11 minute read
INSECT ARK
INTERVIEW WITH FOUNDER AND MULTI-INSTRUMENTALIST DANA SCHECHTER BY MARIKA ZORZI
M“ usic just always mirrors what is happening in my life,” says Dana Schechter. “I feel that life has become more and more chaotic. Everywhere, in the world and in personal life as well, and so the need to strip things down to their basic essence is something that has brought me a lot of calmness, which is really crucial for staying alive.”
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Since the conception of Insect Ark, founder and multi-instrumentalist Schechter has been crafting uncomfortable soundscapes that feel both intimate and ice-cold. Terrifying, horror film-like visions, outer space travel, and realistic, noir textures were explored on Portal / Well (2015) and Marrow Hymns (2018). In 2020, Schechter is back with a new band member and a new album, The Vanishing, out February 28, 2020, via Profound Lore Records.
“The album’s title refers to a recurring daydream,” Schechter explains. “It’s something that I’ve seen in my head, specifically about the ocean and the expansiveness of it. It doesn’t get any clearer, or more empty, than that—the horizon and water, being in a small boat, and never coming back. It has to do with the impermanence of life. That we’re just here for a minute, and then we fade off. I want to not forget that life can be over so quickly and not to take it for granted because, at any point, we can just fail to exist. We’re not immortal, and we tend to forget that.”
These feelings are well-represented in The Vanishing. It’s heavier, darker, and denser than anything Insect Ark have ever done without losing any of the writing characteristics that have become synonymous with the band’s personality.
Known for her collaborations with Swans (she is now part of the touring lineup), Angels Of Light, Gnaw, Zeal & Ardor, Wrekmeister Harmonies, and Årabrot, Schechter is now joined by former SubRosa drummer Andy Patterson, also known for his bands DØNE, the Otolith, INVADRS, and as owner/ operator of Salt Lake City recording studio The Boar’s Nest. This partnership appears to have completed the true essence of Insect Ark.
“This [album] in particular was pretty chaotic initially,” Schechter says. "I really had to crank through some of the creative ideas in a way that was not very relaxing, but Andy was great, and he totally pulled a lot of shit together.” The album artwork, a stunning painting by French artist Sonia Merah, also helps to pull things together. It is, in and of itself, a work of art, but when paired with the sounds of The Vanishing, it becomes a truly haunting and mesmerizing vision of some terribly twisted, alternate reality.
“I think that it totally fits with the title of the album,” Schechter says. “Just so mysterious, kind of scary, and really dark. It’s human but not. I see all different kinds of things in it. For me, it’s somewhere between Dalí and Francis Bacon who are two of my favorite painters.”
“I used to be a painter, actually,” she con
“It hit me like a bomb. Imprinted itself on me,” Johnston says of the tragedy. “There isn’t a way to recover from grief. It doesn’t go away—it just changes. Colin was the most prolific artist and musician I’ve ever known. So it really made sense to turn towards art to work through it and try to understand it.”
Throughout the six-song record, Johnston creates a landscape of emotional and metaphysical terror but ultimately transforms it into a love song, with the closer “S.W.I.M” stretching out like a rainbow in the desert: an eternal light for all to bear.
“It’s probably my favorite song on the record,” Johnston remarks. “It’s an anthem for those who are struggling. I wrote it for Colin, and for Jonathan Bitz, and for Andrew Boeglin. It was written for everyone who is having a hard time. When I’ve been playing it live lately, people keep saying it’s a positive song—which I think is really funny because to me, it’s completely devastating. I think shedding light on dark themes can be a positive action, to really be able to see them.”
INTERVIEW WITH MULTI-INSTRUMENTALIST MADELINE JOHNSTON BY CHRISTOPHER J. HARRINGTON
Midwife’s newest record Forever, out April 10 via The Flenser, constructs itself as an earth-worn time capsule. The simplicity is shattering. Its songs weigh heavily in your heart. The sparse loops and gentle directness sit still in the air of eternity. This is a eulogy of much force, a “letter” to Madeline Johnston’s close friend Colin Ward, who passed away unexpectedly in 2018. Johnston is able to break away momentarily. She is able to connect the greater notion of loss, and in doing so, honors not only her friend but also the experience of life itself.
tinues. “But I stopped because I decided that music would be my focus. I have tried to not do music before, and it didn’t work. It’s a little bit like not eating, and when you suddenly realize that, you feel horrible. And you realize that you’re completely depleted, and that there is something missing that you didn’t realize. Words have never been my best vehicle for expression. They just never have been. So, this is one of the reasons that I don’t really worry about having vocals in this project. Making music is very important to me. When I go too long without it, I feel like I’ve been really neglecting something important inside of myself.” ��
PHOTO BY CHRIS CARLONE
Forever is visual in the sense that you can “see” the connection, the relationship between Johnston and Ward. You can embody the astral projection their energy created. You can hear the stars that flashed, the moons that sparkled, the love that fused as a knot in the twisted journey of life. Johnston is able to paint the picture and to escape by encompassing it.
“The process of writing the album was certainly painful, but it was also cathartic for me,” she says. “It brought up a lot of memories. I liked having somewhere to place them. It felt good to express certain things that were just trapped in my head with nowhere to go. When I listen to it now, I feel proud I was able to finish it. I don’t feel better about this loss; I don’t miss Colin less, but I do feel a little bit closer to him, and in some ways, I think he can hear it, too.”
Johnston’s guitar flutters, bends, and echoes like metal through the sky. Her voice dances lightly around the tones, transforming the sound into print. She hangs her “letter” onto the stars as they burn thousands and thousands of light years from now. “I will never forget you,” she sings in “Language,” welcoming the vast emptiness that is life. ��
...IT ALL BEGINS WITH A RIFF... Raspberry Bulbs
in other ways than simply starting with a guitar riff. They are incredibly fun and experimental to create.” The sound effects packed into those interlude tracks deliver brief-but-ominous respites. Del Rio cites “weird fiction writers” among those driving him towards the band’s uniquely immersive take.
“I’m a student in the universe of music culture,” he comments. “I would say that I am always working with themes and symbolism of black metal. I am deeply inspired by weird fiction writers like Poe, Machen, Blackwood, Shiel, M.R. James, and Aickman. But I am always looking for a way to push the boundaries and open the doors to let my own personality in. I somehow have to fit being an American from California, born after 1980, into this archaic theme.”
No matter the potential hurdles, the band’s gripping music has marched on.
“It’s an album in the tradition of aggressive music from the last 50 years—that’s the track to be on,” del Rio shares, and he’s got the clearly laid-out focus to back that perspective up.
“The process typically begins with a riff. I think all metal music should INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST start this way. The riff is the spark M. DEL RIO BY CALEB R. NEWTON which starts the whole song writing process. The songs start with N ew York City’s Raspberry Bulbs The group’s reference points also berry Bulbs well. Although their very simple means, but then they have landed a spot with Reinclude ’90s-era bands that del Rio new album includes plenty of bitoften blossom into something else lapse Records for their new algrew up with and other projects terness-soaked aggression, the band once I start collaborating with the bum, Before The Age Of Mirrors, out involving the band’s members like also include four “interlude” tracks rest of the band. It gives it a living on February 21, but they’ve founddel Rio’s black metal band Bone in which they explore softer, but still dynamic, and the songs become ed their latest, intense musical Awl and Nick Forte’s NYC-area erratically disorienting, beats. that much more rich and realized.” journey on reaching backwards. hardcore group Rorschach. �� �� �� Their frantically noisy, blackened “Interludes really help break up punk sound veers right on back to Del Rio and his fellow Raspberry an album like this, which is very the spark that started it all—the Bulbs members give the journey guitar-oriented,” del Rio notes. relentless riff. gripping, emotional resonance “They also allow us to with their chaotic but consistently, branch out and Amidst the band’s grinding chaos, startlingly melodic music. try creating powerful, punk-style riffs figure music prominently on the new album. “The lyrics and themes are intended From there, project founder and to inspire an uncanny feeling of frontman M. del Rio also hoped to recollection,” he explains. “That you chart a story of crushing introspecare swimming to the bottom of the tion which makes for a gripping ocean, and at its bottom you find listening experience all around. not only the story of your own origins written in the rock, but also the story “It’s a journey that’s supposed to of humanity’s origin. Then you also travel backwards the entire way to realize that you’re out of breath.” 1970 when The Stooges released Funhouse and Black Sabbath released The experience he describes suits their first album,” del Rio explains. the cacophonous music of Rasp
PHOTO BY VINCE SADONIS THE DEVIL PLAYS ALT/COUNTRY
a hint of alt-country that fans have come to love. Steiner doesn’t mind being labelled as either indie/punk or alt-country.
“I am happy being classified in either of those genres,” she says. “We definitely do come from the DIY/ indie/punk scene; that’s what we came up in, touring and busting our butts on the road, booking our own tours for years.”
Country music is bleeding into other genres, including punk and hip-hop, now more than ever before. And Steiner is here for it.
“There’s gotta be something about country music that is just a universal thing,” she says. "Maybe it’s similar to pop music, where at the heart of it, there’s stories and simple chord structures and emotions."
Steiner demoed many of the songs on Printer’s Devil at her childhood home in Louisville, Kentucky.
“It is the home that I grew up in,” she says. “So, I lived there from when I was 7 until I left for college and would always come back there until recently, until last year. I felt very at peace there.”
With Steiner's parents moving, the home was mostly empty when she INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST AND SONGWRITER JULIA STEINER BY JOHN SILVA and Sagan arrived. I “I love rock music, and I love guitars, so I definitely wasn’t trying to shy away from that,” says Ratboys frontperson Julia Steiner. The band’s third LP, Printer’s Devil, which is out February 28, 2020 on Topshelf Records, is their most rock-forward work to date. Fans of the band will hear everything they loved about the previous two records, but this one “ Part of the reason Ratboys sound fuller on this record is that the band—previously a duo of Steiner and guitarist Dave Sagan—added two new members. Drummer Marcus Nuccio and bassist Sean Neumann have toured with Ratboys, but now they are contributing in a recording capacity as well. “They’re both just super seasoned They were able to provide a really special perspective that we didn’t have before as far as making something sound how we sound as a band, because we had toured so much together, the four of us. It was cool to pretty much try to record our live sound. Printer’s Deviltakes a more pop punk direction than the previous two LPs. “It felt like a nice punctuation mark at the end of that sentence, like, that part of my life,” Steiner says. “I wrote so many songs there. That’s where I wrote my first song and where I continued to explore as a songwriter, so it just felt very natural to be there and a little bit emotional. But I wasn’t really letting myself get too caught up in it.” �� �� �� is bigger and more mature. musicians and great friends,” SteinBut it’s still Ratboys, and they still er says. “So, it was a cool environbring that sincere indie rock with “In addition to having a more rockin’ ment this time ’cause we had some sound, for me it’s just having a more trust built up from touring together. PHOTOGRAPHY BY VINCE SADONIS confident sound. I think we’re gelling at the right time,” Steiner says.
