Violins, mandolins and deep flowing intakes of clear fresh air. Hem return to their roots and add something new to an ongoing American narrative. Forget the new Lambchop album. The future’s where you left it.
The song, ’Lazy Eye’ draws attention to the hem of the dress of an old, possibly lost love:
“There’s a lazy eye that looks at you and sees you the same as before“
As a defining image of the album’s intent both musically and intellectually there’s probably none finer or more deliberate than this. Pure and simple photo capture. The hem of a dress. A small incidental detail, almost trivial, overlooked, but in that detail the power and energy to transform and render an entire mythology. It is a significant reference point, not least because it defines the name of the band. Not least because it defines an entire history of dirt-track Americana. Not least because it defines a state of mind: simultaneously concealing and revealing, grasping and repelling. Was this the same lazy eye of the writer that was drawn to America’s past? Gary Maurer seems to think so:
“I think it is the same tendency in us that makes it difficult to let go of things in our own lives (whether it be a relationship or a dream or whatever) that keeps us always looking backwards in all things. We definitely have a ‘lazy eye’ when it comes to music.”
Similarly, the album’s title track, ‘Idle (the rabbit song)’ alludes to the gravity of the moon turning our reluctant but captivated eyes toward it. Were the writers aware that both the lyrics and the retrospective style of the music shared some kind of common purpose? This window onto the past? Writer, Dan Messé is unequivocal about the dual mythology of the album:
“You know in all the interviews we’ve ever done, no one has ever asked about the lyrics. And as far I’m concerned, the songs are almost completely lyric driven. Certainly, the idea that the past – and more specifically – the idea that childhood can capture you (in both the good and bad sense of the word) is tremendously important to these songs. I think the challenge for me has always been how do you create a mythology that is totally personal and at the same time is communicable to as wide an audience as possible? One of the ways that seems to work for me is to write as simply and sparely as possible (again, like a lullaby or a children’s song).“
It’s a non-linear introduction to a non-linear band that has produced one of the finest of recent non-linear albums: ‘Rabbit Songs’, currently out on Setanta Records in the UK. Let’s start the whole thing again though, by going back (naturally) to the beginning. The inevitable first move in an inevitable retrospective.
It’s Spring 1999, and songwriter Dan Messé (piano, glockenspiel, harmonium) and producer and engineer Gary Maurer (guitar, mandolin) begin work on an album that will, in their own words, ’interweave their interest in traditional American music with an alternative sensibility’. But as is the case with any such theatre of dreams a richer cast of likeminded players and dreamers turned out to be requisite. Populating the dream came somewhat naturally, however. Eerily so. Gary Maurer explains:
“The original idea behind Rabbit Songs was to record an album that we had absolute creative control over. Originally, the only criteria for who played on the album was purely “are they available on these dates?” and “will they be willing to work for next to nothing?” Looking back on everything, we really were tremendously lucky to have found these amazing musicians to work with. The whole experience seemed very fated from the beginning.”
Dan and Gary’s mutual friend Steve Curtis (guitar, mandolin) became involved and all that was needed was a singer. The band placed an ad in the Village Voice and an inundation of often ’-bizarre’ demos then followed. Fearing the loss of this perfect vision amidst a dust storm of mediocrity, Messé and Maurer pulled the ad. It was a timely intervention, as fate was about to add a totally unpredicted brushstroke of imagination to the proceedings.
Enter stage left: Sally Ellyson. In response to the ad placed some weeks before, Sally calls Dan cautioning him, perhaps unfairly, that she isn’t really a “singer”. Understandably Dan takes the woman at her word and makes moves to end the call. As matter of course, Dan requests a demo. He’s sceptical to say the least. What was to follow was quite unexpected.
A scuffed, cheap homemade tape of Sally singing completely unaccompanied arrived on the floor of Dan’s apartment. The tape consisted of Sally singing versions of traditional lullabies, ‘as spare, deceptively uncomplicated and spine-tingling’ as anything he could have imagined. The cast had been completed. Hem had found a singer. But wasn’t Dan a little nervous about taking on a self-confessed novice thus far into the story? Didn’t Sally have any experience at all? Gary takes the call:
“Before Hem, Sally’s experience as a musician began and ended with singing with her family and friends. Of course, every now and then, somebody would hear her amazing voice and say that she should consider “doing something with it”. Again, it just seems like fate that she decided to act on this advice just when we were looking for a singer. As for the tape of lullabies that she made, these were the songs that she grew up singing—at the time, it seemed only natural for her to use them to demonstrate her voice. ”
For those not in the know, hearing Sally’s voice for the first time one is reminded of hearing Alison Goldfrapp’s vocals for the first time on ‘Felt Mountain’ in that there are equal measures of warmth, sexuality and pure unbridled ability. Big words, we know, but accurate nonetheless. Big names like Peggy Lee and Astrud Gilberto fall naturally to our mouths also. Were Dan and the boys’ conscious of these associations?
“When we first heard Sally’s voice, it seemed otherworldly in that it reminded us of every voice we had ever loved, and at the same time was utterly unique. Like you mention, there are all traces of folk, jazz, country and pop there, but it all just sounds so natural in her. One of the songs from her tape is used as the opening track on Rabbit Songs (“Lord Blow the Moon Out Please“). We also posted an MP3 of another one of these lullabies on our website (see below). This tape of lullabies is still something that we listen to and love. It definitely stands up as a recording on its own. Maybe someday it will get released. In the meantime, we’ll probably keep posting MP3s from this tape on our website.“
Having begun as a low-budget collaboration between friends, The “Rabbit Songs” sessions — as they were known then — took on a life of their own. And as the shaping spirit of the bands combined imaginations took shape, everybody realised they were involved in something special. There was however, a problem. Not having the thriving percentages of a label behind them, Dan began selling off most of his personal possessions so he could afford ‘the 18 piece orchestras’, and the luxury of being able to take as much time as possible over the arrangements of the songs. It was a double-edged sword:
“The only problem with having no studio meddling in the creative process was that we also had no studio giving us bucketfuls of money to use for recording. The initial budget for the album was something ridiculously tiny like $5,000. After the first weekend in the studio (I think we recorded “Half Acre” “Idle” and “When I Was Drinking“) we all just sort of fell in love with the sound of what we were making. Before we knew it, our initial budget was long spent, but we didn’t want to stop until we made everything perfect. I guess we just sort of lost control of ourselves.”
As both Gary and Dan are keen to point out, there are ‘no samples’, ‘no synthesizers’, ‘no Pro-Tools’ mixing and ‘no digital studio wizardry’ in the recordings. Punctuated by mandolins, violins, glockenspiel and deep, flowing intakes of clear fresh air ‘Rabbit Songs’ is an un self-consciously ‘old school album’, recorded the old school way but all the more invigorating for it:
“Our approach to recording Rabbit Songs seemed to grow out of the material itself. We love all sorts of music. From the one mic recordings of the Carter Family to the most sophisticated studio albums made today. We just felt that for our songs, with the arrangements we had in mind, the best approach would be as “old school“ as possible. The records that we’re finding most exciting right now are actually a little more “produced“ sounding than Rabbit Songs; for example, the production values on some Carpenters and Glen Campbell records.”
A deeply reviving album, uncomplicated as it is uncompromising, ’Rabbit Songs’ offers an alternative revival of basics to that of The Strokes, or The Hives or any one of the new definitive articles that get posted regularly on the circuit. It’s a New York Story with a difference. A New York story with a New England heart and a soul defined in Dublin. Not that it’s been detrimental to their local success:
“We never actually ‘released’ Rabbit Songs in the U.S. (again, one of the cons of not going the label route) so we weren’t sure if the album had even found its way outside of a small circle of people. It wasn’t until we showed up for our first live show and saw a line of people around the block waiting to get into the club that we realized the album had been well received. All in all, NYC has been a great place to grow as a live band for us. The city is surely large and diverse enough to support both us and The Strokes.’
With the human condition’s reflexive imperative to return tuned more finely, perhaps than ever before, ‘Rabbit Songs’ offers a positive, pleasing aside in a long, enduring narrative. And in response to September 2001, it proves without the faintest shadow of a doubt that nothing is ever forgotten. The narrative folds in — but it never collapses.
**Hem are back in the studio at the end of March to record an EP which is likely to include some covers as well as one or two new Hem songs.
Relevant Sites:
https://allabouthem.com/
www.setantarecords.com
Interview and report by Alan Sargeant for Crud Magazine 2002©