Pitchfork: Statistics To Drop Full-Length Debut In January

Statistics To Drop Full-Length Debut In January
In all probability, anyway

[Posted Friday, November 21st, 2003 04:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

Statistics, an electro-pop/rock project from Desaparecidos guitarist Denver Dalley, is gearing up to release Leave Your Name, the full-length follow-up to their debut EP on Jade Tree. A smoldering circuit board of fat rock riffs, analog synths and laptop foppery, Leave Your Name was recorded by Omaha production whiz A.J. Mogis and will street on January 20th. A band representative describes the album's themes as such: "The songs seem to be about being young, being in bands with your friends, clearly some very direct and pointed songs on life in the Omaha limelight and being on the periphery of young fame-- [Tim] Kasher or Conor [Oberst] or whomever." Well, you write what you know. What did you expect, songs about growing up poor but in a home full of love during the great radish famine of nineteen-ought-seven?

Pitchfork, in our quest to obtain the most reliable information available, tried various means to contact Dalley. We had a couple tin cans, but we couldn't find a long enough piece of twine. We sent up smoke signals, but the haze ascending from a Widespread Panic show mucked up our message and he thought we were swearing at him. We tried messenger swallows, but the stubborn little bastards just kept flying back to Capistrano. Then, in a stroke of sheer intuitive genius, we picked up the phone and got the real dope.

Dalley, who grew up in Omaha but moved to Nashville his senior year of high school, enlisted several of his Tennessee buddies to strengthen the album. If you're thinking lap-steel and fiddle, you are... absolutely wrong. But it's so cute that you think that! Bass player Timothy Murphey of L.A.-by-way-of-Murphysboro sound trackers Self played on several songs, as did drummer Derry Delamar of the Georgia band Trinket, which, according to Dalley, serves to "break away from that whole 'everyone in Omaha is in each others' music' thing." Dalley feels that A.J. Mogis was a better match for the Statistics sound than his brother Mike Mogis, who produced the Statistics EP as well as Desaparecidos' debut. "Mike is great at getting into the mindset of a band and becoming like a member," said Dalley. But A.J. is more hands-off, which better suited a solo and precisely envisioned project like Statistics (though A.J. did fill in on keyboards when necessary).

The fact that it's on Jade Tree instead of Saddle Creek (which Dalley cites as his two all-time favorite labels) in no way indicates dissatisfaction on either side of that relationship, and Dalley feels certain he will work with Saddle Creek again, most likely via the next Desaparecidos record (more on that below). On the decision to release Statistics albums on Jade Tree, Dalley says: "I wanted to do everything different with Statistics, and expand who I worked with. I figured it was also a way to separate Desaparecidos and Statistics, both financially and reputationally; to make [Statistics] its own thing and not riding on any coattails." Tracklist:

01 Sing a Song
02 Leave Your Name
03 The Grass is Always Greener
04 Mr. Nathan
05 Accomplishment
06 Hours Seemed Like Days
07 Chairman of the Bored
08 2 A.M.
09 A Number, Not a Name
10 Reminisce
11 Circular Memories

Dalley's 2004 day planner seems to be absolutely stuffed. He plans to take Statistics on the road "as much as possible next year," at least when he's not out with Desaparecidos. The live line-up will include Desaparecidos drummer Matt Baum and Ryan Fox from Tim Kasher side project The Good Life, both of whom play in a band called The 1989 Chicago Cubs.

He's working on a new Desaparecidos album that should be in the can by early February and will probably be touring to support it, with new bass player Casey Scott (of Drip, a band featuring Andy Lemaster of Now Its Overhead). To top it off, Dalley is working on a super-secret (well, not that secret) electronic project. He likens it to Aphex Twin, "but prettier, way more electro and glitched out than Statistics." Right now the tracks are completed and are being shopped around for singers, since Dalley envisions it as an Air-like project with different vocalists on each track. The only singer that seems remotely definite right now is the inimitable Mr. Oberst, and distribution is also still in the air: while it could be released on Saddle Creek, Dalley avers that stylistically it would not be misplaced on Tiger Style or some such. We'll keep you posted as that develops, unless Dalley blocks our e-mail and won't speak to us because we are unable to refrain from forwarding him chain letters and pictures of kittens doing adorable things.