ten with havergal | april 2004

The musical outlet havergal is / was somewhat of a musical mystery to me for the past three years. Their impressive debut cd, Lungs for the Race, was brought to my attention in 2001 - and it left me searching for the pieces that led up to and would follow it's release. What I did manage to find in my early quest was that havergal is primarily the outlet for multi-instrumentalist & Texas native Ryan Murphy, who released havergal's earliest material via his partner label Western Vinyl. As the highly anticipated follow-up, Elettricita (May 2004, Secretly Canadian), prepares to enliven fans of Lungs.. unique vocals and electronic melodies - we got a few of our questions directly answered by Ryan himself.

+ Your 2001 press release for Lungs for the Race stated you were an Architect - is that still the main source of financial stability?

yes. I asked the new press release to drop any of that information, because I don't feel that it has anything to do with my music life. Architecture is an art for very few people, the rest of us just pollute the suburban landscape. I am more and more upset with the profession everyday. I heard Brad Pitt is working with Frank Gehry .... see what I am talking about.

+ What's been keeping you busy the past three years, since Lungs release?

I moved to San Francisco just before the release of 'Lungs for the Race' and once there I disconnected from recording all together. I was wrapped up in living a normal life, nothing all that exciting. I needed a break after the first full-length, it said much of what I wanted to say at the time. With all the distractions of a new home, I lost the discipline needed to focus on new songs. That is one large reason that I packed my stuff and came back to Dallas.

+ Did you tour much for the last record, and do you plan on touring to support Elettricta?

I did not play any shows in support of 'Lungs for the Race' and I have no plans for playing any shows in support of 'Elettricita'. I'm not opposed to playing songs live, but on my own it is hard to perform the songs the way I want ... it's more a matter of finding some people I am confident in who are willing to help. Overall I have very mixed feelings about live performances. Usually a live show is nothing more than an approximation of recorded material. If I were to play live, I would want to consider it as its own thing and approach it accordingly.

+ Which came first - havergal or western vinyl?

The label was started to release our own (Brian Sampson and myself) records. I have since resigned from the label for the most part. I still help on occasion, but the majority (95% or more) of the work is handled by Brian. Spending years not focusing on any of my own music, I was finding it impossible to put much effort into someone elses.

+ Are there any plans to re-release your earlier work like the 'Crowd' 7" and 'How I Do' 7"?

Not that I know of. I think those might be a bit hard for some people to swallow.

+ The jumbled horn artwork for the new album - any particular influence or reference?

Hard to say, perhaps the illustrations from children's books or some of the cut and paste style graphic artists of the 60's & 70's, like Quentin Fiore. I have heard people make parallels between the horns and the music, but that was not really intentional. I wanted the packaging to be all hand-drawn and hand-written, perhaps as an analog to my recording which has become more digital. Originally, I drew them as a separate project, but as the recording progressed they seemed appropriate. The last record seemed so somber, and I wanted this one to lift some of that weight up.

+ 'Slugs in the Sun' hits on some pretty personal subject matter ("I miss my friends and my family / all at home where I'd rather be") - does this song represent the relocation (' to the west coast ' from the press release) or was it written earlier?

Yes. That song is fairly transparent, but also sarcastic. It is surely the darkest on the record, but many of the lines from that song were comical to me. The song is about relocating, and I fear some people could read into it as shit on San Fran, it is not.

+ What music have you've been listening to? Any releases in 2004 you've been looking forward to hearing?

Listening to: Yma Sumac, Dirty Projectors 'Glad Fact', Charlemagne Palestine 'Strumming Music', Cass McCombs. In fall of 2004 (fingers crossed) everyone will be crapping their pants over Dirty Projectors 'Getty Address' .... trust me.

+ Texas! Any insight on how you plan to vote this year?

DEMOCRATIC: of course Texas is lost already...

+ What makes you happy?

friends and family, finishing a record, and alcohol (usually).

havergal
Elettricita
( Secretly Canadian ) 2004

" I can hear the critters crawl, but I can't be lost at all / until my last breath leaves me "

In 2001, I stumble across a review of an album entitled Lungs for the Race. This review was in a magazine I have quite a bit of faith in - The Big Takeover. This particular piece was describing to me a band that mixed the vocals of Modest Mouse, the loneliness of Arab Strap and the guitar work of Nick Drake.

This sounded like a winner on 3 counts of music I adored.

That weekend I ordered Lungs for the Race. Let me jump to the goodness and say I have played that particular volume of songs and included tracks to more mixtapes, it makes the remainder of my collection quite jealous. Friends & lovers have heard it and completely fallen for it.

Sample lyric from the title track: "If I stop writing my fingers are broken" .. ..

It has been over 3 years. I feared the worst. That moment of fear when you realize that most good things will come to an end, or worst, you discover a band that could be your new favorite - but they broke up 2 months prior to your discovery. Maybe it was just a case of broken fingers. I hear it was a minor relocation. What you need to know is Havergal is back - and Ryan Murphy & friends have delivered another stimulating album of digital textures, clicks and audible frequencies. Also aboard is a haunting piano (most notably 'the last wayfarer', the closing track that is mostly ivory-led ) that cleverly weaves through nearly each of Elettricita's ten spectacular compositions.

Sneaking somewhere in between the soundscapes of her space holiday & pinback (see: 'new innocent tyro allegory') with the vocal deliveries of, again, Isaac Brock (less the forced Modest Mouse but a more lethargic Ugly Casanova) and Nick Quagliara (of Panoply Academy) - this is an album to lose yourself with. Either by hitching, stealing or running your way out to a land of unknowns - Elettricita should be your navigational force. By a large margin - one of the best releases of 2004. Thanks.

" some-where on the moon, comforts gonna come with age "

+ k 04.20.04