Heavy ‘noise’ band returns to roots
JOCELYN MURPHY
jmurphy@nwadg.com
The noise-metal iconoclasts’ latest album takes the listener on a journey through a hell of The Body’s careful making. — Pitchfork
And so it has nearly always been for “noise” band The Body.
“It’s situational, but I think [all our music] always tends to have a main thematic viewpoint of loss and the various ways people deal with things like that,” says drummer Lee Buford.
For going on 20 years, Buford and singer/guitarist Chip King have inhabited the world of doom and gloom while they traversed countless genres to become a band best defined simply as “noise.” On their May 11 release, “I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer,” the Portland-based, Fayetteville-formed duo weave hip hop, pop, classical, rock and electronica influences with their own samples and pieces of previous recordings for an experience Pitchfork goes on to say “hides moments of grace within an impenetrably violent landscape, capturing a rupture at the boundary of what is bearable.”
“The record title is from Virginia Woolf’s suicide note. And then at the end of the record, there’s a spoken word thing that was written by this Czech author Bohumil Hrabal, who was a super sad author and wrote a book ‘Too Loud a Solitude.’ It’s this touching story about this guy who just loves so much, but feels so out of place in the world,” Buford shares. “So that’s a definite theme that we can understand and definitely something we go back to.
“A lot of the stuff we have is in some way some literary reference just because if someone said something better than us, there’s no reason for us to try to improve [it],” he goes on. “So musically, I feel like we try to experiment as much [as we can] and I don’t know if there’s anyone else that does the same thing. But as far as the written word, I mean there’s so much stuff that is much better than what we could ever come up with.”
Another impressive aspect of The Body’s body of work is most of that literary reference and musical/instrumental experimentation usually happens, start to finish, in less than a week. Sure, going in to the studio, someone will usually have a general idea for a guitar section or a drum section, or even a lyrical concept may be floating around. But most of the music and lyrics aren’t written until the band gets to the studio, where they’ll polish out an album in under seven days.
“We always have so many people play on the records and stuff like that that if we have an idea for them, you can’t really practice it, it’s hard to actually do it until you get into actually putting down tracks,” Buford reveals. “It’s like how probably a lot of hip hop stuff is made, where I have this one idea, let’s get that down, and then you think, ‘OK, now let’s build on top of that.’ You build it in layers like that — take stuff back or drop stuff out — but it’s more we have a singular idea, get that down and then build everything on top of that. Luckily, it’s worked out for us.”
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FAQ
The Body
WHEN — 8 p.m. Nov. 23
WHERE — George’s Majestic Lounge in Fayetteville
COST — $8-$10
INFO — 527-6611, georgesmajesticlounge.com, facebook.com/thebodyband
BONUS — Bands Author and Punisher will also perform.
