Interview with Arad Evans of The Whimbrels.
The Whimbrels is an outer-borough masterpiece. The sound is dense, polyrhythmic, hard, and sweet, hooks and riffs to save your soul pop out at unexpected moments. The players’ credits--The Glenn Branca Ensemble (dating to the 1980s), The Swans, J. Mascis--predict the guitar- driven, sonic onslaught of The Whimbrels, captured on their startling debut. A Whimbrels show involves racks of guitars, tuned in different and unconventional ways with the players constantly switching between them. The Whimbrels album showcases this. There are counterpoint choirs, dueling e-bows phase against each other, chunking, poly- and cross- rhythmic interludes, soaring arias of distortion from Westberg and Evans’ strangely melodic and inventive guitar. Evans’ and Hunter’s vocals front a three-guitar line up tuned every way but normal. The ax men are veterans with contrasting styles that come together in a potent whole. The beats are smart and unrelenting. The album concludes with the instrumental Four Moons of Galileo, four short sections with the inner two framed by shimmering walls of descending, slowly evolving harmonies. The title recalls the four moons discovered by Galileo, suggesting the many more then lurking unknown in space.
ARAD EVANS (guitar, vox, primary songwriter) was a member, recorded and toured with Glenn Branca’s ensemble from the 1980’s until Branca’s death a few years ago. He is founder and still performs with Heroes of Toolik. In addition to Branca, he has played with Quiet City, Rhys Chatham, Ben Neill, John Myers’ Blastula, The SEM Ensemble, The New Music Consort, Virgil Moorefield’s Ensemble and many other groups. “A truly inventive and surprising guitar player.” (Rick Moody, The Rumpus Aug. 25, 2016).
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