You'll Never Get to Heaven- Images
(Ambient Pop, Dream Pop, Ambient)
Released: March 24, 2017 [Yellow K Records]
Producer(s): Alice Hansen, Chuck Blazevic
You'll Never Get To Heaven - Wave Your Moonlight Hat for the Snowfall Train LP
One of my favorite bands working stripped down magic, I just realized their admittedly killer 2014 Adorn EP is fetching an insane $230 on discogs. Give that a listen, but please don’t go ordering it. Do snag their third LP coming November 19th, because the first track is giving me serious minimal Chromatics / Italians Do It Better vibes.
You'll Never Get To Heaven - Wave Your Moonlight Hat for the Snowfall Train LP is available to pre-order on ltd black vinyl or ltd cassette from their bandcamp now. As far as I know, all their previous releases have been single pressings, so when they’re gone, they gone...
You’ll Never Get To Heaven (Alice Hansen and Chuck Blazevic aka Slow Attack Ensemble) returns with their fourth release Wave Your Moonlight Hat for the Snowfall Train, a collection of ethereal songs that move through the mercurial weather patterns of minimalism and dream pop.
The duo named this album after the closing track on Phil Yost’s 1967 release Bent City, inspired by its prescient use of delay processing in elevating spare beatless arrangements into haunting arrays of sonic afterimages — an approach Hansen and Blazevic explore on this outing in their own way, with a few favoured instruments and a Chorus Echo and Revox in hand. The result is a collection of sparse, lightly dub-infused songs and instrumentals, equally icy and wistful, characterized by melodic fretless basslines, spaced-out harmonics, watery piano and marimba, hushed vocals, and tape echo treatments.
Stylistically, it’s almost as if the duo was imagining what an early This Mortal Coil demo might have sounded like had Ivo enlisted in lieu of the usual cast, with a pared back L’Empire Des Sons as the session band, and June Hardin or a young Julee Cruise on lead vocals. The album evokes an overcast autumnal evening of cloud-watching, an inner journey witness to an expansive spectrum of moods, from nimbus clouds to shimmering sun showers.
You’ll Never Get to Heaven’s fascinating two-piece Chuck Blazevic and Alice Hansen deliver lush dream-pop soundscapes crafted with integrity, character, atmosphere and skill; each track passing with hazy technical arrangements and the ability to express memorable thoughts through their chosen instruments. We talk to the duo about discovering different musical realms, key transitions and exploring new directions…
TSH: Since the inception of the band, how do you feel your creative partnership has evolved?
Chuck: All along, we’ve collaborated on every aspect of YNGTH, and the evolution of our individual interests and ideas for this project has been, and continues to be, remarkably in sync. Arguably the most important part of our creative process is listening to a wide variety of music together. Over the years, we’ve been fortunate to discover and explore a lot of different musical realms through researching recordings, which inspires what we do. The evolution of our listening has definitely shaped the direction of the band.
TSH: Your most recent work the ‘Adorn’ EP is dazzling. I understand whilst recording you had access to a celeste and grand piano, in addition to a few other electric instruments you own. What were the advantages in mixing things up via this array of instruments?
Alice: Thank you! We’ll often isolate and layer sustained pitches from a number of sources to construct harmonic or textural elements in our songs. With access to the instruments you mentioned, it gave us the opportunity to develop the melodic element of our arrangements. On “By This River”, for example, we were able to recreate the melody of the piano motif in the original with a celeste, rather than stitching together isolated piano pitches from various sources, which is something we’ve done in the past.
TSH: Knowing that the EP functions as a bridge between the stylistic terrain of your debut and the direction you will take on our next full length, what do you feel is the key transition with regards to instrumentation for your forthcoming work?
Chuck: I would say there are two key transitions. With the new material, electric bass is still a foundational instrument, but the sound is further developed. Our bass sound was one of the things that changed between our debut and songs like “Caught in Time…” and “By This River” from Adorn. Also, the warped classical instrumentation -- prevalent on our first LP and represented on Adorn with songs like “Closer”, “Unravel” and the title track -- is becoming more integrated with the sounds of all the new (to us) music we’ve been listening to recently. It’s hard to describe at this point, but we’re looking forward to completing and releasing our next album.
TSH: With ‘Adorn’ was it important to give each song an individual identity, since the length was shorter compared to a full-length?
Alice: Working with a shorter format did lend itself to a more minimalist approach, where each song was integral to the whole. Ultimately though, the EP is indebted to the remarkable Les Disques Du Crépuscule compilations of the 1980s, especially From Brussels with Love and The Fruit of the Original Sin. These compilations expertly combine music from a variety of genres - post-punk, modern classical, minimalism, film music, spoken word -- into a novel and coherent whole, greater than its individual parts. With ‘Adorn’, we attempted to conjure this sort of focused eclecticism in the track selection and sequencing, as a subtle nod to Crépuscule, one of our favourite labels.
TSH: Let’s talk about some of the material from the EP. Firstly, ‘Caught in Time, So Far Away’ – the song is so alluring. How did you go about forming and structuring such a well-layered song?
Chuck: Most of the sustained sounds are constructed from guitar or violin recordings (performed by us). In this case, we sampled the instruments, isolated select pitches, and transposed and combined elements of both. Other than the spontaneous percussive sounds peppered throughout, there aren’t any analog or digital synths on the track. The guitar harmonics at the beginning were recorded live, as was the bass. Bass and vocals are usually the only “performed” elements in our music, so this was a bit of a departure. We apply a lot of signal processing to every element in the mix to achieve that sustained, textured feeling.
TSH: Moreover, ‘Unravel’ takes on a more pensive tone. What is the overall significance of this track to you personally? And what was the thinking in signing off with ‘Closer’?
Chuck: In terms of sequencing, ‘Unravel’ and ‘Closer’ provide contrast with the tracks that precede them and serve as concrete endings to each side. These ambient interludes are a constant in our work. There is something meditative about these and we appreciate the timbral and textural freedom in creating them. Exploring sound outside of a pop song context is important to what we do.
TSH: Do you feel at times with your music perhaps there is no real statement that you’re trying to make; instead you’re just embracing what comes out of you?
Alice: I would say, at the very least, that our music is a statement about the music we value. But this can probably be said about most, if not all, music, regardless of the producer’s intention or whether it’s manifest explicitly or implicitly.
TSH: In what ways do you think you’ve challenged your own conceptions with your musical direction?
Chuck: We’ve been working within music independently for most of our lives. Since starting the project together, we’ve been working to consolidate our musical experiences and continue challenging ourselves. Though there are foundational elements that appear constant in our music, we’re not dogmatic about musical direction. Things evolve as we grow and change. We don’t force anything into the mix.
TSH: Are you striving for a deeper, truer meaning in yourself and your music?
Alice: We always strive to make music that reflects our musical values, so in that sense, yes, we are.
TSH: Do you feel you are required to find a certain type of drive to stay creative?
Chuck: Not at all. We tend to work on music incrementally and more slowly compared to prolific artists, but we’re not struggling to stay creative by any means. We’re just very picky about what we release.
TSH: Since you explored the core elements of your debut album, namely the pop and ambient/classical aspects, what do you feel you learnt from this release?
Alice: With this release, we were able to explore the space between pop and ambient/classical and experiment with ways to integrate the two. They are reference points that are formative to each of us and have become foundational to our sound and creative process.
TSH: Is it key to not be committed to a singular approach and to have various forms of drive for your songs?
Chuck: Between the two options, it’s probably best to explore several musical forms so that things don’t become too static or predictable, though there are many examples of singular approaches that are exciting and enduring. We are perhaps somewhere in between these two approaches.
TSH: How crucial is it to maintain the immediacy and beauty of songs created in demo form?
Alice: Very crucial. We tend to prefer imperfect, soft focus sounds over crisp highs, grid-locked precision, and hyperreal presence.
TSH: As you head forward are you compelled to explore a certain direction?
Chuck: Yes. We’ve already begun adding elements and instrumentation inspired by other types of minimal and ambient-inflected music into our own. The changes are fairly subtle, but cumulatively, a stylistic shift can be observed. Our new tracks are in a similar vein to our first two releases in that there is still a melancholic, hopeful quality to it all. That aspect of our music is deeply ingrained, and foundational to, our approach to music making.
Dreamsploitation ~ The In-Between Years: 1959-1963
The In-Between Years: 1959-1963 opens with a flowing, sunken drone that swirls around a ghostly, ethereal vocal. They tie themselves together and remain bonded for life, like a lovers’ pact. It’s a truly beautiful start, and it remains a soothing, sedate listen throughout. Dreamsploitation binds the airy tones with the dark romanticism of early teen pop, circa 1959. The cute, love-struck lyrics…
