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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Into the Fog
Wednesday 02 July @ 13:42:33 |
 The opening moments of Ether Teeth, the second sonic trainwreck/masterpiece hybrid concocted by Fog (aka Minneapolis’ Andrew Broder) perfectly captures the feeling of being caught midway between sleeping and waking life. The dreamy suspended keyboard noises and sedately grooving acoustic guitar lick providing the comforts of sleep while vinyl squiggles and an indecipherable sampled chant act as the sonic equivalent of pestering bedroom sunlight beams forcibly moving one towards the coming day (the clatter of random percussion and eerie cello add their presence by track’s end). It’s a moment unlike any other I’ve heard on record this year—and the first of many breathtaking passages that take place on the uncompromisingly arty yet surprisingly accessible outing of the Twin Cities’ most highly touted experimental musician.
Fog. Photos by R.J. Wilson
Ranging widely from the jittery pop of “What a Day Day” to the loose and bluesy “Girl from the Gum Commercial,” Ether Teeth finds Broder expanding on the sounds of Fog’s self-titled debut and incorporating far more vocals than previously. Fortunately Broder’s voice, a fragile cracked instrument not too far removed from Sparkelhorse maestro Mark Linkous’ windpipes, is the perfect vehicle for conveying his whacked-out tales of desperation and loneliness (“it’s easy to feel strange and lonely/on these cold and drunken nights/but think of all these people as parts of a machine and you’ll be alright”).
A seamless blend of vinyl samples and live instrumentation continue to provide Fog’s sonic template. Highlights such as “Under an Anvil Tree,” a spare acoustic ballad fleshed out by intermittent snippets of what sound like muted horns, synthetic strings and a mechanically altered siren blare, are impossible to classify. As the song segues into its second half, a slinky percussive pattern slides into the bottom end and a machine-manipulated Broder chirps foreboding phrases (“after dark all bite no bark, at night all bark no bite”) like the forgotten psychotic member of the Chipmunks who’s normally kept locked up in the closet.
By the time Broder declares, “I am totally fucking prepared, to declare nuclear war on every boy in every band,” during the jarring “No Boys Allowed,” the listener suddenly becomes aware of the true intent behind the album’s preceding six tracks—to obliterate the unnecessary and confining distinctions straitjacketing so much other current musical expression. The proclamation comes slightly more than halfway through Ether Teeth, setting up the increasingly languid and ambient second half with one last burst of noise. An admittedly tough listen that focuses more on subtle soundscapes (a mesmerizing slide guitar line presents itself briefly at the beginning of “Wallpaper Sink or Swim” only to dart away quickly) and intriguing imagery rather than immediately memorable melodies, Ether Teeth is nonetheless the kind of record that attentive music lovers can rightly flock to; it keeps pulling the listener back to find further hidden riches long after more immediately palatable releases have run their course.
Andrew Broder plays Trumpet
The brainchild of former St. Louis Park bedroom record obsessive Broder, 24, Fog has morphed over the years from a one-man recording experiment into a full-fledged band (although Broder still braves the recording process mostly solo) and the group has gradually picked up steam since making its first tentative steps at the dawn of the millennium, recently playing before thousands as the opening act at Wilco’s sold out show in the Walker Sculpture Garden this June. These are slightly heady times for the band. Broder along with live bandmates Martin Dosh (drums/keyboards) and Mark Erickson (bass/keyboards) sat down with me shortly before leaving for a West Coast tour.
Pulse: The first record, I think for a lot of different reasons, whether it was the presence of some rap-oriented sections on the record or the affiliation with the Ninja Tune label was kind of tagged as ‘alternative hip-hop’ for lack of a better word. Were you consciously moving away from the hip-hop tag with Ether Teeth which has no overt rap sections?
Broder: I try not to ever go into making music with any categorization in mind that people have put on it, or anything that anybody’s said about it in my head. I really don’t want to make my music in reaction to that, I want to make music that can be reactive to my world and my life and everything that’s going on around me—but I don’t want to make music that’s a reaction to other music. The hip-hop thing can be a frustration—because I use turntables, or because I was a DJ around here for a little while, or because I’m on Ninja Tune or affiliated with Anticon or whatever. That can be a frustration because automatically people are going in hearing something in their head before ever even hearing the music. But you could say that about any genre. I’m not offended when people want to make the connection to hip-hop, because it is there in the sense that it’s collage kind of music. It’s influenced by it, but I don’t like to sit down and say, ‘OK, I’m going to write a folk-hop number now.’
Pulse: The background noise of birds chirping provides a recurring musical theme during the course of the record and also features prominently on Ether Teeth’s cover and liner note artwork. Of all the sounds out there to choose from, why birds?
Broder: It’s kind of one of those things I’ve gotten superstitious about over time, really in the last couple of years. It has to do with a heightened awareness of my surroundings, trying to appreciate really simple things around me, that maybe I wouldn’t otherwise. Birds or colors or textures can all sort of be little secrets that you have. And so the bird motif, each of these different birds kind of represents a different little secret for me and holds a different meaning for me, and a person can listen to the record and it can mean whatever they want it to for them. I like that there’s sort of this air of mystery about it, because it’s not supposed to be super direct.
Andrew Broder plays Guitar
Pulse: How important were all of your prior experiences before starting work on Fog? I imagine it’s a different sort of band than anything all of you guys were involved with previously.
Broder: One thing I love about this band is that we’ve all played really shitty music at one time or another (chuckles). All of us have been in different horrible projects and it’s so good to do that—it builds your fucking character. I’m so tired of people who make it seem like they were born cool. It’s like, ‘Who are your parents?’ ‘Where are you from?’ I mean there’s really not a lot of that in this group. We’ll all sort of readily admit to the crap we’ve done. You do a lot of crap and then you kind of learn what not to do along the way. I mean maybe that’s not very hip, but that’s honest, that’s life. You don’t always do the perfect cool right thing in life. I don’t want to put on this facade like, ‘Everything I’ve ever done is great.’ Everything’s a fucking work in progress man. Even this right now—I’m really happy with what I’m doing right now and with where I’m at and where the band is at, and where the art that I’m making is at. But it’s still a work in progress, it always is.
Erickson: It’s sort of standard showbiz practice to always foreground the highlights of your career. To make it seem like ‘I’ve always been a genius’ or ‘I’ve always had some golden boy glow about me’—and that’s just bullshit. I do see that in some other artists. And I just think, ‘Did these people’s parents have a lot of money to buy them great gear when they were young?’ When I was young I didn’t have a lot of money and had bad gear and made crappy music. I didn’t have the right experiences, I hadn’t had my heart broken, I hadn’t had people close to me leave me. All of those things are a part of the music I make today and will make tomorrow.
Broder: Right, or you come from St. Louis Park—which is just a fucking void—and you can’t help but have all this, for lack of a better word, crap, soak into you. But if you know yourself well enough, and you have enough ingenuity, you kind of build up something new out of all the bad stuff you’ve done and eventually you kind of make this thing that’s your own. And then all of a sudden one day it’s kind of like, ‘hey, this is actually good.’
Pulse: What does the term experimental music mean to you? Shouldn’t all music, regardless of genre, be trying to experiment?
Broder: First off, whatever anybody wants to do, even if it’s the most played out fucking thing that you can imagine—if somebody wants to sit on a porch and play a washboard while stomping their foot and doing twelve bar blues—go for it. First and foremost it’s about expressing yourself. You know, being experimental, I don’t know, it’s a tricky thing. There is definitely a part of me that gets off on trying to do something new, because it excites me when I hear other people that are doing something new. There’s an excitement that you can feel in music that is pushing the envelope; music that is doing something that hasn’t been done before. There is something egotistical about it too though. There’s almost this conqueror mentality of, ‘I’m going to one up music’ and to get too immersed in thinking like that is dangerous and can lead to patting yourself too hard on the back or whatever. I don’t have a problem with being labeled experimental, but I don’t sit there thinking this plus this will be really ‘experimental,’ that’s geeky. And I’m not a geek dude (chuckles)!
Andrew Broder plays Keyboard
Pulse: There’s a picture in the liner notes of your first record of a turntable with the words, “This is not a turntable, this is a fascist killing machine” inscribed on it. You’ve also been an outspoken critic of Clear Channel in the past. How important do you feel the politics of your music-making are?
Broder: I think about it a lot, of course me thinking about it a lot doesn’t necessarily translate to me being in that world. The reality of it is that we are on the bottom rung of globally exposed music—we’re not famous. But something like Clear Channel, I mean the people that work there and everything, that’s fine I’m not going to hold a personal grudge against them, but when it comes right down to it I’m just not going to work for a company that’s in the pocket of the Bush administration. And regardless of what effect they have on local music or radio, I’m not working for them.
Erickson: It’s the lesser of two evils. If you don’t choose anything you have to go and live out in the woods. As long as you’re living in this city at this time you have to make a choice, and there are some choices that are more virtuous than others.
Pulse: While doing a little research for the interview I learned you had a severe bout with pneumonia about five years ago and began to pursue making music more seriously as a result. How important was that time for you in terms of impacting your subsequent artistic endeavors?
Broder: It was definitely a really dark time and what came out of it was the decision that I needed to be more honest with myself about why I’m here, why I’m alive, what I’m doing while I’m alive. It didn’t have to do so much with physical illness as much as being in a transitional phase. I mean everybody goes through them, it’s not unique to me. What that time in my life was about was taking something dark and trying to make something come of it. Trying to give something back to all of this [gestures indicating the world around him], as opposed to always just taking, taking, taking.
Pulse: It seems like you guys have been able to accomplish a lot in a relatively short amount of time. You just played outside to thousands of people and you’ve already gotten to a place that many other bands dream of getting to. Is it a disorienting ride? Can you be aware of how large your audience is now as compared to two years ago? Or is it all happening too fast?
Broder: I’ll tell you—being on tour is a very good reality check and it’s a very good humbling experience. You can see your picture in Mojo magazine and get all hot and bothered and excited, but then when you get out on stage and do a show for four people you’re not so excited anymore. Good reviews and press don’t necessarily translate into anything tangible other than, ‘oh it’s really cool that particular guy liked my record.’ That’s great and I’m grateful for that, but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything bigger. The hard thing to keep perspective on is that I don’t have a manager and basically handle this whole thing myself, I’m basically a really bad business man and trying to get better. It can be kind of bewildering, the whole process of that, but I’m learning. As far as perspective on how big or small all of this is—I don’t really have any. I’m able to make a meager living doing what I do and that’s great. I hope to get the music out to a lot of people one day, more people than right now, but I am happy for the people we have right now. Even if we play small shows, I’m happy that tiny audience is there because they are hopefully going to see something that is going to move them. My perspective is just to make the best music I can.
Dosh: My perspective hasn’t really changed either. I feel very lucky to be able to do this, so in that sense I’m extremely grateful. As far as what someone else perceives, its sort of an illusion. We’re all still broke, I have to work three jobs and my life is completely insane, but I really want to make this music, so that’s why I do it. It’s not because I want to be famous or something, I really enjoy making music and I do it because it reminds me why I’m here.
Broder: I don’t have any illusions about this music quote unquote ‘blowing up’ anytime ever, it could very well be the reality that we remain at this level that we’re at right now forever. Or, maybe it’s just not something that will be appreciated during its own time. There’s a great many artists and ideas that I look up to and take inspiration from that aren’t appreciated widely, so that’s OK. I’m alive and I’m able to make art, while it’s still legal, and I’m thankful for that.
Fog plays Fri., July 4, with Dosh and The Swords Project at the 7th Street Entry. 8 p.m. $6 adv/ $8 door. 21+. 701 1st Ave. N., Mpls. 612-338-3388.
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