Portland-based A Weather released a new album called Everyday Balloons earlier this March. The latest record is a hushed-voiced gem, but I’ll leave my in-depth thoughts for an upcoming album review. Until then, satiate your A Weather appetite with the following interview. Frontman Aaron Gerber was kind enough to field my highly disjointed questions about the latest record, understated moments, and stuffed animals.
IndieMuse: How do you think the overall sound of Everyday Balloons builds on the sound of your previous record Cove?
Aaron Gerber: I’d say that Everyday Balloons pushes the dynamics a bit more than Cove does. The focus is more on the electric guitars whereas with Cove the acoustic played a more dominant role. There are more cacophonous elements to Everyday Balloons (our guitar player, Aaron Krenkel, uses the word “raucous” which I think is fitting). There is also maybe more playfulness with the arrangements and overall more layering of overdubs. But paradoxically I feel like Everyday Balloons also has a more direct live sound to it. We wanted to use as much of the natural room tone as we could when recording.
IM:Â A Weather lyrics take the time to appreciate the understated moments of day-to-day life, like in “Third of Life” when you say “Take a breath and brush it off / Brush your teeth and sort your socks.” I’m wondering if your lyrical attention to small but beautiful everyday moments explains the album’s title, Everyday Balloons i.e. admiring the little moments that often go by unnoticed but are kind of remarkable for all their quietness.
AG: It’s important for me to ground my writing in the concrete world. I’m trying to give the listeners those little moments you mention as means of getting their bearings, little recognizable elements one can grasp among the weirder or more abstract stuff. I don’t want to create a narrative or a confessional, but I do like the sense that there is something real going on, even if you can’t be certain exactly what it is. For me the title Everyday Balloons has multiple meanings (the more I sit with it the more it continues to change), and the interpretation you describe so nicely can definitely be one of those meanings. I would never want to create one way of orienting the listener towards our music or my lyrics, or say that there is one over-arching theme to the record.
IM:Â What are some of your favourite everyday, understated moments?
Hmm. I take walks to the grocery store. I enjoy petting cats that I meet around my neighborhood. Sarah [female vocalist in A Weather] and I love going to Sauvie’s Island (a bit of farmland on the outskirts of Portland) during the fall. Cooking is a big hobby of mine.
Interview continued after the jump…
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/1365399[/vimeo]
Cove (2008):
(mp3)Â A Weather – Shirley Road Shirley
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Interview continued after the jump…
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