Three-piece Walden (Pond) is a cerebral affair.
It's music that relies on complexities and nuances, with the kind of structure that only quick fingers and hours spent meandering through scales and time signatures can perfect. Laid overtop Nolan Potter's unassuming vocals — listen long enough, and they build a soundscape.
"What I've always liked about most of my favorite artists like Floyd or Zeppelin or Radiohead is that I can feel like I'm part of something outside myself," Potter said. "I think that's the highest thing that could be achieved with any kind of art."
Which is, perhaps, what Potter and his two cohorts, Danny Gilmore (drums) and Matthew Carey (bass), are doing. Each track on their latest album, Like a Jackknife Gleaming, contains a number of intricacies, that when fit together, build waves of stylistic scenes and shifting dynamics.
Gilmore and Potter began the band in an experimentalist way in October 2008, and the band went through a number of transitions before the two met Matt Carey at their favorite Eastown watering holes.
Carey saw the two perform at Plugged, the open mic for bands at Billy's, and met up with them the next day. Since then, the group's been performing throughout the area while working on the album. Like a Jackknife Gleaming, recorded at Eastown Studios by Lance Eichler, is the full-length follow-up to Planet Dismantler, a short EP.
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Walden (Pond)
Genre: Indie Space Rock Sounds Like: Radiohead, Pink Floyd Upcoming Show:
wsg Minnesota, Kids on Fire
Mulligan's Pub, Grand Rapids July 10, 10 p.m. Free myspace.com/mulliganspub, (616) 451-0775 |
Potter, who lived with a number of various people through the state, traveling frequently and playing music with a myriad of people, tends to write about the transitory nature of his life.
"Our songs, and our band in general, is geared towards people who, like us, are in this weird, in-between phase of life in which we're living as children in adults' bodies with no real place to go," Potter said. "I think this confusion and contradiction comes across in our songs."
Gilmore describes the band's sound as a grab bag, saying, "it seems like a lot of bands try too hard to find a sound to bond to, but I think people find an eclectic mix refreshing."
Thus, Walden's sets tend to come in the form of cohesive experiences, where they don't always play the same thing every time and rely on, according to Carey, "raw emotion." This enables Walden audiences to become immersed in a unique aural atmosphere, which makes Walden stand out from other bands.
