Freak Scene #70: Knox Chandler Wades Into 'The Sound'
Along with new music from Easthampton band All Feels and the debut EP from Amherst trio Helen's Hands
A Guide to Music in Western Mass. (and sometimes Connecticut)
This week in Freak Scene, Knox Chandler introduces us to The Sound, the New Haven musician’s solo debut, while All Feels return with a new single that shows a different side of the Easthampton band. Plus, the Amherst trio Helen’s Hands recently released an EP.
Some musicians who write memoirs take a factual, chronological approach, as if they are their own biographers: Rush singer Geddy Lee, for example, in My Effin’ Life, or Mike Doughty of Soul Coughing in The Book of Drugs. Others tend more toward abstract, where dates and places are hazy, but the writer offers a rich sense of their inner life: Bob Dylan’s Chronicles, Vol. 1, say, or Neko Case’s beautiful, harrowing The Harder I Fight the More I Love You. Then there’s Knox Chandler.
The New Haven-area musician’s memoir is an impressionistic one: The Sound is an album of instrumental soundscapes inspired by Chandler’s switch from an urban setting in Berlin (Germany, that is) to a more rural one along the Connecticut shoreline. It’s also an accompanying book of “paintings, photographs, sketches and written meditations, interpreting nature through technology.” So, it’s a memoir, but one that elicits a different sort of emotional response from listeners, or readers, than a book of prose might.
The Sound is Chandler’s first solo project, after four decades of working with a wild roster of other artists, starting in the early ’80s punk scene in New York City. He has played or recorded (guitar and cello, mostly) with Depeche Mode, Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Psychedelic Furs, R.E.M., Marianne Faithful, Natalie Merchant, Grace Jones, Cyndi Lauper, Paula Cole, Dar Williams and Jesse Malin, among others. Chandler lived in Germany from 2012-22, where he developed a soundscape technique he calls “soundribbons,” which he used to make The Sound after moving to the New Haven area a few years ago.
Chandler wrote, performed, recorded, produced and mixed the album himself. The 10 tracks here are built around electric guitar, which he often manipulates with effects that give the instrument an otherworldly texture that can be unrecognizable as guitar. Accompanied by upright bass and percussion, he evokes (to me, anyway) the rich array of life that co-exists where water meets land on “Hidden Hammock Pond,” which opens with snippets of skittering noise and repeating patterns that mimic birds or insects, then dissolves into swirls and tendrils of guitar that call to mind the wind, or flowing water. “Lost Dusk Feather” has a more mechanical feel, opening with a rhythmic clacking that could belong to a train chugging along the tracks until it fades into cloud-like drifts, and then guttural bass and tapping percussion.
Though the titles of the tracks sometimes offer clues about the setting or action that Chandler had in mind, they’re ultimately just guidelines. Knowing that he intended to contrast urban and rural, with an emphasis on the shore, helps to hear the songs as representations of those landscapes, though what he creates on The Sound is absorbing enough that you can lose yourself and come out having found a meaning of your own.
All Feels Lean Toward Country on ‘Mess’
All Feels take an unexpected turn on the band’s new single, “Mess.” After releasing the debut LP This Place Is a Message last fall (see Freak Scene #34) that was steeped in the sound of alt-pop and shoegaze-y atmospherics, Candace Clement and her bandmates hone more of a country-rock sound on “Mess,” with swells of pedal steel-like guitar and trebly licks that accompany Clement’s wistful melody.
Clement describes the song as an exploration of the tricky friendships among young adults who are still finding their place in the world as her narrator addresses someone blaming the people around him for his own circumstances. (Speaking as someone who spent his formative professional years in Hartford with ambitious, talented people who were always looking ahead to their next step, it’s an easily relatable theme.)
“Self-doubt is an unfortunate but perhaps necessary fuel of young adulthood,” Clement says in press notes for the single, which also features guitars and backing vocals from Kate Dowd and Noah Dowd, bass from Will Meyer and drums from Jon Shina. “Every time we play this song I find a new meaning emerging — recalling different conversations, interactions and relationships that twist and reemerge in new lights. As a chronic overthinker, sometimes this kind of reflection is therapeutic. But it can also devolve into navel-gazing. I’d like to believe that as we age we get smarter, kinder and more well-rounded. Sometimes it feels true.”
All Feels’ new song comes just ahead of the band’s slot performing Sunday, June 22, at the Green River Festival in Greenfield (tickets).
Helen’s Hands Team With Perennial, Boston Bands at the Parlor Room
Amherst trio Helen’s Hands first popped up on the local music scene last fall, when they played a benefit show at Book & Plow Farm at Amherst College, where they’re students. Maybe “popped” isn’t quite the right word, though, given the languorous sound of the trio’s first EP. It’s a self-titled effort they released this spring, ahead of a show tonight, Friday, June 13, at the Parlor Room (tickets) with the Boston acts Paper Lady and Gollylagging, as well as Perennial, a band that I have raved about, and more than once.
Helen’s Hands favor gritty guitars and minor chords on five concise songs with lyrics that feel like they’re stream-of-consciousness. That’s particularly true on opener “Office Space,” which lands like Friday afternoon at a temp job you can’t wait to bail on, with unadorned electric guitar chords meandering over a muted rolling snare and the ting-ting of a ride cymbal, topped with depressive vocals. Things are a little brighter on “Wrang,” with features plucky guitar and an elemental drum part heavy on a loose hi-hat. By the time they close with “The Kill,” Helen’s Hands seem to have tapped into a current of energy. It’s the most complete song on EP, with bright, strummy guitars, a busy bassline and drums that push the beat without losing it.
With Helen’s Hands having played only a handful of gigs so far, it will be interesting to see how they fit in alongside more seasoned acts. Then again, no band emerges fully formed, and Helen’s Hands seem like they’re off to a good start.
Upcoming Concerts
See if you can follow this one: the band 7Horse, the project of Phil Leavitt and Joie Calio, performs the music of dada, a different band where they first played together, on July 27 at the Iron Horse (tickets). The Iron Horse also hosts Ware River Club Aug. 8, celebrating the 25th anniversary of their album Don’t Take It Easy (tickets), blues singer/guitarist Sue Foley Aug. 16 (tickets), folk singer Tinsley Ellis Aug. 19 (tickets), the vocal ensemble Windborne Sept. 18 (tickets), harmony duo the Cactus Blossoms Oct. 1 (tickets), “rodeo-core” band Dead Tooth with Ruby Lou Oct. 10 (tickets) and Los Straitjackets Oct. 29 (tickets).
The Drake in Amherst hosts Luke Sital-Singh Sept. 18 (tickets), the excellent indie-rock singer Laura Stevenson Sept. 20 (tickets) and YAIMA Sept. 26 (tickets).
Coming to De La Luz in Holyoke: Walter Parks & the Unlawful Assembly, who interpret historic spirituals and hymns, July 26 (tickets), British blues guitarist Joanne Shaw Taylor Aug. 9 (tickets), the Dirty Dozen Brass Band Aug. 14 (tickets), “American roots orchestra” Dustbowl Revival Sept. 5 (tickets), jazz drummer and rapper Kassa Overall Sept. 6 (tickets) and avant-garde jazz guitarist Mary Halvorson Sept. 16 (tickets).
Bookings at the Parlor Room in Northampton include Scottish folk singer Iona Fyfe Oct. 16 (tickets), Jake Swamp & the Pine Oct. 17 (tickets) and the truly outstanding singer-songwriter Brian Dunne Oct. 21 (tickets), who just released the new song “Clams Casino” from an upcoming album by the same title. His 2023 LP Loser on the Ropes (which I reviewed for Paste) is still in steady rotation for me, and of course he’s also one-fourth of Fantastic Cat (who play the Iron Horse Dec. 13).
College Street Music Hall in New Haven presents Marina with Mallrat Sept. 20 (tickets), and Evil Dead in Concert Sept. 27, when a live band plays the score to Sam Raimi's 1981 cult classic movie (tickets). Bachman-Turner Overdrive are there Oct. 25 (tickets), in case there’s any business you’re takin’ care of.
The Space Ballroom in Hamden, Conn., hosts the Yagas and Rock Academy Aug. 1 (tickets), He Is Legend with Eyes Set to Kill, Downswing and Teeth Sept. 14 (tickets), and Hunter Metts Nov. 8 (tickets).
Whew! That’s it for this week. That’s it for this week, but Freak Scene is always seeking submissions. You can send music for coverage consideration to erdanton at gmail or reply to this email. Check out these guidelines first.
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