Grand Archives: Heaven Sent

By: Kayceman

Grand Archives by Hilary Harris

It’s been a long day. The madness of SXSW is nearing the end and my mind, my feet and my ears are tired. Austin, Texas can be a taxing place this time of year and I’m feeling it all over. And just then, as I’m seriously starting to wane, it happens. I’m standing on 6th Street outside Bourbon Rocks and these incredible three, four and even five-part vocal harmonies float above the crowd and through the open windows, easing their way into my blood and pulling me closer to Seattle’s Grand Archives. Where minutes earlier I was dreaming about bed, now all I want is another Lone Star beer and more time with these beautiful compositions. It’s no secret that music holds magical powers. I’m often drawn to the darker stuff, but something about this band fills me with energy, light, perhaps even hope.

31-year old guitarist-singer-songwriter Mat Brooke formed Grand Archives in 2006 after leaving one of the hottest bands on the planet, Band of Horses. The general assumption was that Brooke and main Horse Ben Bridwell had a falling out, but like most of what we hear on the street, that just wasn’t the case.

“I never really even looked at it as leaving Band of Horses,” says Brooke. “I wasn’t in Band of Horses when Band of Horses started. It was always Ben’s [band]. It’s his baby, his project. He asked if I wanted to help out on that first record and so I did, and it was fun. Me and him and Phil [Ek – producer] and everybody else had a really good time making that record. But that record took off so darn fast, and it looked like it was about to become a full time thing. And so, yeah, I guess you could say I left, but I never really felt like I was a full time member from the get-go.”

Bottom line is, Brooke just wasn’t feeling the music. While it was Band of Horses that introduced most of the world to Mat Brooke, after graduating high school he had toiled for almost a decade in Carissa’s Wierd (yes that’s how it is spelled) and he was ready to move past the melancholy rock these bands were building. “Carissa’s Wierd was super, just depressing music,” sighs Brooke. “Band of Horses wasn’t necessarily depressing, but [Grand Archives is] kind of aiming for this record to shoot for a little more of a life-doesn’t-suck-that-bad kind of feel.”

In retrospect this makes a lot of sense, because life for Mat Brooke doesn’t suck. After splitting from BoH, Brooke focused on opening The Redwood, a bar in Seattle’s Capitol Hill area. With the bar proving to be a great success, Brooke was feeling a little older, wiser and more well adjusted. It seemed the right time to start exploring this bright new outlook in a band. First he called on old friend, bass player Jeff Montano, who then suggested drummer Curtis Hall. Soon they added guitarist-keyboard player Ron Lewis and eventually another guitar slinger named Thomas Wright and they began to bang out Graham Nash and Beach Boys covers. Shocked at how well it was coming together, the obvious next step was to record an album.

Moving between three different studios during the summer of 2007, the eleven dreamy songs on The Grand Archives (released February 19 through Sub Pop) appear simple upon first listen, but show tasteful complexity upon repeated spins. There are no massive guitar solos, drum workouts or fast-paced finger picking; that’s not what this band is about. But, there are flugelhorns, French horns, trombones, violins, pedal steel guitar, ukulele and other interesting sounds.

“We just recorded the songs in a typical guitar, drums, bass rock fashion, and then eventually tried to take out all those tracks and replace them with something a little different,” explains Brooke. “Like get rid of the bassline and do it on a cello, you know, kind of plucking it with your fingers, just to get kind of a different sound. I think we were probably at the time referencing tons of Brian Wilson’s tricks, or Neutral Milk Hotel tricks. We had one rule, which was no synthesizers, so we couldn’t rely on that as a crutch. For every sound we had to make, we had to manipulate piano strings or things like that to try to get unique sounds.”

Continue reading for more on Grand Archives…

You bring up something like Darfur or the state of America right now, the war and everything, and there really are so many awful things going on that it almost seems a scam to sing about your own self-pity. To me, you have only two choices, which are write about how awful President Bush is and all the atrocities that are going on or don’t go that direction, go the other direction and be a little more uplifting. –Mat Brooke

Image of Grand Archives by David Belisle

As fun and important to the album’s feel as all the inventive instruments are that’s not actually what this band is about either. It’s all about the intricate, heavenly vocal harmonies.

“That’s definitely what we’re trying to showcase the most,” confirms Brooke. “Someone will come in with a tune and we won’t agonize over making these really difficult, awesome guitar parts. We’ll try to focus more on how far we can take it with the vocal harmonies.”

And they take them far. Everywhere from autobiographical coming of age tales like album opener “Torn Blue Foam Coach” to the hypnotizing lilt of “Sleepdriving” to “George Kaminski,” who Brooke points out was the luckiest convict around for a short time.

“He was incarcerated for 25 years but held the Guinness Book of World Records for four-leaf clovers that he found all in one prison yard. There’s a demented sense of hope in there somewhere,” says Brooke, almost asking more than telling. “Some guy who lives up in Alaska now holds the record. And there’s a sense of tragedy in how the playing field isn’t really fair on that one.”

In the past the realization that life just isn’t fair may have led Brooke to pen another desperate indie rock song. But, like the almost comical sense of irony and demented sense of hope we feel from an inmate with more good luck in his tiny, confined slice of existence than the rest of us can find on the entire planet, now Brooke writes music you can play at your mom’s house during Sunday brunch.

“It’s just kind of a natural progression that comes with age a little bit,” reflects Brooke. “When you’re young you got a little bit of angst, and then when you’re going through your twenties you’re probably just drinking too much, and then you get to be a little bit older and you’re sitting at home on a Saturday night listening to the Beach Boys and life doesn’t seem so dramatic.”

On the other hand, sometimes it really is that dramatic. And maybe we need breezy, elating sounds at those moments even more.

“You bring up something like Darfur or the state of America right now, the war and everything, and there really are so many awful things going on that it almost seems a scam to sing about your own self-pity,” says Brooke. “To me, you have only two choices, which are write about how awful President Bush is and all the atrocities that are going on or don’t go that direction, go the other direction and be a little more uplifting.”

You can’t stare into the black abyss forever. It’ll swallow you whole if you let it. Sometimes you have to just kick open the window and let the fresh spring air blow through your cluttered head. Mat Brooke did, and after just one gig as Grand Archives he was already signed to Sub Pop records and the band went from opening at a small bar to supporting Modest Mouse. Sure they were in over their heads. The band wasn’t ready to play for thousands of people in theaters, but you don’t say no to touring with Modest Mouse. You dive in and start growing into your potential.

Is it possible for Grand Archives to continue at this pace? Probably not, but that’s hardly the point. Mat Brooke never set out to conquer the world. He would have burrowed into Band of Horses if that were his plan. No, Brooke and Grand Archives want to be your glimmer of hope. They want their angelic harmonies to pour down from above and remind you that life really isn’t that bad. They want to be your four-leaf clover, even if you’re living in a prison yard.

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