what's the rush, bro?

good morning ~

(click the link / Loxton painting to listen)

The EarlyLullaby

It's a special Tuesday edition of My Big Break and for the first time ever (right?) we have a guest contributor.

My longtime very dear music friends the Early have a new record coming out this week and - brilliantly - Alex asked me if they'd be able to premiere some music with you all. I said sure, of course, but you have to write 1,000 words, too.

I love every iteration I've ever known of this band, friends that have been performing in various combinations for something like 18 years. We even did a record together 11 years ago. Their latest work is evocative, slippery, serpentine, and either ferociously gentle or gently ferocious, not sure which yet. Please enjoy their sounds + words (and make sure to grab a copy of their record!).

Hi. I’m Alex, writing today as a representative of my band The Early. If you’ve been listening to Ben’s music for a while, you’ll likely have heard some of my guitar playing. I’ve contributed volume pedal swells, counter melodies, and occasional guitar solos to Ben Seretan, Yellow Roses, Bowl of Plums, and Youth Pastoral. 

I’ve learned so much from being Ben’s bandmate and friend over the past decade plus. Two illustrative memories that come to mind right now:

• Ben bringing a ferocious on-stage energy to a near empty Glasslands Gallery around 2013. Why not bring that air of confidence to the work you’ve spent time practicing and creating? The few people who showed up for the gig still deserve to experience the full thing.     

• At a house show in Richmond, VA around 2015, feeling like cool older brothers handing out pretty nice IPAs from the trunk of my car to the friendly local attendees. Ben was always so kind and attentive to every goofball we met on the road.  

Anyway, thanks Ben for giving me this space to tell you maybe more than you’d like to know about my band.

The Early right now is me (electric guitar, Korg minilogue, handheld radio) and Jake Nussbaum (drum set, percussion, electronics, samples/loops). We’re lifelong friends who currently reside in Philadelphia, PA. Our new album is called Impatient. It’s out this Friday, December 8th via Ruination Record Company. 

Over the past few years, Jake and I have developed a compositional language that revolves around semi-structured improvisation, waves of loops, developing and blending timbres, and, above all, remembering to be patient with the music. I actually think about Ben sometimes when I’m inside one of our long-form tunes and I have this itch to move to the next movement, add more, change directions. Why not sit inside this nice space we’ve created for a while? Why not give the audience a chance to tune their ears to our frequency? That’s what Ben would do. What’s the rush, bro? Why be impatient? 

That’s in part where the album title comes from: our relatively idiosyncratic psycho-musical muscle memory that we’ve worked long hours together to master. Remembering that just because our hands aren’t moving doesn’t mean there’s not enough to hear in the music. Speaking for myself, the performances on Impatient were about allowing my thoughts to settle on an idea (e.g. a short melody, a surprise feedback loop, a strange signal coming through my partially broken handheld radio) and stay put (!), trusting that my limited palette would be elevated by my bandmmate’s prodigious musicality. 

Impatient is also referencing the many conversations Jake and I have had about what we want from our music. Some topics include: How to reach the audiences who will like our music? How to break even? How to help nurture the local music scene? How to get people to reply to our emails? How to give our music the attention it deserves on top of serious personal commitments, full time jobs, when the world is burning?  How to stay positive and inside our music when all the terrible extant forces of the music industry are so discouraging? 

We have similar thoughts to many other musicians. We’re impatient. 

The track we’re sharing here is a cover of Paul Motian’s “Lullaby”, which originally was recorded for his trio’s 1977 ECM release entitled Dance. Our close friend, original (and hopefully future) bandmate Ken Edelson gifted me a copy of “The Compositions of Paul Motian, Volume 1 1973-1989” for my birthday a couple years ago. Jake and I often have trouble with settling on melodies, so this book loaded with less-performed lead sheets was a treasure trove. 

Motian’s textural and wide-open sensibilities resonate with our general approach and this piece “Lullaby” just felt like a natural fit. In a purely tactile way, I really enjoy how horizontal this melody feels on the fretboard under my fingers. My guitar tone here (i.e. a bit more chorus than usual) is an homage to my ECM guitar heroes Pat Metheny, John Abercrombie, and Jakob Bro. Jake’s bells, shakers, and cymbals on the track are incredibly lovely sounding in accompaniment. 

We typically perform “Lullaby” as a kind of postlude/comedown to “Sycamore”, which is the first track on Impatient. That’s how we recorded the tune in the studio and I recommend listening that way. But I also think by itself it’s a good bite-sized entryway into what we’re trying to do with our music. 

Thanks for reading all this. If you enjoy spontaneous harmony, cycles playing out, quiet cacophony, open landscapes, and gradual, but sometimes abrupt change… then I think you’ll like The Early’s new album Impatient. 

To end this email Ben style: What are you impatient about? Who do you have a psycho-musical connection with? Can you please just sit inside this space you’ve created and stay put for a while? 

-Alex Lewis