#ethergrove

I'm totally psyched about this Ether Grove video for "Amethyst Vortex." The melody for this tune came to me in a dream (which actually happens on the regular). We shot this when Ian and I performed a set in the woods at night several weeks back, at the Murphy-Scalia Estate. This is the first of three songs. Once we're done with all the editing and audio mixing, we'll be posting the songs themselves on our website. 

Ether Grove is a place. Yes, it’s a band, a project, a pair of musicians...it’s all those things. But it’s a place in your mind, a place you can go to, sink into, feel the wind, hear the waves, where you can almost feel the shadows of the trees, cast by the moon...

Trying to develop a band or project name is a curious undertaking. It needs to check a lot of boxes. It’s a theme and a brand and it’s gotta be interesting enough to be memorable but also simple enough to be memorable.

I really workshopped bands names for like six months. I made charts, ven diagrams, mind maps.... Like my two previous band names, I knew it needed to be a place. And I could completely visualize that place: a clearing among trees, next to the ocean. Maybe its rainy, foggy, maybe its not. Now, I realize that sounds very spooky, like its out of Twin Peaks–and perhaps it it–but to me, I imagine this place to be the ultimate place to lay down in the grass. It’s just relaxed. You can be all alone. No body to bother you. You can just be there, just thinking, or not thinking at all, or maybe you’re remembering and being nostalgic. And you’re able to just feel your environs. Many people fantasize about the tropics, but I fantasize about a slightly chilly grove at night.

But thinking about it more, although this is a fantasy of a place, it’s a place that’s inside. Usually the inside and outside are literally and semantically separated, but why not connect the two? Using your mind, and your ears...

I invite you, to join me in Ether Grove.

Once we had agreed to start again, I wasn’t sure what to do musically. I still had the compulsion, the need, to write and play music. Mostly, I would occupy myself with writing–without notation–short classical pieces for piano. I also tried writing–with notation–a few pieces for ensembles.

I also tried playing guitar again. I tried playing twelve string guitar. I tried playing guitar with foot triggered synthesizers. I rented a cello, which I started learning to play (bowing technique is hard AF, by the way).

It took about six to eight months of this exploration. 

One day, I was playing organ, and I hooked up a bunch of synthesizer modules to it–a Roland JP-08 and a Dave Smith Tetra, to be specific. While experimenting with sounds, I found myself playing a melody. It was kind of a sad melody, with a ethereal feel to it. I had these foot pedals–the KMI 12 Step– that could be midi’d up to my iPad, and using that, I could create a spacious pad sound while still playing the synths. Before I knew it, I had song. 

And there it was. It was like... chemistry.

In short order, I had started writing more instrumentals like this...electronic, moody, sometimes slow, kind of like a soundtrack to a movie, but always, they had emotion. Just like the songs I used to write, they had some modicum of feeling.

When I started, I had these little synth modules, and the iPad, and mixer, precariously balanced on my Nord organ. Once I figured out the additional pieces I needed (like an effects pedal), I whipped out the graph paper notebook and designed a custom rack that I could place right on top of the organ.

Mind you, the organ is only being used as a MIDI controller at this point, but that is not meant diminutively. Quite to the contrary, it is essential. The ergonomics, the feel of the waterfall keys, the three MIDI zones...these things are central to the way I’ve developed playing for the past five or six years. The sound and content might be different, but the technique has remained the same.

So I went into the basement, and built a rack to put on top of the organ. It fits three synth modules, a small keyboard synthesizer, an iPad, a MIDI switch, a multi effects pedal, and a mixer.

Once presented some of the new material, Ian also refreshed his rig. First, from the old House of Leaves days, he got the Roland SPD-S drum pad sampler out of mothballs, and made it the centerpiece. He replaced the kick drum with a bass amp, which in turn amplified the drum sampler. He then augmented the electronics with an acoustic snare, low tom, hi hat, and ride.

Over the past year, we have been working on a pile of new songs, refining our sound. We played just a few shows, but started getting into the habit of periodically recording. That way, we have a process of feedback, and refinement, and we can release online the material we like.