Mothers at Gasa Gasa
Tuesday night Kristine Leschper brings her project Mothers to Gasa Gasa. The group has just released their sophomore record – Render Another Ugly Method. This record is a worthy successor to their debut, which was one of my favorite albums of 2016. This time around we see a more experimental, searching aspect of Leschper’s work. RAUM seems determined to defy our expectations in remarkably rewarding ways. I caught up with Leschper to talk about her creative process and the journey to the new record. Part of the challenge of a sophomore record is writing while on the road.
“I think a lot of the reasons the record came out the way it did, the reasons the songs sound a certain way is due to kind of the timeline in which they were written. And what I mean by that is we were touring a lot in 2016, for the first time really, so these songs were written kind of in this stop-start fashion, where it was like we would be home for a week. I would get as much writing done as I could. Then we would leave again. And by the time we got back home, I would be revisiting a song and feel like it was just totally not right, and so I would, at that point I would like reshape the entire song, or kind of discard most of it and kind of rework this song around this one small fragment. And I think that that nature of like writing them really slowly, and kind of in these short bursts, led to this somewhat collaged, fragmented feel that the record has.”
Leschper characterizes the group’s time on the road as transformative, “I was just listening to a ton of new music and kind of digesting all this new stuff, and meeting new people on the road, having new experiences. It was really this whirlwind of just new things that I was feeling really stimulated by.”
Kristine sees each step as a natural progression toward something else, “I feel like I moved through ideas kind of quickly, or moved through inspirations kind of quickly. So part of it too, it's like a lot of people talking about this record have been like, 'oh, when did you become a post-punk band? Or when did you become this thing?' And I just don't see it as becoming something as much as just trying out ideas which I think I will always do. I don't know I guess I see it as more of this thing where like I'm a person who's changing, my songwriting is very young in the grand scheme of things, I've only been writing songs for a couple of years. I have so much growing to do, I have so many hats to try on, just for fun.”
As for the journey, it is never a solitary one, “I like to think about creativity as this very collaborative effort, rather than thinking about thinking creativity as a solitary act of genius. I think it's much more helpful to think about it as this collaborative effort where you are synthesizing other people's ideas with your own ideas. To hopefully create something that's new, but if you don't make something that's totally new, that's okay, because the whole idea is just synthesizing these concepts. It doesn't have to be this genius "ah ha" moment. If you can just combine things that make sense to you and relay them through your very specific perspective.”
The Mothers have released two outstanding albums in a very short period of time. Render Another Ugly Method will almost certainly be on my top ten list at the end of the year. You’re going to want to catch this show and keep up with their journey. Listen to “BEAUTY ROUTINE” from the new record below.
Ms. Lauryn Hill at the Lakefront Arena
Wednesday night Ms. Lauryn Hill will head to the Lakefront Arena as part of the tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill record. If you who were there for her performance at Jazz Fest in 2016, you know that while often late once Hill arrives there are very few who can match her. This is a nice intimate venue in which to celebrate the birthday of a very important record.
To Do This Week
Tomorrow, Adventure Club is at the Metropolitan. Also Friday, you can catch the debut of People Museum’s first record at the Saturn Bar. Saturday, and Sunday you can catch Foreigner and the Gin Blossoms at the Gretna Heritage Festival. Sunday, Mat Kearney and Atlas Genius are at the Joy. Tuesday the Mothers are at Gasa Gasa. Wednesday, Ms. Lauryn Hill returns to the Lakefront Arena.
To Listen This Week
- Check out the video for Weezer’s version of Toto’s “Africa” featuring Weird Al via Youtube
- Great new track from Charly Bliss via Youtube
- Florence + The Machine have released a great cover of Tori Amos’ “Cornflake Girl” via CoS
