This is part 5 of a 7-part blog series.
(For part 1, click here)
(For part 2, click here)
(For part 3, click here)
(For part 4, click here)
Venturing into a musical landscape, October Project maps their journey like cartographers. Part an art—and part a meticulous science—Marina, Julie, and Emil record their surroundings in song.
The “Uncovered” EPS are October Project’s most recent exploration. Sending word from the musical frontier, Marina, Julie, and Emil present “Uncovered” as a rough sketch, a hint of the territory that lies ahead.
–J.W. Harvey
Interview with Marina Belica, Julie Flanders, and Emil Adler
(Continued from part 4)
Julie: Part of Uncovered’s release is in response to people asking for it. We played these tracks for friends, gave some away to people who came to our loft concerts, and people loved it.
Emil: I think we should rewind and put this at the top of the list of reasons why we do this. Internet is very high on the list, but possibly number one is the fact that we do loft concerts…
Julie:…and fans want it.
Cafe Sin-é, OP’s original territory
Emil: And the versions they hear at loft concerts are the only versions these fans know. You know? Its sort of like, if they had gone down to Cafe Sin-é and heard us as the little band not much bigger than this, they were surprised at the amount of sound that we got on our first album. Because we had enhanced it by that time. And if we would have had the Internet back then, perhaps we would have given them those versions. That’s why demos were valuable to those people, because it captured the sound of the band the way they liked it.
Marina: Right … “this is what we knew.”
Emil: “This is the band that we knew. And then when they got produced, well that’s a different band.”
Marina: And those people had to take a leap of faith.
Julie: I have a couple of theories about how people experience music. One is that people tend to prefer the version of something that they hear first, and that has borne itself out in our experience. If people like what you do, they like it in the way they came across it. So, if they came across it in its first incarnation, that’s how they like it. If they came across it in the 90s, that’s how they like it. If they came across it in the 2000s, they don’t like the version from the 90s.
Emil: Right. That applies not just to our music…
Julie: …and not just to us…
Emil: …but to the band as well. Those people who knew us in the 90s may never accept that there is a band of the 2000s, and those people who didn’t know of the one of the 90s are surprised, and they don’t like the old version at all, so it goes in both directions. Neither faction can ever believe there are others who like the other version better.
J.W.: It’s fascinating, because when I play OP music for my friends, they respond well to the new music, and when I play something from the 90s, they don’t “get it.” But they relate to the new sound.
Julie: And, of course, your friends are young and have very different ears. I mean, you were probably listening to Sesame Street in the 90s, right?
Rumor has it that “Bury My Lovely” is hidden on this CD, 20 minutes after the final track. But you have to play it backwards.
J.W.: (laughter) If it wasn’t Power Rangers, I wasn’t interested. But I’m developing more of an ear for Sesame Street than ever, thanks to Emil’s inspiration for the “Bury My Lovely” intro. But really, where do you think Uncovered fits into the musical landscape today? Is this the direction music is going—raw tracks—or towards production?
Emil: I’ve been around long enough to see that these are matters of fashion. Seriously. If today the fashion is toward something more raw, it will return to being more produced. We have seen several of these waves go by over time. I hear a lot of production value in tracks these days, because everyone has Pro Tools at home, or some sort of digital workstation. And because they’re capable of producing a track, they end up doing that.
Marina: We are doing what we are doing without much reference to what other artists are doing. I, for one, am definitely not paying attention to what everyone else is doing.
Emil: That’s because you’re a mother! (laughter)
Marina: What I’m saying is that this band creates what it creates for its own love and enjoyment. We aren’t saying “oh there is this sound over there, lets see if we can be like that.” We’ve never done that.
Julie: We kind of grow from inside the songs.
Marina: Yea, we really don’t go from the outside in, and never have.
Julie: We have never gone outside in.
Emil: There is this really cool sound that over the last 10 years has come out of Brooklyn…this highly compressed vocal, right-up-in-the-face, with acoustic instruments, odd instruments…if I were concerned with the sound…sounding contemporary, having a record of the moment sound, I would be looking at that.
Marina: And…we don’t!
To be continued. Follow the October Process blog for the remaining segments of this 7-part interview series!
Learn more about Uncovered and More Uncovered: OP Merchandise Store
OP on FaceBook: facebook.com/octoberproject
OP on Twitter: twitter.com/october_project
J.W. Harvey on Twitter: twitter.com/xjwharvey
Contact J.W. Harvey: James@OctoberProjectMusic.com
J.W. Harvey
October Process 