>>PREVIEW
THE CAPE MAY
Wednesday, October 25
Warehouse
For a while there, it seemed like if it weren’t for bad luck, The Cape May would have no luck at all. On the road to releasing their debut full-length, Central City May Rise Again, the local three-piece suffered all manner of indignities – stolen gear, scheduling mix-ups, studio malfunctions and personal injury. Some went as far as calling it The Cape May curse.
Their sophomore album, Glass Mountain Roads, has been in release for almost a month now, and their luck has decidedly turned. In fact, if the universe was conspiring to derail The Cape May’s musical efforts, the band’s perseverance has convinced the fates that they aren’t willing to give up. Now, the universe seems to be aligning the planets to make up for the first time around.
THE ALBINI EFFECT
When The Cape May announced that acclaimed indie producer Steve Albini would be working on their new record, those familiar with his work got excited. Albini, in addition to playing in Big Black and Shellac, is a producer whose signature drum sound is enough to give any music geek chills. Plus, the guy’s resumé includes such fantastic records as Surfer Rosa by The Pixies, In Utero by Nirvana and Dry by PJ Harvey.
"We grew up listening to a lot of those big records – Nirvana, The Pixies and all that stuff," says The Cape May’s vocalist Clinton St. John. "And I always liked it, but I honestly never really heard anything that he did that seemed like it was aligned with what we wanted to do."
That much is true. Traditionally, Albini has been known for thunderous percussion and massive guitar-driven tracks, usually on the heavy side. The Cape May have hints of post-rock in their sound, but aside from some of their more ambitious arrangements, the band is perched solidly on the divide between down-tempo folk balladry and introspective indie rock. It wasn’t until The Cape May spun a particular record that they realized that Albini might be the man for them.
"We heard Nina Nastasia’s The Blackened Air," says St. John. "We all really got into that record and thought that the quality, the honesty of it was perfect." The New York-based Nastasia has a long-running relationship with Albini and her ominous finger-plucked acoustic laments were enough to convince The Cape May that Albini could work similar magic with them. A few phone calls later and Albini was in Calgary recording Glass Mountain Roads. As it turns out, Albini’s no-frills style was a perfect fit for The Cape May.
"Sometimes you make a record and then you don’t like it and you go and in the mixing process or sometimes even in mastering – you try to change it. We didn’t want to be in that position, to have to try and change anything. We just wanted to get it honestly. Just the way it sounds when we are in our jam space."
"Steve definitely didn’t mess with the tone. He just kept it pretty basic and warmed it up a lot," says St. John. "That was the really good part. We just like the way we sound as a band."
The Cape May set out to record 14 songs that would be whittled down to the 11 that appear on Glass Mountain Roads, but when it came time to go to the studio, it seemed like The Cape May curse had reared its head again. St. John was hit with a nasty throat infection, that made tracking his vocals impossible. The band forged ahead, laying down the instrument tracks (including string arrangements, accordion and trumpet) and decided to wait to finalize the vocals.
WINDY CITY WHIRLWIND
A month later, in March 2006, the band headed down to Albini’s Electrical Audio studios in Chicago for three days of vocal tracking and mixing. Once they finished, another scheduling mix-up occurred. But this time it was for the best.
"It’s funny how it worked out. We were finishing our session and Steve said we could stay on for an extra couple days and hang out," says St. John. As it turns out, Nastasia, the artist that led The Cape May to Albini in the first place, had booked time at Electrical Audio. "They have four rooms that the artists can stay in (and) they had actually booked the rooms. So, we just hung out with them and had drinks. We crashed on the couch and got along with them pretty good and left them with a copy of what we had just done with Steve."
Those few days in Chicago sparked something special. Nastasia liked The Cape May and what they were up to and when it came time for her to tour the album she was recording, she asked The Cape May to back her.
"It’s been a total whirlwind," says St. John. "We got the call in August from (her people)… saying they would like us to be her backup band and then 10 days later we were in Manhattan."
After rehearsals in New York, The Cape May set out to play 30 dates with Nastasia across the U.S. They also got tapped to open the show on one third of the tour. And that was just the beginning. The U.S. tour was offered knowing that if it worked well, The Cape May would join Nastasia in October for a six-week, 14-country tour of Europe.
"That’s exciting to us because none of us have ever played music over there. We’re pretty stoked about it," says St. John. "We really do like being on the road and playing every night. I just love seeing new cities."
ON THE GLASS MOUNTAIN ROAD
Of course, it was making Glass Mountain Roads that afforded the band all these experiences in the first place and even if the album hadn’t spiralled into nearly four months on the road it would have been worth it. Filled with haunting arrangements and songs so epic they border on the mythological, Glass Mountain Roads is gorgeous in its stark simplicity.
Even St. John, who is usually critical of his recorded output, has been enjoying the record. It’s a good thing, because Nastasia liked it, too, and when The Cape May weren’t opening the show on tour, she was blasting their record in the club.
"It’s been really cool, because some of these venues – the sound is just great," says St. John. "To hear it with massive bass bins and everything, really loud, it’s been pretty good. I think it plays really equally from system to system, but it was recorded by Steve… so you expect that sort of thing." |
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