Analogue
Rising Again
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One of the joys of following independent rock is the sense of discovery you get when happening upon an unassuming album that turns out to be something special. In the summer of 1996, just when “post rock” was becoming the de facto genre label of choice for the proliferation of instrumental music emerging from the American indie underground, Analogue quietly dropped its debut album AAD on Sonic Bubblegum Records.
Brilliant in both scope and composition, AAD built itself on the instrumental foundation laid by forerunners Slint and Tortoise, but transcended its influences with a steady handle on dynamics and seamless song-to-song flow. From a hitherto unheard-of band, AAD came off like the masterwork of some anonymous genius.
And although AAD was well-received by the select rock publications that reviewed it, the record quickly slid into obscurity, much like Analogue itself. Even though the group has endured a myriad of lineup changes since then, and actually has another record finished, little has been heard from Analogue in the past 3+ years. Still, an occasional ripple of Analogue’s sound can be heard in current groups, particularly with the new wave of bass-driven bands such as Dianogah and Ganger.
NATN Associate Editor Jonathan Cohen tracked down Analogue’s Matt Westlake for some insight into this enigmatic musical outfit.
NATN: Was Analogue a very active band at the time AAD was released? Were songs from the record performed in a live setting often? I have one recording from a show in Chapel Hill, and I didn't recognize any of the material!
MW: Well, it depends what qualifies as "active." We did play out about once or month or so in the Research Triangle area (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill) venues, but we didn't really tour. We played a handful of shows in Virginia and Washington D.C., and a couple up the coast when we were en route to record the record. But we spent a lot of time practicing.
NATN: Was there any pre-conceived notion about the "flow" of AAD? I wouldn't say there's a "concept" lying behind it all, but it seems more detailed then the usual thrown-together collection of 12 songs.
MW: Well, actually, no. We did spend a fair amount of time arguing about what order to put the songs in, and we did plan to have "seamless" transitions to make the album sound like one big song. That may have had some connection with the way we write songs, in which one section occasionally jumps to a completely different one. There is also an awful lot of the key of "D" floating around on AAD, so that may help to provide a sense of overall unity.
NATN: Of all the comparisons to other bands, are there any that strike you as particularly interesting?
MW: To be honest, we haven't had a whole lot of exposure to "unconnected" opinion (that is, people we don't know, or people who weren't just saying "Good show, man.") In those rare cases, one thing we always seem to get is band comparisons. The funny thing about that is that people tend to say: "you sound just like X", but the "X" always varies from person to person.
O.K., so AAD does owe a major debt to the Louisville crowd (Slint and co.), and we do get that one from time to time, which is fine by me since I think highly of most of those bands. But overall, I would say my favorites are the comparisons with bands that none of us have even heard of. It tells me a lot more about the listening habits of the reviewer than it does about an impression of our music. But, rather than belabor a rather circular argument...
NATN: Based on direct feedback, or perhaps listening to future bands, do you guys have any inkling as to if Analogue has been an influence to other groups?
MW: I hear bits and pieces of so many other things in our stuff alone, that to try to pinpoint a particular aspect of another band as coming directly from us would border on narcissism.
NATN: Do you have any particular favorite track on AAD, or a memorable anecdote about the recording process?
MW: My personal favorite track would be part B of "Quiet, You'll Scare The Horses." Although, I do like the last track too. The title on that one is rather an amusing trick. The idea is that the song sort of a droney thing that gets played forward, then backward, thus "palindrome" (a word that is spelled the same backwards as forwards) becomes "palindrone."
NATN: What is the current status of the band, and how does its sound today compare to the sound of AAD? The single with the song "Cute And Scary," which was post-AAD, was pretty different than AAD.
MW: We have undergone some lineup changes since the time of AAD’s release. Our original line up, circa the "Average Luck Charm" 7", was Dave Cantwell, Chris Karlof and me. Since then, we have gone through a variety of lineup additions and subtractions, and now have settled on Dave Heller, Jennifer Greer, Heath Grant and myself.
I would say that we do sound quite a bit different than we did AAD; after all, that was three years ago! And, we don't like to sit still for too long. We have a second record "in the can," so to speak, which was recorded in spring of '97, called Rock Proper.
Hopefully, it should be released before too long, on vinyl in the U.K. via Kooky Records, and possibly on CD by Sonic Bubblegum. It is entirely instrumental and maybe a bit more uptempo, but very much by the same band. The "Cute And Scary" track was written around this time, but is not really reflective of what's on the album. That song was a lot goofier than most of this stuff (I’m not saying I don't like it!), and was recorded in a tiny local studio. The plan called for cheap.
Since then we have changed again, (this time with a different drummer), and have taken things a bit away from the drone-centric stuff and focused more on a "rock" approach. We’re also gravitating toward greater complexity in our song arrangements and material.
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?"