Honestly, we’d hesitate to say we’ve recovered per se from the impact of Garrett and Niko’s last collaboration, An Abundance of Compassion. We’re still trying to summarize the impression it left on us – you’ll have to check out our original reactions here if you haven’t already, but here’s the thing: they’re about to put us through the nexus again whether we’re ready or not.
Spoiler Alert: we are not. But we want to be. Again, we’re dealing with two pretty bight points of brilliance here, as Garrett and Niko have since put out a diverse array number of records from hymnal covers and jazz to classical, indie, and beyond, so predicting the scope of the upcoming sequel to An Abundance of Compassion, titled When Abundance Fails, would be a difficult task for anyone. Except for, hopefully, Garrett and Niko themselves, and we were lucky enough to squeeze in a few questions with the dynamic duo as we do our best to gear up for the next chapter, which you can pre-order here.
Also, check out this smashing new single while you read, titled “To Worship A Face.”
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Yeah, we meant that literally. Like the record before it, it doesn’t take long before the sounds of “To Worship A Face” conjures up the unfathomable. Garrett and Niko shatter the boundaries between old and new, and now that we’re getting a second dose of it, it’s starting to sink in that if they keep at it like this they could really make a case for what feels like the evolution what bands like Hella were doing while also paying tribute to prog weirdos of the past like Yes or King Crimson. What will they think of next?
FB: Garrett, you and Niko’s partnership seems like a match made in heaven, if heaven were blissed out, primordial chaos. We knew this already though from your first outing – was there anything different about the songwriting / recording process this time around?
GG: The recording process was the same as the first album in that we improvised a bunch of material from which I then made compositions. This time around, with having just played together for two weeks straight with material that really called for us to stretch out, we both had really tapped into each others’ isms and understood how effectively one could react off of a decision the other could make. In the session, it felt like a glorious victory lap around the tour, or a decadent soul vomit, but the result was definitely documentation of us honing in this language between us.
NW: An Abundance of Compassion was our first time ever playing together, which lent a frenetic energy to the session as we felt each other out. This second record is a bit different because we tracked it to cap off a 12-show tour. That gave us time on the road to build a companionship and tune our ears to each other’s musical instincts and reactions. I think you can hear it in the record!
FB: Would you say the new record, When Abundance Fails, is more melodic? Is there another word you’d prefer to use, if you had to reduce your description / comparison to one word?
GG: I’d say it’s more focused. It comes out both in the improvisation and in the compositions from it: we felt more confident in our frantic, splintery pursuits as well as more methodical in our patient material. Where the first album brought excitement from the new energy and happy accidents, the second one brought firm footedness, albeit still swimming in a similar sonic space.
NW: I think it’s more melodic and certainly has a brighter feel. The first record was dark and heavy, perhaps because we recorded it in early March coming out of the dark winter. This one was recorded in August, sunny and stoked on tour.
FB: What can you tell us about the title of the record, When Abundance Fails?
GG: The title refers to the fact that abundance should not be a bad thing. It’s only a bad thing if society gluts from it, and we could instead be happy that there is enough of that thing for everyone while reframing our own relationship with it. Social media and unhealthy food immediately come to mind, but the well goes deep when you start to sit with it. The title of the album is further elaborated in its title track, “When Abundance Fails, Reframe,” which follows the same formatting of our first record.
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NW: We live in a time of mismanaged abundance. Food waste while people go hungry, more vacant houses than people living homeless, etc. In this failure of abundance we certainly need to reframe our mindset and restructure our system.
FB: Do you ever get your own stuff stuck in your head? Is there an ear worm that was the most persistent during the writing process?
NW: Since everything is improvised I pretty much forgot it as soon as we finished tracking. As with the first record it was a nice surprise to hear, months after recording, how Garrett composed songs out of our session. There are certainly a few moments that stick in my head whenever I spin the record.
GG: Yes, songs I’m making get stuck in my head. It feels both narcissistic and validating, and I’ve come to reconcile the two just fine. The melody in “The Fortune of Keeping it Together” comes to mind as well as the movement I refer to as the big nine in “Crane Pose at the Edge of the World.”
FB: Both of your appreciation for your respective instruments is well documented, with both of your discographies growing every year. Do the same things keep you inspired to keep playing or have your inspirations changed in the years since you last worked together?
NW: I’m lucky enough to be involved in many projects with many different sounds. Working with such a variety of lovely people has kept me freshly inspired. There are always lessons in wisdom from a new collaborator!
GG: At the risk of sounding corny or very bleed-out-for-art, I’m fortunate in having two styles of composing: writing what I “need to” write and what I “get to” write. The first is what people tend to think of when they think of composing, documenting ideas that feel necessary to document. Those are informed by what sounds and ideas I enjoy engaging with, what I’m listening to, and life events. The second writing style yields music like “When Abundance Fails.” In this method, I improvise with players I love, and then repurpose the recording to serve as the foundations for songs. I get to be fulfilled in reaching in with someone who compliments or pushes what I do, and afterward I get to push myself creatively as a composer by pairing my imagination with original footage of myself and others to make bigger ideas. Whenever I do this, I have a thought like, “make this into something you really dig, and then it’s a record,” and each album I grow substantially in ways I can’t predict.
FB: Was there a composition from the new record that was the most difficult to rein in? Conversely, was there one that came particularly easily?
GG: “The Fires, The Floods.” It took scrapping it entirely and then revisiting it with fresh ears to arrive at the form and versions of the melody that are on the record. It’s now one of the highlights of the record for me. Conversely, “A Party, A Funeral” is essentially an untouched moment from the improvisation onto which I added a rising synth in one spot and some rattling change in a couple other spots. It feels very much like the deep end of what Niko and I do well without even getting far into loop land, and it’s a sound I always wanted to harness that just happened due to Niko and I being so dialed into each other as musicians.
FB: So many of the moments on When Abundance Fails reach surreal heights that bring post-rock, noise rock, loops, jazz, and more to swirling crescendoes that transcend genre – do you have a go to loop technique, or series of techniques, that generate these hyper-detailed, outside-of-time soundscapes? Is this an emotional process for you or is it more scientific?
NW: Certainly an emotional process, improvising and feeding off of each other. For me it’s a lot of fun to play under loops that Garrett sets up. Especially if the timing is a bit odd — I can play in time and add a little stutter of a note to come back in on the One.
GG: Many of the techniques I employ involve multiple loopers in a series that are not linked to time. This gives me incredible flexibility. When I have a looper that can do many “tricks” like half/double speed or reverse (ex. Ditto X4), I can make an idea with that pedal, manipulate it, and then record those manipulations into another looper after it. Another move I like to do is record one looper’s idea into another looper but end the recording early, leaving me an idea with new timing that can either stay as is or help create an idea that sounds like it’s ripping apart if I continue to overdub the previous looper’s part. I’ve been obsessed with 2-3-looper setups for almost a decade and I still feel like I’m learning new techniques all the time.
FB: Much like An Abundance of Compassion, When Abundance Fails has these consistently atonal spasms mid-loop that sound like nightmare characters. It’s just so… haunting. Are we nuts or is this part of what you two seem to want to accomplish with your work together? To haunt your listeners?
GG: I’m just trying to stay excited. I’m in no rush to make music that accomplishes anything other than that. Niko’s and my thing is very exciting to me.
NW: Making music is a hectic and taxing endeavor, full of love and catharsis. I think it’s only right to reflect that in a project like this. Or, Garrett might just be an evil genius.
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