Aloysius the Band is putting out their first full-length release for the project in six years. It’s called MORTISE+TENON, it’s a techno-dreaming commentary and reaction on the interesting times in which we live. It’s makes you think and breathe and that’s a nice combination these days.
Please tell us about Aloysius the Band.
Well the tagline is “always an aloysius, sometimes a band” and that’s because there’s never really been a stable lineup or geography for the project; it’s kinda been just whatever music I felt like making at the time, and seeing if anyone wants to help me make it. A formless mass that occasionally takes form. The longest-running iteration was when I was living in Chicago back in 2009 or thereabouts, me on a fuzzed-out acoustic guitar and my friend Steve on drums. There’s a record from that era that I recorded directly into the computer mic of the laptop I owned at the time, out of a willfully lowest-fi ethos that I still retain vestiges of. (the record’s long out of print, not even 100% sure I still have the masters). More recently I’ve done shows as a two-piece with guitar and cello, and some solo looping stuff. Currently there is no band at all, which of course I find amusing. (If you’re reading this and want to join, hit me up!)
MORTISE+TENON is your first album in 6 years, what spurred the recording and releasing?
I did the previous record [2019’s Good Noise] in a sort of early-parental fugue state; I took some half-written songs into a studio, where the pressure and time constraints forced them into being. I ended up quite happy with the result, but I also came out of it knowing that the next one would feature time, not pressure, as the main ingredient. I didn’t know it would be six years worth of time though! One has to be careful what one wishes for. The songs themselves were written in the 2022-2023 period mostly; we bought an old upright piano that ended up being a huge source of inspiration (you’ll hear it all over the record), and I also started experimenting with new production techniques that helped unlock sounds that made me feel things worth writing about.
Exit, Pursued by a Volcano is a song that imprinted on me immediately. I love the storytelling style that seems to be narrating a dream with the dreamy movement of the melody. Can you tell me about the inspiration for the song?
Thanks! Yeah, a lot of the lyrical content on this record comes from a place of allowing the words in, rather than spending too much energy trying to chase them down and shape them, which can impart a dreamlike quality. I’m a parent and a human living through this historical moment so there’s a lot of heavy stuff on my mind on the daily, but I almost never sit down and say “today I’m going to write a song about my anxiety about climate change” or whatever — I try to get to a place where it’s like I’m writing down the words to a song of someone else’s, or a song I wrote a while ago and forgot. (Feist talks about this process and calls it “songing,” I think?) I’m sure this narrator is not alone in feeling like we’ve had our collective fates placed into the hands of cynics and buffoons, and I question whether they’re actually “gonna die with [their] sextant in [their] hand” or if that’s more of a wishcasting scenario, to be able to navigate between the vortex and the breakers in some way.
Please tell us about the making of the album. It sounds like you are a band of musical MacGyvers! The results are easy to hold but hard to grasp.
Musical MacGyvering is one of my favorite pastimes; the album was written, produced and recorded in various untreated rooms in my house, and all parts are played by me. As I said above, I had decided that time was the critical ingredient here; time to experiment, to try different arrangements, to record a part, tweak it endlessly until it’s just so, then abandon it a week later. So I started buying up little pieces of a home recording setup, just patching together what I needed when I needed it, and learning my way around said gear, and eventually started getting sounds that I thought I could use. To be honest I always thought I would end up bringing in collaborators, but then things just sort of kept going, and before I knew it I was sending stuff in for mixing. I love to collaborate though, so maybe the next record will feature “collaboration” as the main ingredient.
Will you be doing any live performances to celebrate the new album release? Where can folks connect with you?
Yes, I am working on setting up an album release show as we speak. You can preorder MORTISE+TENON (or regular-order it depending when you read this interview) at aloysius.bandcamp.com, and you can also get on the mailing list there; do that and/or find me @aloysiustheband on Instagram and you’ll know as soon as I know when and where that show is gonna happen.
Mostly Minnesota 