Tag: indie music

• Essai: “Like fresh water at the zoo”

  Recently I’ve spent a lot of time figuring out my internet flow. Considering the evolution and present dominance of streaming, I think the internet ought to be the best place to interact with my music. If streaming is the routine (it’s mine too, mostly—Qobuz and my little internet radio), then things like records and printed materials should be secondary, even if they’re perceptually ideal.

  I think I have a schematic that works now: polished releases on major streaming plaforms and Bandcamp, drafts/iterations on SoundCloud, full-length visual stuff on YouTube. The hard part is not spending too much time trying to master social media. The plan there is to post snippets that might lead people out to SoundCloud to follow my process.

  I’ve always been one to seek and enjoy a good “setup,” and this flow matters to me because now I can think less about where to put things, or why—and I can focus more on deeper, more sensual aspects of attempting artistry.

  This one is the twin of the previous Essai: “I gripped it under my sweat” recording. I made both on the same day and had put this one in the “Keep” folder. It’s weird how one day a recording fulfills something and another day it seems strange. Now this one suits me, and I like this line in the present political moment:

  Breaking through
  old news
  is like fresh water
  at the zoo.

  2025.01.25

• En chantant Mama You Been On My Mind de Bob Dylan dans le froid avec guitare slide

  Peu de temps après je suis arrivé dans le Maine, j’ai crée une série s’appelle des « Karaokes », des chansons folks avec vidéo qui incluent Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Raw Honey, et moi-même. J’ai enregistré chaque chanson, assez vite, et l’écouté en train de chanter silencieusement devant mon MacBook. J’aimais bien cette forme et j’en ferais peut-être d’autres. Une des façons en commun entre les enregistrements: un sac de riz pour des percussions simples.

  English:
  
  Not long after I arrived in Maine, I created a series called “Karaokes,” folk songs with video that include Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Raw Honey, and myself. I recorded each song, fairly quickly, and listened to it while singing silently in front of my MacBook. I liked this form and maybe I’ll make some others. Of the aspects in common between the recordings: a bag of rice for simple percussion.

  2025.01.10

• Essai: “I gripped it under my sweat”

  This recording actually comes from the discard folder. I wanted to get started with “essais,” or attempts, but when I went back to find something I had in mind, I found this better. I understand why I’d remembered the other: it has clearer dynamics, deft(er) movement between phrases, ties together more rationally. In my notes, I’d written that the words had a strong narrative pull. I didn’t feel that tonight.

  Maybe I’m just tender today, but what appeals to me is the softness of the lyrics and the frail run in the singing at the end. I sang:

  I slipped it
  Like a note in your pocket
  I gripped it
  Under my sweat

  And I meant it
  And I meant it
  And I m-ea-nt it
  Until I bent

  I’m not ready to lay out my goals for these improvisations, but I will when I’m feeling more analytical. I’ll simply say that I’m contending with having many phrases, rhythms, hand-movements—in other words, sonic meanings—at my disposal, but fewer words to make emerge. The singing feels the most tenuous and even sometimes dull. Words are so bound to communicative meaning and more difficult to make fit.

  2025.01.02

• Singing Neil Young’s “Razor Love” in a cloistered apartment in Maine

  When I first moved to Maine, it was the tail-end of the pandemic, January 2021, and the little bedroom I made inside an otherwise disheveled apartment was a strange refuge. I only lived there 8 months, but there was a certain peace to the room and it was possible to cross a lot of mental distance in the 10×10 space. I’d go from the room to the kitchen, to the porch to the neighborhoods, and that little corridor of movement was where a lot of things started, including l-o-v-e.

  As spring neared, I was recording things very offhand, just spurts of “feeling like it,” but they were turning out well. I’d add slide guitar accompaniment, drop a bag of white rice on the table for percussion, and a day later lip-sync and record my face on the laptop. These mini-projects felt more me than previous visuals, and more expressive than I’d felt with traditional songs in quite a while. I shared them on social media, especially in anticipation of releasing Raw Honey’s Riverbed album (see “Attic Stairs.“)

  I captioned them “Saturday night karaoke” or similar, so now I’m calling it a karaoke series. Here’s another one going up on the Big Web today.

  2024.12.28

• 2024 in-person: Show posters from a busy Chico States year

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  2024 was a busy year for Chico States, and a fun one. It felt like rather than practice the steps of a dance, we mostly just danced. To celebrate that momentum, I thought I’d archive show posters I can find from the past twelve months.

  This year was also the first that I played an improvisational set of the No Guide: Sketches sort. As Joe put it: “We were like, Alex is sending it in this bar.” What a compliment! (Stay tuned for a future article questioning why concerts are also parties…). Something started cracking open in doing that show that gave me a sense of safety/abandon for publicly creating things like this blog.

  Essentially, the Hi-Fidelity “set” used the style of context-based music I’ve worked the hardest on for over 10 years. Yet it was still a precarious experiment. I hand-wrote a subset of lyrics that have continually resurfaced over that time, in an indiscriminate scroll, and handed them out to the audience. The idea (which comes from teaching children) was to pre-expose the audience to the material so that words meant more when they heard them sung.

  In 2025, we’re hoping to do a tour and who knows what summer will bring. Joe et al. are busy finishing up the new Chico States record, which I believe I’m allowed to say will be called I Saw A Galloping Horse Cover No Ground. Stay tuned for a release show. Happy New Year!

  2024.12.27