Tag Archives: Jared Christenson

Through The Wormhole: Jim Leonard and Richy Epolito of Barrows

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Barrows Red giant album cover

Los Angeles based instrumental post-rock maestro’s Barrows completed a west coast tour over the summer in support of their excellent new album Red Giant (Barrows Recordings). Drawing inspiration from the same pool that ISIS, Pelican, Rosetta and Russian Circles are immersed in, yet possess their own unique vision and style too. Pure artists who are unfettered by traditional expectations of what a band is supposed to be, they have a refreshing take on music that serves as a clear sign to creative longevity. Jarred Christenson caught up with Jim Leonard and Richy Epolito for a Q & A session to learn about all things Barrows.

How did you guys meet and get started playing music? Can you describe an early jam session and a current one to give us an idea of how things have changed (or not) since then?

Jim: Rich’s older brother Tom was one of my best friends in high school. I spent a lot of time hanging with Tom at the Epolito house and that’s how rich and I met. Rich’s guitars and drums were always lying around so It didn’t take long for us to start playing music together.

Richy: Jim and I have been writing and playing music together for a long time but the ideas behind Barrows started within the past 5 years. We understand and respect each others opinions equally which is highly important to us.

Barrows band photos

What was the genesis of the astral concept for Red Giant? Were there any particular books/ media/experiences that inspired it or that you consumed during the writing process to stay in that epic frame of mind? Did you binge watch a bunch of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos?

Richy: One night we were out partying with some friends and we ended up crashing at Jim’s place. When we were trying to fall asleep, the words Red Giant came to my mind and they sort of spilled out and it struck a chord with both of us. I like the idea of a star expanding to its largest state while also becoming low in density and then eventually expiring because of that imbalance. I think we can all agree Carl Sagan is a total badass, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who can rock a turtleneck as hard as he did.

Jim: Once we knew the title of the record, we began forming a linear story line for the album based on a Red Giant. The Red Giant explodes, which creates a ‘Black Hole’, which creates a ‘Wormhole’, and then ‘Beyond’ is where you end up at the end of the Wormhole. The opening track ‘Nebula’ is the space in which the Red Giant exists. I have never seen Cosmos, but Kubrick s 2001 definitely had a strong influence on the wormhole/beyond part of the concept for the record.

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Barrows, by Curtiss Dunlap Photography

 

What order did you develop the songs in? Did you build the album out from the title track or did you write it sequentially from start to finish?

Jim: We figured out the title of the record, and then the story line for the record, and once that was set we began writing the music for the songs based on their titles.

Richy: The very first thing that came about was the beginning of ‘Nebula’. After that it was just a lot of bits and pieces and working on songs as they naturally flowed out of us.

That makes two concept albums for you. What appeals to you about albums that have a unifying theme?

Richy: I think we enjoy melding visuals in our heads with musical ideas. For us it sort of gives us a very specific focus to work off of. Its similar to writing a soundtrack for film in a lot of ways. We enjoy creating fiction, it is a very rewarding way to explore ourselves and our surroundings.

Jim: As an instrumental band, sometimes it’s easier to know how a song should change and move forward when you have an idea as to what the song is about and how it relates to the rest of the songs on the record.

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Barrows, by Curtiss Dunlap Photography

Let’s talk about the recording process. Red Giant has some fairly sprawling songs on it. Did you use any weird tricks for keeping things straight in the studio? Give parts nicknames?


Jim: We made very detailed demos for each song before we went into the studio. The final songs have the exact same composition and structure as our final demos. That helped keep things straight while in the studio.

Was the gear you used pretty similar to what you play on live, or did you pull out some extra tricks to get the sound you wanted?

Jim: Rich and I write and record as a two piece, but live we play as a four piece with our bandmates Brock Haltiwanger and Ryo Higuchi. Our sound is a bit different live because Brock and Ryo use their own gear.

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Barrows, by Curtiss Dunlap Photography


Follow up question: your Instagram feed has a pic of a mic’d up bathroom stall. What’s that all about? (Please tell me that’s how you got the whooshing sound at the end of ‘Red Giant’)


Richy: Hahaha. The bathroom mic was a genius idea from our engineer Toshi Kasai. The basic idea was to create a chamber far away from the amp to catch sound. So what we did was place the amp about 15 feet from that bathroom and then put a microphone inside the bathroom. When the amp is played the sound travels 15 feet and is trapped in this like mini chamber and recorded by the microphone. It creates a natural reverb. Samples of that sound can be heard on the guitars at the beginning of ‘Nebula’ and at the beginning and end of ‘Beyond’. This technique helped convey the feeling of space.

Jim: That whooshing sound at the end of ‘Red Giant’ is the sound of the star exploding. For the initial drop we used a whammy pedal, and the swell that follows was created by double tracking analog delay pedal swells.

What do you feel like the high point of the recording process was for you? What was the low point?

Jim: We are not huge fans of recording in general our favorite thing is the process of making the songs and watching/hearing them come into form. I wouldn’t say there was any high or low points, it all just blended together. Toshi made our recording process super comfortable and relaxed which we appreciated a lot.

You guys are about to hit the road for a West Coast tour. What’s your touring rig look like? Do you have any special detours planned along the way? And what kind of entertainment are you bringing with you to stay sane on the road?

Jim: We are going to rent a van for this tour. We are playing a show every night we are on tour, so we don’t have time for any major detours, but we have good friends in almost every city we are stopping in so it will be good to catch up with them. As far as road entertainment, were just bringing a bunch of music.


Richy: Luckily I will have my pogs and Magic cards to make the drive go by faster.

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Barrows, by Curtiss Dunlap Photography

 

What’s your approach to set list? Do you plan to pull out a cover?

Jim: We will be playing most of Red Giant, and a few songs off of Imprecari Island. We will definitely be playing ‘Pirates’ at every show. We have never worked on a cover before, maybe someday.

Barrows on Facebook

WORDS: JARRED CHRISTENSON

LIVE PHOTOS: CURTISS DUNLAP PHOTOGRAPHY


Wolves in the Throne Room: Live at the Star Theater Portland, OR

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Wolves in the Throne Room—a band that never cared much for black metal orthodoxy to begin with—recently took a sharp left turn off the dark path with Celestite (Artemisia), an LP of ambient synth exploration with nary a blast beat in sight. This added an extra layer of intrigue to their already storied live presence: Would they be pausing in the middle of a set for ten minutes of synth noodling, or would they leave their new-age material to the album?

Plenty of people were willing to buy a ticket to find out. The Star Theater was already 2/3 full by 8 pm for the opener, Portland’s own Druden. Wolves’ blend of Cascadian darkness and agrarian ethos brings a large and varied crowd in the Pacific Northwest: There were dudes in kilts and Paganfest tees, there were Burzum shirts, there were teen girls in battle jackets and crusty dread-headed eco-warriors. Druden held the room’s attention with straight-ahead shrieking black metal that alternated between one of the guitarist’s excellent dying-witch scream and the drummer’s deeper battle howl. With varied song structure and an ability to build some epic tension this four piece is formidable and warrant showing up early when they’re on the bill.

Nommo Ogo is an electronic collective of sorts that began in the Alaskan noise scene and has since migrated to Oakland. Wolves is bringing them along for the entire tour, perhaps as an ode to the ambient sounds of Celestite. This night Nommo Ogo was a three person unit surrounded by an assortment of synths, from which they summoned a host of teutonic burbles and industrial beats. Their compositions were somewhat meandering and suffered from the problem of many electronic sets, which is that there just isn’t much to engage with, particularly in comparison to the maelstrom of a blast-beat propelled live band. But there was a bracing moment when, without warning, the frontman broke a long instrumental trance by barking “onward!” and then repeating the phrase forcefully and violently for several minutes, giving the rest of their set a sense of urgency and unpredictability that it had previously lacked.

Wolves in The Throne Room new album cover - Copy

By the time Wolves’ five sylvan banners were unfurled, people were lined up three deep on the balcony and the floor of the Star Theater was full. The band has a reputation for playing shows in the dark, and while it wasn’t pitch black it was dim up there. Roadies with headlamps on spelunked around stage, lighting four oil lamps and prepping Nathan Weaver’s and another unnamed guitarist’s rigs and Aaron Weaver’s kit. Additional atmosphere was added by single blue lights shining up the fretboard of each guitar and a smoke machine.

After a false start caused by some technical difficulties with the second guitar, they played ‘Thuja Magus Imperium’, the opening track from Celestial Lineage (Southern Lord), to start the set. Any lingering questions about whether Wolves will still perform heavy music were answered upfront; they are playing exclusively older material and they are playing it damn well. The only trace of Celestite in the set was an ominous, erratically thudding soundscape they had cued to play over the PA in between songs. Otherwise it was a mix of songs from earlier albums including the gargantuan ‘(A Shimmering Radiance)Diadem of 12 Stars’ which they played second.

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Inevitably, Wolves’ music loses some of the mist-covered atmosphere it has in album form when it is played live as a three piece. But, in its place, there is an intense ritualistic physicality. Nathan Weaver’s scream seems both richer and sharper in person, and has an almost tangible quality to it. Aaron Weaver’s drumming becomes a sort of primal force as he locks into ridiculous tom-heavy patterns. Together they created a trance-like state that wasn’t broken until the end of closer, ‘Prayer of Transformation’ and is more than worth witnessing if you get the chance.

 

Wolves in The Throne Room on Facebook

Druden on Bandcamp

 

JARED CHRTISTENSON

 

 


Barrows: Live at The Know, Portland, OR

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The Know is a punk venue located in North Portland on a street populated with boutiques, food cart pods, and the odd carniceria. A curtain sections off a bar and some pinball machines from a low bare-bones stage in a room maybe twenty feet wide by forty long. A couple of what appear to be gold couch cushions are affixed (glued?) to the ceiling above the stage, and there’s a big ‘ol poster of a lightning storm on the right-hand wall, for atmosphere.

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Barrows is a band from Los Angeles that plays epic instrumental post-rock with a narrative bent. They are out touring the West Coast on their latest LP, Red Giant (Barrows Recordings), a concept album that lays out the life and death of a star (Hubble Telescope kind, not Tom Cruise) in five spiraling songs. This was their second stop on the tour, third if you count their first date at home.

 

The night began with Portland locals The Sky Above and Earth Below playing a solid set of melodic screaming hardcore in the vein of Glassjaw or Shai Hulud. The three piece band set up on ground level in front of the stage (D.I.Y. pragmatism’s not dead!) and though no actual floor punching occurred surely we all floor punched in our hearts as they riffed in our midst.

 

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After a brief sound check Barrows began their set on the red-lit stage with the atmospheric winds and clean swells of album opener, ‘Nebula.’ Drummer Richy Epolito and bassist Jim Leonard were joined by guitarists Brock Haltiwanger and Ryo Higuchi, and when they hit the huge flanging crashes that come near the end of the song it was apparent that the band is fully locked in and not prone to lose any power in their live presence.

 

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Their formidable sound brought more people in from the bar, and Barrows ended up playing to a decent room for a Monday night. They moved through the bulk of Red Giant in a focused manner, pausing only a few times to switch basses, and bringing a tight intensity to the many transitions and builds in the material.

 

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Leonard paused briefly to say hi to the crowd before announcing their last song of the night, ‘Pirates,’ the closing track from Barrows 2011 debut , Imprecari Island. Fifteen minutes later Barrows was packed up and ready to, as Saint Rollins once put it, “Get in the van.”

Barrows on Bandcamp

WORDS BY JARED CHRISTENSON

PHOTOS BY CURTISS DUNLAP PHOTOGRAPHY

 


Stumpfest 2014, Day One: Mississippi Studios, Portland, Oregon

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Ah, music festivals. Home of the raver-boots-and-bikini combo, the infinite porta-potty line, and the tiny speck of a band making murky gurgles on a distant stage. Why bother, right?

Portland Oregon’s Stumpfest, though, has a different reputation. It is said to be less of a festival and more of a gathering of friends and neighbors in the Pacific Northwest music scene (see Ghost Cult’s interview with Stumpfest founder and namesake, Rynne Stump, here for more on that). More importantly, it is held indoors at Mississippi Studios, a compact venue in North Portland known for its quality sound engineering—no murky gurgles here.

So with that rep in mind, I put my festival bias aside and journeyed to Mississippi Studios for the first of Stumpfest’s three nights. Though the fest as a whole was heavy on the heavy—hometown beer-metal heroes Red Fang headlined Friday night and Eugene doom gods Yob closed out the fest Saturday—Thursday’s line-up was an eclectic collection of the fest’s non-metal acts headlined by post-rock genre chameleons, Trans Am.

By the time I parked and acquired a golden pint of Portland’s finest export, opener Hot Victory had already occupied the stage with their unusual setup: dual drum kits arranged side-by-side with a shared hi-hat and a hexagonal drum trigger mounted high on a stand between them. A projection screen showing geometric animations and some hot-blue floor lights completed the setup and gave the stage a laser tag aesthetic. Hot Victory, indeed.

Garbed in black cut-off tees, the two members of Hot Victory, Caitlin Love and Ben Stoller, pounded out bombastic percussion-centric instrumental music that laced sci-fi synths and the occasional sample in with relentless tag-team drumming. If there is an alternate Tron-type universe built of neon and whirring things, Hot Victory would most certainly be worshipped there as Gods. In this universe, the early bird crowd was appreciative, bobbing their heads vigorously and banging them to the occasional blast beat.

Soon after Hot Victory’s intergalactic drum rig was cleared from the stage a mysterious figure emerged cloaked in a shimmering blue and gold robe and sporting face paint reminiscent of Aladdin Sane-era Bowie. Drab Majesty (Incan Abraham’s Andrew Clinco playing under the stage name of Deb Demure) had arrived from Los Angeles to pluck the darkwave arpeggios of sadness. Armed only with a cherry red strat—played left handed and upside down, Hendrix style—and a briefcase full of bass and drum backing tracks, Demure made an earnest go of summoning the spirit of Ian Curtis with gloomy atmospheric pop. But she seemed rattled by problems with the stage monitors and never quite lived up to the promise of her costume, ultimately losing much of the crowd despite the presence of some enthusiastic dancers in the front.

The crowd came back in force, though, for Life Coach, the collaboration between Trans Am guitarist Phil Manley and former Mars Volta/current Queens of the Stone Age drummer, Jon Theodore. The balcony was full. The floor was full. There was a full-screen projection of a mountain top sunrise behind them, and Life Coach laid into their krautrock inspired prog jams with an equal amount of inspirational vigor.

Jon Theodore (voted twenty-third greatest alternative drummer of all time in a made up list by Spin, for whatever that’s worth) is one of those drummers that, witnessed up close, can completely mesmerize you. He sweats; he sways and nods; he does that thing where you mouth the sounds as you make them, like Thelonius Monk at the keys. Theodore’s captivating skin work propelled Manley’s long EBow notes and vocal accents along easily, and their brief half hour set was over before you could you so much as say krautrock inspired prog jams.

Federation X then took the stage like the grizzled rock and roll veterans they are, joined by Hozoji Margullis of Helms Alee on bass. According to one crowd member, this was Margullis’ first time appearing with the group, but that was not apparent in their playing; her dirty, fuzzed-out bass sound blended well with Ben Wildenhaus’ and Bill Badgleys’ chugging SG attack. Drummer Beau Boyd’s unruly white mane and wild eyes give him an uncanny resemblance to Doc Brown from Back to the Future, and headded that extra dash of weird energy every band needs from the back row. Federation X played though several cuts off their 2013 album, We Do What We Must (Molasses Manifesto/Recess), including standout tracks ‘Maybe We’ll Die Young’ and ‘So Tired’, before calling it quits around midnight.

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After some kind words by Rynne Stump, Trans Am began a raucous set of funky electro-rock that, encore included, would run until 1:30 am. Trans Am typically get lumped into the prog rock category, but with their lighthearted approach to genre and their goofy live presence they have more in common with Devo than they do the somber noodlings of Tortoise. Phil Manley sported a sleeveless orange prison jumpsuit for his second appearance of the night, and drummer Sebastian Thomson rocked a beefy chain. Lanky frontman Nathan Means sang into a vocoder for the entire set and led the band through a whiplash tour of styles that culminated in crossed axes in the middle of the stage at the end of the night.

For the first night at least, Stumpfest had lived up to its reputation as an anti-festival festival. The bands played like they meant it and stuck around to watch each other’s sets, and people responded to the proximity and quality of the music in ways you don’t see at outdoor mega-fests. Highly recommended for anyone that wants to check in on the Portland scene and hear music, not see a stage.

Stumpfest on Facebook

JARED CHRISTENSON