Interview by David Orleans
Tagged 2005 alternative rock indie pop indie rock post-rock texas bands the american analog set
You're up late on a summer night, but it's not insomnia. It's something between restlessness and meditation. You're thinking about your work, your friends, your life... and you need a soundtrack for your thoughts. You need something to fill the gaps between the sound of the wind and the sound of your breath. You want to hear music that inhabits your late night mood. You need to listen to American Analog Set.
American Analog Set, now in its tenth year, has recently released a record that drills deeper into their trademark soft, eerie, sound. The album,
Set Free, picks up where some of their earlier work left off. The breathy vocals, nebulous lyrical structure and entrancing guitar work create a strange mixture of ambient, jangly, wistful rock. While they moved into writing tighter, more radio-friendly songs on their previous two albums,
Set Free is a direct return to the sound of their earlier days on such albums as
The Fun of Watching Fireworks and their other late ‘90s work.
Towards the tail end of what American Analog Set have said will be their last coast to coast tour as a full band, I spoke with Andrew Kenny of American Analog Set. I asked Kenny about their decision to give up touring and start moving on to other projects.
"We think that we're currently doing our best work," said Kenny. "We're very happy with
Set Free. I think it's very near to a perfection of our sound. It's the closest we've come to hitting all of the notes that we want to hit. So we're leaving the touring and the night after night, show after show life when we're at this solid point in our history as a band. We'd rather do it now when we sound so good, than do it at a point where we're tired and not putting out music that we're proud of."
The band is known for recording in the living rooms and basements of friends' houses. With
Set Free, there were no exceptions. It was recorded in homes in Texas, Mississippi and New York.
"I love the way it all comes together in someone's living room or front porch," says Kenny. "It's where we feel comfortable. Our music has experimental aspects to it, and living rooms or people's homes are great places to have a laboratory and experiment."
Kenny has been living in New York doing graduate work and experiencing what life is like in the independent music scenes and catacombs of Brooklyn, the Village, and the Lower East Side, but he longs for his home state of Texas. Specifically, he craves the life in Austin.
"Austin is great. It's a big small town, where independent bands can feel comfortable and feed off of the community of music there. It has small venues and plenty of house parties for bands to be what they are and be accepted by others that want to hear independent, artistic music."
However, he went on to lament about the trials of living in Texas.
"Austin is of course probably the only place in Texas that voted for Kerry in the last Presidential election," he added. "It's an island, but that means it's also a place where the community can't take its music, culture, or politics for granted. Austin is deep in the middle of a very Red state."
Still, he feels that the college town atmosphere and the vibe in a place where life is calmer is the right place for him to be. While American Analog Set has toured Europe and played in assorted venues in Southeast Asia, Kenny maintains that their intention was never to make it super big. They always liked to play the smaller venues and have a more intimate relationship with their audience.
"We once played to like 2,000 people at a venue in Taipei, and that was fun," said Kenny. "But we really feel more in tune with who we are as musicians and what our music is all about when we're in small clubs. I prefer small venues that hold like three or four hundred."
Soon various band members will be progressing toward other projects in graphic design, publishing short stories, and more graduate work. Kenny will be spearheading a new record that captures previously unreleased American Analog Set material. "Not everything made it on every record," said Kenny. "There was a lot of cutting room floor stuff. I'll be working on a compilation of that and hope it can be released soon."
While numerous bands break up due to irreconcilable differences, American Analog Set has faced no such tensions. The band decided as a whole that taking this course of action would be best for everyone in the long run.
"This isn't a break up caused by anger or a lack of record sales. We all like each other. We're really happy with what American Analog Set has been. We love these songs and this music. While we're not going to tour like we have been and we are moving on, trust me, we're not going to disappear," said Kenny.
American Analog Set has had a great run, and creative folks such as them won't be quiet for long. Kenny and the rest are sure to resurface in music and other arts for a long time to come.
what do you think?
