Lightning FayEarthly Frames June 14, 2010
After retiring his decade-long recording project, Your Team Ring, Gabriel Walsh decided to start a new outfit, this time with the ambition of bringing his ethereal psych-pop to the stage. His one-man band, Earthly Frames, debuted in February of this year. Blending pre-recorded samples, live guitar and vocals, and spur-of-the-moment knob-turning, Walsh's performances combine dense soundscapes with pure pop payoff.
Having met in our freshman year of college, Gabe and I have been great friends for close to 20 years. We've played in many bands together, and he engineered and produced the latest record for my band, I Feel Tractor.
This interview was conducted via email.
Lightning Fay: You put Your Team Ring to rest after the masterful In Service of the Villain (Perhaps Transparent Records), which came out in 2004. When you decided to start playing music again, why did you feel the need to start a new project rather than resurrecting YTR? And how would you describe the difference between YTR and Earthly Frames (musically, philosophically or otherwise)?
Gabriel Walsh: I had initially had a very simple, pragmatic answer to this. Your Team Ring was a recording project, while Earthly Frames was capable of playing live shows. But once I got to doing it, I realized there was something different going on. YTR was about concept albums. In the whimsical Homelife there was a linear story. A scientist from the 1920s converts his brownstone into a spacecraft and he blasts off into outer space and other dimensions. In Service of the Villain was more of a thematic concept album about a demiurge-style Creator.
I didn't want to lose this narrative quality, this rock band as artifacts from another world approach. Perhaps it's because I tend to be a bit of a recluse, a loner, that the fantasy and fictions are just filling in for personal interactions. I score full-on INFP on the Myers-Briggs. A classic loser's tale, I'm afraid.
When I thought about playing live, I didn't want to dress up in costume and go theatrical, I thought what are some other ways a band and fiction or concept art could intersect. I think the first release, the devices, will go a long way in terms of spelling out what this could look like for me.
Fay: The "50 custom devices" are mentioned on your site. What are these devices, and how can we get our hands on one?
Walsh: Owners of these devices are in for a wild ride. In addition to five songs, loops and samples, they contain documents of secret family histories, documentation of paranormal events, parts of movie scripts from dreams and the like. But each of these "fragment files" are a one-off. No one, not even myself, will have these files once they are complete -- except the owner. The purchaser can do with it as they please -- but they may find my descendants tracking them down in twenty years or so to try to figure out the whole story.
They will be available through Perhaps Transparent and at live shows.
Fay: Can you tell us a little bit about your work with Perhaps Transparent Records?
Walsh: I don't really have much to do with it. Steve has really done a wonderful job relauching the label and his CD-R series is just fantastic. The Earthly Frames are slated to be a part of that this fall.
Fay: Other than Perhaps Transparent, what labels inspire you?
Walsh: I wish record labels inspired me still. There's this voice in the back of my mind just saying they simply don't make sense any more. I wish that wasn't the case. Truth be told I haven't bought a physical recording since my son was born. Just too easy to buy digitally.
Fay: Your son is about two and a half now. How has fatherhood influenced the creative process for you?
Walsh: He loves the Beatles. I guess it's genetic. I think he gets confused between the video game, Beatles Rock Band, the movies and actually playing around in the studio. I try to learn from that confusion.
Fay: Pike is an Earthly Frames song about the American Episcopal Bishop James Pike. Can you tell us a little bit about Bishop Pike and how he inspired you?
Walsh: When I was visiting St. Catherine's monastery in Egypt I was also reading The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. Driving through the desert, thinking about how Bishop Pike and his fictional counterpart met their ends, made me think that this wandering around the desert chasing ghosts is what we all do in a way. People build these large cathedrals of meaning in their minds and try to graft their life's events in them. Religion, spiritualism is an easy target -- and yeah I'm guilty of taking a potshot with Pike here. Toward the end of his life he was trying to reconcile his son's overdose and his literally heretic religious ideas -- trying to make it all fit together. But we do the same with ideology, relationships, identity and even scientific theories. It's our nature. I'm certainly guilty of looking for a theory of everything and trying to retrofit my life to it.
Fay: Going back to your work with Your Team Ring, one can find other examples where you've written about figures and events from the past (the song "The Debtor's Son" comes to mind). What interests you about historical narrative as inspiration for song lyrics? Do you find it easier and/or more interesting to write about someone else's story than your own?
Walsh: On Debtor's Son, I write about a young Flemish boy whose father lost him in a card game to an Englishman. The boy becomes an indentured servant who must answer to the Englishman's beckoning bell. It's a historical fiction that is related to my own life but also to a theme of the demiurge, the false father, that runs throughout that album. In my life, my dad, who I'm very close with, split up with my mom when I was eleven. My mom in both her concern for my well-being and anger at my dad, tried to provide me with "other" father types. A couple of which turned out to be creeps.
So that song is very much about me as much as it's about cruelty of indentured labor from the past. Unfortunately the practice of indentured servant children is still happening. I wish it was merely history.
Fay: That's a really intense example of the historical and personal coming together. Thanks for sharing that. Do you feel that a narrative thread is always present in your work? That is to say, do you ever write lyrics just based on meter or rhyme? Or do you always feel like you're telling stories?
Walsh: Yeah, actually there's a song on the new project where I've tried to do just that. But even then I kind of imagine there's a story to it -- even if I didn't intend one.
Fay: Over the years you've lived and worked in many different places, including Brooklyn, NY, London, England, Washington, D.C., and the suburbs of New York and D.C. How much does place affect your writing? Would an Earthly Frames record sound the same if it were written in London, England, as opposed to suburban Maryland?
Walsh: Being in the middle of nowhere cuts down a bit on musical collaborations. So I would say that has a lot to do with the fact that this new stuff doesn't feature any collaborators -- even on drums. That, of course, changes the sound. In terms of content -- geeze -- sorta alternate history territory there. The music I recorded in London, with one exception was never released. I probably wouldn't have been as interested in sampling from country music as I'm doing now -- but then again maybe being away would have made me crave Americana more.
Fay: When you perform as Earthly Frames, you require quite a rig -- laptop, guitar, keyboard and pedals galore. Can you explain what it is you're doing when you play live?
Walsh: The vocals and guitar run into a small keyboard, which also acts as the primary audio interface for Apple MainStage running on a MacBook Pro. MainStage allows me to change sounds, filters, synths, virtual amps, vocal effects -- you name it. The backing tracks are cut into loops by region and the midi foot pedal controller allows me to keep looping or advance to the next section while playing guitar. I also use an SP-555, stocked with spoken word and music loops, through a Memory Man pedal between and during songs.
See footage of Earthly Frames' debut performance.
Fay: On the Earthly Frames site, in addition to "Pike," you've posted Program 1 and Program 2, which are listed as "Live Programs." These are essentially mini sets that Earthly Frames performed, consisting of three or four songs each. What's the appeal for you in presenting the songs this way -- programs as opposed to individual tracks?
Walsh: I like the outros and intros blending together. They also document how the songs have evolved from show to show. I try to change out the sequencer when putting together a new set. In that sense, it's a slightly different song in each program.
Fay: How did you come up with the name Earthly Frames?
Walsh: It's from the Magic Star Traveler, which was on the very first YTR tape. But it also alludes to the notion that people are vessels for texts and images. That art is like a spirit that can possess people. It alludes to my interest in movies and to old earthy seers.
Fay: What's next for Earthly Frames?
Walsh: I'm working on the "devices" and have the CD-R series release after that for Perhaps Transparent. I would love to do a little tour in the fall.
Fay: Can't wait. Thanks, Gabe!
