Kaiser Cartel will be playing Radio Radio in Indianapolis on Saturday, May 15. For more information, please go to the Radio Radio website: http://www.futureshock.net/radioframeset.html

Kaiser Cartel has much love for Indianapolis as it holds a long-standing place in Courtney Kaiser’s heart. Kaiser was born in Indianapolis and spent her academic career at the Indiana University in Bloomington studying opera and world music vocals. Kaiser joined up with John Mellencamp to lend backing vocals to the band. Later meeting Benjamin Cartel in New York City, the two took shape and became a mid-2000s Brooklyn fixture.

Since then they recorded and released the critically acclaimed March Forth (Megaforce) which some of the songs later received treatment for a few television shows: HBO’s Bored To Death and Private Practice. The two has also been heard in the MTV show Exiled and the Discovery Channel’s Alter-Aco. Later in 2008 after the release of March Forth, they teamed up with other Indiana musical fixture Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s to tour.

During the preparation for their upcoming release Secret Transit (Daniel), the duo joined up with Pledge Music, an online resource that raises money directly from fans in order to release albums or fund tours, in order to bypass the label process. The band asked fans to help them release the album, offering gifts to those who pledged. In addition, 15 percent of the pledge money went to support Art Of Conservation, an organization that works with villages in Rwanda and teaches children the importance of conservation.

Secret Transit presents a mysterious yet more unified transition for the group, and the opportunity for the two to work more closely together both in composition and song-writing, a feeling that the two further expand on.

Link: http://www.kaisercartel.com/

With your upcoming visit to Indianapolis and Radio Radio, tell me a little bit about Secret Transit and what these songs mean to you, and how this album stands within the gamut of your career as musicians?

Benjamin Cartel: Many of the songs on Secret Transit are about our experiences on the road over the last few years. Most of the material comes from our own real life experiences with the people and places we have encountered on the road. In some cases the songs are autobiographical, in other cases there are songs about friends, and there are even songs about friends of friends.  The last album, March Forth, contained some songs that were written together and written separately. On this album, all songs were written together. Secret Transit represents a departure from the things we’ve done as solo artists.  We now approach all of our song writing as a team.

Courtney Kaiser: It’s hard to say what this set of songs mean to us. Some of the subject matter is personal, others are metaphorical. Everything we write has meaning for us. At times, I don’t really know what something means or even what it’s about until much later.  Our subconscious makes little messages within the music, but their meaning isn’t realized until after the fact. As far as where the record stands within our music career…well we are both really proud of it. We have toured more in this band than any other project we have been involved in.  Both Ben and I have worked really hard and have been extremely focused on not only the creative side but the business side, especially now that we are putting it out ourselves.  We are just getting started.

How do you feel these songs will transfer to a live setting, and as a duo on stage, how do you like to interpret them on the spot?

BC: I feel that we write a lot of songs with the attitude that if it’s a great song, you can make it sound great by singing, playing guitar and drums. Our interaction on instruments and the harmonizing of our two voices is at the heart of what we do…always. Our audiences hear these songs as they are meant to be performed…played and sung by Kaiser and Cartel.

CK: The songs from Secret Transit late translate well to the live show because that is their original format.  When we write new songs, we add them to the set immediately.  That way we get to know them really well.  When we record we tend to add keyboards or other sounds because we can, not because its needed.

Courtney is no stranger to the ties of Indiana as people may or may not know about the back up gig with Mellencamp. What does it mean for you to get the chance to visit and play here in the city?

CK: I was born in Indianapolis, moved to Bloomington for college to study opera and world music vocal styles. I bought a house in Bloomington after graduating while I was in the Mellencamp band so it’s coming home for me. I always look forward to being in Indianapolis or Bloomington.  I am very proud of the music scene I grew up in.

Tell me how you two met and what led you to both to start playing music together and form Kaiser Cartel?

CK: We met at a gig in NYC. We liked each other’s song writing and musicianship, so we teamed up for a short tour in the midwest.  It was a very stripped down version of our individual solo stuff.  Two guitars, a snare drum, and a child’s xylophone. People really responded, so we never stopped.

How has the musical relationship changed from then to now? What do you feel like  you have learned from each other especially since the two of you have to rely on each other and have trust.

BC: In the beginning we were two solo artists playing on each other’s songs. By the time we recorded March Forth, we knew were becoming more of a true song-writing / song-producing team. We’ve learned a lot about each other’s strengths and weaknesses – in writing, in music and within our own personalities. We’ve learned to trust those strengths more and more. I think we both feel that we are always learning new things about each other when it comes to writing, and creating songs.  We keep the door open when it comes to allowing new influences in, and that has always helped our writing, and helped to keep our spirits up.

Do you feel that Secret Transit is more varied in style than March Forth? Or do you see the similarities, and if so, what do you find that compliments the two?

CK: Secret Transit seems a bit darker to me.  The song may sound upbeat, but the lyrical content is super sad. I like having the dark and light balance. The two records are similar in that the songs could fit into various genres.

BC: I think the vibe and the lyrical stories of Secret Transit are different than March Forth. We’re looking at life from a different perspective. It may be Secret Transit is less whimsical and upbeat than March Forth. As far as being more ‘varied in style’ goes, yes I think we’ve learned a few new songwriting/playing/singing tricks and you can hear that on this new album new album. What remains the same on this album, as compared to March Forth, is our love of telling stories in our songs, our capacity for being both positive in our message/lyrics on some songs / melancholy on others, and our love of vocal harmony which is totally key and central to what we do. All of that has carried over on this album.

What attracts you to the duo aspect of the band?

CK: It is certainly easier to have just two people to worry about. I like the simplicity of two as well as the challenge. We make a big sound with little effort.  Sometimes we want another guitar player or cellist, but we travel in a Prius and that can be a bit tight with three. We had Anni Rossi in the car with us for a tour as well as our manager Patrice before. When we buy that veggie powered airstream I’ve been wanting forever, then we will add a couple of folks. It would be awesome to have someone help drive or sell merch. What a luxury!

BC: I enjoy knowing I that can come up with ideas that can be improved upon. And I like that I can add to a song idea, and help to construct it by putting in my 50 cents. My voice adds something to Courtney’s vocals, and vice versa. With two, you have the option of 3 personalities being represented; male, female, and the collective – the duo – as an individual.

Your songs have been getting more attention in the television circuit. What led to contributing your songs to “Bored To Death” and “Private Practice.” How does it feel to see them used in that context?

CK: Glenn from Bar None was our link to Bored to Death. He sent the March Forth record to his friend Michael Hill who happened to be the music supervisor for Bored To Death. We love the show, and being from Brooklyn, its extra special for us to be involved.  Both Ben and I are visual people and have been inspired by film to write some of our songs, so its awesome to see a scene with our music being the under tone.  We love it!
BC: We enjoyed the attention and exposure we’ve gotten from Bored to Death and Private Practice. I always felt that there is a lot of potential for our songs and our music to serve as a soundtrack for TV and movies. Our experience with TV thus far, gives me hope for more music in TV and Film in the future.

Why contribute to the Art of Conservation? What did that mean for the two of you?

BC: Art of Conservation came about, by chance, because of correspondences with a good friend, who turned out to be the director of this program. There is a personal connection involved here.  We enjoy having as many opportunities to use our music to help communicate positive messages.  This opportunity allows us to assist in educating children of Rwanda, many whom come from remarkably difficult, war-torn, poverty stricken situations.  It  is truly incredible.

CK: We feel strongly about the importance of education, especially in the arts.  We also feel strongly about being environmentally conscious (hence why we tour in a Prius). The goal of Art of Conservation is to teach the importance of the environment through art and music.  Some of the music we have written have been just like any Kaiser Cartel songs would be written. Others have been crafted using traditional Rwandan song structure, rhythm patterns, and instrumentation. We really enjoy writing songs for them and feel so grateful that the villagers trust us enough to share their music with us. Being able to watch videos of them dancing and singing is an ethnomusicologists dream. This is music you can’t get on itunes. It’s extremely special to us.  Also, my degree from the IU School of Music was in World Vocal Music.  I spent a fair amount of time studying southern African folk music and the mbira.  So, in some ways I get to use some of my previous education in what I am doing now.  I love singing in other languages and kri kri is quite a challenge!

New album, new tour, what other plans do you have cooked up for the rest of 2010?

CK: We plan to tour equally as much in Europe as in the US in 2010 and 2011. We are also already thinking of where to record the next record and what music will be on it.

BC: We’re planning on making more videos with the video team known as Grizlet (they did the videos for Okay and Blue Sky on March Forth).

CK: We would also really like to go to Rwanda to meet the villagers that have been singing the Art of Conservation songs!

Links:
ArpLine on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/arpline
ArpLine on FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/ArpLine/84247718802

Brooklyn band ArpLine has been making a splash in the city that never sleeps. Over the past several months and several sold-out shows, including the latest at the Mercury Lounge, their powerful blend of electronics, instrumental landscapes and vivid lyrical imagery rings out with the bravado and essence of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s post punk scene.

With a sound that started in the studio and expanded thrice fold on stage, it’s no wonder the kids are scurrying to get their place in line.

“We are really hungry,” said vocalist Sam Tyndall. “Not to sound weird, but we really want the things that other bands have. We want recognition and to get our life the way we want it.”

That vision to work hard and strive to keep pushing as a band tends to be a common trait in the Brooklyn scene as Tyndall describes it as very competing in a positive demeanor.

“Brooklyn is wild, and everyone works really hard to sound unique, and that is why people keep churning out awesome bands here.”

But as much as the band, made up of Tyndall, Adam De Rosa, Michael Chap Resnick, Oliver Edsforth, and Nathan Lithgow, really shine on stage and projects their musical vision to the audience, it is the studio where Tyndall feels the band is most comfortable.

“Playing live for people is fun, but I just really like to write and record.” Tyndall has always been a fan of recording and the feeling of the pleasures of listening to that medium.

The band just finished wrapping up their debut album and will soon be self-released. With money, recording, and scheduling issues, it took them a long time for this album to become reality. But what came out of the sessions and contemplation was a lot of songs written that could stretch beyond this release.

“We didn’t want to make a record until we felt good about the material,” he said.

Don’t chalk it up to inexperience, Tyndall has been a musician and songwriter for a long time. Growing up with the David Bowie, Brian Eno, and Robert Fripp albums, along with the post punk scene like Wire and Echo and the Bunnymen, he always paid close attention to how songs were written.

“Growing up, I wanted to be Trent Reznor. Later, I wanted to be David Bowie or Brian Eno. I wanted to make it so all I do is write music and become an accomplished songwriter. Then I would sit and listen to Low and kick myself. Then I listened to Scary Monsters, and I got bummed out by the sheer genius of that album.”

ArpLine became a gleam in Tyndall’s eye when he met the rest of the band through a mutual musician. Feeling like the new kid on the block, Tyndall came from Bennington College in Vermont while the other members attended NYU.

Starting out their first sets were standard rock and roll, but as they became more comfortable as a group, their tastes began transforming to its current state and they tried harder to consistently outdo themselves.

By the time they made it into a studio, they instantly ran into obstacles.

“Every time we recorded with various people, we immediately threw it in the garbage can. It just did not work out. But we found someone we liked and recorded in a home studio. All we could afford in a real studio was four songs. So the rest of the album is recorded all over the place.”

Even though the spliced together album was a slight concern for the band, it has not deterred the coherency and overall structure of the album as unity was the glue in its successful outcome.

With the intention of being self-released, the band is shopping around for labels in the hopes to transcend their DIY means of doing business to a stronger focus in making music and exploring potential ideas.

From the first few seconds of the opening track (“Percussion Gun”) of White Rabbits’ It’s Frightening, you know exactly what you’re in for: a good old fashioned rock and roll record. One that happens to sound a lot like Spoon record.

That’s no coincidence. Spoon’s Britt Daniel twisted the knobs and gave It’s Frightening the same distinctively effortless swagger and precise sheen that characterizes his own band’s sound.

It’s Frightening is, essentially, a “formula” record. It follows a blueprint developed in the 1970s, when artists like Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, and Bob Seger ruled the airwaves and the charts with a gritty working-class sound that incorporated a singer (or two), a drummer, a guitarist (or two) a bass player, and a piano (maybe) on exuberant, catchy sing-along tunes. Somewhere along the way the formula was further refined while, at the same time, artists that followed it were marginalized to independent labels. Bands like Spoon, The Hold Steady, and The Black Lips have traded sales for critical praise — and the devotion of a small but fervid fan base, built slowly and deliberately by a nurturing independent record label.

Unfortunately, the “formula” doesn’t seem to be the proper aesthetic choice for White Rabbits, a band whose 2007 full-length debut, Fort Nightly, was much more stylistically scattershot – and much more interesting. While the songs on It’s Frightening are good (particularly the three songs that open the album), they don’t stick around for long once the record’s stopped playing.

Imagine the material performed live, however, and it’s the kind of stuff you’d expect to hear performed at a local dive bar late on a Friday night, the air fragrant with draft beer and cigarettes, ceiling fans ineffectively cooling the gathered masses. Good, old-fashioned rock and roll.

If White Rabbits can capture that sound — instead of Spoon’s — their next album should be one hell of a record.

Links:

White Rabbits: http://whiterabbitsmusic.com/
Music Essay on Fort Nightly: http://www.zaptownmag.com/2008/12/white-rabbits-fort-nightly

Since forming sometime around 2006, the band has had some twists and turns in their career, and Technicolor Health captures the essence of these times, both for better or worse. A lot of factors went into the making this album, including a mixture of collaborators from Beirut to Antibalas, Arcade Fire to Beyondo. But when it comes down to it, it’s the bonding of the five members (Vocalist Lexy Benaim sheds some light on their highly interesting and ever-so-colorful new release.

Andrew Duncan: Technicolor Health feels more upbeat than your self-titled release. What led to this direction for the band and was it intentional or luck that the album now seems like an act of survival and even defiance during these struggling economic and social times that surround us? Can you go into the personal struggle of the band during this time to what became the output? How do you feel this album will reflect to what people are facing?

Lexy Benaim: I think it was intentional. It’s a highly social album in my opinion. Very much outwardly engaged as the entire band was during recording. Well, the personal struggle was just coming up with something that we could all sign off on. We’re five quite different dudes. But I think putting the music through this sifter really allows for some strong music to emerge–I hope. But it’s also a sometimes painful trial and error process. I can’t say how it will reflect what people are facing. That’s such a personal thing, you know. People face things in such unique ways, and I imagine will respond to the record in similarly particular ways.

Duncan: Technicolor Health is also more expansive of a release than before. Can you tell me about the ideas that led up to the creation of the album and what led to expansively rich songs and what feels like a powerful vitality that stems from the pop elements of the songs?

Benaim: I’d say the idea was kind of making hopeful, strong music that in some ways, harkened back to the early-mid 90′s, when Clinton prosperity was beginning to bloom.

Duncan: There is a lot of depth and diversity especially with the amount of instrument hooks and effects, can you tell me about some of the creative processes that became Technicolor Health?

Benaim: There was a lot of lonely lyric and structure time in my eldest brother’s apartment while he was at work. There was a lot of time spent with the band hashing out ideas and tweaking and sculpting; passionate attention to detail from several different angles.

Duncan: With an album like this, how has it transferred to a live stage?

Benaim: It’s been a blast actually. We’ve incorporated samplers and a drum machine, which Brent basically just plays on stage as if it were an acoustic instrument. 

Duncan: What were your biggest challenges recording an album like this? What
were the greatest accomplishments that stood out?

Benaim: The hardest part was achieving the consensus. Hmm…I like to think of it as a whole, a sort of a chain-link, and any one accomplishment hinges on the one before it and the next…so it’s hard for me to think of it like that. That said, “Niagara Falls” is probably my favorite song from the album. 

Duncan: What aspects of pop music appeals to you the most? What attracts you to them as a resource and style of the band?

Benaim: I’d say the immediacy and the comfort of it.  

Duncan: It feels like there is no space wasted with something always going on within each song and very little disconnect between. Was this something intentional to build a connection throughout the album by almost treating it as a single statement instead of individual songs? 

Benaim: Absolutely. We wanted to make an old-fashioned album rather than bow to the current singles-oriented trend. That trend is fine, but we wanted to hold down the old-fashioned fort.

Duncan: How does this album relate to New York City? How does New York City relate to you?

Benaim: The city continually relates to anyone who lives there. It’s just so vast and sort of intrusive. There are a million stimuli and distractions.  Certain sounds on the album are just echoes of things we hear on the streets–mainly Latin radio. 

Duncan: Do you see the band continuing the tradition of music making in this fashion or is Technicolor Health a statement of “a moment” from the band? How do you want this album to be looked at down the road?

Benaim: I think our next record will be the same in that it will be poppy and ambitious, but other than that, I don’t know. I just hope the album is still looked at at all down the road.

Duncan: Optimists or Realists? Or a bit of both? Based on where you are now as a band, how would you describe yourself philosophically?

Benaim: I’d say willful optimists. Pessimism of the mind, optimism of the will. I wouldn’t describe myself philosophically, except maybe to say I read a good deal of William James. 

Harlem Shakes