An interview with the Relevators Sound System. BY AMANDA WICKS

MUSIC REVELATORS SOUND SYSTEM: [June 17; 37d03d] REVELATORS

Shapeshifters

MC Taylor and Cameron Ralston’s new project, Revelators Sound System, basks in the collective power of creativity.

BY AMANDA WICKS music@indyweek.com

In the late spring of 2020, as the pandemic stretched past its initial crisis-filled months and produced a longer reality shift, the Durham-based musician MC Taylor began recording a series of new guitar loops to channel his grief, among other burbling emotions.

The abstract sounds didn’t quite fit the groove-structured indie-folk he normally creates as Hiss Golden Messenger—it was, at first, simply one artist processing the moment. But eventually, those loops called for something more. Taylor could hear different instruments and arrangements swirling around his initial ideas and, realizing it wasn’t a task he could execute alone, he approached Cameron Ralston, the bassist at Spacebomb Records in Richmond, Virginia.

The two first crossed paths in 2014, discovering an easy camaraderie that extended to both their influences and intellect. They began discussing the emotions taking shape in Taylor’s new music and seeking out musicians to flesh out each rudimentary track’s feeling. The result became Revelators Sound System. The band’s forthcoming album, Revelators (out June 17 via 37d03d), transformed Taylor’s solitary grief into a communal outpouring about loss, adaptation, and, perhaps most importantly, the beauty and necessity of quiet, collective celebration.

Taylor and Ralston didn’t set out to shape or release the music as a project, but it became too expressive a statement to keep silent. Taken together, the four tracks— some winding past 10 minutes in length—are an acid jazz tapestry, weaving together saxophones, clarinets, strings, psychedelic effects, synths, and more.

“Grieving” traces the serrated spikes of that persistent emotion, following its downshift into more subdued—but no less painful—waves, while the more tranquil “Bury the Bell” ripples easily and fluidly, like water after a stone has displaced the surface. Revelators Sound System is at turns cacophonous, at others reverent, but ultimately it’s a testament to the collective power of emotion when a community rises up to speak.

Ahead of the project’s release, the INDY spoke with Taylor and Ralston about how things started, how they evolved, and the community they found along the way. MC Taylor and Cameron Ralston of Revelators Sound System PHOTO BY TENDER WIZARD

INDY WEEK: What was the genesis of this project? MC TAYLOR: I started creating these impressionistic sound pieces that were based on treated guitar loops. I reached a point where I knew I wanted to hear certain things on these recordings, but I couldn’t really accomplish them myself. I was thinking that Cameron would be a good collaborator—someone I could bounce ideas off and vice versa. It started out as me working through these complicated feelings in a very solitary way and then soon realizing that I was actually craving connection—and this was a method of connection. When Cameron became involved, the initial ideas changed quite drastically. For the better, I think. I can’t say it would exist in the same way had I continued on my own.

Hiss music tends to follow a groove, and here you said you were following a feeling. How did that manifest? CAMERON RALSTON: The stuff that Mike [Taylor] shared with me were ruminations. As I became more involved in the project, our conversation was always about the emotion of the music and it being instrumental music. When you think of instrumental music, the first thing that comes to my mind is groove-based music, like Booker T. and the MG’s or The Meters, where rhythm plays such a huge role. That stuff was secondary. Each piece has a feeling to it.

TAYLOR: I found myself, during the pandemic, listening to a lot of Miles [Davis’s] later stuff, like On the Corner through Get Up with It. I was really drawn to what sounds at first like cacophony. I think what was actually drawing me to it was the sort of articulated anger and frustration that is present on those records. It felt like such a fitting soundtrack to a world that feels like it’s filled with so much static. We’re forced to press through the static to find the melody.

Each of the songs has such different timbres. How did you decide which instruments led these feelings? RALSTON: That was more instinctive. I think a lot of that was determined by the personalities we wanted on the record and what instruments they played. Mike had a lot of great ideas. He’s like, “I’m really hearing this, and I want to send this to my friend Stuart [Bogie], who plays clarinet.” Community was always a big touchstone. It seemed like we were imagining the people. I’ve always loved that about band leaders: Miles Davis and these guys who were masters at putting groups together because of the voices.

How did you identify the people you wanted involved? TAYLOR: Some of it was asking musicians that I’m friends with. JT Bates is a very special drummer with a very unique feel. I asked him for one thing, and what he sent back was quite different but with an explanation that made sense. The longer I lived with it, the more I loved it and it was hard to remember what I had asked him for originally. It’s an important lesson for me to live with that type of collaborative spirit, because I’ve been leading my own band for so many years that I think I know what the music needs and sometimes I don’t. It’s good to be reminded of that. Anybody that we could’ve asked was game because it wasn’t the music business.

Did you record it live or was it layered piece by piece? TAYLOR: It was both.

RALSTON: Ultimately, it’s a collage. Different things were being recorded at different times. Mike was recording at his home, all the stuff I did on my end was at Spacebomb studio, and some of that was live in the room with a few people in the room and other stuff was tracked over months. The orchestra was recorded live. The timing of it all is very … everything is sort of happening at the same time. The high majority of recording sessions I’ve been involved with have been very linear.

TAYLOR: These weren’t linear.

RALSTON: These were more like a multiverse, and sonically that gets reflected in the music. It’s got a unique vibe and time feel to it all.

TAYLOR: There are only four pieces on the record and each one is quite different, but they’re all sort of spiritually connected. That was an important part of the process.

Were you surprised about the direction these songs took? RALSTON: I’m still surprised by it. It’s lifeaffirming for me. Like Mike said, the music business was not a part of making this at all. For both of us that’s very rare for any endeavor we’re involved with, especially in terms of creative output. It was a quiet space to find creatively in a world that was chaotic and noisy and loud and harsh. There was some sense of solitude that we were both finding working on this music. I think not having any of those external pressures, commercially, was a real blessing. We were just making the thing until the conversation started happening and people [started] getting involved. It’s been a really neat, inspiring, affirming kind of journey. W

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