 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
The four core members of The Book Of Knots -- Joel Hamilton, Tony Maimone, Matthias Bossi, and Carla Kihlstedt -- are all multi-instumentalists who've played on (or with), produced, or engineered enough bands and records to fill the entire reverse side of this page. So we did. Check it out ... The band's name alludes to the musical binds that tie these diverse strands together -- a concept echoed by their eponymously titled album debut, The Book Of Knots, issued by Austin, TX-based indie Arclight Records. "We made this record with no agenda, no ulterior motive, no record deal," explains Hamilton. "We started out with one song about what it's like to grow up in a rotting sea town in Massachusetts -- staring at the ocean when you're seven-years-old, cutting bait on a dock for your first summer job and smelling the chum -- then, and I know it's astonishingly cliched to say, it took on a life of its own and became what we called this 'begrudgingly epic' concept album. "The first song on the record, 'Scow,' was the first thing we recorded and it set the template: swirling guitars, bombastic dynamics, and using a simple naval chant as a melody. Plus, it was completed -- the basic tracks, the layering, the mixing, everything -- in a single day. "We did the entire album like that," Hamilton reflects, noting that the process took roughly a year, owing to the four principals' voluminous touring and recording commitments. (For the last four years, Hamilton and Maimone have been partners in the Brooklyn-based Studio G, where The Book Of Knots was recorded, primarily when the studio wasn't being used by such paying clients as Frank Black, Soul Coughing, and all the other alt-rock luminaries listed on their studiogbrooklyn.com Website.) "I'd known Matthias Bossi for about 10 years," Hamilton continues. "We both grew up as year-rounders on the coast of Massachusetts and we'd been playing together informally ever since he moved to New York. Carla Kihlstedt came in fairly early, after Matthias played her a couple of tracks while they were out on the road when he was playing with Skeleton Key and she was with Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. She came by the studio when they were in town, wound up singing on a song and playing some violin, and became a core member." Collectively, the four core members play 42 different instruments on The Book Of Knots. "Although I think any one of us are capable of making a solo album," says Hamilton,"one of the fun things about this project was being willing to let people say, 'I've never played a Marxophone before; let me go in there and do it and see if it works.' And sometimes, the quote wrong unquote person for the job wound up playing a simple line that had an honesty to it like a sea chantey, so there would be some painfully naive, sickly sweet melody in the song to go with all the trudging ogres that surround it. "There was a total lack of premeditated parts," elaborates Hamilton. "It's totally based on layering -- sometimes diametrically opposing parts -- but we refused to be involved in some formless, self-indulgent, inaccessible, avant-bullshit wankfest to hide the fact we can't write a song 'cause there are actual songs here, like 'Boston To Bombay.' We didn't want to put out a fake word -- like in Scrabble -- and then challenge anyone to tell us it wasn't real and it wasn't art. "The whole concept-album aspect of the record developed because we knew we had to put a face on it, and all those guest appearances grew organically out of that. For example, we said, 'It's too bad that we don't have a real ship's captain to talk about having to eat one of his partners on the boat out of starvation, but that Welsh brogue of Jon Langford's could sound amazing here.' So we called him -- he's an old friend; Tony played with him in the Mekons -- and he came in and did 'Captain's Cup.' Then he threw down this brilliant poem about the sea, 'Back On Dry Land' and we built this sort of Radiohead meets the Clash track around it." Aside from Langford, the album's guest list stretches from guitarists Norman Westberg and Matthew Waugh and vocalists Megan Reilly, Alice Lee, and the Rev. Vince Anderson to violinist Catherine Oberg, banjoist Brandon Seabrook, percussionist Jason Mills, and bassist Dave Curran. "All of those people are our friends, people to whom we have a actual personal connection," observes Hamilton. "It wasn't like, 'Let's call this fabulous cello player to join our incredible star-studded gala.' "Even though each song was its own little island, we wanted each one of them all to tell a story that was part of a larger story with a beginning, middle, and end -- rather than just be a collection of singles that didn't say anything. We wanted to create a certain spatial movement with an ebb and flow. We didn't want to just copy the first thing we did and put a different title on it and repeat that ad nauseum. In that sense, The Book Of Knots was definitely our reaction to the current state of music." Considering that the lyrics to "Assistance" are taken entirely from semaphore code, "Tugboat" is sung from the point of view of its titular subject, and "Frank's Funeral" is a retelling of Hamilton's uncle's Viking-style cremation at sea, only serves to underline that last statement. Meanwhile, the music mirrors the narrative's maritime concerns. Witness the cymbals that crash like waves throughout "Crumble," the calm before the firestorm structure of "Pearl Harbor," the burly dockworkers' chant reflected in the crushing guitar riff that humorously marries title and form in "Hook," and the eerie, effects-laden soundscapes of the claustrophobic "40 Degrees" and the gentle eddies of "Fastenings," the album's reflective closing track. "That was all a conscious decision," says Hamilton. "Sometimes we're intentionally trying to create the sense of confusion of being in a storm or fog, but mostly we were trying to sound like mutants wearing prom dresses or a hobo with all these missing teeth holding up a flower. We were trying to find the element of beauty in the midst of all this disgusting decay, so that people would really root for this broken-down old town that smells like rotting docks and dead fish, rather than coming off like a bunch of musicians saying, 'now let's play some weird chords.' "The main thing about this album is that you can't just play one song and think you've heard the whole thing. People who've heard it say everything from 'that sounds like Pink Floyd' to 'that sounds like the Swans,' but that has more to do with their own frame of musical references." "Obviously, sea stories have been part of the artistic language since people first built boats, but after we've taken you on this particular journey, we leave your mind free to ponder what you've just heard -- as the last song says, 'free to drift ... free to drift.'" Nautical, but nice. That's The Book Of Knots. Check out the artist's website: http://www.arclightrecords.com Track List: 1. Scow 2. Tug Boat 3. 40 Degrees 4. Crumble 5. Frank's Funeral 6. Back On Dry Land 7. Boston To Bombay 8. Assistance 9. Pearl Harbor 10. Captain's Cup 11. Hook 12. Fastenings Suggested CDs:Other Genres:
|