INTERVIEW: Chris Milk

Chris Milk is one very lucky fellow. He's also a very talented one as well.

Milk, in a very short amount of time, has gradually become one of the leading music video artists of our time, starting out big by directing Kanye West's breathtakingly powerful clip for "Jesus Walks" and then moving on to work on clips from everyone to Modest Mouse to Courtney Love, Green Day & U2's one-off collaboration to the most abstract, heart-ripping (literally) clip for Gnarls Barkley's "Who's Gonna Save My Soul?". Like Jonathan Glazer and Mark Romanek before him, there isn't a "trademark" to Milk's vision: just nothing but high-quality work that reflects the needs of the song, not the record label. Alternately funny and dramatic, touching and exciting, Milk -- sitting down with Evcat in an interview that has taken close to year to happen -- finally spills on the inspiration behind some of his classic clips, how he used to pretend to be an industry client just to get copies of his favorite promo clips, and wishes to one day have people ascribe meaning to music videos in the same way they do their favorite songs ...

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>>First thing is first: Gnarls Barkley's "Who's Gonna Save My Soul". I must say, this clip seems to be a tipping point for you, as it melds both your surrealistic comic sensibilities with the gritty, emotional gravitas that fills up your videography. What was your inspiration, and -- ultimately -- what do you hope people take out of this?

Thanks for saying that. It stems mostly out of the personal experiences I’ve had in relationships. I’m more drawn to these sort of stories and would love to tell them more often. Dark, comedic, surreal, this is the type of material I respond to in features, and it’s the kind of music videos I love to write. I’ve actually written a lot more of these but they’ve never been produced. Some of my favorite Kanye videos are sitting in a notebook and will never happen. This Gnarls video I’ve pitched to 3 or 4 bands over the years. I’m actually glad they all said no because I think it was predestined to happen with this song. The emotion and musical tonality line up too perfectly. It had to be this track. As far as the “take away” I don’t really like to think in those terms. All I can do is make something I personally find compelling, put it out there, and maybe it works for other people. I’ve certainly had occasions when it hasn’t worked for anyone. My ex-girlfriend for instance did not care for this Gnarls video at all.

>>When a video director breaks big into the market, it often feels that they go from being popular to damn near ubiquitious overnight, taking on any and all comers, spreading themselves creatively thin in the process (Mark Webb immediately comes to mind). Yet you have been very selective in both your commercials and videos -- what, ultimately, draws you in to working with a particular artist? How has your creative process changed over time?

What’s funny is that when I was trying to get my first video I wrote on any track they would send me. I wrote on some of the most embarrassing music you can think of. None of them would give me a video. I used to write constantly every week, never went out on the weekend, just sat home and struggled to come up with concepts to music I didn’t like. It was over a year and a half of this before I got my first video. By dumb luck and the good graces of God it was for a band that I loved, the Chemical Brothers. Kanye West saw that video and was determined that I do his first video with a budget off his first album. When Kanye broke big I did in a way as well. That was my third video. I had the luxury that most videos directors don’t get of getting to be choosy early.

I decided a while ago though I had little desire to be prolific. I would much rather do a small body of work that I’m proud of than be the guy who does thousands of music videos and works with every artist. Not that there is anything wrong with that, I respect it, it’s just not me. I can’t work that way. I do one project at a time, and obsess over it until it’s finished. I live small. I drive a 96 Volvo turbo wagon. I have very little overhead. I don’t have kids in private school or a Ferrari payment. I can do the few projects I’m really interested in a year, and still be fine.

The artists I’m drawn to are the ones that value music videos as a viable art form in its own right. We are creating something new together. Yes it has the song, but ultimately it’s creatively a new work. Sometimes there are artists that I love, but I just can’t figure out a visual component for the song. So I end up turning it down. Those kill me.

And by the way, I think Mark Webb is really talented. It’s not easy to be consistent with work spanning such a wide range of artists, and I think he has been. Plus his movie is top notch.

>>What videos/directors do you draw inspiration from?

When I was in film school I used to call DP agents pretending I was a potential client to get 3/4 video copies of the clips I was obsessed with. Most of them were by Mark Romanek, David Fincher, or Spike Jonze.

>>Much has been made of your multiple collaborations with Kanye, and -- of course -- there's the fact that he made three different versions of his "Jesus Walks" video, though yours, ultimately, is considered the definitive version. Is it strange to see multiple versions of clips like that floating around -- does it somehow detract from the ownership of your work? (I feel this question particularly interesting for video directors, as we very much live in the age of YouTube/viral media now)

Not really. The "Jesus Walks" saga is a long one that I won’t recount here. But I’ll tell you that Kanye’s intention was never to have all three videos released.

Seeing someone else’s interpretation of a video you had in your head happens all the time. Usually though you lost the job to someone else. Personally I find it fascinating to see someone else’s interpretation. You can get so locked inside your own head with an idea that it’s refreshing to see another angle on it. The more the merrier.

I have a sort of fundamental philosophical problem with music videos though. I’m actually not a big fan of the finite nature of them, like “this is the ultimate definitive sequence of images to accompany this song. There shall be no others”. I think one reason raw music at its core is so powerful is because it intertwines with people and their lives. They sing along to it in the car, it emotionally scores that one summer they had, it allows an interaction and an involvement on the part of the listener. They can make it their own.

Music videos don’t have that. It’s always “here’s the video, shut up, watch it, now go about your life”. I would like to find a way that people can invest in a music video the way they invest in a song. We’ll see though, I’m working on some ideas.

>>Finally, so far in your career, what's been your biggest regret, and -- conversely -- what's been your proudest accomplishment?

Biggest regret is working hard on a music video for 4 months, that by my own rules I shouldn’t have been doing in the first place, nearly perishing in the process, only to have the record company re-edit and animate over the whole thing, then ban me from the label for taking my name off it.

Proudest accomplishment, really I just feel incredibly lucky that I get to make music videos for a living. Five years ago my goal was to just do one before I died.

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Visit Chris Milk's website.

INTERVIEW: The Kronos Quartet [Part II]

On Part I of our amazing discussion with Kronos Quartet founder/violinist David Harrington, we discussed a lot of what went into making Floodplain, their latest, transglobal masterpiece. In Part II, Harrington discusses the unusual challenges in covering Blind Willy Johnson (and the group's incredible solution), what the Kronos Quartet's "definitive" lineup was, and reflecting on his own personal accomplishments in his three decade plus career ...

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I think some of that is leant to the fact that being in the web/digital era, so many artists now have an avenue of exposure that they would never, ever have had before. I was listening to this Honest Jon’s compilation awhile back that featured music taken directly out of Baghdad in the 1920’s …

I’ve heard that record.

Yeah, and I was completely overwhelmed by the sadness contained in those songs. The only thing I found more fascinating is that about ten years ago, an album like this would have never had a chance even in a niche marketplace, but now we’re in an age where a physical and digital release is easily, easily doable and it has the chance to reach listeners in ways that no one would have previously thought possible.

Right! And that’s what albums can do now: they can celebrate these possibilities. The idea for Floodplain germinated right around the time of the invasion of Iraq by the Bush Administration. Basically, I decided early -- probably in March of 2003 -- that I was going to try to learn more about Iraqi music. Later as the “Axis of Evil” got defined (and that would include Iranian music), pretty soon this lead to the realization that there’s entire worlds of music that I had no idea about. A lot of our albums have something to do with sharing discoveries -- in fact, most of them do. [Laughs.] So for me, this process involved a lot of listening and the thrill of finding something that you really love that you hadn’t heard before that you wanted to play. That’s a part of this album.

With your Dark Was the Night compilation and your Blind Willy Johnson cover -- plain and simply: why Blind Willy Johnson?

Well here’s how that happened: I was on the phone with Bryce Dessner and we were talking over a couple concerts that we were going to be playing at his festival in Cincinnati (MusicNow). We were talking over things, and then he said “You know, we’re right at the final stages of this Red Hot compilation -- you wouldn’t happen to have anything that you’ve never recorded that you’d really like to record?” I said “Oh yeah, definitely.” He said “What is it?” I said “’Dark Was the Night’ by Blind Willy Johnson.” There was this kind of silence over the phone. [Laughs.] A few seconds later he said “I can’t believe it. We’ve been talking about having that song on the album and this would be perfect.” Well our sound engineer Scott Fraser had this idea for me -- and we’ve played the piece on and off for a few years -- and in concert it just didn’t quite come off as vividly as we wanted, mainly ‘cos of my part. It had to do with the sound coming from a bottleneck violin. Scott suggested I put guitar strings on my violin.

That’s what gives it that sound.

Yeah, that’s how that sound came about. A suggestion from Scott Fraser, who co-produced Floodplain and You’ve Stolen My Heart. He’s one of our sound engineers for concerts as well; we go way back with Scott. He’s really an amazing musician. When Scott had mentioned that, I knew that that was the solution, so I really wanted to record the piece that way. We had been talking about recording it, and to me it’s one of the mythic American pieces, right at the center of our entire musical history in a certain way. Anyways, that’s how that happened. Then we were on tour early in September [2008] and we recorded it and a week or so later Scott & I mixed it and we got it to Bryce and after that they decided to call the release Dark Was the Night.

One of those “happy coincidences.”

Yeah, totally! [Laughs.]

I have kind of a personal question for you. You’ve obviously been there during the Kronos Quartet’s inception ‘lo those many years ago. You had a solid lineup for awhile, and only in the past decade have you had a couple of changes. Just out of curiosity: is there ever a “definitive” lineup of the Kronos Quartet in your mind?

Oh I think the definitive lineup is the current one. But, it’s always been that way! I mean, Joan Jeanrenaud was with us for 20 years, and that always felt definitive. Now Jeff [Zeigler] is here and that feels definitive to me, and a lot of it has to do with the material that’s being written and that we’re playing and exploring. We had just come from Australia where we put together this incredible piece using instruments devised and invented by Jon Rose, and they’re musical fences, and together with Jon we created this theatre piece that closed our concert at Sydney Opera House, and it kind of lifted things to a new place in our music, and for me, that’s definitive.

Finally, so far in your career, what’s been your biggest regret, and -- conversely -- what’s been your proudest accomplishment?

Well, are you talking about professional regrets or personal regrets?

You can interpret it however you wish.

Well when I think of regrets, the first thing that comes to mind is the death of my son. And there’s nothing else that even compares to that in terms of sadness or influence on my life or anything -- so that would be that. In terms of accomplishment, I think I’d have to say keeping my family together in spite of that tragedy and also then becoming a grandparent shortly before Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld started this damn war. The incredible joyousness of being a grandparent -- it’s something I’d highly advise buy only if I was asked. [Laughs.] Because it’s a very personal topic. All I can say is I now have two grandkids and I get so much energy from them: it’s just … the sense of wonder and idealism and the desire to explore has for me invigorated my life so much.

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Visit the Kronos Quartet's official website.

INTERVIEW: The Kronos Quartet [Part I]

It's virtually impossible to summarzie the work of the Kronos Quartet into a single paragraph -- but we're gonna try anyways.

Formed in 1973 by violinist David Harrington, the Kronos Quartet has gone on to become one of the most widely-recognized classical groups on the planet, winning a Grammy in 2004 for the Alban Berg album Lyric Suite, working with everyone from Philip Glass to Terry Riley to Steve Reich on specific pieces while also having works written specifically for the Quartet to perform. They've even gained extensive clout in the indie-rock community as well, having worked on the soundtracks to films like Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain, covering Nine Inch Nails one second while contributing the title track to the double-disc Red Hot Dark Was the Night compilation the next. This group has yet to meet a challenge they haven't conquered, and it's for this very reason that the Kronos Quartet remain peerless in the avant-classical realm.

Speaking with Evcat, David Harrington was more than happy to talk about the group's latest disc Floodplain (a transglobal album that tackles songs both forgotten and new -- some even written specifically for this release), their encounters with musical fences, meeting puppeteers in Bali, and learning how to craft the perfect Blind Willy Johnson cover. This interview was so extensive, we've had to divide it into two parts [you can read Part II right here]. So, without further ado, the inimitable Kronos Quartet ...

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So how are you doing?

Oh I’m fine.

Just about ready to go on tour, I hear.

Yeah we are leaving on Friday for Europe.

Excited?

Oh yeah: looking forward to it. Got a lot of cool stuff to play.

Understandably! Which actually leads me to my first question: this year has been extraordinary for you guys, ranging from contributing the title track to the Red Hot Dark Was the Night compilation to releasing your own full-length disc Floodplain. Given that you guys have essentially released an album a year like clockwork since 1985, do you ever see yourself slowing down at all and giving yourself a breather?

You know, breaks are not on the calendar here. [Laughs.] It’s not something I’m really that interested in. I mean, for me, my battery gets charged by music and by hearing wonderful new pieces and composers and instruments -- that’s what I need to do: just keep charged.

When you go on tours like that, do you often go out to try and listen to the music of the places you’re visiting as well or is it usually performing strictly Kronos-type material?

Well, most often we’re pretty involved in the getting to and from our shows and sound checks and things, but generally what’s happened in the last 36 years is that I have meetings with musicians from wherever we are and people hand me a lot of recordings and scores and stuff: it’s one way I’m able to stay in touch with what’s happening in different places. We just got back from Bali a couple weeks ago. We had a week there -- and that’s kind of unusual for us to stay in a location that long -- and it was fantastic, ‘cos not only did we get to hear some amazing music, but we also got to meet the Master Puppeteer from Bali, and he gave us a private performance. He’s retired now, but he sort of came out of retirement …

But an actual puppeteer is what you’re saying?

Yeah. His name is Mister Sitia and he’s generally acknowledged as the greatest of the Balanese puppeteers and he’s in his late 70s right now. His eyesight is kind of going and his body has been worked hard for many, many years. He did a dance performance with us -- his son and grandkids did the music. It was kind of like seeing Shakespeare in Hamlet or Beethoven doing one of his last sonatas. On the order of artistic experiences that I’ve never had but have wanted to have: that was one of the high points of anything I could possibly imagine. That just doesn’t happen that often.

Let’s just jump real quick to Floodplain. I get this sense that you’re always pushing the Quartet into new sounds and new directions, whether it be getting sampled by Faith No More on their Angel Dust album to performing with Nelly Furtado to Nine Inch Nails to Mogwai, all while still working with the likes of Terry Riley on top of that. In listening to the new album, one of the songs that immediately jumped out was “Tashweesh”, a collaboration you did with the electronic group Ramallah Underground. What was the germination for this particular piece?

Well I first heard Ramallah Underground on MySpace. It would’ve been two and a half years ago since I first heard them. I was just kind of looking around on MySpace for some wonderful music. I don’t even know how I found them, but for me I was just hearing a sound and an approach that was distinctive; I’ve never heard anything quite like that, and I really, really like their music. So I got in touch with them. I sent them a bunch of our recordings and they sent me a whole bunch of theirs; so we kind of began to exchange ideas. I mentioned this album idea that I had at that point, and asked them if they would like to write something for it. Basically, they wrote a whole lot of music and asked us to choose something, and what I chose was “Tashweesh”.

So that was a piece they had already done?

No -- they wrote it especially for us and for the album. They wrote three or four pieces for the album, and we chose that one.

One of the more striking moments on the new album I found was “Ya Habibi Ta’ala” which I liked because it sounded both traditional and modern at the same time. It was very strictly tied in with its traditional Eastern roots but was also immediately accessible as well. Do you ever yourself trying to “contemporize” any of these pieces in order to more immediately grab the ears of Western listeners who may not otherwise get a chance to hear these sounds?

Well that’s not something that comes into my thinking, really. For me it’s just finding something that magnetizes me and wanting to find a way to bring into our orbit or our world. So “Ya Habibi Ta’ala” -- I heard that on a recording of this very young great singer from Egypt from the 1940s. Azmahan was her name and she died tragically during the Second World War. She appeared in a few movies. This song just really attracted me and I thought “Wow, we’ve got to play this!” [Laughs.] So that’s pretty much what it was, and then I talked to my friend Osvaldo Golijov and played it for him and he made a version for us and then we kind of worked upon that, and “reorchestrated” or “retranslated” his version or whatever you might want to call it, and that became what you hear on the recording.

Floodplain travels a lot of distance in a short amount of time, ranging from the brutal piece “…hold me, neighbor, in this storm…” [by Aleksandra Vrebalov] to some more spritely numbers, but its ambition and immense worldview are never in question. Ultimately, what do you want a listener to take out of Floodplain after listening to it straight through?

You know, first of all the title of the album, I was trying to explain to my wife what I had in mind -- actually, almost exactly like what you’re asking. Like, what is it that we’re trying to communicate? I was mentioning that for me, the world of music right now is almost like this amazing river which is kind of overflowing with riches and with music. So the banks of the river are flooding. And then she said “Well the album has to be called Floodplain.” [Laughs.] The idea that the traditional classification and little areas of the world of music are not connected -- for me that idea doesn’t work anymore. I feel connected to so many musicians and so many sounds and so many instruments and voices and I would like to share those connections with our audience. Just the vitality of being a part of the world of music right now is -- for me -- totally thrilling and very inspiring. I think that that is at the base of what I would like to try to communicate.

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Visit the Kronos Quartet's official website.

Photo by Jay Blakesberg

INTERVIEW: Riceboy Sleeps

Riceboy Sleeps is not your average side-project.

Consisting of Alex Somers and Sigur Ros lead singer Jón Þór Birgisson, the two have been working under the "Riceboy Sleeps" moniker for some time, but -- interestingly -- it was only recently that they've included music as part of this experience. Alex and Jón have been working in the visual arts for some time, so far having released two whole books of their pieces (a part of which can be seen on the graphic above). Occasionally recording under the name "Jónsi & Alex", it wasn't until early this year when Riceboy made their formal recording debut with the gorgeous 8-minute instrumental "Happiness" on the Dark Was the Night Red Hot charity compilation. Now, their debut album is due in Europe next week. When Evcat spoke to Alex, he mentioned how much of this album was recorded on a solar-powered laptop, he doesn't like to classify what style of music the guys do, and we haven't even seen their recipe book yet ...

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>>Riceboy Sleeps appears to be an evolution for both of you, as it relies more on texture than melody, making a sharp contrast to both Sigur Ros and Parachutes respectively. How would you classify your own material: drone? Post-rock? Ambient?

We have never classified our songs before. I guess we have never needed to do it... for me, the songs rely more on melody than texture. Even though these songs are slow and full of texture, without the melody it would all fall apart. Melody is always first for us.

>>What made you decide to contribute to, much less make your debut with, the Dark Was the Night compliation?

Our friend Bryce, from the band the National asked us if we would like to donate one song because he knew we were going to be releasing our album soon. We thought it was a good cause and we were happy to do it.

>>Though both bands have recorded in various locations prior, what made you decided to record your record primarily in Hawaii?

We actually recorded the whole album at home in our living room in Reykjavik. We did mix the album in Hawaii though, and that was amazing. We decided to not mix in a studio, and mix the album ourselves somewhere different. Jónsi ended up finding this Raw food commune in the middle of the jungle ... so we went there. We shipped our speakers and other gear there. And we worked from a laptop on 100% solar power. It was a really cozy was to mix the album.

>>Listening to "All the Big Trees" and "Daniell in the Sea", the small ambient touches remind me both of glitch/IDM artist Oval and the slower numbers by Four Tet, almost as if the song is based more on its atmosphere than it's formal structure. What was the writing approach like for this album? Much like Sigur Ros' Hvraf/Hiem release, can you see yourself ever taking these songs into a stripped down, possibly acoustic format?

We were trying to create an atmosphere that felt good to us. Making these songs was a little different to writing ‘pop’ songs on piano or guitar. We would slowly build a song over a long period of time ... until it felt whole. We worked on this album on and off for five years. The album itself is all acoustic instruments and voices ... there are no synthesizers or electronics actually ... We love to treat the voices and instruments heavily inside samplers to create new sounds. So if we decide to play concerts it will be all acoustic too ...
>>For both of your parent bands, it seems that the very purpose of your groups is aimed at sweet, beautiful catharsis. By abandoning traditional pop structures with Riceboy, however, it feels like you're trying to reach the same goal but by alternate means. What, ultimately, do you want a listener to take away from a Riceboy Sleeps experience?

There is nothing specific we are saying. Only hoping to give people a good feeling or inspire them...

>>Will there be live Riceboy Sleep performances in the near-future? If so, what can we expect?

Maybe, we are not sure yet. Nothing this year for sure though...

>>Finally, so far in the formation and recording process, what has been the biggest regret for you guys, and, conversely, what's been your proudest moment?

We are very happy and proud to share this album with people now. We are also quite excited about this special edition box we’ve been making. It is full of lots of neat stuff, plus another EP we made. One regret might be that we have not published our recipe book yet...

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Visit Riceboy Sleeps' official website.

INTERVIEW: The List

Chris Karman will never, ever, be faulted for lack of ambition.

As the frontman to the alternative space-rock combo Outer 7th, Karman has already carved out his own unique niche in the modern rock landscape, but with his side-project The List, he takes things even further. Formed with fellow guitarist Nate Cooper, The List was initially a musical project based around a sci-fi novel that Cooper's father had written. As time went on, however, the concept was eventually abandoned in favor of the dynamic sounds that Karman and Cooper were able to come up together as The List, ranging from the ping-pong guitar crunch of "STSD" to the hushed, wounded acoustic number "Disease", showcasing a unique brand of eclecticism that is markedly different from Karman's work with Outer 7th (though just as thrilling). With The List's debut EP due out August 25th on Satellite Star, we managed to pull Karman aside to discuss how it felt to have total free reign in the studio, why the sci-fi novel concept was eventually scraped, and why he doesn't mind having The List's debut be equated to that of a good breakup album (even if that wasn't the intention) ...

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>>When you formed the band with Nate, you initially designed it as a way to create a concept album about a novel that Nate's father wrote. Though you eventually abandoned that idea, did any remnants of that concept wind up working its way into the List's music? If so, how?

We eventually abandoned the idea to create a concept album because it was so limiting and I was really looking for a project that would allow me to finally let some of the songs that don’t really fit Outer 7th’s mold see the light of day. Those songs just didn’t fit naturally into a concept album, especially a concept album based on a complex narrative. We really truly abandoned the original album altogether, instead opting for an “anything goes” attitude and a new set of songs. That being said, we may revisit the concept album on some future release. It is a great story that could easily translate into a pretty enjoyable album.

>>The thing that strikes me most about your initial recordings is how wildly eclectic they are, as "STSD" could get play on Modern Rock Radio while "Disease" could easily become a viral blog hit. What rules or boundaries did you guys set out when you began recording as the List? What works did you surprise even yourself by?

I wouldn’t say we really had any rules per se, aside from the idea that we both had to be excited about the material we used. Ultimately, there are a lot of boundaries in Outer 7th, not boundaries that have been consciously put in place, but we’ve been a band for a pretty long time and as a band we’re drawn to certain sounds and styles. I didn’t want to have to worry about any such concerns with the List. If we were both excited about a song, we were using it, we’d worry about where it fit on the EP later.

In terms of what works surprised me, that’s a tough one. Having never had free reign of a studio before, I had no idea what we were going end up with at the end of our sessions and most of the songs morphed to some degree once we started to record them. I was consistently inspired by the creative energy that was flying around the studio while we recorded. In a lot of ways, I was surprised by the outcome of the entire project simply because of how malleable the songs turned out to be.

>>There's assuredly a sense of longing on the lyrical content of this disc, especially on "Go Fly", with its constant reminders of being alone, which -- when added with the bittersweet, straightforward of "Disease" -- makes the List's debut EP feel almost, almost, like a breakup album. Where does the lyrical content from the List stem from, and how does that differ from your work with Outer 7th?

As a lyricist, I certainly have a style, a style present in any song I write be it for the List or Outer 7th. I think the music dictates a lot of the content in the lyrics themselves, so there is naturally a different shape to the lyrics I write for the List as opposed to the lyrics I write for Outer 7th. It’s not deliberate necessarily though. By and large, the lyrical content in the List’s songs is definitely personal and immediate, which isn’t always the case in Outer 7th. You certainly can make a case for the EP as a breakup album, it wasn’t really our intention, but the theme of failed relationships and a sense of longing does crop up on most of the songs.

Given the many moods and styles that the List fly through in these six songs, what proved to be the biggest obstacle when recording/engineering this beast?

The biggest obstacle we had was maintaining a sense of structure to the record while allowing ourselves to delve into different moods and styles. We recorded, mixed and mastered the record in two four-day sessions and they were pretty intense. We had a lot of work to do in what seemed like a very short amount of time and there was only two of us (save for the drummer we hired for the sessions). I feel like because we recorded the entire EP in such a short amount of time using similar recording techniques for each of the songs there are a lot of common threads holding everything together.

Lastly, what do you hope people will take out of listening to the List? What do you ultimately hope the band achieves?

Ultimately, I just want the List’s music to be challenging, but somewhat accessible, however that happens to manifest itself. Hopefully, despite the fact that we follow our whims and try to remain as open as possible, we retain a sense of cohesion (however scattershot it may seem upon first listen). And I hope people enjoy the music, of course.

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Visit the List's official MySpace.