Sunday, June 15, 2008
 

If you remember, last week I promised something big and didn’t quite deliver, postponing it until today instead.  Well dear readers, I won’t stand you up on our second date - today I’ve brought the goods.    The Fairline Parkway are a band (roughly) from DC.  In 2002, they put out a self-titled album and the more or less disappeared from the public eye until just this year, when they recently released a new album called Memories of Open Spaces on The Kora Records (out of DC).    I’ll skip all the fancy language and cut to the chase: Memories of Open Spaces is climbing the latter of my favorite albums of the year (so far) in quite a hurry.  After hearing a song off the album (Westward Bound) which tickled my Wilco-bone, I scrambled to get the whole thing, and boy is it great.    As the name appropriately suggests, it’s a breezy, open sounding album throughout.  But the songs remains as constant as a cross-country interstate - there’s no one spot on the album that steals the show, but there aren’t really any low points either.  A huge variety of instruments are highlighted over the course of the album, though rarely will there not be an acoustic guitar, or something similar, carrying the underlying rhythm.   Being something of a amateur sound engineer, I was equally impressed by the sound quality of the album.  The recording and engineering on the album captures the songs’ open space ethos so well, it’s almost eerie.    Zach Okun (who engineered the album) and Raj Gadhia head up the project, and were its founding members (on the latest album and on tour the band has a longer roster).  I got in touch with Raj via email to ask him a few questions about the band, like what they did with their time off, and if all that nonsense I was spouting about an open spaces ethos was part of the plan, or, as they say, a wonderful mistake.

Me:  After your first record in 2002, you took quite a bit of time off, nearly 5 years.  What did the band members do during that time?

Raj:  I’d say it was less time off than it was a meandering route.  Zach moved west, got a degree in sound engineering in AZ, worked at Jackpot Studios in Portland, Oregon for a while, and played and recorded with bands out there (Antlerand, the Kingdom and more).  Raj moved to Washington DC and began playing and recording with Ben & Elmer in Pagoda, then Roofwalkers.  That said, work on material for Fairline never really ceased, and we met up to collaborate, record, and act stupid whenever we could.  Whereas the first record was primarily Zach & Raj, in the time and places and fun in between we widened the circle.

Me:  What was the impetus to start up the project again?

Raj:  Like I said, we never really decided to shelve it - we were just focusing necessary energy on other local projects.  But eventually, as we realized we had new ideas and material that had developed that we wanted to share, we put more time towards fleshing our ideas out, and we gained momentum again.  I dunno, I guess there was still some gas left in the tank.

Me:  As I understand it, there’s a good amount of physical distance between the band members, how was the album coordinated across that distance, especially the songwriting?

Raj:  There’s some distance, yes, but most of us are here in DC.  Zach is still out west.  For the writing, we traded sound files over the internet, mailed sketches back and forth in envelopes, met up in Oregon, Arizona, and DC/Virginia for recording sessions, sang into tin cans on a string - you name it.  Zach had a passenger pigeon memorize a melody to convey to us for one of the songs and it was just a game of telephone gone awry after that.

Me:   What are some of your influences, both for making music in general, and specifically for this album?

Raj:  I think influences for this album were many - but mostly drawn out of themes and pictures of manifest destiny in America’s history and early expansion.  There was such a grandeur, uncertainty, promise and pioneer spirit to that period...American landscape painters and the Hudson River School artists spoke to some of that.  But I didn’t want to gloss over some of the microscopic human stories and conflicts amidst that grand expansion and subtle emotions playing out across that rugged landscape.  

Me:  Many of these songs have dense arrangements, how did those come about?  Were they conceptualized when the songs were being written?

Raj:  Sure, I think most of us come from a pop oriented mindset with regard to arrangement, yet a few in the band are good at progressing from point A to B to C, with little desire to recall B no sir.  But also it’s a pretty organic and dynamic process that develops when you consider what the song needs, e.g you might realize what potential a certain song might have with the addition of a cello line, and so you realize you need to create an arrangement that allows for that additional part to become more of a centerpiece, or at least a bigger focal point - and sometimes you have to adjust, tinker with or even scrap an arrangement accordingly.

Me: The band’s name "Fairline Parkway" gives an impression of wide open spaces, and quite a bit of the album has that feel. Is that coincidental, or was it intentional if so, what influenced that choice?

Raj:  I’m glad the album’s feel echoes that notion of wide open space...that was intended.  Um, and sometimes happened by happy accident too.  To me, I dunno, I’d guess the name conjures more of a path through those spaces.  But names are overrated, just ask Prince.

Me:  The recording, and the overall sound of the album, is one of the album's strongest qualities.  From what I’ve heard, Zach did all the recording and mixing himself?  What was the recording process like?  Were the layers done in pieces, or was a lot of it recorded live?

Raj:  Thanks! Zach lives for the mix, and gets a big kick of it.  Zach actually studied to be an engineer, and has recorded a good number of other bands, and Ben’s no slouch in the studio either (I tease him about being EQ king) - he knows enough to argue with Zach to make it entertaining for all.  For this album we did a mixture of both - live tracking and overdub, in sleek wooden tracking rooms, dark office building basement bunkers, and dilapidated rowhouses.  I guess depending on the song and setting, the recording process varied.  In some ways the only constants were a budget of next to nothing, late nights, gluttony, and a lot of fun.  We did have a scare though - when Zach was in DC for a session my house was broken into, and all our mics and gear were laying around.  Luckily, none of that was taken, except my entire CD collection and a pillowcase went missing. 

Me:  What kind of touring have you been able to do, with the band being separated by distance?

Raj:  Aside from regional shows, not so much yet - it was great however to get out to play at SXSW in Austin this March.  That pretty much bankrupted us (barbecue, tex-mex, and pepto bismol).  So we’ll probably be busking soon on your streetcorner.  But most of us are on the east coast, and touring is something we all enjoy doing - give us your floor, and we just might bring our tired huddled mass.

Me:  Tell us about Westward Bound.

Raj:  This is the first track off the album, so fits with some of the themes of exploration and westward expansion mentioned above, but lyrically takes it down to one person’s perspective. I’m a big fan of the little trumpet fanfare that enters for one little measure in the latter portion of the song - I think it sort of sounds a call to go forth.  Anyway, our friend Georgia just put together a fantastic video for the song, and I’m really pleased to see what she dreamed up. It’s here.

:The Fairline Parkway - Westward Bound:

- John Michael Cassetta -

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