On this record much planning has gone into the building and the layering of our sound. It took us about a year to write and work out live with another six months to record. We are really into the intros and texture of our songs and pay much attention to tracing all sounds back to the original source, the instrument and voice. We do keep things interesting and improvise around a chord progression, tuning or timing when creating the intros. We like to get a strong vibe and wall of sound going between each track. Depending on the night and the venue and how we feel at the moment they can vary in range, in length and degree of texture. This is not to say we are a jam band but we tend to keep things interesting by playing variations of our tracks when the spirit moves us.

Instrumentally, do you get a lot of your inspiration from machinery or other unconventional sources?

Yes definitely. We get plenty of inspiration from machinery especially delay in the terms of pedals and existential samples. Caroline sings through a Boss RV-3 guitar pedal, and Craig plays both guitar and bass using several pedals including two RV-3’s. Jay creates live samples from vocals and instruments using an X/Y axis effect controller manipulating the music and sound by giving our intros and songs depth and space. We place much emphasis on knowing our gear and pedals that we use inside and out. It is a staple of our sound philosophy.

What’s your compositional process?

Initially this record started off entirely with a conceptual story, we set out to make an audio novel with a beginning middle and end. All the basic song structure and lyrics started off with an acoustic guitar or lyrical idea around the coffee table. With this they go to the studio and basically get electrified along with live sampling. There is a use of heavy delay on most tracks that create timing in the songs without a drum track. Actually there are no drums on the record at all. We place a lot of emphasis into creating intros where we can jam and regurgitate basic structures of songs and get our vibe going before transitioning from one song to the next. We like our live and recorded sound to be seamless, and during our live show only basically only pause our sound to breathe, to take a drink, or to address the audience and venue. We record and listen to everything it is how we know where we are going and where we want our sound to be as a composition.

Do you consider your tunes meditative and/or therapeutic in nature?

We like to consider them both meditative and therapeutic not only for us but our audience. It is therapeutic to make music in general while getting emotions and ideas off our chest and exorcising those emotions through the mantra of our sound. Our tracks oscillate and are quite long, most songs and intros pass the 5 minute mark and do have a meditative stance in terms of delay, timing and vibe. The last track on our album, “The Rabbit,” passed the 15 minute mark. Our music can accompany a road trip, a long day or even a plane ride, but by all means if you start seeing things pull over.