They will be heroes. They will be our heroes.
From a prolific career in experimental improvisation and noise, Jefferson Pitcher is now revisiting the craft of conventional songs. Our interview delves into his reasons. Read below!
Describe your sound in 3 words
Nostalgic, Brooding, Erudite
Tell us a few things about Cartpushers. What is the story behind it?
The first line on The Bellows (the lp) is: “you and I saw the lights go out,” which envisions a couple watching from afar, as the grid shuts off for good. The couple, along with the rest of humanity, emerge into a new way of being in some liminal, anachronistic, space where tribal groups and communities develop ways of being/exisiting. The entire lp follows a loose narrative with recurring imagery, themes, and melodies. We humans share the role of dominant species with birds, who are both friend and foe. Cartpushers is the third song on the record, and it imagines our proverbial couple falling into life with a bunch of workers under the rule of a nascent king, who grows increasingly nefarious over time. My words have always been rather oblique and abstract, and arguably this is the most obtuse on the record. I’ve long been drawn to the notion in Umberto Eco’s writing about “the open work,” which is a piece of art that has a degree of abstraction, such that the viewer/reader/listener can insert their own identity. I had just finished reading Anthony Doerr’s Cuckoo Cloud Land as I was working on these songs, in which there is a section in some ancient time period with minions loading and pushing carts around, for which I borrowed (stole?). While this may all sound bleak, I don’t see it that way; instead, it is an opportunity for reinvention/recalibration, and the record is full of lush, hopeful sounds.
The song is described as ‘weightless yet grounded.’ What does this duality mean to you?
I’ve spent much time reading and thinking about the Cartesian split, especially with regard to Rene Descartes’ writing about the mind being a non-physical/non-spatial entity. Much of what I do, from a decades long martial arts practice to cycling to long walks in the woods and my daily meditation practice are all attempts to bring the mind and body together. To me, in music, this translates in finding that ineffable sense that something has its feet firmly on the ground, but can feel like mist. I’m not sure there is any simple explanation to how this translates directly to a piece of music, but as a songwriter, I work through various demo versions of songs, and often many different variations exist before I find something that has the right feel. I attempted with the LP, to find this balance between lofty and light and thick and heavy; sometimes achieving that can be as simple as finding the right tone for a guitar overdub or phrasing a vocal line in a specific way. I think it’s more about feel than it is anything mechanical.
You’ve returned to ‘something grand and deeply human’ after years in experimental soundscapes. What prompted this shift? How does it feel to return to conventional song writing after a long period of creating improvisation and noise music?
My drift into improvisation and noise is much easier to explain that my return to song. In short, I had been writing, recording and performing in bands for a solid decade at which point I began to achieve more critical “success.” The end of this period culminated in some offers from top tier labels which I turned down because my wife and I had a three month old son, and their touring demands would have been crushing. I was in graduate school at the time where I was studying and performing with the late Pauline Oliveros. As I walked away from songwriting, my meditation practice became increasingly intertwined with improvisation and I found myself so exhilarated by standing on that cliff edge as an improvisor, that sense the one never knows what is coming next. As the years passed little blips of songs, a verse here, a chorus there, would emerge now and then, but it all felt too distant to grasp. Then the pandemic hit and all of my musical endeavours, a live series that I was co-curating, weekly sessions with my noise duo Shumoto and The Byrde, monthly ‘free jazz’ performances, dried up. My wife and I fled the US with the kids for an old family cottage in Nova Scotia, where we holed up by the sea for 18 months. I had a little two channel audio interface with me, and I began writing songs for the first time in many years, and it felt so deeply good and so right; like a homecoming. It felt familiar and like I had somehow come back to a place where I was supposed to be, having learned so much along the way. I sent a few of the songs to two friends, both of whom urged me to keep going. This record wouldn’t exist were it not fro the two of them, and I am immensely grateful. And now the floodgates are open…it feels so incredibly good to be writing songs again, I don’t really know how I lived without it all of those years.
You’ve had a long and varied career, working with numerous artists and labels. For which moment you are most proud of?
I suppose I’d say the present. I wrote in my bio years ago that while I’ve worked with a number of well known artists, the most meaningful collaborations have been with friends. The longer I make music, the more deeply I come to understand that while the accolades feel wonderful, the process is always what matters most; and being able to say that I made the best and most honest work that I could make. Music making feels more like a part of my meditation practice than it does art-making to me at this point. It is so easy to collapse under the weight of an industry that it so incredibly difficult for artists. I’ve seen so many walk away from music because they’ve not found the critical or commercial success that they were seeking, so in many ways I’m just grateful and proud that making music still resides at the core of my identity. To be more specific, I remain proud of the work I did on Of Great and Mortal Men especially my songs with Rosie Thomas and Denison Witmer, both musicians whose work I adore. Regrettably, that record is mired in contractual issues and only available at Bandcamp (https://jeffersonpitcher.bandcamp.com/album/of-great-and-mortal-men) presently. We’re trying to get the project distributed online, and although it was at one point, the DSP’s took it down and refuse to put it back up without signatures from all of the guest artists. Let’s just say the label has been unresponsive.
Artists and people that have influenced you?
This list could be so, so long…
My greatest musical influences have been a small handful of artists: Christian Kiefer, Pauline Oliveros, Sigur Ros, Smashing Pumpkins, The Smiths, Radiohead, The National, Jawbreaker, Nels Cline, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Rabih Abou-Khalil, REM…
I also draw a good deal from writers and poets, most notably Ben Jahn, Jim Harrison, Seamus Heaney, Pablo Neruda, Ada Limon…and of course my close friends and my wife, Keri Smith. I’ve always found that I’m able to explore new places and ideas easiest around the people who love me because it feels safe, and I find this exploration invaluable.
In which state of mind do you imagine people might listen to your music?
I like to imagine listeners approaching this new record with a certain curiosity and openness of heart. While I think the record can feel brooding and dark in places, overall I find it a big, epic, uplifting collection of songs. It is a musical journey reflective of my own, encompassing a broad range of emotions. The last song on the record, Erendira (written by my friend Christian Kiefer) feels to me like a lost U2 b-side…it’s just this giant, anthemic sing along, something the might have existed on The Joshua Tree. At the end of the song, as the big guitars are collapsing into noise, a delicate melody begins to appear with me humming in a high falsetto. We had to decide in the studio whether we wanted the last chord to resolve to the root which felt happy and hopeful, or end on a darker chord. We went with the root.
Something not many people know about you?
For years, everyone I knew thought that I was a wildly extroverted person. I would stand in some crowded kitchen at a dinner party or in some club after a gig laughing and telling stories. But what they didn’t know was that as much as I enjoyed their company, moments like that were incredibly taxing for me and it would take me days to recover. I find that I refuel and recharge by spending quiet time alone, walking in the woods, reading, or playing guitar at night by candlelight. Most nights, I am in bed with a book before 10:00pm, awake long before the sun comes up. I am, down to my very core, an introvert. I just happen to be good at pretending.
Thank you!
Follow Jefferson Pitcher
Instagram
Follow our Spotify playlist Amplify Eclectic feat. Jefferson Pitcher
Secret Eclectic 