By Jon Bosworth
What: Shangrala CD Release Party with Johnathan Appleseed
Where: Jack Rabbits in San Marco (1528 Hendricks Ave)
When: February 15th 2008
As Jacksonville’s music scene gives the impression of being on the upswing, with Black Kids creating a national buzz and some great homegrown acts suddenly making a local name for themselves (Antarctic, A Slight Breeze, Buffalo Tears, etc) Shangrala brings their first full length album, Clearance to Land, to the table. It is easily the best local release of 2007. In fact the album stands up against most of the national releases that have found their way onto my iPod this year.
“I’m excited about playing a lot of shows now. 2008 is the year to play a lot of shows,” said Shangrala singer and guitarist Jude Kahle.
EU caught up with Brian Jerin (who also plays guitar and sings with the band) and Jude Kahle while Jerin was contributing to a secret Christmas album side project with sometime Shangrala collaborator Jared Bowser in Kahle’s home studio. Although currently staged in a small corner of Jude’s bedroom, this Pro Tools setup once commanded a better portion of the living room of Jude’s Riverside home, as did a drum kit, a number of amplifiers, a large sound board and all of the other gear necessary for Shangrala to record Clearance to Land. Instead of dropping thousands of dollars on recording in a professional studio with a professional engineer, Shangrala trusted their own skills to adequately track the album. But listening to it, you’d never know it was their first attempt.
“We liked the pace that it gave us to create and we have the capabilities. And it’s free. All it took was time and beer,” said Jerin.
No one in the band had professionally recorded a full album before, although all of them have been part of bands that had. A good deal of the two years Clearance to Land took to make can be attributed to them taking their time and care to create the sounds they knew they wanted.
“We definitely learned a lot. It was a group effort. We know what sounds right to us,” said Jerin.
As Brian, Kahle and Bowser layered tracks and tracks of guitars and electronic noises to their version of ‘Angels We Have Heard on High,’ throughout the interview, I tried to grasp how these small chunks of music could resemble the larger composition. Much like the time it took to create Clearance to Land, it was impossible to see how such a disparate songlist, esoteric assortment of influences, and remarkable amalgam of talent could coalesce into the singular dynamic sound of Shangrala, and yet the album sounds as though it was conceived in one songwriting session.
“Musicians will like us. We’re kind of musician’s music, to some extent,” said Kahle.
It is true that their songs have dynamics and a complexity that could almost be considered math rock, which may make them appeal to musicians, but there is a sincere pop ethic that is more borne from bands such a Death Cab for Cutie or Jealous Sound. That is not to say they are in any way derivative. Shangrala has a genuinely unique sound that croons through Kahle’s sincere and faltering vocals, jangles through Jerin’s dreamy guitar, and punches out of Mike VonBalson’s crisp drums to alternately lull and pulverize the listener in a cunningly deliberate fashion. From folksy tunes like ‘Time’ to complex rock songs like ‘Zilla,’ the album truly expresses their breadth of abilities and doesn’t pigeon-hole the band into any single genre.
The song ‘Race for the Ages’ shows the skilled songwriting that can come from a strong rhythm section as drummer VonBalson and bassist Will Hill create a funkish groundwork for a rock song that is exquisitely complemented by Walt Hill’s keyboards. The recording is so crisp and each part so distinct, it is impossible to imagine it as recorded in a home studio.
“We only had six songs when we decided to go to Vision Sound, we were just going to do a demo EP. We tried to master it ourselves, but it didn’t come out the way we wanted it to. So we went to Vision Sound to master it. It blew our minds how great it sounded. That geared us to do a full eleven song record, since we knew we could go there and make it sound as good as a record you could buy off the shelf,” said Jerin.
Producer Paul Lapinski enhanced the dynamics of the band and made every part stand distinctly apart. The mastering process also gave the album an audio level that standard albums use.
“With all the different melodies we had, it was good to have someone else’s ear listening to it, I think helped us out a lot,” said Kahle.
Shangrala has submitted Clearance to Land to all of the big websites for review, including NPR, Fader, Absolute Punk, Pitchfork Media and Sputnik Music, which gave them a five star review.
“When we first started talking about it we said if we get a three star review, that’s pretty good. Sigur Ros got three stars on Sputnik, so we would have been happy with that,” said Jerin.
As the three put the finishing touches (a series of “Heys” from “Mr. Mouse”) on their Christmas carol, the full vision of the song was finally realized and I could sing along. Just as I sing along to Clearance to Land when I listen to it on my iPod. It gets as much play as Modest Mouse and the new Radiohead in my car. There hasn’t been a locally released record to come out this good since The Cadets released On the Death of Science As a Major World Religion to little fanfare this past summer.
Shangrala has a CD release party booked at Jack Rabbits on February 15th, which is certain to be one of the best local rock shows of 2008. In the meantime you can purchase Clearance to Land from myspace.com/shangrala.
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