Karass EP- By Best Friend
ALBUM TITLE: Karass EP
ARTIST: Best Friend
GENRE: Dream pop / Shoegaze
LISTEN HERE: Bandcamp
LINKS: Bandcamp, Facebook, Soundcloud
Karass, unified as an EP by reverb and melodic gauze, contains a subtle diversity that draws a listener in with each subsequent play. The title, Karass, finds its roots in Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, a satirical science fiction book that uses its own made-up diction. “Karass” describes a group of individuals inexplicably connected to each other through spiritual or cosmic circumstance. As its title reveals, Karass explores connections made through chance interactions and emotional attractions.
The second track of the EP, “It Was About Time”, begins with expressed surprise: “... I drew all of these meaningless lines/I was so sure they would never blur”. It’s a novel realization that these erratic connections -- an identical taste in music distanced through the web, a familiar defense of selfish immorality, an emotional connection to a travel blogger -- maybe aren’t just coincidences after all, but are linked events, all with some greater significance.
Musically, it almost sounds like the lines of certain tracks, like “Something Else”, were written separately and later layered on, rather than created with a cohesive whole in mind. Yet in a way, the texture of the track may even contribute to the idea of “karass”. “Snodgrass Tower, 5AM”, the shortest track at just over a minute, brought an expansive energy that was refreshing to hear in the EP. The track that follows, “Snodgrass Tower, 6AM”, is an easy favorite, not just because of the story behind it, but because of the energy and emotion Best Friend put into its melodic storyline, which climaxes into an alluring descending guitar line.
But the highlight of the EP for me lies in “For Snow 3”. Sometimes subtle and simple is better, and the beautiful rippling melodies hidden behind each synth chord made me think of peaceful winter nights, when you’re the only one on the road after a fresh coat of snow, driving 10 miles per hour to keep from crashing. The 45 second outro was incredibly vibrant, keeping me craving for more.
From the opening bass line of “It Was About Time” to the last, sustained note of “For Snow 3”, Karass is woven together by isolated melodies and beats, synthesized by shared memories and ideas.
Favorite tracks include Disappear//Reappear, etc, Snodgrass Tower, 6AM, and For Snow 3.
RINA: How has music affected you throughout your life? How did you start making music?
BEST FRIEND: Music has always been a big part of my life. I really got into it from watching skateboarding videos as a kid and listening to the songs that were featured for the different video parts. I remember really liking "I Wanna Be Your Dog" because it was in a video called Sorry, and also "Ooh Child" by the Five Stairsteps from the Transworld video First Love. I started diving a little deeper after that, and when my older brother went to college a long time ago he would come back on the weekends with a bunch of new albums in his iTunes library and I would put them on my iPod.
It was around then that I started making music too. I had a teacher in high school, Mr. Keathley, who wrote songs, and I didn't know anyone else who actually had their own songs. I thought I could do it too, so I just started experimenting with my voice and recording on this old laptop I had when no one was home. Then I started forming bands and it totally consumed my life after that.
How did Best Friend start? Why the name?
Best Friend originally started the summer before I went to college with my brother, David, and our friend Brad King. Girls' first album, 'Album', had just come out and we were all really really into it, and wanted to make music like that. I don't think we ever really accomplished that goal, but we enjoyed playing together and recording so we tried a bunch of different things out. I don't remember exactly where the name came from, but it was between Best Friend and Boogie Board, and I am so thankful we didn't use Boogie Board.
We know Nashville has a pretty vibrant music scene, has that influenced you?
Nashville's music scene is pretty wild. There is a lot of garage rock type stuff that I don't really get into like I used to. It's kind of run its course in my opinion, but there are about a dozen new bands like that every week. But since I moved back after college I've found there are a lot of other really great bands here making cool experimental music. That has had a huge influence on my stuff. I have totally reevaluated my music making process and what I'm trying to do with my songs because of them.
Unlike a lot of other dream pop bands, it seems like Best Friend heavily emphasizes instrumentation, creating an almost shoegazey sound that meshes with its dream pop direction. Did any particular bands influence you in making this kind of music/how did you come up with it?
My sound aesthetic is where it is from a lot of different directions I have tried over the years. I was really into shoegaze music in college, and it was pretty much all I listened to and tried to make, but after a while it just wasn't doing it for me anymore. I was watching some interview with Johnny Marr and he was talking about coming from a post-punk background and making pop music. He was able to make all this new sounding pop stuff with the Smiths because he had slightly different angle. I've been trying to do that lately with shoegaze-y and dream pop type music, and bringing it to a more conventional style. Kind of soul-influenced too. I don't know. To me it's working a lot better than my older stuff, and I'm able to get a point across with lyrics sometimes because I'm not like whispering into a microphone with a ton of delay on my voice. I also just love dreamy music, and I've been trying to find more of it that isn't so reliant on reverb, like Pavement's "Grounded" or pretty much any Galaxie 500 song, and I have been trying to do that - use way less reverb on the instruments.
What inspired you to write Karass?
I was inspired to make Karass by all my friends that make music. I was kind of getting burnt out on the stuff I was making. I was trying way too hard, I think. And I had too formulaic of an approach. My friend Austin is a few years younger than me and he had just started making music. He was trying everything he could think of and it all sounded so good. He didn't have some specific approach to all his songs like I did, and I really admired that and started trying to do that. The songs really started coming after that. I was also getting into some sort of soul and r&b type stuff at the time, and I wanted to try and use it as an angle to my music, which worked surprisingly well.
A lot of the lyrical stuff was inspired by random things. I really like how Morrissey's lyrics would have like nine different meanings depending on how you interpret the song, and I wanted to go for that. The first song on the album "Disappear//Reappear, etc" is sort of about morality, and how people will use that to justify stuff when it's convenient to them, but I tried to word it like a break up song. I don't know if it worked, but I tried. And other songs were different attempts at new songwriting techniques, like "Words In This Language" is supposed to be sort of funny with overwrought nihilism. I never used to make jokes in my writing, which I think is weird so I'm trying to change that.
The track titles “Snodgrass 5AM” and “Snodgrass 6AM” are enticing; what is the reason for this particular link and the meaning behind their titles?
The two Snodgrass Tower songs are about this guy Anton Kanevsky. He jumped from the Snodgrass Tower in Nashville last summer, and there was this article about it in this magazine we have in Nashville called the Nashville Scene. Anton was a travel blogger and was going all around the country trying to find some new place to live and he had all sorts of great experiences along the way, but then it got pretty dark for him and he was kind of rejected by this girl he liked and it was just all so sad. But the he climbed up the side of the building, which is 31 stories, and then sent this super cryptic text to the girl before jumping. No one has any clue what was going through his mind and there was no closure or anything. I felt really bad for everyone involved in the story, especially his parents, and I couldn't stop thinking about it so I wrote the words to "Snodgrass Tower, 6AM" from his perspective. "Snodgrass Tower, 5AM" is supposed to be an instrumental representation of a moment of clarity that is followed by intense anguish. So like Anton's mind before he made the decision to climb the tower. Then the song ends when he's up there looking around.
Karass is out via Gezellig Records on April 7, 2017.
Listen to their EP below: