Ears Wide Open: Small Isles
Kevin Bronson on
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Jim Fairchild was, in the days of yore, guitarist in the original incarnation of Grandaddy. He went on to play in Modest Mouse and collaborate with various artists (including Temme Scott in Grace Meridian) in various player, production and writing capacities.
Wedged in the middle of his discography are four albums he released between 2007 and ’12 under the name All Smiles. And with a wink, or three, Fairchild has embarked on a new collaboration with songwriter/composer Jacob Snider called Small Isles.
Small Isles is an instrumental music project, and judging from the gorgeous first song “Life at One” and its choral vocals, the vibe figures to be cinematic, contemplative and precise. The debut album is titled “The Valley, the Mountains, the Sea” (out June 25), and Fairchild recorded it on a mobile rig while on tour with Modest Mouse. It’s conceived as the score of a film that doesn’t (yet?) exist.
“[‘Life at One’] is one of the first songs that we worked on together and became the spiritual center for the album,” Fairchild says. “I wrote the central musical themes and once Jacob’s voice entered the picture, providing the autumnal glow, the song became what it was supposed to, and pointed the way to so much more music.”
Riley Thompson animated the evocative video. “I had this vague concept of a person facing down their mortality and then finding redemption and purpose,” Fairchild says “Where Riley took the song was beyond what I’d hoped for. It is heartbreaking in the best possible way, without becoming didactic. He is also making a chopped and screwed version of the video which will serve as a chaptered visual accompaniment for the whole album. Riley’s work brought the whole album to life in a way I’d hoped for but couldn’t have imagined.”
The album will come out on AKP Recordings, an imprint of Dangerbird Records (for whom Fairchild has been working in an A&R capacity). The imprint is the home for experimental music by the likes of Jason Lytle (Grandaddy), John Herndon (Tortoise), Victoria Williams, Randy Randall (No Age), Tim Rutilli (Red Red Meat, Califone), Bill Baird and the Arthur King art studio collective.
Snider appears on four of the album tracks, and musician/Dangerbird co-founder Peter Walker and Earlimart’s Aaron Espinoza appear on another.
||| Watch: The video for “Life at One”
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