For those who’ve by no means listened to Lungfish, now looks as if a positive time to ask your self what you’ve deliberate for the subsequent 30 years. That’s a tough common of how lengthy three notable Kentucky musicians have been listening — acoustic guitarist Nathan Salsburg, multi-instrumentalist Tyler Trotter of the band Watter and singer-songwriter Will Oldham, whose songs as Bonnie “Prince” Billy have been each commemorated within the underground and coated by the likes of Johnny Money.
Collectively, the threesome have made “Hear the Children Sing the Evidence,” a brand new album of Lungfish covers. Two Lungfish covers, to be exact. The story goes that Salsburg had been singing a Lungfish music — “The Evidence,” an astonishing kind of Appalachian raga from the band’s 1994 album “Cross and Stow” — to his toddler daughter at bedtime when he discovered himself fascinated by its flexibility. He started to marvel if any Louisville scene pals is perhaps concerned with serving to him stretch some Lungfish songs towards the 20-minute mark, and after he enlisted Trotter and Oldham, they selected “Hear the Children Sing” from Lungfish’s 2003 album “Love is Love” because the album’s flip facet, with Salsburg and Oldham inviting their very own youngsters to sing on the monitor.
That symmetry is a pleasant wink — a music sung to a toddler; a music sung by youngsters — however this trio’s basic understanding of Lungfish music goes deep. By increasing these songs, they one way or the other get to their essence. In three separate cellphone interviews, Salsburg, Trotter and Oldham spoke with me about that paradox, in addition to the band’s stay sound, its sturdiness and its significance in relation to the legacy of Steve Albini, the late recording engineer with whom Oldham had labored intimately over time.
Within the spirit of Lungfish’s ambiguity and concision, the Q’s have been faraway from the next Q&A, and the A’s have been evenly edited for readability.
Nathan Salsburg: I taught myself “The Proof” in 1995 at summer time camp, and on the finish of 2021, I’d been singing it as a lullaby for my daughter, Talya. I might play it on the guitar with one hand and maintain her with the opposite, or rock her in her bassinet. And, in fact, Lungfish songs could be sung again and again. Possibly they are being sung in perpetuity, someplace within the universe. Anyway, it simply stored going till I went to Chicago to make one other document, however I had recorded perhaps 5 minutes of “The Proof” in case my spouse wanted to make use of it whereas I used to be away. A pair months later I discovered that tape and thought, “It’d be cool to have a document of this.” I assume actually.
Will Oldham: When Nathan invited me in, I used to be gleeful. I couldn’t wait to be inside of those songs on this means that he was describing — pulling them extensively aside, temporally, in order that there’s plenty of room to discover. Every take would permit for a number of iterations of every lyric, strolling across the lyrics and observing. “Oh, this passageway leads right here. This staircase leads right here. If I pull this curtain apart and blow the mud off this phrase, I’ve entry to an entire new stage of significance.”
Tyler Trotter: How I bought concerned and the way I bought into Lungfish, the 2 form of tie collectively. I purchased my first Lungfish document, “Sound in Time,” at a document retailer Nathan labored at.
Salsburg: Oh yeah, me and a few pals had a document retailer behind a skate store in ’95, ’96. I don’t bear in mind Tyler shopping for that document, however I’m glad he did!
Oldham: I’m not 100% certain the place I first heard Lungfish, however after I’m compelled by a chunk of music or an inventive entity, it’s often as a result of there’s a way that there’s a possible for years of reward and unpacking. Lungfish is a peak instance of that form of expertise. instantly that you just’re circling one thing that’s superior and byzantine and sophisticated and resonant.
Trotter: I noticed them on that tour for “Sound in Time,” after which a pair occasions with Fugazi. They have been repetitive, nearly atmospheric, and it put you into a spot.
Salsburg: I like [Lungfish guitarist Osborne’s] restraint, and actually, the entire band’s restraint. For some time, as a guitar participant, I used to be allergic to the thought of creating repetitive music, so I all the time packed elaborative stuff into my songs. However Asa’s guitar elements are precisely what’s required, and the mattress he lays for these lyrics, it’s simply Goldilocks stuff: not too sizzling, not too chilly, not too laborious, not too delicate. Higgs’s lyrics stick the way in which they do as a result of they get drilled into our brains by these unimaginable mechanisms, these riffs.
Oldham: When he was touring after Lungfish, Higgs would keep at my home, and people occasions have been very particular. Sitting round with him was an extension of his work. I hesitate to make use of the phrase “integrity” as a result of it feels like a alternative, and I don’t suppose it’s a alternative. It’s a consistency. They’re very completely different human beings, however folks like Ian MacKaye, or Dan Higgs, or Steve Albini, and even in my experiences with Johnny Money — they aren’t completely different of their completely different manifestations. Realizing Higgs [personally] is all of the extra fulfilling as a result of it’s not coming from a superhuman, it’s coming from an excellent human.
Trotter: So Nathan had been singing “The Proof” as a lullaby to Talya, and we simply thought, “Let’s play off that repetitiveness, slowly construct and take away, and enter extra of a trancelike, put-you-to-sleep kind of factor.”
Salsburg: On a Lungfish document, nothing ever actually goes over 5 minutes, however the songs really feel a lot longer. They usually resonate for a lot longer throughout house and time.
Oldham: Marvelously, [the meaning of these songs] is just not quantifiable in any respect. It’s there to behold and partake in. It’s like that traditional Magic Eye metaphor the place you’re taking a look at one thing that doesn’t appear to be something, however you retain trying, and it begins to take form. Nevertheless it’s nonetheless trapped within what it’s.
Trotter: “Hear the Kids Sing” began with programming the beat right into a LinnDrum [drum machine], however after we all bought collectively to play, it sounded bizarre. So we tuned every part down on the LinnDrum, and that sounded weirder, however we thought, “We might groove on this.”
Salsburg: I can’t bear in mind if getting our children concerned was Will’s thought or mine. His daughter Poppy Jo is 5½. Talya is popping 3 quickly. So Talya loves Poppy Jo, and Will was like, “Let’s set these microphones up and see if we will get them singing collectively.”
Oldham: This can be a actually unusual document. There are artists proper now writing songs on the minimal size for streaming providers, folks writing these 30-second songs, and right here we’re, idiotically doing the precise reverse. I do know I maintain coming again to Steve Albini, however he made folks really feel that if we stood by him, he was doing work for us. And now we have now to do this work. A part of that work is saying, “Let’s put out these 20-minute songs and double down on the issues that we perceive have worth.”
Trotter: We initially bought collectively within the studio for 2 days, after which we sat with what we’d recorded, and discovered methods so as to add and take issues away. I naturally wish to add every kind of little melodies, however that’s not what this music is about.
Oldham: It doesn’t push all of its rewards out without delay. It doesn’t matter what you do, it trickles out like a honeysuckle. “I’m going to drag the blossom off, gently choose the top off, pull it out and get that less-than-a-droplet of honey — and it’s going to fulfill me sufficient to take care of this sense of marvel that I’ve with the world.” Listening to Lungfish is like that. Getting somewhat bit at a time, every time.
Trotter: I feel Lungfish has one thing for everybody. You might need to be somewhat affected person with it at first, however sit with it. Give it time.
Salsburg: I really feel that each one the music I make is, not directly, an act of reverence — to the spirit that strikes us to create music, and the chances of interchange and communion. However I’m already so excited concerning the response to this from previous pals, new pals, non-friends, folks for whom Lungfish has performed a extremely pivotal position. I knew folks felt this fashion, however I didn’t count on this spectrum. It appears like we’re constructing a neighborhood out of our mutual reverence. So it’s a means of claiming because of them and for them.
