Feature | C<strong>over</strong> Artist altopalo THE GLITCHES of SOUND and LIFE by SARA NUTA 20 the deli Winter <strong>2019</strong> Avant-Soul Electronica
<strong>Altopalo</strong> started off the way many great NYC bands do: as college friends. Mike Haldeman, Jesse Bielenberg, Dillon Treacy, and Rahm Silverglade met while studying at NYU, where they hung out in similar circles and shared a love for tinkering with sound. <strong>The</strong> four were thrown together under some pretty serendipitous circumstances for a school gig, and officially came together as altopalo in 2013. Since then, they’ve been creating songs that fuse electronica and R&B, and sometimes dip into postrock and psych musings. <strong>The</strong>ir sophomore release, frozenthere, came out earlier this year on Samedi records. <strong>The</strong> band’s debut album noneofuscared came out in 2015—an impressive and refreshing blend of funky electronica that caught the attention of local scenesters and music blogs. Silverglade’s expressive vocals layered <strong>over</strong> knotted rhythms and moody modulations (plus some serious production chops) made for a captivating record that stood out at a time when the “indie rock sound” was starting to feel stale. <strong>The</strong> record picked up where Radiohead’s Kid A left off, offering an experimental take on James Blake style electro-R&B, with a few primal screams thrown in for good measure. <strong>Altopalo</strong>’s newest album frozenthere pulses more than it grooves. Where noneofuscared was eager to burst open and invite you into its spacey universe, frozenthere is assuredly patient. It’s an avant-garde record that unfurls slowly, revealing the band’s more vulnerable introspections on relationships in the digital age. On the new project, altopalo made the conscious decision to leave behind their conventional full-band sensibility in favor of something more challenging and sparse. “We were listening to some artists that played with orchestration in inspiring ways and used that as a departure from writing for four instruments.” <strong>The</strong> process was a lot like taking a slab of marble and sculpting away until the desired shape is achieved, and it wasn’t easy. Just as Brian Eno used the recording studio as an instrument unto itself on Another Green World, altopalo views audio editing software Ableton as a unique tool for their songs. <strong>The</strong>re were several cycles of improvising, scrapping and going back to the drawing board— or rather, sounding board. “It’s an arduous process, you wish it were simpler. We could release two albums-worth of material comprised only of different versions of ‘(Head in a) Cloche.’” Along the way, altopalo realized that when it comes to songwriting, more is not in fact more. “Adding one good sound to another good sound more often than not makes them both worse.” <strong>The</strong> LP was written and recorded in the dead of winter of 2016 in Indiana. Being away from the city helped the musicians unc<strong>over</strong> a fresh perspective on what it means to be isolated— emotionally, physically, and digitally— which would inform the album’s central conceit. “Leaving New York to work, it becomes quite clear what pressures ease off as the city recedes behind you. <strong>The</strong> <strong>over</strong>bearing presence of the city’s ‘noise’ in its many shapes and varieties fades away quickly, and it doesn’t really become clear until you can hear the ringing in your ears just below the rustle of leaves made by a nearby pack of coyotes.” Whereas living in New York can sometimes force stifling living spac- es, recording in Indiana gave altopalo some room to breathe, reflect and ultimately take their songs into a new direction. “We’ve all lived in pretty cramped accommodations in the city, too, and that minimizing of personal space brings with it a proximity to others that can grow at times uncomfortable in its unexpected intimacy.” <strong>The</strong>ir songs ruminate on the distortion of relationships, both physical and digital. frozenthere meditates on what it means to feel close, or far, or stuck—whether it’s in the form of struggling with monogamy or losing yourself in the endless scroll of an instagram feed. In this context, the notion of being frozen <strong>takes</strong> on new meaning. It draws a line from digital freeze—a buffering video, a glitchy facetime call, the flattened quality of an instagram profile—to a more tactile sense of coldness. <strong>Altopalo</strong> wouldn’t be the first band to admit that they have a fraught relationship with technology. By now, we’ve all heard the arguments against the alienating impacts of social media and nobody needs another laundry list of why it’s ultimately detrimental for our social and mental wellbeing. But this skepticism can be trickier to navigate when your work depends on sharing, creating, and connecting online. After taking a step back, altopalo were able to see—and express— clearly the frustrating duality of urban life: being constantly surrounded by others but feeling increasingly isolated, and in turn, “feeling alienated by the ways in which we distract ourselves from the immediate world by immersing ourselves in a universe of screens and pixels.” A universe, it turns out, that’s as alienating as it is inspiring—at least as far as music creation is concerned. d <strong>Altopalo</strong>’s Favorite Stompboxes “[We use the] Behringer US600 Ultra Shifter, whose “flutter” setting is paired with the EHX Stereo Memory Man w/ Hazarai on some bass parts. Mike really likes delay and pitch shifting. He’s got 5 delay pedals on his board, 2 of which have pitch-shifting capabilities, and one standalone pitch shifter. <strong>The</strong> Line 6 DL-4 and the Montreal Assembly Count to Five are often used in tandem with other delays to create floral rushes and verdant cascades.” the deli Winter <strong>2019</strong> 21