twi-ny talks

TWI-NY TALK: LEIMAY (XIMENA GARNICA AND SHIGE MORIYA)

Ximena Garnica reflects on the return of FLOATING POINT WAVES to HERE (photo by Piotr Redliński)

FLOATING POINT WAVES
HERE
145 Sixth Ave. at Dominick St.
April 10-14, 8:30, $20
212-647-0202
www.here.org

Artistic directors of LEIMAY, CAVE, and the New York Butoh Festival, dancer-choreographer Ximena Garnica and video installation artist Shige Moriya collaborate on works that beautifully integrate sound, movement, and image. In such pieces as Furnace, Trace of Purple Sadness, and Becoming, they’ve created immersive, meditative environments that subtly dazzle the mind. They’re currently in the midst of a two-week run of Floating Point Waves, an evening-length show they first presented in January 2011 at HERE’s Culturemart festival as part of the downtown institution’s Artist Residency Program. In between working on Floating Point Waves and preparing for the inaugural SOAK Festival, which begins April 25, they answered some questions for our latest twi-ny talk.

twi-ny: We saw Floating Point Waves when it was presented as a work-in-progress at HERE’s Culturemart festival last year. How has it evolved since then?

LEIMAY: The Floating Point Waves process has been a bit like the formation of those things inside a limestone cave called stalagmites. That kind of formation rises from the floor of a limestone cave due to the dripping of mineralized solutions over long periods of time. Last year the piece itself needed more time for the dripping to carve new forms and uncover new colors. Last year we had found new elements, such as two new kinetic systems — the point sculpture and the tulle tubes — but had not fully integrated them to the level of the other two (pool & string sculpture). The pool and the string sculpture had been worked longer. In the creative process and especially in Floating Point Waves, time is very important. There is something about cooking on a small flame, no?

twi-ny: Indeed. The two of you have been collaborating now as LEIMAY for many years. What is the best thing about working together?

LEIMAY: We were born in very different places, Japan [Moriya] and Colombia [Garnica]. We speak very different languages and communicate in a third language. We were educated very differently, and growing up we studied different things, but somehow we share similar values. So the best thing is when through the work we make together, despite all our differences, somehow we can connect and find the essence of whatever it is we are creating. This might sound vague, but think about those so called “aha moments”; if you have them alone it is great, but when you have them together it is beyond words! However, sometimes those “aha moments” don’t come and one of us is stuck but the other can keep going — that is great too; there is some generosity involved and lots of love.

twi-ny: What is the worst thing about working together?

LEIMAY: When we are totally disagreeing about something and the more we talk the more we disagree but then suddenly we realize that we actually agree but our English is so off that it all seems like a disagreement . . . but in fact it was a lost-in-translation moment. It is awful.

twi-ny: Much of what you do is rooted in the butoh discipline. What is the most misunderstood aspect of butoh?

LEIMAY: Well, we like to say that our work ranges from photography to video art, art installations, interdisciplinary performances, and training projects. And although it is true that Ximena has been training with butoh artists and masters for the past twelve years, our performances and training projects are rooted in the body. What is really at stake is the body. Our contact with butoh has opened our mind to thinking about and questioning the meaning of the dancing body and its possible relationships with space and time.

For audiences, perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of butoh is the expectation of white body-painted people moving slow with grotesque faces and a bit of drooling. For performers, perhaps the most misunderstood aspects are 1.) the mystification of master teachers and of butoh itself and 2.) the view of butoh as a codified form.

FLOATING POINT WAVES is another subtly dazzling collaboration between Ximena Garnica and Shige Moirya (photo by Piotr Redliński)

twi-ny: You’ve been organizing the New York Butoh Festival since 2003, and this year you’re staging the first SOAK Festival. What can people expect to see in this new festival?

LEIMAY: Actually, the SOAK Festival is taking over the New York Butoh Festival. In the spirit of the interdisciplinary nature of our creations and of the ecology from which our work sprouts, we are launching the first annual SOAK Festival. People can expect nothing. Yes, it is true: We want people to come without expectation. They are invited to our home to meet our friends. We have a good sense for assembling acts and we have an eclectic group of friends and colleagues and, most importantly, we want to share their work with those who make it out to Williamsburg.

This year we will have a deluge of acts and workshops from April 25 to May 13. Opening the festival are an experimental guitarist from Sicily, Ninni Morgia, and his partner, vocalist Silvia Kastel. Next is an unplugged version of a collaboration between butoh legend Ko Murobushi and San Francisco’s Shinichi Iova-Koga of inkBoat. The festival will continue with work from CAVE resident artists such as Russian theater innovator and international master teacher Polina Klimovitskaya and choreographer Rachel Cohen. Former Fulbright Fellow and Movement Research resident Ben Spatz and his theater partner Maximilian Balduzzi are also among those performing. The SOAK Festival workshops are equally eclectic, such as a drawing mural narrative workshop by Tijuana-born, Brooklyn-based draftsman artist Hugo Crosthwaite, an augmented reality lecture/demonstration by NYU teacher and activist Mark Skwarek, a sonoric voice workshop by Uruguayan vocal virtuoso Sabrina Lastman, as well as our own workshop led by Ximena on our training and performance technique called Ludus.

It seems to us like we all see life and performances and things with our own frame. Through our work and the production of the SOAK Festival we challenge ourselves and our audiences to make these frames as malleable as possible so we can expand our understanding of the body and our experience and understanding of daily life. Consequently, we enlarge the realms of perception and creation and discover the possibilities for interaction therein. We hope all of you reading this will make it out to CAVE for the first SOAK Festival.

TWI-NY TALK: LEELA CORMAN

Tuesday, April 3, WORD, 126 Franklin St., free (advance RSVP requested), 718-383-0096, 7:00
Thursday, April 5, Tenement Museum, 103 Orchard St., free (advance RSVP requested), 212-982-8420, 6:30
Saturday, April 28, and Sunday, April 29, MoCCA Festival, 69th Regiment Armory, 68 Lexington Ave., times TBA

Illustrator and cartoonist Leela Corman makes her graphic novel debut with Unterzakhn (Schocken, April 3, $24.95), a dramatic tale of twin sisters coming-of-age on the Lower East Side in the early twentieth century. Young Esther Feinberg gets a job working for a burly woman who operates a burlesque theater and a brothel, while Fanya starts helping out an elegant female obstetrician who also performs illegal abortions. The gripping family drama takes on an added poignancy knowing that Corman and her husband, cartoonist Tom Hart (How to Say Everything), recently suffered a horrific tragic loss, shortly after moving from New York City to Gainesville, Florida. (Hart writes about it here.) Corman will be at WORD in Brooklyn on April 3 for the official launch of Unterzakhn, and she will follow that up with a Tenement Talk at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum on April 5. She will also be signing copies of the book at the MoCCA Festival, taking place April 28-29 at the 69th Regiment Armory. We recently discussed graphic novels, a woman’s right to choose, and belly dancing with Corman.

twi-ny: Unterzakhn is reminiscent of such other graphic novels as Persepolis and Fun Home, yet while both of those were deeply personal memoirs, your book is fiction (but feels like a family memoir). Are there personal memories that can be found in Unterzakhn that you’re willing to share here? Or are the stories and characters a complete fiction?

Leela Corman: The books you mention are works of urgent personal and historical memoir. They are in a different genre. I’m a fiction writer. I think it does fictional comics a disservice to constantly refer back to autobiography, and I wonder why people always seem to expect comics to be autobiographical now. I don’t think it’s a good thing, though I love both books you mentioned, so this is not to take away from those works. Fictional storytelling pulls from all areas of a writer’s life, including (and especially) the imagination. No, there are no significant, specific personal memories in Unterzakhn. Some characters are inspired by people I’ve known, but that would be about 5-10% “real person” and 90-95% fictional character — or more. There’s an alchemical process when creating fiction. Memoir is a different art form, with its own processes. I’m worried that serious fiction in comics is being undervalued, and that anything autobiographical is getting attention, whether it’s interesting or not.

As I said above, I’m not sure that the focus on autobiography is always such a good thing for comics. There are a few places where it works well: 1) When learning to write and draw comics; this would be student work, and is not always for public consumption. 2) When someone REALLY has something to say, and can tie their personal experience to something important happening in the world — Fun Home, MAUS, Persepolis. 3) When someone can turn their personal observations into something interesting for the rest of us, and can avoid solipsism. Great examples of this are Vanessa Davis, who is hilarious and universal, and John Porcellino, who is a poet of observation. 4) If you’re Lynda Barry. She can do anything.

Belly dancer and cartoonist Leela Corman returns to her native New York to talk about her new book, UNTERZAKHN

twi-ny: Unterzakhn comes along at a critical moment in American society, when abortion clinics and organizations such as Planned Parenthood are coming under more fire than ever in the political arena. Did that specifically influence the creation of the book? How do you feel about what’s going on in the country regarding a woman’s right to choose what to do with her body?

Leela Corman: I initially started this project in 2003, and that was my explicit goal, to explore the consequences of not having a choice. If you are a woman in this society, these rights have always been threatened, and this conflict has always been hot. There’s very little difference to me between the discourse in 2012, and the discourse in the ’80s and ’90s, when I was growing up. I’ll wager that every woman my age has older relatives who had to have illegal abortions, unwanted pregnancies, or both. There is absolutely NO excuse for anyone in the public sphere, especially men, to have any say whatsoever in what women do with their bodies. My feelings can be summed up by a photo I saw recently of a woman about my mom’s age holding a sign that read, “I cannot BELIEVE I still have to protest this shit.”

The story eventually moved away from this subject matter, but it is clearly part of the base of the book. I’m glad it’s visible, beneath the tulle and the hair pomade. These issues may be used as political chess pieces by men, but for women, they’re the urgent stuff of our daily lives. We owe much more than we realize to the women who fought not only for our right to a safe abortion (because women will have them, legal or not) but for our right to plan and control how many children we have. We shouldn’t ever take it for granted. Whatever freedoms any of us have, in general, someone else fought and died for them.

By the way, they’re women’s health care clinics, for the most part, not simply “abortion clinics.” Reducing women’s health care centers to “abortion clinics” is inaccurate. Planned Parenthood offers prenatal care for women who want to be pregnant, as well as general women’s health care. When I was in college, they were the only clinic I could afford to go to. I wouldn’t have had any medical care if not for them. The Planned Parenthood clinic I regularly went to for my general medical care was the one that that turd from New Hampshire attacked, about a week after one of my appointments, in fact. He killed the receptionist, and possibly more people, I don’t remember every detail. [Ed note: On December 30, 1994, John Salvi killed receptionist Shannon Lowney in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Brookline, Massachusetts.]

twi-ny: A lot of your illustration work has dealt with women’s undergarments, including Underneath It All, and Unterzakhn translates as “Underthings.” What draws that subject to you?

Leela Corman: Underneath It All was a commission. I’m an illustrator. I work on assignment and can’t control what people think my style is appropriate for. I do what people pay me to, in that realm of my life.

twi-ny: You’re also a professional belly dancer. How did you get into that?

Leela Corman: Quite accidentally. I went to a Moroccan restaurant on Atlantic Avenue that no longer exists, I think, and was pulled up to dance by the house dancer. I just imitated her, and afterwards I thought, hmm, This is fun, maybe I’ll take a class. When I got laid off from my job at Thirteen, I had time, so I signed up for classes at the Greenpoint Y, across the street from my house. The teacher happened to be Ranya Renee, who coincidentally happened to be the perfect teacher for me; she became my mentor, and really turned me into a dancer. I didn’t expect to fall in love with classical Arabic music, and with Egyptian dance in particular, but I did, and I turned out to have a natural ability to do it.

TWI-NY TALK: DAVID GEDGE OF THE WEDDING PRESENT

David Gedge cuts loose at the Seaport in August 2010 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

More than a quarter-century ago, the Wedding Present anchored NME’s C86 cassette, which helped introduce the world to such British indie bands as Primal Scream and the Mighty Lemon Drops. The Wedding Present’s lineup has changed often over the years, but there has been one constant throughout: lead vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter David Gedge. In August 2010, the Wedding Present played a blistering free concert at the South Street Seaport, including a full performance of their 1989 record, Bizarro. The foursome is back in New York this week for two shows that will feature their 1991 Steve Albini–produced disc, Seamonsters, as well as tunes from their eighth studio album, the exceptional Valentina (Scopitones, March 20, 2012). The brand-new record consists of exquisite, mature, bittersweet songs of love and heartbreak, of relationships gone seriously wrong. Powered by Pepe le Moko’s loping bass, Charles Layton’s furious drumming, and Gedge and Graeme Ramsay’s guitars, the quartet pounds out the group’s trademark sound of continually changing styles and tempos, moving from punk to pop to lounge to electronic noise, sometimes within the same song.

“So now you want to apologize / Well, that comes as no surprise / ’cause I can read you / and I don’t need you,” Gedge sings with brutal honesty on “You’re Dead,” which opens the new album. “This time you went too far / I know exactly what you are / I understand you / and I can’t stand you / But how come during times like this / I still want your touch and I want your kiss / It’s insane and I can’t explain why / You’re not the one for me although / I just can’t seem to let you go,” he continues. But on the next song, “You Jane,” he spits out, “I hope you find what you’re looking for / Do you even know what that is anymore? / I hope he’s really the one who / will make all your dreams come true / But if by some unexpected chance / this doesn’t turn out to be your fairy-tale romance / Just don’t come crying to me.” We corresponded with Gedge just as the Wedding Present, who come to the Bell House on March 21 and (le) poisson rouge on March 22, was preparing for a series of shows at Austin’s SXSW festival.

twi-ny: In 2010 you played Bizarro in New York City, and now you’ll be tackling Seamonsters. What do you think of this relatively recent trend of playing older, complete albums?

David Gedge: I must admit that I wasn’t particularly fond of the idea when it was first suggested to me, but now I’m a complete convert. I think I felt that, as an artist, I should be looking forward, not back, but it really is such an interesting experience to revisit something you’ve done a while ago. It’s a brilliant opportunity for reevaluation and reinterpretation. So I think I’ve now come to the conclusion that what we’ve done in the past is just as valid as what we’re doing today. Seamonsters, especially, works very well live. It’s such an intense experience.

twi-ny: Do you envision revisiting any other earlier records in the future?

David Gedge: Whether we’ll do more, I don’t know . . . I’m not a big planner. Planning’s for architects, not rock musicians!

twi-ny: How has the Wedding Present managed to be among the only two post-Smiths, C86 bands (besides Primal Scream) that’s still around and successful?

David Gedge: Hopefully it’s because we’re good at what we do! We have attained a certain standard and try not to let people, or ourselves, down; I’m very conscious of not releasing weak material. But also I’ve tried to establish a relationship with our fans. I’m not here just to sell them products. I want people to have a lasting relationship with us . . . and I hope that doesn’t sound like marketing-speak!

twi-ny: You’re currently in the midst of playing a series of shows at SXSW. What is that experience like?
 
David Gedge: We’re not there yet . . . courtesy of United Airlines! Our early-morning flight to Austin is now a late-night flight to San Antonio! We have a pretty hectic schedule ahead of us because a lot of people wanted us to play at their showcases or parties. We are doing so many we had to turn some down. So it’s going to be pretty crazy.

twi-ny: Valentina is a phenomenal-sounding album. With the digital revolution, have you changed your approach to songwriting and recording?

David Gedge: Well, recording’s definitely a bit easier now with portable recording devices in the rehearsal room and sending files from studio to studio and stuff, but most of our music is still recorded on old-fashioned analogue tape, anyway. And it definitely hasn’t changed the songwriting process. That’s still just me with a pen, paper, guitar, and solitude. Oh, and a rhyming dictionary.

TWI-NY TALK: FRANÇOIS PAYARD ON MACARON DAY

Master chef François Payard is once again spearheading Macaron Day in New York City

MACARON DAY 2012
Multiple locations
Tuesday, March 20, one free macaron per person at each location
www.macarondaynyc.com

Held in conjunction with Jour du Macaron in Paris, which is now in its seventh year, the third annual Macaron Day in New York City celebrates all things macaron, the meringue-based delicacy that dates back to Catherine de’Medici’s wedding in 1533. Not to be confused with the glutinous mass of stickiness known as macaroons that come out every Passover, macarons are small, round, delicate, and colorful dessert cookies that feature crisp, airy almond flour, egg, and sugar shells surrounding such ganache flavors as chocolate, vanilla, pistachio, lemon, almond, salted caramel, coconut, and coffee as well as red velvet, Nutella, yuzu, s’more, tahini sesame, pumpkin spice latte, dark chocolate with cocoa nibs, dulce de leche, candied bacon with maple cream cheese, smoked salmon with dill and fruit coulis, prune Armagnac orange, cinnamon pistachio with Morello cherries, foie gras with fig and speck, and other concoctions. High-quality macarons generally run between $2.25 and $2.75 apiece, although you can find good ones for $1.50 as well as extraordinary larger and denser ones for as much as $6 (at La Maison du Chocolat).

New York’s Macaron Day is the brainchild of award-winning Nice-born third-generation pastry chef François Payard, who operated his own highly acclaimed restaurant on Lexington Ave. for twelve years and now has a pair of more casual FPB (François Payard Bakery) spots, one on West Houston St., the other on Murray St. Fifteen patisseries, including FPB, are participating in Macaron Day this year. Start by visiting any one of them, tell them you are there for Macaron Day, and receive one free macaron, a punch card, and a sticker (no punch card or sticker at Macaron Café). Visit the others to sample more free macarons and collect stickers for the card (one macaron and sticker per location). Once filled with twelve different stickers, the card is good for a free six-piece gift box of Payard macarons at FPB. Chef Payard recently shared with us what makes macarons so special.

twi-ny: What is the single most important element in creating the perfect macaron?

François Payard:The perfect macaron should be crunchy yet be soft in the center. The ganache filling should be the dominant flavor. The almond flavor in the shell also needs to come out. It is very important to use a high-quality almond flour so the almond flavor comes through in the macaron shell.

twi-ny: What’s the easiest way to make a lousy one?

François Payard:The easiest way to make a bad macaron is to have a chewy shell or an overcooked shell that dries out the macaron.

twi-ny: Over the last few years, New York City has gone cupcake crazy, there’s a building donut fanaticism, and now macarons have entered the dessert frenzy. Where do you see macarons fitting in this triumvirate? Do you think the growing love affair with macarons will be a long-lasting one or a fad?

François Payard: I think macarons will be long lasting. When people are tired of the sweet macarons, they can discover how versatile they really are. You can have sweet or savory macarons. Many pastry chefs are now making savory ones. Macarons will be long lasting because they are bite size and people don’t feel as guilty eating one compared to a large cupcake or donut. You can eat a few and not feel as guilty.

Macarons are made fresh daily at such bakeries as Mille-feuille in the Village (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

twi-ny: What is the correct serving size for macarons? While it would be possible to sit down and eat five or six (or more) at a time, that could get rather expensive.

François Payard: I think for everyone two or three is enough. Only if you want to taste and compare should you try more, but only eat half of each. Two macarons are perfect along with a cup of coffee or afternoon tea instead of a pastry.

twi-ny: Is there a competition between patisseries such as FPB and the many dessert trucks that are now hitting the streets of the city?

François Payard: I think New York is big enough for everyone. People need to be open-minded. Food trucks cannot be in the same place every day, so it is not as steady a business.

twi-ny: Do you think the food trucks are good or bad for business in general?

François Payard: The trucks encourage creativity among pastry chefs. They allow people who are starting out to test the market.

More than a dozen New York City bakeries are participating in Macaron Day, including both locations of François Payard Bakery, one on West Houston and the other on Murray, as well as at Bisousciao on Stanton, Bosie Tea Parlor on Morton, Bouchon Bakery in Rockefeller Plaza and the Time Warner Center, Butterfield Market on Lexington, Cannelle Patisserie in Queens, Chantilly Patisserie in Bronxville, Desserts by Michael Allen at the Fresh Fanatic Organic Market on Park, Dominique Ansel Bakery on Spring, Épicerie Boulud on Broadway, FC Chocolate Bar at the Plaza, La Maison du Chocolat at Rock Center and on Madison Ave. and Wall St., Macaron Café on West 36th St. and on Madison Ave., Macaron Parlour on St. Marks, Mad-Mac at Bernardaud on Park, and Mille-Feuille Bakery and Café on La Guardia Pl., with ten to fifteen percent of macaron sales going to City Harvest.

GEOFF DYER ON TARKOVSKY, CINEMA, AND LIFE: THE MIRROR

Geoff Dyer will discuss his obsession with Andrei Tarkovsky in a special program at the Museum of the Moving Image that includes a screening of the Russian master’s MIRROR

SEE IT BIG! THE MIRROR (ZERKALO) (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Sunday, March 11, free with museum admission, 3:00 & 6:00
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
www.geoffdyer.com

“Words can’t really express a person’s emotions. They’re too inert.” So says Andrei Tarkovsky’s dream-filled, surreal masterpiece The Mirror, which features long scenes with little or no dialogue. Tarkovsky turns the mirror on himself and his childhood to tell the fragmented and disjointed story of WWII-era Russia through his own personal experiences with his family. Tarkovsky was obsessed with film as art, and this nonlinear film is his poetic masterpiece; he even includes his father’s poems read over shots that are crafted as if paintings. Many of the actors play several roles; have fun trying to figure out who is who and what exactly is going on at any one moment. The Mirror is screening on March 11 at 6:00 at the Museum of the Moving Image as part of the special program “Geoff Dyer on Tarkovsky, Cinema, and Life” and the ongoing “See It Big!” series and will be introduced by award-winning author Dyer, whose latest nonfiction tome is Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room (Pantheon, February 21, $24), an obsessively detailed examination of Tarkovsky’s Stalker in which he makes it very clear that the Russian filmmaker’s work must be seen on the big screen. At 3:00, Dyer will participate in a conversation with the museum’s chief curator, David Schwartz. For more on Dyer and his other local appearances, check out our twi-ny talk with him, which you can find here.

TWI-NY TALK: CANDIDATE

Brooklyn-based Candidate will be celebrating Valentine’s Day at Mercury Lounge

Tuesday, February 14, Mercury Lounge, $10, 9:30
Monday, February 27, Spike Hill, free, 8:00
www.candidatesound.com

Brooklyn-based trio Candidate embraces four decades of American and British rock and roll and wraps it up in a sweet little twenty-first-century indie package. Guitarists Laurence Adams and Cedric Sparkman, who hail from Hazard, Kentucky, bonded over a Smiths album and eventually went on to form the Poor Richards. They soon added Cincinnati native Jason Matuskiewicz, who learned the bass for their new trio, Varsovia. The band changed its name to Candidate and played its first show ever in their original hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, in November 2010, followed seven months later by the release of its debut disc, A New Life, a delightful collection of pop hooks that includes such infectious songs as “I’d Come Running” and “Never Get Enough.”

Not to be confused with the UK band of the same name, Candidate then moved to Brooklyn, where it is currently putting the finishing touches on its sophomore effort, which features a dramatic leap forward on such powerful tunes as “April Again,” “Brutal,” and the horn-laden “NYC or Bust,” on which Sparkman declares, “One day I will die / and wish I’d given it a try / I will not just survive / I will thrive / So as fast as I can run / You will see me, here I come.” Hot on the heels of its February 3 appearance at the Cameo Gallery, Candidate is coming to Mercury Lounge on Valentine’s Day, playing with Brother Reverend, followed by a free gig at Spike Hill on February 27 with I Anthem, American Restless, and the Matt Albeck Group. Matuskiewicz, who handles much of the band’s blogging, recently discussed Brooklyn, bromance, earboners, and more in our latest twi-ny talk.

twi-ny: You recently moved from Lexington, Kentucky, to Brooklyn. How is the Borough of Kings treating you?

Candidate: We love it!!! Laurence and I live on the outskirts, near the Wastes, at the border of Midgar and Megaton. So, we get to lug our gear around after forever-long train rides on the Killer L, hoping its robot overlords are not particularly displeased with humanity that day — if its running at all. Our building was billed as containing “artist’s lofts,” but they forgot to append “with forever leaking ceilings” to their description of these fine abodes. And yet, with all that being true, it is still incredible to be here. We’ve met a lot of really great people, ridiculously talented musicians, and gotten a drummer [Chris Infusino] who is a real live music professional.

twi-ny: You played your second New York City gig ever at Cameo Gallery in Brooklyn on February 3 as part of Amy Grimm’s Whatever Blog Party. How did that come about?

Candidate: Superproducer (and genius) Justin Craig played a DJ set with his cohort, Jesse Elliott, both of rock supergroup These United States, while we were recording our new album. He introduced us to Amy at the show. After that we followed up with her with what I am sure was a super-professional introduction that probably didn’t contain any quotes along the lines of “if after listening to this you wonder how it is possible to pee on yourself and have a boner at the same time, please know that it is because the source of these jams is real-life heartbreak, by far the greatest source of earboners in the history of the world.”

Candidate will break out their new songs at a pair of upcoming local shows

twi-ny: Did the show live up to that hard-to-top introduction?

Candidate: The show was incredible. Big shout-out to the Yoni Gordon Orchestra, Elliot and the Ghost, and Howth, all of whom put on a great show.

Our new album is much more lush in terms of production than the first one, so for the live setting the new songs were stripped down and much more raw than their recorded counterparts. I’m told by the aforementioned genius, Justin Craig, that the crowd was feeling us, but I felt as if there was some confusion in the audience. Here is my impression of their internal monologue: “Uhm. Why are these dudes throwing their instruments around, and why is their singer running around like a crazed maniac, and what are these ‘feelings’ and these ‘emotions’ they seem to exude? Why, I don’t think these songs are winking at me at all!!! Swoon.” So, we were a little bit more sloppy than normal, but full of energy.

twi-ny: As you mentioned, your upcoming record is indeed more lush, with a bigger, broader sound than A New Life. Craig played on the previous album, but now he’s behind the boards. What were the recording sessions like?

Candidate: Despite being behind the boards, Justin played more parts on the new record than the last one. The sessions were great. We recorded the album at Translator Audio in Park Slope. It was engineered by Andrew Gerhan, who also plays in the Lupine Chorale Society, with Adam Arcuragi — who also happens to be pretty great. The people at Translator were very helpful. So, I want to thank them for that.

As you can tell from the previous answer, I have mixed feelings about Mr. Craig’s abilities. I jest. He’s amazing. The sessions followed a pretty traditional method of recording. Drums first, then bass, then guitar, keyboard, found sounds, and vocal overdubs from my dog, Lu-Lu. And of course, no song is complete until something is pitch shifted. Justin brought a lot of ideas to the songs. They were pretty uniformly great ideas. Beware: Trite musical comparison ahead. I would liken Justin’s role to that of Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois’s role in the production of U2 albums. He had a very large part in shaping the sound of the album.

Allow me to digress a bit. With the last one, we were very purposefully 100% independent, and not at all self-righteous about it. Just kidding; we were a tiny bit self-righteous about it. We were enamored with the idea that, given the reach of the internet and what have you, it is viable to be totally independent and do everything yourself. It isn’t. What you wind up doing is creating an organizational structure that mimics a label, which you pay for out of pocket, or you neglect integral functions because you just don’t have enough time to do everything. For instance, Laurence and I have been planning on doing a self-administered college radio campaign for a while. There is, however, no way for us to update our list of program directors that will not take about twenty hours. Seriously. So, we’re probably more proud than we should be with what we’ve managed to do with no publicist, no label, nothing but ourselves. But we’re ready to move on from that. We’ve recently signed on some licensing reps, so if we can get some of that sweet, sweet corporate cash, we’ll put that to some good, tirelessly self-promotional enterprise. We’ve also been talking to some labels about the album a bit. Plus, we’ve sent off some exemplar tracks to labels that still accept unsolicited demos. (Labels that still do this, thank you for not being stuck-up douches.) So, we’ll see what happens. I’m hoping sooner than later, but I am prepared to exercise a novel virtue — patience.

twi-ny: You’ll be at Mercury Lounge on Valentine’s Day, promising “an evening of romance and bromance.” Got anything special planned for that?

Candidate: Anytime the fellas in Candidate get together, there is more than enough bromance to go around. The excellent folks in Brother Reverend are giving away a special limited edition collector’s item in the form a fantastic T-shirt to commemorate the occasion. Plus, our first album, A New Life, is “pay what you want” on Bandcamp until after the show — meaning that it is essentially free, if you want it to be. We’re also playing a bunch of the new songs, which is always very exciting.

TWI-NY TALK: DAN EFRAM — BRIAN ENO’S “HERE COME THE WARM JETS” LIVE

Joe’s Pub
425 Lafayette St.
Sunday, January 8, $15, 9:30
212-967-7555
www.joespub.com
www.facebook.com

Brian Eno might be best known today for such ambient albums as Music for Films and Music for Airports and his production work for a diverse range of artists (U2, David Bowie, Talking Heads, Laurie Anderson, Coldplay), but in the 1970s he made a series of seminal records that served as a kind of bridge between glam and prog rock and avant and experimental pop. After three years as a member of Roxy Music, Eno released the solo LPs Here Come the Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain (by Strategy), Another Green World, and Before and After Science, all within a remarkable four-year period. On January 8 at Joe’s Pub, a group of musicians will gather together to pay tribute to Here Come the Warm Jets by doing something that Eno never did: Play every song from the album live. Initiated by recording engineer Rob Christiansen, produced by Dan Efram, and hosted by WNYC’s John Schaefer, the event features an all-star band consisting of Vernon Reid, Travis Morrison, Sohrab Habibion, Paul Duncan, Joan Wasser, Dom Cipolla, and others re-creating Eno’s masterpiece, which was recorded with such guest musicians as Robert Fripp, Chris Spedding, Phil Manzanera, John Whetton, and Andy Mackay. The scorching guitars of “Baby’s on Fire” and “Blank Frank,” the electronic fun of “The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch” and “Driving Me Backwards,” and the sweet harmonies of “Cindy Tells Me” and “Some of Them Are Old” should fill Joe’s Pub with beautiful sounds, but don’t look for important messages in the lyrics, about which Eno, who came up with the words via scatlike nonsense syllables, has said, “Essentially all these songs have no meaning that I invested in them.” In preparation for what should be a great night, we’ve been listening to Here Come the Warm Jets repeatedly, just as we did in our college years, taking us back and lifting us away all over again. Efram, the founder and president of Tractor Beam and an adjunct professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, also has been having a blast with the record, as evidenced by this twi-ny talk.

twi-ny: What kind of personal associations do Here Come the Warm Jets and Brian Eno have for you?

Dan Efram: My first introduction to Eno was through his production work and only then became aware of his ambient compositions — à la Music for Airports and Music for Films. It was only when I started studying audio engineering myself that some of my musician friends turned me on to Here Come the Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain, and Another Green World. Finding out that he had these extremely broad sensibilities was fascinating — with Warm Jets perhaps the most whimsical ear candy that I had come across.

twi-ny: So many amazing musicians played on the original record; how did you come up with the lineup that will be at Joe’s Pub? How closely will they be re-creating HCTWJ?

Dan Efram: Rob Christiansen, the musical director and a terrific, knowledgeable musician and engineer in his own right, has done a great job in trying to analyze the sounds of the original album. He’s taken great pains in order to figure out the sounds on the album, when the band should experiment and when to replicate. This balance is fun to watch!

We chose our lineup with the goal to represent the many different generations of musicians that are hardcore fans of the album and wanted to celebrate this album in the best spirit possible. As a coincidence, we realized that its fortieth anniversary was nearing and that we could help celebrate its legacy by giving fans this unique chance to experience it for themselves in a live setting. We can only hope that those in attendance get as much of a kick out of listening to it live as the musicians will have performing it for them.

twi-ny: Are there other classic albums, either by Eno or other artists, that you might want to tackle next?

Dan Efram: In early 2011, I was fortunate to produce Big Star’s Third/Sister Lovers album live with musical director Chris Stamey, which really introduced me to the idea that some of these wonderful albums could have a life beyond their vinyl grooves, that people really wanted to experience some of these adventurous albums live — if the program was approached with the correct spirit. If all goes well on Sunday, we are hoping to try to perform Here Come the Warm Jets in selected markets in North America and Europe in 2013. With some good fortune, we have a shot.