INTERVIEW: Melora Creager (Rasputina)

Hurtling back after years out of the limelight and a devastating identity theft incident, Melora Creager, main creative force behind the cello-driven Rasputina, has bravely released what might be her most personal album yet.  Short but sweet, Creager was kind enough to repond via email and share some insight into her ordeal and the impetus behind her art. 

The new Rasputina album, “Unknown”, was born out of a particularly traumatic time for you and is the first album of new music in almost five years.  Unlike previous releases, this was recorded alone and quite literally “under the cover of darkness”.  First of all, thank you for sharing something so personal – it’s a very beautiful and singular work.  How did the experience of having your online presence hacked impact the writing and recording process?

I was out-of-my-mind paranoid, but felt compelled to make this record. There are parts of ourselves that are powerful, yet hidden. I got to know that part of me as if she was a different person. I couldn’t have made this record without her.    

You’ve welcomed Carpella Parvo back to the group who departed after your debut to take care of medical issues.  Given all that you have been through, it seems like a nice way of “closing the circle” with your past.  How did you and she reconnect? To a broader point, do you find yourself pulled by nostalgia, or is the past usually best left there?

 Lately, I’ve been closing circles and opening new ones. I’m not pulled by nostalgia. I’m into ‘the now’ and the future. We reconnected through the internet of course. Had lost track of each other long ago. I’m so glad she’s back.

Last year, you helped to curate an art series on your website dedicated to memorializing the 20^th anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death (and, by extension, all of those lost to suicide).  I was curious if you had watched the recent “Montage of Heck” documentary and if so, what you thought of it?

I haven’t seen it, but it sounds interesting.

It’s reductive (and probably not terribly helpful) to point out that you are a strong female artist that is working independently in tandem with but also outside a very male-dominated system. You have, however, reclaimed strong female figures of the past through your costuming and storytelling and it’s something that your audience seems to connect with and expect from Rasputina.   Do you feel a responsibility to represent the feminine in your work?   Why do we have such a tough time discussing gender in relation to female artists and their work? 

I don’t feel a responsibility to the feminine- I feel it’s my natural purpose— put forth strongly without thought of doing it otherwise. It’s what interests me, what I like, and what interests others, men and women alike.

Your songs cover quite a wealth of ideas, from the historical to the fantastic.  Having been at this the better part of 20 years now, what inspires you to continue to create art? And if you could communicate with your younger self, what advice if any would you give her?

Art is all there is to do. I don’t watch tv or the internet. There’s no shortage of ideas- just shortage of time.

I imagine your songs are like children – it’s tough to choose one above the others. But let’s say you are asked to make a “Sophie’s Choice”; is there one that you are particular proud to have written or one that is particularly special to you? 

Always the latest album’s material. Then soon after, I can’t listen to it. No special favorites of my songs.

What’s on tap for you next? 

Loads of touring until November. I’m always making new releases on my website. Just released an album of early cassette demos. Virtue video series to make. Fa La La II. A covers collection. That’s about it. 

FIRST IMPRESSION: Wake Up Lucid - Gone With the Night

Burbling up from Silverlake, CA, Wake Up Lucid delivers a sharp, 30-minute rush through the past forty years of scuzz-rock on their latest ep, “Gone With the Night”.  Produced by the Icarus Line’s Joe Cardamone, the band shares a sensibility and sonic bloodline with Cardamone’s band…the guitars are in the red ala “Raw Power” and the band alternately rushes and lurches down musical back alleys that are redolent of their So Cal surroundings.  Ryan Baca’s voice, ensconced in the maelstrom of opener, “White Collar Love” (itself a nicely Stooge-y groover) strangles notes in all the right ways…he imbues lines like “Done too many drugs, and now you don’t feel anymore…and all you want is more” with a perfect amount of weariness and understanding.  The night’s going to go on forever, and even though you’re long past the point of this being fun, you’re gonna ride it out. 

Nine-minute juggernaut “Get Fucked” sums up the band’s aesthetic nicely: “Give us something real, something we can feel.  Or get fucked”.  Baca’s guitar’s pulsating notes bounce and wah-wah back and forth over his cousin Ian’s lumbering bass as other cousin Jamie bashes away on the kit. If it sounds a bit too similar to X’s “My Goodness”, I don’t see that as a problem.  Wake Up Lucid have all the right influences and make simple, powerful rawk.  

INTERVIEW: Henry Rollins

Photo by Heidi May

Rollins.  Henry fucking Rollins. This is usually the place where I write out some flowery description of the artist and her/his music, but if you aren't clued in to the cultural devastation that this man wreaks across multiple media platforms, then a couple pithy lines aren't nearly enough to do him justice.  Henry was kind enough to take time out from shooting one of his new projects to answer some questions about his wonderful podcast "Henry and Heidi", fighting nostalgia, and how the Bad Brains blew away the Damned back in '79.  Brief, honest, no bullshit...enjoy...

First off, thank you for the “Henry and Heidi” podcast.  Your dynamic with (assistant) Heidi May is so playful and affectionate – as a public person with some fairly strong and iconic imagery attached, the interplay between the two of you and the history you share is really “humanizing”.   What was the impetus behind going into podcasting and taking this tact with it? 

She’s no assistant. She’s the boss. She runs all my stuff. I have different companies and have a hectic schedule. She manages all of it. The podcast was Heidi’s idea. What you hear is how we are with each other. There is really nothing beyond that. I tell her a bunch of stories that never make the stage and she wanted other people to hear them, so she said we were going to do a podcast.

You don’t strike me as a terribly nostalgic person – has it been challenging to revisit certain times of your life or particular stories from your past for the podcast?

No, not really. It’s history to me. So, I recount it as best I can. I think there is a big difference between being able to recall it and wanting to be back in it—that, I have no interest in. I am interested in what’s happening now and what’s happening next.

You are a lifelong music obsessive and your radio show on KCRW has shown off the eclectic nature of your collection.  You honor your influences but also pay heed to emerging artists. With everything you have on your plate, how do you keep up with new music? 

I pay attention to labels, I take suggestions from people, I go exploring for music. The internet is really great for that. If there is a label I like, for example In The Red, or Castle Face, I check out all the things they put out.

Something that I have long found fascinating (and that you speak at length about in a recent episode of the podcast) is the inspiration that your high school teacher Mr. Pepperman had on your personal development. It’s a powerful story and potent thing to recognize that someone other than your father can influence the way you navigate “becoming a man”.  Why do you think that young men have such a difficult time exploring the influences on their masculinity? 

I wouldn’t be the one to ask. I have never considered that they do. It could be that they don’t want to seem like they are not “their own man” or something. I think some men are ashamed of the insecurities of their youth. I think all that stuff is excusable. You’re young, you’re figuring things out. For both males and females in American society, there is a lot of pressure to be this or that. It can lead to distortion. My parents were busy people and didn’t know what to do with a hyperactive, difficult child. So, I looked for other role models.

As a polymath and someone who tends to utilize the little free time you have to take on new projects, how do you find balance?  Is there an area that you haven’t ventured into yet that you wish to explore?

I don’t have much balance. I ricochet around the room. I go way into this and then way into that. I can’t think of anything that I want to do but have not yet done. There are countries I want to go to, that kind of thing but I have no desire to have kids or something.

A bit of a personal connection:  I first saw you back in the spring of 1991 in Rochester, NY opening for Jane’s Addiction.  I was intimately familiar with Black Flag at the time, but was largely unaware of your work with the Rollins Band and it really blew me away.  Do you remember having any similar experiences, where catching an opening act made you a fan for life?

I remember watching the Beasts of Bourbon smoke Nirvana in Sydney many years ago but I was already a fan of the Beasts. I watched Van Halen destroy Ted Nugent in 1978 or ’79, that was pretty incredible. The Bad Brains stood their ground with the Damned at the Bayou in DC in June 1979, that was probably the one. The Damned were great, of course but the Bad Brains was like nothing any of us had ever seen before.

I know that you have largely taken creating new music off the table, but you recently admitted that there are certain collaborations that, should they come to fruition, might entice you to write and get behind the mic again.  Without breaking any confidences (and as a completely fictional academic exercise), who would constitute your “dream” backing band?

I can’t think of anyone because I don’t have any ideas for lyrics. I have it in my mind that all that’s behind me. Once I get an idea like that in my head, it’s pretty much stuck. For myself, I only see my youth and progress in music. When I was a younger person, I was living a life in music. If I did something now, it would be a visit. That’s too lightweight for me. I guess that’s it, I don’t do lightweight anything. I am either all in or not at all. There is not one thing for me to do in music that I have not already done.

What’s on tap for you next? 

I am in the middle of a television show and a film, both shooting at the same time. After that, I will be working in another film that I co-wrote the screenplay for. It is a film that has a live band playing along with it. I will be working on some of that production stuff over the next two years. I have shows starting to fall in for next year and I am trying to get another book edited in time for December. 

INTERVIEW: The Sun Lions

Photo by Jess Hodge

The Sun Lions are not a household name, but they should be. The young band out of the Boston area, simply put, make powerfully melodic rock n' roll.  Riding high off the release of their debut full-length, "Whatever's On Your Mind", singer-guitarist Pete Schluter reached out via e-mail to talk about the band's influences, working with hotshot producer Justin Pizzaferrato, and the importance of getting off your ass and getting out to experience live art.

You’re from the Boston area and have been playing around there for the past few years – how did the band come together?  

Mike and I have been playing together in different incarnations since we were in high school. The Sun Lions as they are constituted now started writing original music back in 2009. We were living in Vermont and so broke we had to share a bedroom. That's when Mike picked up and woodshedded the bass, which he had never played before. 

We eventually ended up back in Boston, where we recorded demos and played only one show until our other guitar player left the band to go back to VT. The show was at a place called Tavern at the End of the World and it was so loud bottles were falling off the bar and we got asked to turn down by the management about 50 times during the set. We would just go and pretend to touch the volume knobs on our amps but not really move them. We actually practice about a block from that spot now, so it all comes full circle.

After that, we weren't seriously playing much for a little, just living life as working stiffs until we got the itch again and started a Chuck Berry/early rock n' roll cover band called The Images. We played around Boston a lot until our drummer Kevin moved to New York and my brother Ben, who played guitar, went back to college. Ben and Kevin played on an LP of original music we recorded as The Images that was released in 2013 and served as the seed of what we sound like now.

Jeff, our current drummer, is a coworker of Mike's at a dog-walking business, and he had seen us play shows as The Images, so when our old drummer moved away he stepped up to the plate and filled in. His style is much more heavy and modern sounding than what we had before, so we quickly realized we should stop playing old covers and move towards our own sound.

We realized we had to change our name from The Images once we started gigging playing original music because it is literally impossible to do a google search of "The Images". Try it sometime! This is an example of a lame but practical reason to change a band name.

Jeff was actually the one who suggested that we change our name to The Sun Lions again, because he saw Mike wearing an old Sun Lions shirt at work and just assumed it was some cool band he had never heard of. We've been gigging as the Sun Lions again ever since.

Your full-length debut album, “Whatever’s On Your Mind”, just came out and it’s stellar!  You worked with Justin Pizzoferrato at Sonelab recording it…how was that experience?

Thanks man! Recording with Justin was amazing, he is an awesome guy to work with. We've been lucky to work with some great engineers, and the one thing they all have in common is they know how to keep the session moving forward, without getting bogged down in the minutiae too much. You really have to pick and choose which battles are actually important to the essence of the record, and which are "six of one, half dozen of the other". 

Since this was our first record, we wanted the arrangements to be very close to how you would hear things live. Everything you hear from the rhythm section and actually a lot of the guitar solos were recorded live, all three of us playing together in a room. Justin did a great job capturing our live sound, but making it "bigger" in a cool way. He's also just a genuinely nice dude and owns a lot of sweet vintage fuzz pedals, so he's cool in our book!

Your songs are really melodically well-developed.  What is your songwriting process like?

Mike and I write all the songs (we're hoping Jeff will pull a Ringo someday and come up with his own "Octopus's Garden", but we're still waiting). Our process is that we usually write songs individually, and when they are mostly formed show them to each other. From there we will help to edit and arrange the other's songs, or suggest minor lyrical changes or things like that. Sometimes one of us will be searching for a good bridge and the other will have an idea lying around that works. 

As far as writing the songs on an individual level, we have mostly similar approaches. We usually get the music or riffs first, with a snippet of lyrics on a line or two, then the melody suggests how the lyrics should come out. Since Mike plays bass he tends to write in a more riff-oriented style, whereas I'm usually thinking about chord progressions and melody.

As everyone always says, the best songs are the ones that come out almost as fast as you can play them. For instance, you write a three minute song in about ten. We have a few of those, which really are gifts from the cosmos when you can get 'em, but you'll have to guess which ones they are!

I imagine your songs are like children – it’s tough to choose one above the others.  But let’s say you are forced to make a “Sophie’s Choice”; is there one that you are particularly proud to have written or that is special to you?

It's hard to speak for the songs that I wrote myself, since you tend to easily lose perspective on how it sounds to others. If forced to make a "Sophie's Choice", I would say that "Ride" was a nice surprise, because we recorded a demo of it just before going into record with Justin and it kind of fell flat. We rearranged it in a major way just days before recording it for real, so I was a little nervous about how it would sound. But it came out better than I hoped.

With the songs on this record that Mike wrote, I'm partial to the song "Sammy". It's really three songs in one, and is just a lot of fun to play. Originally it had an intro riff that apparently sounded exactly like a Mumford and Sons song, but luckily Jeff is familiar with a lot of terrible music and caught it. We really dodged a bullet there.

Not to do too much “trainspotting”, but I hear shades of older bands like D-Generation, Samiam, and the Doughboys in your music. You also seem to share some similar sonic space with other, newer, “local” bands like California X and the Young Leaves.  Who inspires you musically?  What are some of the musical touchstones that informed your musical education or to which you keep going back?

It's funny you say that, because we are always being compared to bands we've never heard of and then end up checking out those bands and being like, "these guys rule!" It happened while we were recording with Justin, he compared us to a band called the Marked Men, who we had somehow not ever discovered. Now I really like them. 

Those bands you listed are all cool, and I see similarities, but I wouldn't say they are really influences or that we listen to them that much. Although the first time we ever played in NYC we played with a band called Slonk Donkerson who compared us to the Doughboys, who again, we were not cool enough to know about yet.

I grew up a total Beatles freak and love classic power pop like that and Big Star, but I also love bands like Buffalo Tom, Pavement, and Polvo. So I'd say we tend to be compared to any band that brings high energy to songs that are at their core very melodic. I think it's the energy that gets us compared to a lot of punk bands, even though we would never categorize ourselves that way.

"Local" bands like California X, Pile, Ovlov (RIP), Kal Marks, Potty Mouth, Speedy Ortiz, Gymshorts, Rough Francis and others definitely inspire us to do more, since they are all very DIY in nature and prove that if you bust your ass, you can get your music out to people that really do give a damn. 

You released “Whatever’s On Your Mind” as a name-your-price download through your Bandcamp page (https://thesunlions.bandcamp.com/), which would seem to facilitate as many people experiencing the music as possible.   What are your thoughts on streaming and the “free” distribution of digital music for up-and-coming bands?

Since we are not on a label, we have the terrible, terrible freedom to pretty much do whatever we want. Our philosophy about downloaded music is that it has no value, in a monetary sense. Not to say it is worthless, as a matter of fact I listen to music online a lot to discover new bands. It just has no value, as in $. Once it's there online it's a struggle to force people to pay for it. So we've found that the best way to put downloadable music online is to put it there and let people pay what they want. That way a lot of people take it free, but others put in upwards of $20-40 sometimes. 

Physical music is different and should always be paid for, because it's a real, tangible piece of art that also happens to cost bands a buttload to produce.

We always say that if you download our music, even free, we are thrilled about the fact that you care enough to do that. But the real way to keep the music community vibrant is to go to a show! If you download our music, or any band's for that matter, go pay to see them live and say hello, get to know them. Be a part of it. Buy their physical records or tapes or T shirts or whatever. Spread the word. Next time your friends are planning on an all-night Netflix session, drag 'em out into the real world and bring them to see that band you love who gave their music to you for free. It can all be a beautiful circle, we just have to be motivated.

What’s on tap for the band next? 

Up next, we are planning on recording a handful of music videos over the summer, which we haven't done before. Then in mid-late August we are playing a string of shows all over New England and NYC with some cool bands for the release of our album on vinyl, which we also haven't done before (release on vinyl that is). In between we are going back to Sonelab to record a new 4 or 5 track EP. We also are sitting on a new single that is all done, and will be released sometime this summer. Onwards and upwards!

INTERVIEW: A Conversation with Jason Loewenstein (Sebadoh)

Sebadoh (Jason Loewenstein, center) by Travis Tyler

You guys are just about to head out on tour, so I appreciate your time.

Yeah, no problem, man.  We’re getting ready to go out on these little 10-day long trips, so we’re excited to hit the next one.

By way of background, you and Lou got back together (as Sebadoh) in the early aughts and brought (original member) Eric Gaffney back for a bit, and then brought Bob D’Amico into the fold in 2011.  You’ve been at this for so long – what keeps Sebadoh an ongoing concern for you?

Well, because it’s still fun to play (laughs).  We toured the heck out of the last record we made for Sub Pop, called “The Sebadoh”, and after that we had almost two years off and then Lou and I have kind of been playing ever since.   We were kinda under the radar, but we never really stopped playing for that long.  I think most people assumed that we were gone for much longer than we were because we were playing low-profile gigs.  But we’ve been back at it for a while and we’ve even had Bob in the band for four, maybe five, years now.  Getting him in the band was really a huge boost to the old material and made us hopeful for the future.  Bob’s influence in being here and the fact that we never let it die is really why it’s still an interest. 

He’s a hell of a drummer!  You’ve been with him previously in the Fiery Furnaces and Circle of Buzzards stuff, so I am sure that it’s easy to tour having someone you like as a person in the band.

Wow, I appreciate you knowing all that history stuff!  Yeah, we were in the Fiery Furnaces together and Bob was also in the solo band I had in the early 2000s, and also the Circle of Buzzards thing – so I have done a LOT of playing with Bob. He’s also a good pal as well, which is always a good thing.

Obviously he influenced the writing of the new album, “Defend Yourself”. What change did he bring to the dynamic of playing the older stuff?

You know, he’s really versatile and has a lot of skills he doesn’t let on about.  He’s a great salsa player, he’s good with hand drums and things like that.  It didn’t matter what kind of material we were bringing to him…he’s able to play really crazy, math-y, aggressive beats; he swings really well; he can play really simple Ringo-stuff.  He’s a very song-appropriate kind of player; the older Sebadoh material is pretty simplistic, and I don’t mean in a bad way, but in a way that a musician needs to kind of bend it and push it around to keep it interesting.  He’s really fun to do that with, because he’s really good at pushing the edges of the material and nuancing it into making it more interesting.

You just put out your cover of Rush’s “Limelight” on 7” picture disc with Bubbles from “Trailer Park Boys” on it.  Were you surprised by the reception that cover received when the A.V. Club put it out last year?

Not entirely (laughs).  I’m actually surprised how many “normal” Sebadoh fans were even into it.  Because it was the A.V. Club who put it out and not just our own fans watching it, a lot of hardcore Rush fans (who were not into Sebadoh) were VERY critical about it, and that was kind of fun (laughs).   I kind of expected that, because prog-rock fan mindset is something I’m pretty familiar with.  There are no worse critics of performances than those guys (laughter).

(Laughs) Yeah, they can be pretty exacting about their expectations, and doing something so different with it, like Lou did with the vocals, probably gets their ire up.

I’m really glad that Lou did it the way he did it…it was a nice balance of chaos.  We kept it very Sebadoh-like (laughs).

Rush was never a band I gravitated towards, but seeing what you did with it helped me to kind of understand the fascination people have with that band.  It’s a good song! (laughs)

That’s cool.  It’s the greatest service we could do to Rush (laughs).  Carl, who’s the head of Joyful Noise (the label that’s releasing the 7”), kind of randomly reached out to the Trailer Park Boys’ people….I mean, I’m a huge fan of that show.  When he brought it up, I was like, “Sure, go ahead and try it!”, really pessimistically. But it worked out.  They found some value in maybe the humorous part of the song, and some of those guys are actually Sebadoh fans which is really cool!

Alex Lifeson was in a couple of episodes, so I’m sure that they thought that those guys have a sense of humor about things.

Yeah, absolutely.  They’re kind of a constant theme on that show because it’s Canada!  Fucking Canada, man (laughs)

You guys have been on tour pretty constantly the last couple of years – do you find these shorter runs to be more manageable or enjoyable?

You know, actually I like longer runs.   We’ve been doing these two-week tours, which is really a function of Lou; he’s got two bands and a family, so it only gives us so much time.  I like going out and really getting into “road unit” mode.  After about three weeks on the road you get into a really cool mindset, which I worship.  You never really get into that on these shorter runs, but they are still really fun, you know.

When you are not on tour, you’ve obviously got your recording gig (the “Jakerock Mobile Recording Unit”) – what about production work and being behind the scenes fulfills you?

I’m kind of a geek, so at a certain point during Sebadoh’s recording career we were in studios and I didn’t know what the fuck these engineers were talking about so I figured out that I had to learn the boards a bit just to be able to talk to engineers. It really changed things. At a certain point, it just made sense to help other people out.  So now after 10 years of recording, I have a really compact recording setup that I just take to the bands, because I don’t have a place to record.   We record basics and overdubs in these remote locations and then just bring it back to my studio, which is basically a mixing room.   I have a pretty awesome home studio setup which makes that easy to do.

Have you been able to flex those muscles with Sebadoh as well?  I have to imagine it’s helpful to have someone with that type of knowledge in the band when you enter the studio.

Yeah, it’s always helpful to have someone who knows a bit but also who knows enough to shut-up sometimes (laughs).  You can always learn new things.  There is definitely a language to the technical side of recording, and if you don’t speak it, it can be very challenging to get your record to sound like it does in your head.

I’m sure.  Shifting gears a bit, are there any songs that you find particularly rewarding to revisit and play or that mean something special to you?  “Careful” (off 1994’s “Bakesale”) has gotten me through some pretty dark times, so thank you for putting that out there.

Wow, thank you for that.  What comes to mind immediately is a song from that same record called “Got It”.  It’s always a little bit emotional to sing.  Sometimes we do it really fast and it sounds unemotional, but it brings me back to a certain time in my life every time we play it.  And many of them do, you know.   We have been lucky to be playing some of these songs for twenty years, so sometimes the meaning changes for me much in the same way it probably does for you as a listener.  I keep going back to them and they mean something a little bit different…it’s cool how your perceptions about things continue to evolve.

Oh, sure.  The song means something different when you are an angst-ridden 16 year old than when you are a more-resigned feeling forty-something.   Or, in some cases, it just DOESN’T connect anymore.

Yeah, or it reminds you of that certain time and you can pit where you are at now against that, which is also kind of useful.  Taking a sort of emotional stock based on your own timeline. 

You’re a pretty busy guy in general and I am sure that Sebadoh keeps you busy – do you have any plans to do more solo work?  Will there be a follow-up to (2002 solo album) “At Sixes and Sevens”?

I have a lot of time coming up in these summer months because Lou is really busy with Dinosaur (Jr.) stuff, so I am going to hunker down and try to make that follow-up sometime between now and August.  I’m starting to get some momentum – I have a lot of songs kicking around and now I just have to divide them up.  I think Sebadoh is going to record come the fall, so I have to write a bunch of tunes (laughter). 

You have your homework to do (laughs).  How do you determine what goes to Sebadoh and what stays a “Jake” song?

It hasn’t been much of a sorting process so far, because if I have a bunch of stuff kicking around I just pick what’s the best (laughs).  A couple of the tunes that ended up on the last Sebadoh record (2013’s “Defend Yourself”) have been around so long that I played them with Bob in the solo band 10 years ago.  Many of them are much newer, but I always feel like, “Well, I better put my best foot forward, whatever that is!” 

So what’s next?

Sebadoh’s the primary focus at the moment.  After this tour we have a lot of time off where Lou will be busy, so I can hopefully get something out for the fall. 

FIRST IMPRESSION: Insect Ark - Portal/Well

Dana Schechter – the one-woman, multi-instrumental whirlwind behind the Insect Ark moniker – makes music ready-built for rumination.  “Portal/Well”, Schechter’s full-length debut is a beautiful, droning mass of sound. Having served time as bassist in M. Gira’s Angels of Light, the easy logline in would be to describe her as a “one-woman Swans”, and there are certainly some similarities.  Quiet passages thrum and build to walls of Swans-like noise, and the percussion is plodding, hypnotic and cymbal-heavy like Gira’s best work.  What sets this apart, however, is Schecter’s masterful lap steel.  Wielding the sounds it makes like a weapon, her fluid lines buzz and sweep, creating a swelling counterpoint to the claustrophobic arrangements.

Other than the brief punctuation of two 90-second long interludes, the album is filled with long, brooding “songs” that highlight Schecter’s compositional prowess.  Songs stretch and contract (a trick one is wont to assume she picked up under Gira’s tutelage) and evolve from rumbles in the darkness to full-on wails of terror, sometimes slowly and often not. The titular opening track is likely the most user-friendly way in, and that ain’t saying a lot…unfolding over 7 minutes, it’s a harrowing and beautiful summation of everything that Schechter is capable of.  Contrasted to that is the serenity of album-closer, “Low Moon”, all sustained orchestration and buzzing strings punctuated by a couple of simple electronic bells. It’s kind of breathtaking. Give yourself over to Insect Ark’s doom-laden explorations and you will come out the other side a believer.  

FIRST IMPRESSION: Duke Garwood - Heavy Love

Duke Garwood has a pretty cool CV: he played guitar on UK electronica godfathers the Orb’s debut album, has provided woodwinds to folks as disparate as the Archie Bronson Project and Savages, and even worked with famed artist Shezad Dawood on a continuation of the “Dream Machine” project that the Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones started and subsequently abandoned in 1968.  Garwood is probably best known on these shores, however, for “Black Pudding”, a 2013 album he made in conjunction with Mark Lanegan (himself no stranger to left-field collaborations!).  That album pitted Lanegan’s whisky growl against Garwood’s more honeyed rasp to great effect, and it’s this record that “Heavy Love” uses as a jumping off point.

It’s easy (and reductive), to compare Garwood with Lanegan – both favor slow burn atmospherics over straight up “rocking” and share a certain low rumble in their register – but where Lanegan breathes the blues, Garwood has more of a soul man’s cadence.  Most songs find him wrapping his voice around spindly finger-picked guitar lines, delivering mantras like “make me strong, make me strong, snake honey from your tongue” like a man possessed.   Album standout, “Disco Lights”, finds him dueting with Savages’ Jehnny Beth to stunning affect – guitar lines tangling together and heading skyward, while centerpiece "Sweet Wine” could be mistaken for a lost Richard Buckner song.  “Heavy Love” is full of such delicately and finely rendered moments.  It’s an album that could only be made by someone with a musical pedigree this developed, and a nice second step for anyone who came aboard looking for the next Lanegan.