REFLECTIONS ON "AFAR"
Ice Choir's Kurt Feldman asked me to mix his band's first full-length, Afar, in the fall of 2011. After working on the songs "Two Rings" and "The Ice Choir" for their first single earlier that year, I was excited to mix the full record but wasn't sure quite what to expect. Throughout the months we spent guiding each song into its finished state, the album's melodies, lyrics, and chord progressions unfolded, revealing vivid imagery and keeping me on the blurred line between technician and fan. It was a pleasure to take part in the process, but now that the mixing is complete, I can finally just admire Afar as a fan. It's absolutely Kurt's best work to date: a vision of aliased frost, translucent dolphins and texture-mapped tunnels. So to accompany the release of my "I Want You Now and Always" remix, I wanted to take a few of my other favorite tracks and offer a fellow songwriter/producer's thoughts on them. It's one of the best new records to cross my path in the last handful of years, and there are simply too many details I wouldn't want anyone to miss. Ideally, listen to each as you read…
Afar's intro sets a perfect mood: a tropical scene muted by moonlight. The landscape is coded and programmed coarsely, but unapologetically so. Jagged-edged palm trees dot the land as pale night rays illuminate mauve and hunter-green hills.The animals living here are hybrids: just after the first verse, hairless synth-sloths sing to you while arpeggiated parakeets hide on branches above. A softly sung second verse vocal begins and, shortly after, the digi-gamelan bell hook at about 1:08 stamps itself into memory. Pop enthusiasts be warned: this hook infected my mind for months. It's one of the most pleasurable melodies on the album, with its effortless imaging of "near and far" evoking an automated camera pan. Then the chiming relaxes, and our crude pixel-scape bends off into mistier distances…
Housing an equally contagious chorus melody, Bounding's hooks got stuck in my head after only a few listens. I see this song as flight music for arctic hover-jet skiers. Fueled by a rapid-freeze rhythm section, monitored and maintained by an amphibian pit crew. The first verse decelerates slightly for a duet with a fretless bass, hastening the pace through the pre-chorus's more turbulent turns (notice pit crew on left and right getting a little concerned here) just before the chorus arrives at full speed, as if it were a fantasy movie's theme song. The chord changes in the pre-choruses and bridge of this song are examples of some masterful songwriting–so incredibly crafted. Approaching the 3-minute mark, the wind-up arp bass and sub-sonic drop drive us to the silver laser guitar solo "Bounding" makes its exit with.
Afar's supremely-produced boardwalk-stroll shuffler opens with: "His plumage deceived my childhood dreams, blue-green / Pulled by a thread through time's riverbed, upstream." These lines speak for themselves, only doubling and tripling in breadth when considering the beats and melodies driving the story line.
The song's lyrics describe a dream Kurt had as an adolescent where he was confronted by his ego in the form of a peacock. Not realizing the significance at the time, he nevertheless feels compelled to destroy it (I dragged this out of Kurt while working on the album, and it's pretty indicative of his character). He isn't duped by its glitter or color, knowing somehow that it represents a mirage–thin and void of substance. This can be extended to the whole of Ice Choir as a project: beauty and style alone, though enchanting and sometimes useful in storytelling, won't cut it. Anything that doesn't rise above that will be discarded.
Beyond Peacock's thoughtfully-crafted verses lie waves of midi piano-roll ear candy, necessitating nice headphones and high volume levels. With the unfolding of each new section, grid pattern curtains are drawn and redrawn, revealing exactly what you want but never what you'd expect. Cool metallic air delivered with each line, crystalline treble, six de-essers deep–a mixing obstacle course of feedback and decay rides. Peacock's chorus is classic call and response, yet the subtle beauty in which it's used here only shows itself after a few listens. A smooth, present and forward-leaning melody in its "A" section shoehorns us into the more spike-y "B" part, which features more distant vocals hanging over pointer edges and rolling toms. The back and forth between these are what put you into the song's trance. Cut-up vocals and ad-con piano ripples before the final verse are minor details that many less capable might base entire songs on.
And that's one of the main points I wanted to make about Afar. There is so much more to this album–songs within songs, and ideas within ideas. Most people won't get to know its construction as well as Kurt and I do, but if you listen closely it's all there for dissection. Compelling sounds, evocative lyrics, and songwriting that makes most of what is "cool" today seem like half-baked sonic texture or hipster laptop collage. From the iconic ringing of "I Want You Now and Always," to the tympanic "Teletrips," to the album's epic slow-burn closer ("Everything is Spoilt by Use"), Afar is a journey of depth and these words do it little justice.