Abzorbr: Teetering over the abyss
Wednesday 28 March @ 15:07:44 |
  ANDREA MYERS
"I've been here since 10 this morning," Kristoff Krane tells me as I take a seat across from him in the back room of a coffee shop in St. Paul. His eyes are wild and his young face is unshaven, and a crooked smile stretches across his face. His drummer, Graham O'Brien, is seated to my right, and there is a static crackle in the air around the table where the Abzorbr band mates are seated. There's such a palpable excitement pulsating between the two young musicians that it's possible I just walked in as they were discovering how to dismantle an atomic bomb or mapping out a plan for world peace; in reality, though, they are talking about installing ProTools on Krane's laptop and planning out the final details of the CD release show for their first full-length album, Capable of Teetering, out Friday on Crush Kill Recordings.
With their bass player (and Graham's brother), Casey O'Brien, absent, it's up to the three of us at the table to pinpoint exactly what it is about Abzorbr's music that is so unique and, ultimately, irresistible. Their album has been spinning in my car for the past few weeks, and with each rotation I have been getting closer to deciding that Abzorbr is unlike anything I have ever listened to before.
"There's rapping, but that's pretty much the only thing that would tie it to hip-hop, in my opinion," concludes O'Brien. "I guess on our website, they make you pick three definers, and at the time when I first put up the page it was indie/hip-hop/alternative. If we were to redo that, I'm sure it would be different." Fast-paced freestyles collide with heavy bass riffs and moody keyboards on Abzorbr's album, a cocktail of free-flowing hip-hop and a burgeoning sense of exploration and awe. Krane's lyrics and sense of rhythm are almost hypnotic at times, and his talent for rhyme schemes and imagery would be enough to entrance the listener if it weren't for the O'Briens' tendency to turn beats inside out and upside down before they can settle into any kind of mundane groove.
Early on in his writing career, Krane knew that he needed a mentor to help him rein in his creative spirit. As a fan of the Rhymesayers recording artist Michael Larsen (aka Eyedea, of Eyedea & Abilities), Krane sought out Larsen after a chance meeting and asked if the two could freestyle together. "Kris was kind of calling me and bugging me," Larsen explains, laughing, "and we didn't really know each other, but he was kind of bugging me, like, hey we should totally hang out and improvise together one night. And I was like, yeah, sure whatever ... I was just like, OK man, you bring over a case of beer and we'll do that. And we did it, and he just blew my fucking mind. He completely ripped my head off. I was just floored."
"I went home with butterflies in my stomach," Krane says, grinning wildly, "thinking there was no way that I could be this good at doing something I love a lot."
The two started improvising together in a free-form jazz/hip-hop group called Face Candy, where Krane met his current Abzorbr bandmates and decided to co-found Crush Kill Recordings with Larsen. In addition to releasing the Abzorbr full-length and re-releasing the latest album from Larsen's band, Carbon Carousel, the two groups are issuing a split single with a total of six fresh tracks. Whereas Abzorbr's work on Capable of Teetering explored the limits of instrument-based hip-hop, their three newest tracks seem to collide punk with jazz improv and the forward-moving urgency of bands like Rage Against the Machine.
On "Follow the Leader," Krane repeats the title while the brothers O'Brien syncopate the rhythm and push it forward until it's about to break; "See-Through Eyes" falls into an almost be-bop beat as Krane speaks quietly and quickly, reveling in the mania of the breakneck rhythm. Each new song seems to pull the band further into uncharted territory, while remaining surprisingly accessible.
"A lot of times at practice there's extreme tension," Krane says when asked to explain the band's creative process. "We come to practice, all three of us, and none of us are telling each other exactly how we feel because there's 12 hours of a day of stress built up and we indirectly take it out on each other ... Then all of a sudden, it's like--BOOM--everything comes together. And that's kind of how practices go. There's not the best communication right away, or it's not pure, and then all of a sudden it just manifests itself into something that's honest, without trying to be honest."
As Krane talks about his music, there is wonderment in his eyes; a sense of eagerness and a quest to ride the creative wave. "When you're performing, or when you hear a song, you can like fall into that wavelength where something is different--my brain, my spirit, whatever you want to call it--is experiencing something new. And when that happens there is some sort of growth."
"And the goal of every performance is to feel that on stage," O'Brien adds.
"There's a part of every single person that is pure light," Krane says, and he doesn't preface his statement with any kind of apology for being too sensitive or new-agey, so I have no choice but to believe him. "And there are windows all over. Everybody has their light, and there are windows all over, and there's a part of every single human on the planet that is made of heaven." Part of his purpose as a musician, he explains, is to get "closer to that sort of feeling. Actually using a form of expression to further evolve the brain."
As I leave the coffee shop and get back in my car, I can feel an uncontrollable excitement buzzing in my chest. The air outside is warm and damp, and for the first time this season it seems that spring is finally going to show its face. The sun is going down, and I know for a fact that across the city there are musicians unloading vans and preparing to play shows, and there are people like Kristoff Krane and his Abzorbr bandmates meeting in bars and coffee shops, planning our next revolution. It's been awhile since I've been around someone so sincere, unpretentious and unabashedly empathetic, and it's hard not to smile as I wind through the streets of St. Paul and approach the soft glow and hum of the Minneapolis night. ||
Abzorbr play the CD release show for Capable of Teetering on Fri., March 30 at the 7th St. Entry with Carbon Carousel (who'll be re-releasing their own record and a split EP with Abzorbr) and Roma di Luna. 8 p.m. $5. 18+. 701 First Ave. N, Mpls. 612-332-1775. For more information on Abzorbr, check out their MySpace page at myspace.com/abzorbr.
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