Everyone Is Whispering — David William Ross

Everyone is whispering. They certainly are not shouting from the rooftops and I’m reasonably sure that they are not speaking in conversational tones. But it remains true that I know not what they say and I’ve been spared all the calls.

On April 6th, 2018 the indie-psychedelic-alt-country band Deep River Saints released their second album For Posterity. Hipster pretension aside, I feel that the over hyphenated style description is appropriate and I’m happy to be responsible for at least one of those adjectives: psychedelic. I worked extremely intensely producing this project. Burlington song-writer Patrick J. Crowley wrote all of the songs (except for both nighthawks) but I arranged and rearranged them nearly beyond the point of recognition excepting his acoustic guitar chords and vocal melodies. I tried to capture the spirit of his music through my own lens. I’m grateful for his ease and trust in this project. Ultimately it is an essentially collaborative work and the end result is quite unlike anything that either he or I would have produced on our own.

This project was heavily multi tracked and many of the musicians had never met one another in person. The album was recorded over many months, bordering on the better part of a year. Each musician contributed a bit of personality that makes the record what it is. Most worked blind, tracking their part to a bare bones version of the album, hearing only what was absolutely necessary to keep them in time and in the proper mood . In many cases, I coached the performance heavily to get a particular sound but more often, I allowed myself to be guided by the musicians’ instincts, nudging here and there to better realize the musical idea. It was not until I had recorded everyone’s contribution that I assembled the structure of each song and added the electric guitar and percussion and other sounds.

I recorded everything from children’s toys to oatmeal cans to spring peepers and many things in between. I added a lot to this album and layered textures in a way that only modern recording makes feasible. The sounds on For Posterity have a uniqueness that comes from experimentation, novelty, and counter-intuition. For instance, rather than drawing from obvious loud, scary, and distorted sounds to create an encompassing feeling of ominous dread and intensity, I recorded string and slide noise on an electric guitar and mixed it at a level that would never register as gentle string noise to the listener. The effect was surprising and I littered the album with it. This sound actually sits underneath most of the tracks, casting a somewhat ghostly shadow. It’s heard clearly in the opening of Angeles Crest and more intensely through Lights of Montreal, more gently through The Revised and String Peepers.

Having such total control over the sound of a record can really be a double edged sword. On one hand, I had the license to create the sound I heard in my head. On the other, I was met with an immense void of sonic emptiness that I was responsible for crafting into aural bliss. In the end, I feel very gratified with this album. To me it feels like the best album that nobody’s heard. But I know that at least one well-spoken critic found his way to this album and heard it as I do. You can read his review here: Seven Days VT, For Posterity. I hope more people find their way to this album by Deep River Saints and that some day I might have the opportunity to play with them again.

Listen to the band here: DeepRiverSaints

Review of For Posterity: SevenDaysVT