#echovessel

“Echo Vessel — A Memory Drifting Through Silence”

（エコーヴェッセル ― 静寂を漂う記憶）

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🌫Caption (English)

It descended without sound—

a vessel not of metal, but of memory.

Long after its purpose was forgotten,

it still hums in the void between worlds.

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🌫キャプション（日本語）

音もなく降り立った。

それは金属ではなく、記憶でできた船。

使命が忘れられた今も、

A group of entirely unconnected individuals connected by the internet, All There are setting a new precedent for electronic pop music. Their eponymous debut, a concept album about the decay of a 2-year long distance relationship, split into seasons, has received incredible Kickstarter support, as well as a multitude of blog appearances and pre-emptive acclaim. Maxton Stenstrom (a.k.a. Infinitefreefall), Pilot Chmielarczyk, Meysell Quintana (a.k.a. Echo Vessel) and Luke Kim (a.k.a. Copys) make up the group; each make their own music in solo projects but come together for All There and an entirely unique vision for an album that promises to break your heart, break it again, and upon returning to your broken heart, let you reflect on how well-formed your heartbreak truly was. We had the privilege of interviewing All There prior to the release of their album...

So, tell us a little about how All There began.

Meysell Quintana: In late 2012 I did a song with Luke called “Settle”... shortly after I did a couple of songs with Maxton for a single entitled “Death of Radio”. They were pretty fun little things to do and kind of set the stage for what we were about to do together.

Maxton Stenstrom: After Meysell did those tracks, I heard “Settle” and I was totally in love with it and asked him if he and Luke would wanna do a small collaborative project together. They both said they’d want to and it then it gradually evolved into this absolutely huge art piece and then a few months later we asked Pilot if she'd want to be on board and then she jumped in and it was just amazing.

Luke Kim: We literally sat down in one night inside a Skype chat and set the basic ideas down for the entire thing! A couple of ideas and notes turned into this huge thing and we are all incredibly in awe about it.

What does each member bring to the overall sound of All There?

Pilot Chmielarczyk: I sing! Me and Maxton work out how the vocals should sound and then we both bring it to life.

MQ: I write a few tracks and program some drums and add a thick layer of ambience. Aural incense. I also did demo vocals for a couple of songs but they aren’t any good. No fun at all.

MS: I do the vocal thing with Pilot and I also write some original tracks sometimes and add onto/chop up a lot of the demos.

LK: I contribute some sounds and write the basic melodies for tracks! I also generally help out with arrangement and lyrics sometimes.

MS: Our sound is really interesting to me because me, Meysell, and Luke all write experimental electronic music solo (which makes it seem as if we sound alike (we don’t)), but when we come together and write, we get something that, on the whole, sounds completely different from anything we make by ourselves. We don’t really change up our writing style for All There, it just kinda happens. It’s weird.

LK: It definitely is very natural for all of us to work together despite our different musical backgrounds. We got very lucky that we all combined to make a cohesive sound.

If you could liken All There's sound to an 80s action movie, which would it be?

MS: Koyaanisqatsi.

MQ: Cocoon. Robocop. Beverly Hills Cop (“Axel F”)

MS: Yeah, a good bit of this album is actually just variations on “Axel F”.

MQ: If you want a serious answer probably some sort of mid-80s art film.

What are your individual favourite tracks or moments from the album? Can you tell us?

PC: “All There”. By All There. From the album... “All There”. Jokes aside though, I loved that. That and the epilogue.

MS: “You’ve Changed” probably. Especially that transition between “Melt” and “You’ve Changed”. Good god.

MQ: “In the Cold,” hands down. “Reconcile” as well, but I’m not allowed to say that. (I wrote it originally.)

MS: Oh god, should I change my answer then? Oh god, I did most of that, oh no.

LK: "Reconcile" is my favorite because it's perfect, but "In the Cold" comes in at a close second, even though I wrote it originally. It's unrecognizable anyway!

Tell us a little bit about each 'season' in the All There story.

MS: Each season has a really distinct and different sound relating to the season that we didn’t actively try to implement, it just kinda fell into place. Spring is very dreamy, breezy, summer is drier, heavier, and you can hear the different characteristics of each season fade in and out through the album. It’s really cool.

LK: We set those ideas of aural feelings in place as we started gathering sounds for the album, and somehow it worked out by the end!

PC: Spring is sad. Summer is sad. Fall is sad. Winter is agonizing.

LK: Taking a step back there really is no concept of seasons at all, just general complete sadness.

MQ: It’s all like a flower wilting in slow motion or that one episode of Futurama with the dog, except it may just be much, much worse.

MS: Imagine being in a room and every wall is a television playing that one episode of Futurama with the dog. That is All There.

Is there a Christmas song on All There?

MQ: No. No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.

MS: "A Punchup at a Wedding"?. This joke was doomed before it even started.

LK: "Windows" is about Santa not being able to break in through the windows like he does every year and as such being unable to leave any gifts for the Stenstrom household after Maxton turned four.

MQ: How do you feel about that by the way? The fact that you've never celebrated Christmas.

MS: It bothered me in my youth but I have since grown to accept there are holidays for people like me, for example, Flag Day.

The Kickstarter has been a huge success - did you ever anticipate you would make it to a fourth stretch goal?

MQ: Maxton was kind of afraid we wouldn’t make it to the initial goal itself, which made me kind of worried about making it. We just didn’t think we had much of an audience. I’m extremely grateful for what we do have, though.

MS: Yeah. I was absolutely blown away by the amount of support we received. It was just totally mind-blowing to me. I’m really eternally grateful to everyone who helped out and is helping out with this.

What is All There Big Dog?

MQ: It’s this very realistic dog suit I wear to scare intruders off my property. Muscles bulging and everything. Really terrifying stuff. Sometimes I like to dress in the suit and visit the homes of my enemies in the middle of the night until they can’t bear the pressure of existence anymore. The fact that it’s called All There Big Dog is just coincidental. It has nothing to do with All There.

MS: So THAT’S why it’s always so sweaty.

MQ: What can I say? I’m hefty.

LK: Would it kill you to drop it in the washer after your nighttime escapades? I have children's parties I have to work at in that suit.

How did the story of All There come to happen? And how did you piece together the parts of the songs lyrically to make the story?

MQ: It was mostly born out of a brainstorming session, after which we specifically wrote in the headspace of the characters. Some of the songs come from purely personal places (“Object Permanence,” for example, is about a really dark, really awful time in my life) but they are modified for story’s sake.

MS: Yeah, the same can be said for me. While the album is a piece of fiction, a lot of it came from personal catharsis and then was modified to work within the context of the album, within this story we wanted to tell.