Dark, slightly eerie, and chaotic are good word choices for the music coming from Dayton, Ohio band Kuan. Formed by veterans of punk, jazz, and post-rock music scenes, this four-piece band is proudly celebrating the release of their double disc EP On/Standby, songs from which curious Chicago music fans can experience Friday, April 23rd at Reggie’s.
On/Standby is hard to dress in any particular genre’s hat- for some moments, such as song “C”, we hear stirrings similar to those of more familiar experimental bands, but in others tracks fly out of left field, full of digital noise and big, buzzing builds like in “K”. Most instrumentally based bands find a voice in some kind of stylistic quirk or instrument, like Mooncake’s starry sound, or Explosions in the Sky’s sonorous guitar, but Kuan doesn’t repeat any specific tonality or feel in their songs. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on the expectations of the listener, and when looking into this band one thing we’ll say is to approach with caution and an open mind.
A stronger voice can be found within the guitar riffs of “D”, but is then countered with the free form of “E”. Some tracks stand out more than others, particularly those marked as the On half of On/Standby. The songs harbored on this half of the EP have a fuller sound over all, albeit with more noise and chaos, but also a more cohesive quality to each individual track. We loved the tambourine, warbling electric and hi-hat of “J”, as well as the off tempo conflict that arises in “I”. A feeling of aggression coming from two sides builds between the instruments, and then recedes only to methodically build again, while a driving bass line supports the hubbub from below.
Further experimentation comes from the guttural guitar and successful embodiment of water into music found in tracks on Standby, as well as the manic, criss-crossed time signature chaos in “H”.
On/Standby is an EP that will definitely strike the interest of those with a penchant for pushing music to unexplored corners, and will even appeal to Eco-conscious music fans, as the album is cased in 100% recycled cardboard digi-packs.
The members of Kuan were kind enough to talk shop with us a little in the last week, answering pressing questions about their choice to “Go Green”, musical influences, and what inspired On/Standby.
Reviewsic: Can you give us a quick recap of what the band has been up to as of late?
Kuan: We’ve been spending the majority of our time writing new music for our next EP and booking and getting ready for our tour in March. We’ve also just decided to do a national tour in August, so we’re starting to prepare the groundwork for that.
Reviewsic: If you could book a tour with any 3 bands, past or present, who would they be and why?
Kuan: The Vandermark 5- these guys have been blowing our minds lately. We aren’t really a jazz band but we’re greatly influenced by a lot of avant-jazz past and present, they really push the limits of jazz composition.
Owls- We’ve been following these dudes since the days of Cap’n Jazz, and the Owls album has definitely been a perennial favorite. Definitely some of the most creative musicians around.
Tortoise- All of us are huge fans of Tortoise and their myriad Chicago Jazz projects. In fact, we’re going to see them in Ann Arbor in 2 days!
Reviewsic: What are your top three musical influences? Are there any specific ones that cropped up in these EP’s specifically?
Kuan: These questions are always very difficult because between the 4 of us we listen to so much different music.. Anything from Classical minimalism to punk to electronic to free jazz.
Tortoise pops up a lot in our writing process, we really try to avoid sounding like anyone in particular, but we often reference a certain part of a song if it’s similar to a mood we’re trying to convey. We often use musical references as a point of communication with each other.
Alice Coltrane’s album “Journey to Satchidananda” was a big influence when we we’re composing “J”. If you listen to that record you can definitely hear the parallel.
Otherwise, June of ’44 has always been an influence, late John Coltrane, Him, and Fugazi
That’s not three, our apologies.
Reviewsic: Is there any instrument you don’t play, but wish you did?
Kuan: If one of us played sax, we think it’d be a great addition to our music.. Horns posses a certain timbre that you really can’t obtain with other instruments. If we had the money a marimba would be nice.
Reviewsic: What are the last three albums or bands you listened to?
Kuan:
The Othertet
Vandermark 5
Trans Am
Reviewsic: If you could work with one person in the music industry (musician, label, producer etc), who would it be and why?
Kuan: It’d be cool to work with Steve Albini someday, not only are we big fans of his recordings/music, but also is overall view of the state of the music industry and all the crap going on out there that’s making things very difficult.
Reviewsic: Who was the first band/musician you saw live?
Kuan: This one’s too embarrassing, let’s just say that we’ve changed a lot since we were in 4th grade.
Reviewsic: Who are three of your favorite local bands, past or present?
Kuan: Motel Beds, Brainiac, Shadyside
Reviewsic: What is the backstory on how the band came to be what it is today?
Kuan: Brett and Paul we’re living in Boston playing in a band called Exultation of Larks. In the fall of 2006 we moved back to the Dayton area and started Kuan with Chip(Charles) as kind of a rekindling of a band we used to be in called Fairborn, which happens to be the name of the podunk town we’re from. We wrote and recorded the “Standby” Ep in the summer of 2007 as a guitar/guitar/drum trio. That fall Paulmoved to Western Mass. to do an internship with his girl and Brett went to work on a medicinal plant sanctuary.
We had no specific plans of re-banding, but when we all found ourselves in the Dayton area again we couldn’t help but to get things moving again.
We really wanted to get away from the riff oriented ADHD songwriting that characterizes “Standby” and concentrate on groove and texture. We added Bryan on bass/samples/moog in the fall of 2008 and played our first show back in January 2009. ”On” was recorded in the summer and we’ve been doing small tours and regional weekends as much as possible.. Now we’re working on new material which is looking like it’s going in a very different direction.
Reviewsic: Tell us about On/Standby- Is there a specific concept behind them?
Kuan: There’s no real concept behind them as a whole, though in parts there might be. ”On” is essentially in our eyes the first real thing of import that we’ve done, mainly because it comprises our current line-up. ”Standby” feels like it was recorded a million years ago when we we’re a very different band. We wanted to get it out there somehow, but it wouldn’t really make sense to us as an addition to “On” to make a full-length. We really just wanted to release it as sort of a bonus to show people how things have changed. And things have changed quite a bit, mostly due to the kind of music we listen to and really creating a solid chemistry with each other. We really concentrate on over-all texture much more now, it used to be super riffy, which it still is to an extent, but now we try to work more with building a song out of a simple idea.
Reviewsic: What goes into your writing process?
Kuan: Lots of time. We usually start out with either concept or an idea for a main melody or theme. From there we slowly piece together ideas as fluidly as possible. It can take A LOT of time with 4 minds involved, but that’s the beauty of it. I think that what makes Kuan unique is exactly that. We try to write with the intention of producing something that is cathartic to us creatively, we have no desire to sound like anything in particular, it’s solely for our own enjoyment and progression.
Improvisation is something that we strive towards, but we simply aren’t quite there. The spiritual release of free-jazz is something that we strive for. In a sense maybe more than anything that release is what it’s all about, even though we are definitely not a jazz band.
Also, just a disclaimer, a lot of people see us and think that we’re a jam band. Nope.
Reviewsic: What are some of your favorite cities to play?
Kuan: Boston, MA is always great, we have so many great friends there. At this point we’ve only played Chicago once, but I think it will probably show itself to be a great place to play if we can get established there. We’re really excited to go back to NYC, specifically Brooklyn in March. Although the driving and parking is a nightmare.
Believe it or not, Dayton, OH our hometown is a pretty great place to play music. People are pretty much always out at shows and very supportive… and that’s honestly not just a hometown shout-out, it’s very true. The main downside of it is the fact that the experimental music scene is close to non-existent and there isn’t really much diversity is sound. I’m sure that could be said about any city though to an extent.
Reviewsic: What are the best and worst band moments so far in your career?
Kuan: We have horrible luck with band vans. We have a curse in that area for whatever reason.
Our best moments have probably been hitting the road over the past year and the great response we’ve gotten, especially at home in Dayton.
Reviewsic: Individually, how did you get your starts in music?
Kuan: Paul-started playing cello in the fifth grade. Started playing the guitar when at 13, also choir (this boy’s got a pretty voice)
Brett-started playing snare drum in fifth grade but only played for a year. Started playing guitar at 13 then started messing around with drums again around 18, but mostly played guitar in bands until Kuan.
Bryan- got a bass at 15 and started playing with Zeppelin and Sabbath Tapes, also has an electronic solo project called Sasquachismo
Chip- cousin got a guitar and he thought it was super sweet so at the ripe age of 10 he started rockin’.
Reviewsic: What made you choose to “go green” in your vehicle choice for this tour? Are there other things you do as a band/individually to contribute to the green movement?
Kuan: We’ll refer to question 13 for this one, because we’ve had to replace literally everything in our old diesel van, we’ve been a bit delayed in completing the veggie oil conversion.. If all goes well we’ll get it done sometime this spring. Not only are we doing it for obvious environmental reasons, but also for bands that spend a lot of time on the road gas money is very prohibitive.
Otherwise as a band, we do what we can. ”On/Standby” is cased in 100% recycled cardboard digi-packs, they’re pretty sweet.
Individually, we’re about 3/4 vegetarian. Paul and Brett are dedicated year-round cyclists who both work at a small organic cafe and farm at a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Brett is also a permaculture designer (permanent-agriculture). We vote with our limited amounts of dollars.
Tags: New Release, Upcoming Show
