It won’t be a release show per se, but there will be plenty of fanfare when NYMPH plays at Strange Matter on Wednesday, June 26. The band is releasing a new full-length album, New Millennium Prayer, one day earlier, and if the recording is any indication, I’d expect they’ll be celebrating on Wednesday by letting loose a wildly colorful, seven-piece explosion of creative energy and musical freedom.
It won’t be a release show per se, but there will be plenty of fanfare when NYMPH plays at Strange Matter on Wednesday, June 26. The band is releasing a new full-length album, New Millennium Prayer, one day earlier, and if the recording is any indication, I’d expect they’ll be celebrating on Wednesday by letting loose a wildly colorful, seven-piece explosion of creative energy and musical freedom.
Based in Brooklyn, NY, NYMPH has been exploring and exposing the spaces that connect jazz, psych- and noise rock for seven years, the core duo of guitarist Matty McDermott and vocalist Eri Shoji adding pieces over time to create a powerful and multi-dimensional ensemble. Over the last few years alone they’ve collaborated with Neneh Cherry on a remix of her song “Golden Heart,” served as the New York ensemble for free-jazz-soul legend Arthur Doyle, and added to their ranks by absorbing two new members, setting up what promises to be an unrestrained and stage-packing journey through their new wares.
With a string of dates in support of New Millennium Prayer lined up in front of them, Matty McDermott and guitarist Jim McHugh took the time to answer a few questions via email about their new recording, the road ahead, and what it’s like living at the intersection of chaos and creativity.
How are you feeling now that New Millennium Prayer is about to be released? What aspect of the new album are you most excited about bringing to the live setting?
Matty McDermott: Time to pawty! A release is what it is, for real.
Jim McHugh: There were definitely some birth pains with this one, and it took a while, so we’re psyched to get it into the world, for sure. As for playing live, the material is pretty extreme at times — rambunctious and boisterous or completely hypnotic — so our live renditions of the stuff are pretty deep. If you’re gonna be a bear, be a grizzly, dig…
Was there any governing idea that acted as an emotional or creative push behind NMP?
MM: The same stirring nebulous energy that composites our bodies inspired this. Just drawing sonic scramblings of pop and not, all channeled through a prism.
JM: Yep, trying to be free and catch the ecstatic elements and the turbulence of everything. Not to sound nebulous.
There’s a wonderful feeling of cohesion to the album. How was it tracked? Was everyone in one room together, or were parts done one at a time? Were any moments particularly hard to capture?
MM: This album was a real adventure. We began tracking live as a 4-piece, then expanded the session as the band swelled in numbers and talent. Honestly, I think it was recorded, mixed and mastered in 17 days over a period of two and a half years. And we didn’t even touch it for at least a year at some point. So there’s tons of live performances captured on this album, done in only one or two takes, and some masterful additional arrangements and improvisations as we began to approach it from a more studio-oriented angle.
Your music can feel very ritualistic, and the album’s title certainly evokes spirituality. Do you feel like performing these songs is a spiritual exercise? If the album represents a prayer, what would that prayer be for?
MM: I look at the artwork while I think about this question: I see earth all around and in it. I see organisms wristing, twiggling. I feel color vibrations and primordial shape-shifting. My eyes absorb as if peering through the surface of the sea or a rain puddle. Ebullient moonlight gulley-sculpts the canyonic shadows. The sun toked the moon and spaced out. Bottoms up!
JM: Performing these songs, because of their breadth, volume and duration, is certainly a physical exercise. Concentrated, hot and sweaty. That contributes, performatively, to a sense of ritual. It’s like doing hot yoga before you meditate.
When you’re onstage, are there moments that feel chaotic, or is there always a bigger sense of control when improvising? Where do you draw the line between chaos and creativity?
MM: Certainly there’s a primal energetic fluid flowing through all of us when performing this material live that enables us to speak to each other through the music. On stage it’s more of an intimate language we’re speaking through tones, dynamics, noise, melody and harmony, etc. It oscillates between the blossoming of a flower to the showering burst of a seed pod and back again.
How has growing in number changed writing and performing?
MM: Like smokin’ weed in a planetarium.
JM: More hands passing the spliff…
How did the Neneh Cherry remix collaboration come about?
MM: We were asked and were very happy!
JM: We covered one of her dad’s tunes for that NPR show Radiolab — the one they did about colors. Their idea for a soundtrack was bands doing versions of tunes about colors, or so-named. We did Don Cherry’s “Brown Rice.” Obviously, he’s a huge influence on us, specifically from that period — the electric/eastern period of his. We’d been in touch with Neneh because she and her manager, Connie Lindstrom, are big fans over in Sweden. We asked her for permission and blessing to do her dad’s tune, and she said, half-jokingly, “only if we help her with the remix record” — which we were happy to oblige.
Your Facebook and Twitter feeds are full of amazing YouTube-based musical recommendations. Whose picks are those?
MM: The cups of teas’ picks.
JM: All of us do it, which it’s why there’s such a queasy mixture of punk rock, noise, country, psych, quiet storm, desert music, blah blah…
I saw that you’ll be on the road for the rest of the calendar year. Does that seem daunting or exciting? What type of vehicle should we be expect to be rolling into Richmond on the 26th?
MM: Look out for a bunch of tranced ragamuffins traveling earth in a maroon cocoon towing a caravan. Come join us.
JM: Psyched to hit the road again. We’ll be flying in on winged ears.
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NYMPH plays at Strange Matter on Wednesday, June 26th with Snack Truck and Dumb Waiter. Doors open at 5 p.m. All ages are welcome. For more info, click here. New Millennium Prayer is out June 25 on Northern Spy Records.
By Davy Jones (youhearthat.wordpress.com)
