for communicating the idea of transendence. Communion carried a certain weight for me. I used the phrase “communion songs” in the song Postures Bent, and the phrase stuck with me.

The song “Glory”—how is it a Funeral Song? The verse about your father’s voice—particularly that breathtaking line about it being “dressed in anger, swollen with grace”—it’s surprising, not least because it’s de rigueur nowadays to be resentful and one-dimensional about one’s upbringing. But you come across as astonished and grateful—and the refrain, that you “have not seen such glory since” suggests that those things are now absent. Is that so?

I can’t imagine writing a resentful song about my family. It wouldn’t be possible, whether it’s de rigueur or not.

“Glory” is a song of loss and of new life.  I have experienced both, and both are present in family life. The song is not specific to my family, but a collection of images.

In making a collection of songs centering around mortality, I kept coming back to tenderness in relationships. You can sharpen your philosophy and your understanding of death. You can circle around and settle on a certain perspective or subscribe to a certain doctrine. But at the end of the day, if you’re on an airplane, going down, it’s the faces of those dearest to you that come into your mind.

The song is a showstopper in most ways, but especially lyrically. It’s essentially a collection of moments in which you find examples of grace and glory. Do you find that you recognize those moments as they’re happening, or is that usually something that strikes you in memory?

Like all things, I am sometimes aware of things in the moment, and sometimes only aware of things in hindsight. Those aren’t specific memories, but a series of images that came to me one afternoon.  They do remind me of my family, but aren’t specific to my family, exactly.

We live in a culture that is largely innoculated from death, that hides it or calls it by other names. You wrote many Beasts of Seasons songs overlooking an old cemetery, and that had a clear effect on your thoughts and songwriting, though it didn’t seem to make you morbid. Death, clearly, sunders relationships, ends communion, is an enemy to be contended with. How would you say you contend with it? What wards off morbidity?

I’m not sure when I first realized that all of these songs dealt with mortality. It just seemed to hang in the air. I’m not interested in looking into the darkness for the sake of writing dark songs. I think I was dealing with fear, through the process of writing these songs. But, even in the darkest circumstances, there are moments of hope, of tenderness, of reverence. That is something that inspires me. I feel like these songs are the most hopeful songs I have written.

I learned that songs about death are ultimately songs about the urgency of life. The word reverence isn’t really tossed around or used in much music. But I cared deeply about the record having a sense of reverence, for life, for relationships, for things outside of ourselves.

You deserve an easy, rhetorical question. Is there a better city in the United States than Portland?

I’ve enjoyed many aspects of many of the places I’ve visited. But it would be hard to live anywhere else. Portland is pretty special (even if it is being overrun by bands).

Brendan is not this guy, nor was he this guy, and he is not at all cool with this particular namesake. He does occasionally guest on Stereopathic Sessions with Larson and Josh, and is staggered at how inarticulate his words are about the things he loves the most.

Shadows On Parade

Posted by: Josh

Laura Gibson's Beasts of Seasons reviewed on Pitchfork.com.

First, check out the Pitchfork review of Laura Gibson’s Beasts of Seasons. In light of yesterday’s post, it’s actually a pretty good review. But I’m still completely stuck on the 7.2. On the 1-10 scale that makes it sound not good, but the review shows almost no negativity, engages the music and the words credibly, and generally sounds like it was written by a human. Anyway, who wants to score in the 8′s, if that’s where The Pains of Being Pure At Heart land? Check out Brendan’s review of Laura’s record here.

Next, Entertainment Weekly, of all places, is now streaming a Grizzly Bear track from the highly anticipated (by me) and already consummated (by Larson Hicks and countless others who lack any form of self-control) record they’ve called Veckatimest. The track is “Cheerleader” which they’ve performed on Letterman. For those who might question my infallible integrity, I’m linking to it, and have already listened to it myself, because once it’s been released, it’s promotion. It’s to pump the public up. I will play that game. Find the stream here, and bemoan the terrible quality and clicking page, but love the song that lives there.

As was mentioned here a few days ago, NPR’s First Listen is streaming Laura Gibson‘s forthcoming (as of Tuesday, February 24th) and staggeringly beautiful record, Beasts of Seasons. Framed around Gibson’s acoustic guitar and her voice — a strange chimeric instrument, at once childlike and also serene and wise beyond its years — each of the nine songs carries what would otherwise be ordinary folksinger fare in surprising and complicated directions. An orchestra’s worth of instruments — banjo, horns, cello, musical saw, vibraphone, found sounds, piano, snatches of other voices — expands on her basic melodies and structures, articulating them into a powerful and evocative suite of songs that, like (I would submit) all great art must do, point away from themselves. Thematically framed around “Communion Songs” and “Funeral Songs”, her lyrics focus on, as she puts it in one place “[f]irst, reaching towards something outside of ourselves, be it a lover or God or family (Communion Songs) and second, grappling with the idea of ultimate aloneness and acceptance (Funeral Songs).” The final song, “Glory,” perhaps sums this up, an amazed and grateful recounting of her past, her childhood — things like her “father’s voice/dressed in anger/swollen with grace/my surrender/his forgiveness,” or her “sister’s belly/red and swollen/carefully swaying/carrying such grace” — and then, with her voice rising alongside a small, quiet choir, she tells us, singing, “I have never seen such glory since.” Beasts of Seasons gives us a gracious portrait of an artist who looks inward and finds other people, who looks outward and finds herself, who is astonished at the sorrow and beauty and transcendence to be found when someone plunges themselves into the fact that it is not good that anyone should be alone.

Pre-order (or, after 2/24, just plain old buy) Beasts of Seasons direct from Hush Records, most likely the best way to get a little of your record-buying budget into her pocket; also keep FRIDAY, MAR 27 @ 9:30PM open, because Miss Gibson is coming to Moscow, playing at Mikey’s with Pablo Trucker.

Brendan occasionally guests on Stereopathic Sessions with Larson and Josh, and is staggered at how inarticulate his words are about the things he loves the most. He doesn’t blog, and doesn’t want to.

Be sure to catch this while it’s available!  You can stream Laura Gibson’s entire new album a week before it is released.

Laura Gibson will be playing at Mikey’s Gyros on Friday, March 27th with Seattle’s Pablo Trucker.