Anathallo

Late last year, a beautiful little album released to some critical acclaim and fanfare, but just might have become lost in the shuffle of year-end responsibilities, higher profile releases and the like. Of course, for hardcore Anathallo fans, the reality of Canopy Glow was hardly a humble event. But outside the Chicago folk/pop collective’s fans, the beauty might have been lost.

If so, that’s a real shame, for the ten tunes on Canopy Glow stand brighter and taller than anything previously released. Floating World was a stunning concept work, but the seven (or eight) members present here reveal a more mature songcraft and sensibility with their combined instrumentation. Songs like “Northern Lights,” “The River,” and “Noni’s Field” are simply beautiful to behold and place Anathallo in this rare category of artists who are to conjure something in the studio most bands can’t dream of.

We sat down with Anathallo’s Brett Wallin to discuss the recording of Canopy Glow and to find out more about how this collective works together, when they get frustrated and how they work through moments of tension.

SSv: I’ve watched the band through several years now of recordings and I’m wondering what the comfort level is like for the band when going into the studio for Canopy Glow?

Brett Wallin: I think one of the benefits of having played together so long – like I’ve played music with Matt [Joynt] for ten years and we started out when we were 15 and 16 – is that we have an idea of what we can accomplish with our instruments, especially in a setting with us seven. I think we’re so familiar with each other, so if you want a mood, you know who within the band or what instrument can get as close to that as you can. I don’t think we nail it all the time, but there’s a comfort in playing together for so long that you feel confident that you can get to where you want to. There are parts I would never try to achieve with my instruments, but you naturally lean on other to find that place.

SSv: There’s a real beauty in the collective and that’s great that you touch on that. But are there moments when you also find it to be too many cooks in the proverbial kitchen?

Brett: [Pause] Let me collect my thoughts. I would say toward the end of the summer when we were writing the record and putting these eight hour days, we lost our mindset. Six of those hours were spent just staring at each other. One person would have an idea and maybe four people would agree on it and a couple others wouldn’t be feeling it. And it’s really hard to move forward with an idea without a consensus, so there are those moments when you want to storm out of the room.

It’s hard for the process not to suck the life out of you, if that makes sense. I definitely remember feeling a couple summers ago like that in July. I was staring across the room and I hated it because I knew if anyone was looking at me, they would know that I was empty. So I think for us writing is pretty tough and exhausting. But there’s a beauty after all of that time of waiting when you get that final hour or two when everyone is clicking and the song is coming together and the whole room is on the same page. So that’s how we’ve learned to do it.

SSv: Can you take us to that moment? What does that mean for the life to be sucked out of you or for you to be empty?

Brett: The frustration of not having a good idea is so hard. It’s not knowing what to do with a song. It’s thinking that you know what to suggest, but it won’t be where the group wants to go. And everyone in the room is feeling that same pressure. It’s hard to get so many people on the same page. I just go back to what we were discussing earlier. With the familiarity, you have such a comfort level where personally, there might be an idea that I really think is ill suited for a song, but I’ve had the same feeling before and we went with it and then it becomes one of our favorite moments on the album. So you learn to go with it sometimes even if you don’t feel it.

SSv: Can you talk about the beautiful moments of community in the band? In that songwriting process?

Brett: It’s so hard to explain. When everyone is all on the same page on their instruments and a song is coming together is so beautiful. We did an exercise early in the record where we all broke off into teams and went to different parts of the city and spent half the day writing what a song needed. It was one of my favorite moments, I think, because we all came back and all four teams had written down the same thing. That was a validation of this idea that you’re making music with the people that you’re supposed to. Only in that community can something like that happen.

SSv: I’m picturing this moment in the studio that I have no idea if it happens or not. But with songs so layered and involved and with so many people, I’m imagining this scenario when something finally comes together that would just seem… I don’t know, rapturous? That’s a bit overboard, but you get what I mean.

Brett: Yeah, rapturous is a little too intense. [Laughs] But within the context of what we’re doing, there are moments in the studio… I remember one song that we couldn’t get it right in the studio and then the one second it finally clicked. All seven of us were looking at each other and we were listless, sitting there hoping our engineer can figure out the right balance. We were waiting for the next idea to come from within or from someone else. And then when that does hit, you really feel awake. I think that’s one of the benefits of being an artist is that when that feeling does hit you, when it clicks with everybody, it really does wake you up.

SSv: I wanted to ask about Canopy Glow and that title. It seems an appropriate title with that batch of songs and even Floating World did as well. How does that process work for Anathallo?

Brett: It is difficult. Floating World was a much more cohesive… I mean, we had a folk tale thread guiding us. We spent a long time going over what this collection of songs ought to be called and Canopy Glow reflected what we wanted. The sound on this is a little brighter than anything we’ve done before and it’s a little less meandering. I think that needed to be addressed. I think the lyrics, too, are much more grounded. I think where Floating World was concerned with ideas, Canopy Glow is a bit more grounded. Nature shows us a lot more on this record, so maybe that’s why it was natural to call this Canopy Glow.

SSv: So this was a lot more difficult to name?

Brett: Yeah, we had Floating World in 10 minutes.

SSv: Last time you said you had the folk tale of Floating World guiding you, but this one you don’t. With seven people or eight people involved, how do you know where to start? Were you searching for a guiding narrative again?

Brett: No, we intentionally tried not to do that this time around. From almost the very start of this record, we were determined to just write ten songs and we might not speak to each other afterwards, but to have done another thematically charged record… I don’t know if we would have learned as much from it. This one stretched us quite a bit.

SSv: So how much of the final product is a Matt Joynt project and how much is it collaborative?

Brett: I would say lyrically, it’s 75% a Matt Joynt production. There’s one song that I wrote on the record and another one that I stepped back and co-wrote with Erica. Musically, I do think Matt writes… it’s weird to say the majority. But he does bring so much of the inspiration and direction. There has to be someone to bring out the consensus and that’s Matt’s role in the band.

SSv: What about yourself? How do you know when you speak up or when to push?

Brett: Well, you just look at what’s happening in the room. There’s times when an idea is starting to form in the room and there’s something about it that’s entirely wrong. I think you save a final “no we can’t do this.” I think everyone in the room could say that but you save it for those moments. There are other times when you sense the room going a certain way and you wait and see where it goes and you go for five hours and it doesn’t work out. But it’s just being able to read moods and knowing each other. It’s knowing when you’re really truly stuck and when you just need to work through something.

*Photos by Sarah Ji

Related posts:

1. Anathallo – Canopy Glow

Tagged as: Chicago

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