Noble Causes
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Indeed, on record, the group has displayed an impressive range both in composition and tone, from “Full On Night,” the 14-minute ambient patchwork that highlighted 1994’s Handwriting, to the stark and purely orchestral 1995 album Music For Egon Schiele, to the lush, moving imagery of 1996’s The Sea And The Bells. In live performance, the more complex songs from the recorded catalog are stripped down and tailored to the size of the ensemble, and, in the case of “Full On Night,” completely revamped into shells of their former selves.
Being deliberate is a skill which Noble and his bandmates have gradually mastered, as they make supreme use of open space. Especially live, every violin bow that grazes a string, every lone guitar note sustained, takes on additional meaning in such austere settings. One would think it would be maddening, especially for Noble, who cut his teeth screaming and shouting over the top of Rodan’s fierce post-punk assaults on its lone but now legendary album, 1994’s Rusty. That, however, is where Shipping News comes in.
Formed in 1997, Shipping News reunites Noble with his Rodan bandmate Jeff Mueller, better known now as an integral member of June Of 44. This purely rock combo, although at times referencing both Rodan and June Of 44, thrives off the spontaneity that is not necessarily of any importance to Rachel’s. It’s an interesting dichotomy, one that Noble acknowledges on a humid day in early May outside New York’s Knitting Factory club, his Shipping News in town as part of a short tour to road test new material written since 1997’s Save Everything.
“You know, in a purely selfish way, there’s a part of me completely committed to Shipping News, which is rock music and which does exercise a whole other portion of the way we play,” he observes. “That’s something I didn’t have as an outlet for several years after Rodan.”
And although Rachel’s aren’t pawning off their violas for Fender Stratocasters just yet, the band ventures about as far into “rock” territory on Selenography as it ever has. Bass and guitar are more prominent than ever before, and in general the record comes off a bit more loose-limbed than The Sea And The Bells. On rousing tracks such as “An Evening Of Long Goodbyes,” simple bongo drums and Noble’s undulating bass line amply support tingling vibes, fingerpicked acoustic guitar and the string section’s stern counter melody. The band even jumps feet-first into the world of electronic music on the soundtrack-ready “The Mysterious Disappearance Of Louis LePrince” and “Artemisia,” where blasts of steam encircle treated drum machine beats and vocal narration from Uzeda singer Giovanna Cacciola. Noble credits the completion of the band’s home studio as the final green-light for this kind of experimentation.
“The way we did the recording was weird, and I’ll try to abbreviate it,” he says with a smile. “The basic idea was that we went into the studio and did all the basic tracks and transferred those using time code to digital versions. We took the digital versions home, added new pieces, did some cut and paste, tried out things for several months, inadvertently having more time on it than we anticipated because of the PJ Harvey tour. We were going to get finished in the fall, but we ended up spending more time at home working on the record in the winter, when it was the right time to hang out. We’d never really had the opportunity to take the original master tapes home with us and work on them. On the other records, we’ve had things recorded entirely at home or entirely in the studio, but rarely have the two elements joined in an organic use of electronic stuff. It was a different experience, but it wasn’t like we were intentionally shifting gears.”
To be sure, diversity is Selenography's strongest suit. As if to counterbalance the more band-oriented tracks, the three-part “Honeysuckle Suite” is a straight-up harpsichord composition by Grimes, while “Cuts The Metal Cold,” a staple of the band’s past few rounds of touring, reprises the refined pacing of The Sea And The Bells standouts like “Lloyd’s Register.” But according to Noble, not even Selenography will prepare listeners for what Rachel’s will unleash next.
“The next record we’re doing is a collaboration with Matmos,” Noble says. “They do a lot of incredible, unique electronic music and generate all the sounds themselves. That said, we’ve been wanting to collaborate with them for a long time. We had recorded the live version of “Full On Night” a little while ago, and we were trying to figure out what to do with it. “Full On Night,” in the format it’s in now, is a lot more aggressive and a little bit more gnarly of a version [than how it appears on Handwriting]. We gave them the master tapes as raw sources and they built new compositions drawn entirely from our song. To give you an idea, Selenography is calm, pastoral, romantic music, not real crazed. But this Matmos/”Full On Night” night combo is fairly crazy. We’re delighting in the fact that it’s going to be such a shift, but I definitely think it might throw people for a loop. I mean, it’s really aggressive.”
However, Noble is quick to point out, as with all of his musical ventures, no direction is ever set in stone. “I wouldn’t say we’re suddenly going to do a lot of rock stuff,” he reminds. “We’ve got a few projects on the table that we’re trying to figure out how to pull off. Some of them are very orchestral in nature, and it’s a problem figuring out how to arrange them. We could do an all-quartet record, very minimal with no electronic elements, or a solo piano record.”
Nevertheless, he says, the band’s orchestral-based setup isn’t just a phase -- it is the guiding factor in the way Rachel’s operates. “This is one of the elements we’ve really really tried to hold onto -- we don’t want to put it into a capsule,” he says. “I’m happy that people can swing with this, because nobody wants to be on repeat performance all the time or have just one identity. I know it can seem like, “can’t you make up your mind what you’re doing.” But it’s liberating as a musician to have an open mind about what the next project is going to be.”
Living and working in Louisville has given Noble the grounding that, for a touring musician, can be difficult to come by. In addition to finishing the aforementioned home studio, he and Shipping News drummer Kyle Crabtree bought and refurbished a house. "Traveling and living out of a suitcase, I can approach it a lot differently than a few years ago, because I have an actual home to come back to," he admits. Louisville is certainly conducive to cheap living, and thanks to the who's-who-in-indie-rock address books its members possess, Rachel's is frequently able to help out-of-town bands set up shows and pull the strings necessary to book its own concerts in movie theaters and exquisite, old churches. But this choice of location is not without its tradeoffs.
“I think about these things a lot,” Noble admits. “You know, what is the best way to spend your time in general? Is being in a band the best way? These are broad, human questions. It gets into the whole realm of, if you have less financial need, can you make better art and vice versa? You know, does your art improve because you’re isolated, or improve because you’re really stimulated? We can leave that out of the discussion!”
"Sure, sometimes you crave more stimulus. But hey," Noble observes, looking up and soaking in the sound of traffic buzzing by. "We’re in New York City right now! Man, how will you ever edit all of this down?”
JONATHAN COHEN | Jonathan Cohen co-created Nude As The News with his Indiana University mates Troy Carpenter and Ben French. When not traversing the globe for business and pleasure, he holds down the fort as a senior editor for Billboard in New York. Stop him and he just may ask, "what for lunch?"