A Sunday Conversation with Brookville

Blown away and totally enraptured.  That was my immediate response when I first dove into the latest Brookville album, Broken Lights.  Evoking all the great mood bands of the '80's like Prefab Sprout and the Blue Nile, I couldn't resist.  Once I dipped my toe into the water, I jumped on in head first, listen after listen, losing myself in the moody ambiance of atmospheric perfection.  Immediately, we asked main Brookville man, Andy Chase, to pull up a glass of whiskey and join us on the Ripple red leather interview couch.

When I was a kid, growing up in a house with Cat Stevens, Neil Diamond, and Simon and Garfunkel, the first time I ever heard Kiss's "Detroit Rock City," it was a moment of musical epiphany. It was just so vicious, aggressive and mean. It changed the way I listened to music. I've had a few minor epiphany's since then, when you come across a band that just brings something new and revolutionary to your ears.

What have been your musical epiphany moments?

Man, the first moment - I can recall it so vividly. I had a 45 of "September" by Earth Wind And Fire. I had been listening to The Beatles and Bowie like all kids do as a right of passage (never liked The Stones), and EW&F had been out for a while too...but when this song made it into my hands and onto my little plastic record player in my bedroom, I had never felt that way before. There was such excitement and magical energy coming out of the speakers. I wanted to do that, to BE that...and...of course none of that is in the music I do. Ha! I guess it was my second epiphany that's somewhat closer to my heart - I heard "Bonnie" by Prefab Sprout right when I was debating whether to start a band or go work for my father. What a dilemma! I immediately bought the album (Two Wheels Good) and fell in love with everything about the band. Even their production enthralled me. It was a Thomas Dolby production and I always admired how his touch was heard in both his own solo stuff and his work as a producer for Prefab Sprout. Anyway, yeah...that album - that band - changed my life.


Talk to us about the song-writing process for you. What comes first, the idea? A riff? The lyrics? How does it all fall into place?

I'm not really good at sitting down to write just for the sake of trying to write. As a result, I'll go through long periods where I'm totally uninspired and convinced I've lost my ability to write anything ever again. I won't even pick up an instrument for months and months. It's pretty scary actually. I'm starting to learn to live with those ebbs and flows cause I've seen it come back around so many times now. But, anyway, usually a strong event or a terrible period will instill a lot of inspiration and I'll find myself drawn into my little studio again. I'll usually grab whatever's closest, it can be acoustic guitar or piano. I'll start playing chords that seem to express the mood I'm in, changing them and tweaking them until the vibe sounds like what I'm feeling. As that's happening I'm usually humming some sort of melody and even singing gibberish words that seem to sound good over the music. Those words usually form the beginning of the song. That's the way it usually happens. But once and a while I'll get a lyrical bit first. Like for "Goodbye" I remember really wanting to try to write an anti-love song. The idea of "I found my needle in the haystack, it pricked my finger I threw it back" came to me suddenly and I sat down and wrote the song from scratch around it.

Where do you look for continuing inspiration? New ideas, new motivation?

When I was a kid I was obsessed with snakes. I had 9 or 10 different kinds in various tanks down in the basement. I wanted to be a herpetologist. Every walk outside I took was an adventure, looking for snakes, turtles. And you know, I never ever found a single one when I went out looking. It was incredible. But it was those innocent little walks - minding my own business, not thinking about anything - when I'd suddenly see one, surprised. This has been the metaphor for my life, I think. So unfortunately it seems that the unexpected and traumatic events in my life are what have produced most of my new ideas and motivation. Without them I'm just walking around, waiting for a reason to write.


Genre's are so misleading and such a way to pigeonhole bands. Without resorting to labels, how would you describe your music?
Atmospheric moody left-of-center pop music that doesn't sell much.


What is you musical intention? What are you trying to express or get your audience to feel?
I think we all want to be understood, don't we? We all, to some degree, crave for people to understand who it is we are at the core, and to have that understanding come immediately, without much explanation on our parts. It's like desiring to reach the essence - to the soul - of someone without the awkward months, years even, of dating. Maybe songwriters feel this need more intensely, that wanting to be KNOWN clearly and instantly? I guess that's what my ultimate goal is, that someone might feel for a moment exactly how I feel inside...to know one small slice of precisely who I am, how I think...you know, to "get" me.


In songwriting, how do you bring the song together? What do you look for in terms of complexity? Simplicity? Time changes?
I don't really think about those things. I guess they happen, but it's so under my own radar while I'm working on it. If a song is sounding cluttered and parts are starting to step on each other I'll make adjustments. If the song still sounds too sparse and unfinished to me - and of course that's so subjective - then I'll keep working on it.


The business of music is a brutal place. Changes in technology have made it easier than ever for bands to get their music out, but harder than ever to make a living? What are your plans to move the band forward? How do you stay motivated in this brutal business?

It's hard to stay motivated when so much is working against you. I love playing live so much but without selling enough records to make enough fans come to big enough shows that pay well, we can't really tour that often. That's one of the most discouraging aspects of what's happening. It's just so difficult to make it make sense to go out and play for people - so then you don't show up to their town and eventually they forget about you, and you sell less records. A self-fulfilling prophesy. Lucky for me I have enough musical balls in the air and I do enough other things in my life outside of being in a band that I make a good living. So I can keep on recording new albums, though it's getting more and more discouraging when you see how few people in the scheme of things really care about what you're doing. So, I don't know. We'll see...

Come on, share with us a couple of your great, Spinal Tap, rock and roll moments?

Oh God, there's so many. In my other band Ivy our singer Dominique slapped me in the face in front of 500 people, that was surreal.

In Brookville we were opening for Goldfrapp in LA and because Goldfrapp had a bunch of technical difficulties the show started almost 2 hours later than scheduled. But no one told the audience that - or anything - so they were totally in the dark, perplexed about what the delay was about. Finally the house lights go out and they go nuts, screaming and applauding, obviously thinking Goldfrapp was about to start. The curtain opens.... and it us. The looks on their faces....shit. There was a moment where close to 2,000 people all stopped yelling at the same exact second. But they actually got really into it after a few songs and were absolutely great, one of the best audiences on the whole tour. So great that, in another Spinal tap moment, when the curtain closed on us in the middle of our last song (yes that's absolutely true!) they started booing.


What makes a great song?
Good mood with evocative, thoughtful lyrics.


Tell us about the first song you ever wrote?
I still remember the lyrics - "King of the sky. Flying way up high. Scaring all the things. Soaring up in the sky. Super flying beast. King of the rest. Super flying beast. He is the best." It was called "King Of The Sky" if you haven't figured that out. I was about 24, 25 years old....

What piece of your music are particularly proud of?

It's hard to listen to my music once it's done...something about hearing it played back over and over... after so many listens the pleasure and mystery of it has been destroyed. I'm really numb and almost have an aversion to hearing it. Sort of what they did to Malcolm McDowells character in Clockwork Orange by holding his eyes open with toothpicks. But the one song that I can still really listen to and enjoy is "Dreaming On".


Who today, writes great songs? Why?

If you want to talk about sheer songwriting prowess, I mean, they're not the freshest band anymore since they've been around for a long while, but no one can hold a candle to the Trashcan Sinatras. Lyrical beauty and melodic elegance paired with wellcrafted songs..doesn't get much better than that. Newer bands - Phoenix, Kings Of Convenience and The XX are all at the top of their game. These three, almost every song is catchy, full of mood and (in some cases) have great dynamics. I'm really into them!


Vinyl, CD, or digital? What's your format of choice?

Vinyl always bothered me cause it would inevitably get scratches and skip. Early CD's sounded amazing in a way, but were too cold and clinical. Digital now has finally arrived at a place where it really does sound great, truly. My God, you should come into the recording studio and hear how amazing 24bit 96Khz sounds coming out of our massive speakers. Unfortunately that's the first and last time our ears ever get that pleasure, cause it ends up being heard by people as mp3's on their laptops or through cheap ipod headphones. Digital is my choice for sure....but not mp3's and not even 16bit CD's. We haven't quite made it there yet to the mass consumer with the higher, better sounding sampling rates.


We, at the Ripple Effect, are constantly looking for new music. When we come to your town, what's the best record store to lose ourselves in?

There's so few left. But go to Other Music on East 4th Street, in the East Village. Best, coolest store for sure.


Any final comments or thoughts you'd like to share with our readers, the waveriders?

Hmmmmmm........those "final comments" questions, always stump me.

Buy here:  Broken Lights

Chillin' with the Rip - Featuring Alex Cuba, Me'Shell Ndegeocello, Brookville, and Puracane

Sometimes you just want to turn off the noise.  Find something with a gentler vibe, more soothing, less harsh.  With that in mind, we present another in our occasional columns of Ripple recommendations for music to Chill to.

Alex Cuba - Agua Del Pozo

Quite some time ago, my wife and I ditched society and decided to spend the night out on my father's sailboat.  Not to go sailing, mind you, just to use it as a floating hotel.  We'd been working too hard, felt stressed and just wanted to get away.  The boat was the perfect place.  Just sleeping in a different place, out on the water, was rejuvenating.  The next morning as we awoke we heard the most amazing music; gentle, floating harmonies, lilting voices, angelic acoustic guitars.  That music brought us into the morning as the sun was rising.  Grabbing a cup of coffee, I asked the guy in the boat next door who that fantastic singer was.  Alex Cuba was his reply.

Alex Cuba is truly the new face of Latin soul.  Cuban by birth, but living in Canada, Alex Cuba's music is about as jovial and transcendent as you can imagine.  Alex's voice is smooth as the water was that early morning.  His music exudes a spiritual sense of harmony and purpose, and the melodies . . . ah, the melodies.

It doesn't matter where you drop the needle on this baby, you're going to find some simply moving Latin acoustic guitar dancing in and around a mellow Latin beat.  This isn't get up and dance, shake your "vida loca" music, Alex's music is deeply reflective, nearly sublime.  Sure it's all in Spanish, but it doesn't take a translator to express the sentiment of loss in "Lamento," or the reaching to the sky optimism of "Amor Infinito."   Emotion is emotion, truth is truth, and Alex Cuba is an artist very capable of finding that truth.  A simply gorgeous album.

buy here: Agua del Pozo



Me'shell Ndegeocello - Devil's Halo

There are only a small handful of artists who's music I'll buy completely unheard.  Nothing more than a mention that there's a new album out and I'll get it.  Not only that, but I'll find all the extended mixes, buy the singles, and pray for a live bootleg to make it's way somewhere within my arm's reach.  Me'shell Ndegeocello is one such artist.  Ever since her stunning debut of roustabout feminist groove funk, Plantation Lullabies, I've been under Me'shell's spell, and never once has she failed to deliver.

Now, what does that last sentence really mean?  Have I loved unabashedly everything she's ever done? No, not really.  But I've never failed to respect it.  Meshell's not an artist willing to ever sit still.  After carving out two dynamite urban funk albums, she changed gears completely with the mellow somberness of Bitter, then launched herself into freeform jazz territory, always bringing her amazing, looping bass with her.  With this, her latest album, Me'shell once again refuses to be pigeonholed.

Mixing in tones of rock, ambient and even noise rock with her under belly of funk and soul, Me'shell has produced a devastating album of love lost and vulnerability.  Never before has she worn her heart so openly on her sleeve and so clearly bruised and bleeding.  Songs like "Mass Transit," bounce with a familiar Ndegeocello funk (you gotta dig her bass line and vocal phrasing) but even there, the song is sparser, more bare, nearly raw.  On other songs like "Slaughter," and "Lola" the pain is so thick it hangs like a funeral tapestry.  With lyrics like "Don't say you love me/I'll run away/my love will lead you to slaughter/if you see me coming, I'd run the other way," you know we're in for something intense.

And intense it is.  Through the ambient tones of "Tie One On," through the addiction spiral of "Lola" all the way to the ending "Crying in Your Beer," Me'shell has produced a captivating album that drips with the rawness of emotion.  And through it all, Me'shell's voice has never sounded better, smoother, more refined.  At times, her tone almost sounds like Sade, and that's meant as a high compliment, not an insult, as her tone works perfectly here.

Once again, Me'shell has mystified me.  Once again I'm captivated.

Buy here: Devil's Halo



Brookville - Broken Lights

This album took me entirely by surprise.  Don't know what I expected.  Maybe something bluesy, maybe something country-ish?  Not here.  Brookville play a mesmerizing blend of slow-to-mid-tempo, neo-jazzy modern rock.  Immediately names like Prefab Sprout popped into my mind (particularly on the male and female vocal interplay of "Break My Heart.").   Then came other names like The Blue Nile, Level 42, Aztec Camera, and Ripple favorites, The Philosopher Kings.  All great purveyors of mood and nuance.

And that's what we have here.  A beautiful album of mood and nuance.  Crystal clear guitars highlight the gentle tone, leaving tons of room for some of the lushest melodies you'll ever hear. "Happy" is anything but, a song dripping with the pain of deception and lies.  But you wouldn't know that from the melody.  It simply soars and floats, instantly catchy, instantly addictive.  "Great Mistake," follows suit with just a hint of more buoyancy in the lilting tempo, while the lyrics reach into the deepest realm of juxtaposition.  "If you really love me,  you would let me make the great mistake of leaving you."  One listen to the hypnotic melancholy of "Dreaming On," and I was hooked for life.

Andy Chase, the lead man in Brookville, has crafted an album more of tone than actual beat.  The darkness of a somber sky hangs over this album like a field of crushed and empty dreams.  But rather than being a downer, the pure melodicsm of Andy's writing keeps the album from ever becoming cliche, or melodramatic, or even a downer.  It's strange when an album of ambivalent love can come across so pleasant, but there you have it.  Not one to miss.

Buy here: Broken Lights


Puracane - I've Been Here the Longest

Chill out music is supposed to fill that late night gap after the clubs have closed but before the day has broken into full intensity.  When I think of chill out, or trip hop, I tend to think of bands like Massive Attack or Portishead.  And now I'll add Puracane to that list.

Essentially a duo, Puracane is a collaborative effort between composer/producer Juan Massotta and singer/lyricist Ali Rogers, and also combines the talents of Chris Lee on bass, Emilio Teubal on keyboards and Antonio"Uka" Gameiro on drums. Coming purely from the world of British trip-hop (Rogers has worked with Tricky among others), Puracane still manage to sound unlike any of their predecessors by incorporating some strong songwriting craft, actual singable melodies and some gentle R&B groove. Throughout the album, the rhythms have a steady consistency, which perfectly fits the songs' come-down-from-a-rough-night feeling.

From the first moment of undulating bass, to the very second that Ali adds her heavenly vocals, I can already feel the tension of my day melting away.  This isn't ambient, background music.  The bass, the melodies, the beat demand your attention, but in a groovy way.  Not a scream, just an insistence based on that groove.  That always present groove.  Fans of the above bands shouldn't miss this one.

Buy here: I've Been Here The Longest

--Racer