Greg Davis To Release New Record, Tour With Full Band
Still steamed Schwarzenegger succeeded in pinning energy crisis on him

[Updated Thursday, January 22nd, 2004 04:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

Call it lap-pop or folktronica, agro-electro or post-experimental-IDM-neuvo; frankly, we at the Fork don't give a damn what you call it, or how many hyphens you use in your cute genre names. As long as, of course, you cough up words like phenomenal or superb when referencing the work of Carpark stronghold Greg Davis, who's been laboring at an effective marriage between acoustic guitar and electronic scribbling since his debut, Arbor, back in the '02.

Much in the vein of Kieran Hebden's work under the Four Tet flag, only with Ogurusu Norihide's sparse acoustic sensibilities, Arbor was filled with subtle white noise and tasteful vibes, wandering steel string passages and oft-understated electronic nuances. But with the release of Curling Pond Woods set for February 10th, Carpark Records reports that this time around, Davis is tweaking the formula and employing a much "larger array of instruments, richer arrangements, song structures, and vocals." And Carpark ain't kiddin', ya'll.

For starters, there's no beat programming or samples, Davis told Pitchfork-- "only all originally recorded sounds by me." But not only are beats absent from Curling Pond Woods, time-tested structures are getting the boot as well. "I've become really interested in structuring songs episodically," said Davis, "not traditional verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge structures. So I composed this album in lots of chunks and parts, and the challenge of putting together parts was still making them flow organically into one another to create a coherent whole."

Making that organic coherence even more difficult, was the fact that during recording, Davis' instrumentation had ballooned up to Anna Nicole Smith proportions: six- and twelve-string acoustics, mbira, celeste, clarinet, accordion, electric bass, percussion, farfisa organ, fender rhodes, glockenspiel, melodica, upright piano, vibraphone, and autoharp. Fittingly enough, with his small country of musical instruments, Davis covers the Brian Wilson tune "At My Window." "I always thought that Al Jardine should've [co-written and sung] more of the Beach Boys tunes," Davis says of the Sunflower-era song. "A nice pleasant song. Dancing with birds, rainshine, singing joy."

Another seemingly unlikely cover is The Incredible String Band's "Air." "Choosing the one ISB song to cover was hard, but this one worked out well and I stayed quite true to the original. I wish I had Dolly Collins' portative organ though." Other tracks were inspired by sources as diverse as John Renbourn, Steve Rich, John Cage, Christian Fennesz, Jim O'Rourke, and Maggie Gyllenhaal (the layered improvisations of "Shoes and Socks" were inspired by a magazine interview with the actress, Davis notes). Tracklist:

01 Red Barn Road
02 Brocade (Rewoven)
03 Improved Dreaming
04 Shoes and Socks
05 Slightly Asleep
06 At My Window [Brian Wilson]
07 Centermost
08 An Alternate View of a Thicket
09 Curling Pond Woods
10 Air [The Incredible String Band]

After the release of the album, Davis'll be playing a triumvirate of laptop dates on the Carpark Family Japan Tour. The shows also feature Pitchfork hard-ons The Animal Collective and Ogurusu Norihide. Following the short stint in Japan, Davis plans to take a month or so off, then hit up Europe in April with a full band. The posse is composed of a handful of Greg's DePaul Music School buddies: Benjamin Balcom, Don Mennerich, Steven Hess of the avant-classical collective Dropp Ensemble, and Peter Andreadis, who has logged hours with junkyard-folk experimentalists Need New Body. Come summer, Davis' cooperative will be playing their ultra-orchestrated 83-piece songs to U.S. crowds in a string of as yet unconfirmed dates. For now, here're the dates we gots:

02-26 Japan, Kyoto - Metro
02-27 Japan, Nagoya - Tightrope
02-29 Japan, Tokyo - Shibuya Nest

Carpark: http://www.carparkrecords.com