by Patrick Pilch (@pratprilch)
Solitude is bliss. There are countless artist-in-isolation narratives, stories which serve as backdrops for creative evolutions, reawakenings and masterpieces. Long-sought seclusion periods border fantasy for today’s artists, the ones you may find working behind a mask or behind a bar, usually both, too often flanked by questions about their sources of cash flow. (“If you’re an artist, then how do you make money?”) The world’s present state of semi-forced isolation has become a grand reckoning for humanity, sure, but America especially. Quarantine offers peace and escape, but after it’s through, you might not even recognize yourself. For musicians releasing material recorded before the global pandemic, it can sort of feel like listening to one’s bygone self. For Ganser, steady self-reflection has always been in the cards. Just Look At That Sky sheds its skin at a regular rate, sometimes in pieces and sometimes all at once, a continuous self-metamorphosis aimed to navigate these dark and chaotic times.
You’re never truly alone by yourself. Your present self is in limbo, halfway between your past and future self. Fears of the past, present and future feel stunted and fucked nowadays, but Ganser balances panic with reason. The band’s grim rationale is introspective, filled with self-compromises actively being made in a nation hell-bent on compromising the safety of its own citizens. Ganser are not overtly inflammatory, but making a record like Just Look At That Sky at this time feels inherently political. Trump-era turmoil picked at centuries old wounds America unabashedly wears on its sleeve; the pandemic ripped off the band-aid. The politicians are lizards and pop culture’s former glamor is being reduced to public performance. Let’s face it people, the celebs are out of touch and I promise you your friends are much cooler than everyone in that fucking “Imagine” video. But I digress.
Misinformation, fear-mongering and cognitive dissonance are at large - critical thought and the ability to change one’s mind is crucial. Ganser’s new record is in part about that self-reflection and continuous progress, an especially potent message in this moment of mass stasis. Just Look At That Sky is ruminative, empathetic and fluid; this is music to moult to. We spoke with Alicia Gaines and Nadia Garofalo about isolation and introspection, the new record, Peter Gabriel and more. Check out the interview below.
Post-Trash: How are you doing?
Alicia Gaines: You know, hanging in there.
PT: Congratulations on the album release. I really love the record, it’s really good.
Nadia Garofalo: Thank you so much.
PT: So who is the Peter Gabriel fan in the group?
NG: Brian?
AG: Brain and myself.
PT: Do you have a favorite record?
AG: I think it’s probably three. So the melted face one. There’s a lot of freedom in the corners of that record.
PT: Nice. What’s Ganser’s verdict on Smashing Pumpkins? In case you haven’t noticed I read your tweets.
NG: Well, I grew up loving Smashing Pumpkins. They were my favorite band for most of my young life through high school. I fell off right after Adore. I didn’t keep up after that. I didn’t keep up because they had been broken up for years and years. I also lost interest in anything that was created after that. But I think they were a really amazing band in the moment. I wish it would stop, but that’s my own personal opinion. [laughs]
AG: I think you’re going to get a diverse opinion about Smashing Pumpkins with the band because Nadia and I were in the sweet spot to really be into them throughout middle school and high school after their original run. But Charlie is just young enough compared to us, you show him Smashing Pumpkins and he’s like, “What the hell is this?” I think there’s a range in the band.
NG: It’s also different because they grew up in Chicago. Brian and Charlie grew up in Chicago and I think there’s a different feeling about that band. Maybe I’m wrong.
PT: Yea. I feel like that happens in bands’ hometowns. I feel like a lot of people in Ireland don’t like U2 that much.
[laughs]
AG: Yea. I love Nirvana, but they’re just always been around. It’s like the song “Happy Birthday.” It’s always there.
PT: What have been some of your recent favorite watches, like film/TV/documentaries? I know you two have a background with film and design.
NG: I just watched this French horror movie called Knife+Heart. It’s very in the same vein of those Italian horror films like the Giallo films that I’m such a fan of. I love Argento’s work. This movie was done very much in the spirit of that, but it centers around a female, antihero protagonist. She’s a director for porno films. Her actors start to get killed mysteriously. There’s this whole love story between her and the editor who is her ex girlfriend. It’s fabulous. I saw it on Shutter and it’s amazing. That was probably the most recent movie that I was thrilled by.
AG: I’ve been doing a little bit of horror, too. I saw this one called Relic. It’s an Australian horror movie that’s about how the main character’s mother’s dementia is real or unreal. There’s a lot in there about entropy and cyclical family issues that felt very apt for quarantine.
PT: Cool. I read a little about how Ganser began with both of you doing design and film work, and you were both kind of like, “let’s start a band.” I was wondering how the individual creative pursuits of the band members shaped the band’s sound?
AG: Yeah. When it comes to that kind of stuff, we’re always sharing things with each other. It comes across in the ways we work, we cross pollinate all the time. It took us a while to figure out where the best areas were for collaboration in songwriting but also directing and whatnot. There’s also places in which people have very specific skills. I know that if we need anything for filming, in terms of visualizing what a room looks like or visualizing sets, Nadia has that so down that it’s not even something we discuss. Nadia can do whatever she wants. Likewise, I’ll do a similar thing with editing. I’ll show the band and ask what they think. Usually there’s some notes and we go back and forth. But I think, for all of us, it’s a real way to explore and dive into our own fancies outside of working at companies and jobs that look very creative on the outside, but they’re not.
NG: I feel like the band is our creative pursuit these days. I feel like that’s partially why we were interested in starting it. At least, for me, I saw it as this multifaceted creative project. Yes, music is a big part of it. But with music comes the possibility of music videos, art and design that comes along with it. I think the band was something that gave us a structure in which to play with those things.
AG: It’s a way for us to work with people we really love collaborating with. Usually when we end up finishing something that not one of us could have done by ourselves, I think it’s a beast that we’re feeding now.
PT: Yea. I know you’ve worked several times with Kirsten Miccoli.
NG: She’s an awesome photographer. She’s been wonderful to us. She’s done some super cool photos and some really nice music videos for us. We’ve been lucky to have her as a friend who is willing to work with us.
PT: Nice. I really love the video for “Projector.” That was filmed the day after SXSW was cancelled, right?
NG: Yes. We shot that on an iPhone. Alicia was actually the cameraperson for that one.
AG: Yea. It was this very small window in time. I think a lot of people are looking at a lot of stuff they made last year that’s just coming out in a strange and particular light. Everything’s changing and morphing in the context of now. That video, in particular, was made in the week period between SXSW getting cancelled and there being a stay-at-home order in Chicago. It was in that tiny window of time right before we got hit by a wave. We were nervous, but we weren’t afraid to be making the video, if that makes sense. It wasn’t to the point where we were all standing six feet apart. It was a strange moment that was only a couple days. It’s bizarre to have evidence of that now.
PT: I feel the video very much reflects that uncertain reality, especially with the content material and lyrics of “Projector.” Nadia, I know you mentioned to For the Rabbits the Dunning-Kruger effect.
NG: Honestly that’s a phrase that Alicia came up with. There’s a lot of information flying around now and nobody is checking any sources. If you give people any kind of a platform and they express an opinion, people will listen. I think, sometimes, the things we’re hearing, upon closer inspection, it’s like, “Are you just drinking your own Kool-Aid?” What are you even saying? People will sometimes just talk without substance. That’s what I was thinking about when writing lyrics. Back in the days when we could go places I’d see people speak and be like, “wow.” I’d take notes the whole time on my feelings as the evening progressed. It was just a recurring thing that stuck out to me.
AG: It’s kind of reflected in us. We had an album come out, but with the current political moment, we’ve been more vocal about societal issues than we have in the past. I hope we have a healthy sense of not knowing any more than anyone else does, that keeps us from being like that song. Well, hopefully. [laughs]
NG: I think, for us, we speak very much to what our experiences are. We’re not overtly political but when you’re singing about emotions and internal struggles, it almost is inherently political just to exist as a creative in this time.
PT: Do you have a background in psychology?
NG: I’ve always been interested in it. I initially went to school to do art therapy. I took a lot of psychology classes but honestly I’ve been in therapy since I was sixteen. I’ve made it a personal goal to explore that within myself. I think, through that, I’ve learned quite a bit about psychology as it pertains to the things that I’ve been through or things that I’ve seen other people go through. I think that would be my only real background. I realized very quickly that I enjoy therapy for me, but I don’t want to be an art therapist. There’s a very particular type of person who can take that on and that’s just not who I am. I’m thankful I learned that early on and went into architecture.
AG: My interest comes from similar experiences, but also from researching semiotics in my work and sociology. That’s where our band name came from, finding a “Ganser Syndrome” in a night of diving into internet rabbit holes. Cotard delusion, Capgras delusion, all that stuff.
PT: Art therapy is cool. My mom did it and she was the same way. There seems to definitely be a certain type of person who gets involved with that.
NG: It’s also super thankless to be an art therapist. That was another reason I decided to switch my focus. I realized the reality was, I’d work in a prison or with people in a facility that’s vastly underfunded and people won’t take what I do seriously because there’s no research for it because nobody cares or nobody thinks it’s real. I’m sure your mom experienced that when she was in the field. It’s very difficult to do so good for people who can do it, it’s important work.
PT: To shift gears to the new record. While Just Look At That Sky is brand new, Ganser released You Must be New Here in the fall. Where would you say was the dividing line, whether that be creatively, thematically or timing-wise, between You Must Be New Here and Just Look At That Sky?
AG: They were all recorded over the same period. We had a couple recording sessions at the beginning of the year and in the middle of the year. It started to become evident when we were recording songs on a spectrum from, let’s say “Lucky” from Just Look At That Sky to ''Buio” from You Must Be New Here. There were definitely some thematic poles that we worked between. I would say You Must Be New Here was a really good thing to put out because we got to put it out independently. We got to control everything. But also, I think it’s a little more optimistic. We were making, I wouldn’t quite call it a tchotchke, more like a lark.
NG: It was sweet, almost like a dessert.
AG: It was a lark in that the album artwork was a little piece of cake. The video had to do with cake. It was a nice, small little bite. I think everybody tries to make grand statements when they’re putting out projects and I think Just Look At That Sky is one of those larger ones, but I don’t think that should devalue fun little diversions. I honestly think You Must Be New Here exists in a space that’s a lot more optimistic and a little more lighthearted, which is also part of us.
NG: In one review I think someone said that if you want a more accessible introduction to our music, you should listen to You Must Be New Here first. I was kind of like, “alright, I guess that’s a way to think about it.”
AG: I think there’s some crossover, especially at the end of You Must Be New Here, with “Motivational Speaking.” I can see some ties to something like “NO YES” from the album. We do have an affinity to follow our own indulgent paths. We don’t really hold ourselves too much, in terms of genre. I think that holds true with bands that you really like. It’s layers. Folks with that quality kind of do whatever they want. I guess Peter Gabriel falls into that too.
PT: There’s a line at the end of the liner notes in Just Look At That Sky. It reads “Like animals that have forgotten what they have or would be called.” Could you talk a little about that?
AG: I like to hide easter eggs in the liner notes of our physical albums. Growing up, Nadia and I had a whole bunch of CDs and stuff. The hidden booklet in Kid A, that kind of stuff. That line in particular, in relation to Just Look At That Sky, is about learning to spend time with yourself. When we started the project I proposed an idea, half joking, about running into the woods screaming. Just being overwhelmed, sort of cliche. But, if you were to do that you would have to spend a lot of time with yourself. The idea would be that once you come back out, you may not recognize yourself. And that’s kind of beautiful, the idea of constantly shedding your skin like a snake. I think that theme is peppered throughout the album.
PT: Can you elaborate on the sequel connection between “NO YES” and “YES NO”?
AG: The end of “YES NO” ends with a little mellotron thing I put together. I have an affinity for bossa nova music. The idea would be that the line trails off and goes into the starting tone of “NO YES.” We took the key from one song and used it as a jumping off point for something new. It’s in that same, elevator muzak kind of space. That was just me playing around. I wanted it to be a little interlude on a heavy album.
PT: I think it’s a great penultimate track.
AG: Thanks. That track feels like the end of the album to me. “Bags For Life” feels like the epilogue.
PT: Can you tell us about the recording from Sean Gunderson on “YES NO?”
NG: He was actually one of the actors in the “Lucky” video. He’s a friend of Charlie’s. He and Charlie have done their own experimental music with some voiceover work. He’s done some voiceover acting, I believe. Charlie said “we should use my friend Sean to read for this.” It was a recording Alicia had found. Was it from the 50s?
AG: It was from the 50s. It’s a psychologist interviewing patients, essentially, as part of a trade video. It’s kind of tragic watching these videos, watching a 50s businessman explain depression, but not having the language to explain depression in the way that it’s easy for us now. This man is talking about how he makes people laugh, and people think he’s fine. That was wonderful and we chopped it up a little bit, but at the same time that’s a real person who has had real experiences. So we said “let’s get an actor” and change it slightly, but base it around that. That’s where Charlie came in and said, “Hey I have a friend who can do this.” He just did a wonderful 50s voice. I wasn’t there for that day of recording but when I came back and heard the recording, I was like, “Wait, that’s not the original?” He did a great job.
PT: I’ve watched your videos. A lot of Ganser’s earlier work, from Pyrrhic Victory and “Pastel” as well, featured a lot of clips that looked like it was taken from public domain. Alicia, is that how you find a lot of this stuff?
AG: Yes we’ll collaborate, the four of us, with found footage. Pyrrhic Victory was the only one we didn’t have a hand in. For “Pastel” and “Avoidance,” that was where we would agree upon what the themes of the music video were, then everybody would just go hunt. I think that’s the way we worked throughout. There are lines in the lyrics of our songs that are pulled from internet forums. We’re not completely collage artists, but I think there’s a part of us that has that aspect and sometimes it comes out in sourcing video of 60’s family gatherings and cameras to convey social media anxiety on something like “Pastel.”
NG: Doing deep dives in archives on the Internet; it’s crazy what you find. You don’t know what you’re going to come across with certain search terms.
AG: It’s a little bit of a collective subconscious. “Projector” is like that, too. Nadia gave me the lyrics and we all found things that I chopped together for the lyrics presentation. Then there’s the mix of trying to make it look aesthetically naive, but also intentional, we tend to like a lot of Adult Swim stuff, too. It’s supposed to be a bit absurd. We’re not that grim.
NG: That one was weird. We were doing searches for old early internet graphics. It took me back quite a bit.
PT: You featured horns on this record. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe this was a first for the band?
AG: Yes, this was a first. This is something that happened, I think, because I was listening to too much Britpop. I think Charlie jumped in at one point to help with the arrangement, especially toward the end. I think the wildest part was going back to high school band and having to transcribe the parts to have a trumpet player and a trombone player come to the studio and record six or seven layers of horns. It was pretty wild and definitely snapped me back into my orchestra days of having to be very rigid and exact rather than loosy-goosy as we play here.
NG: Alicia, I feel like you’re always looking to put horns on something.
AG: Don’t tempt me. [laughs]
PT: They’re great!
AG: No totally, no complaints. I feel like it comes up almost every time we record, the possibility of horns or strings. This time it worked out really, really well. We’ve been waiting, too. Brian grew up playing saxophone, so maybe LP3?
NG: Yea, maybe we’ll put some sax in there. I’ll break out my old recorder, it’ll be great.
PT: Nice. The first brass-punk band. Maybe some ska influence in there.
NG: Oh no. [laughs]
PT: You work with Brian Fox at Altered States who works with, I think, some of Chicago’s best bands. Can you talk a little more about that?
AG: We lucked out in a pretty extreme way working with him. He recorded Odd Talk with us. That record was recorded and mixed over the span of five days, so doing Just Look at That Sky was a much different experience. We spent so many hours with Fox over a year, who also co-produced this record with Mia Clarke, that something I think we really appreciated, beyond the technical skills, is that it’s really nice to find someone that’s as easy going and as flexible with ideas as Fox. He’s really solid and very steady, which is great when you’re trying to fly in horns or bring in a friend to do a weird voiceover.
NG: He’s just got so much knowledge and so many different things to play with in his studio, too. So many different mics. We went through so many mics to record vocals. He had a bunch of different amps there. He has a really good idea as to what we’re going for and knows how to help us get there. It’s awesome to have someone who’s not just in the booth hitting record to get to the next take. He’s very good.
PT: I read Mia Clarke had an influence on the guitar effects in “Projector,” right? I saw the band tweeted a link to a live Electrelane set.
AG: Yes. That was maybe my most favorite moment in all of recording the album. It was a day when we had Mia Clarke in the studio. She was in the studio on and off but mostly we would send her drafts. We would talk on the phone or text about it. This was a day she was actually in the studio and we had that middle section of “Projector.” She wanted to add one more layer of chaos, so she platformed this technique she used with Electrelane, which we had not done before. She took Charlie’s guitar and put the strings down on the corner of an amp so it squealed feedback in a way that was very random and unpredictable. I think that was something that was very unique for this recording because as random as Charlie’s guitar may seem, that’s all written. He does the same thing each time. This was just pure effects and noise. That was something new and fun and exciting. It was seriously amusing watching him learn how to do that too.
PT: Charlie doesn’t use any pedals, right?
AG: Nope.
NG: Just a tuner pedal. Sometimes there’s reverb, with the amp. [laughs]
PT: Barebones, that’s awesome.
NG: Yea. He’s just very particular about the amp he wanted to use and his guitar. That’s all him. It was great, when there were shows, seeing people come up after our set and look to see what everyone’s using. They’d go over to see what Charlie’s using and there's nothing.
PT: Speaking of live music, what’s the first Chicago venue you’re playing at when it becomes safe?
AG: I think this one’s easy, right Nadia?
NG: Oh, probably the Empty Bottle. We’re still on the schedule to play that Algiers tour in December, but I don’t know how that’s going to go. We’ll see.
PT: That’s at the Empty Bottle?
AG: One of the stops. We’ve worked out a few dates with them and it’s been moved once. It’s one of those things where we’re just waiting on everything. We’d be at the Bottle in a heartbeat.
This interview took place on August 6th.
PT: What are you going to get from Bandcamp tomorrow?
AG: There’s this band called New Fries. Whenever I hear a new song from them, there’s something I’m attached to immediately. Then I look and see it’s New Fries and I’m like, “shit they’ve done it again.” That’s a band whose album I’m really looking forward to hearing. They have some incredible music videos that I don’t understand why they don’t have four million views. So yeah, everybody check out New Fries.
NG: I think I’m going to get that Ohmme record. The digital download, to throw them some support. I’m not a big record collector. I buy records very sparingly, I think because I grew up in the Napster era and was a big CD collector. The collection idea of it to me is like, that’s a lot of things to have around. I enjoy being able to just download. The Bandcamp app is really cool on the user side. To be able to have all my purchases on that is great. I’ll get the Ohmme album and I think there are a couple others. I like to search around and listen on the day to kind of seek out what I want.
AG: It feels like the Scholastic book fair day.
NG: I’m going to get the eraser that’s shaped like a unicorn. [laughs]
PT: Smells like cherries or something.
NG: Cotton candy, yea.
PT: Last question, but what have you been reading?
NG: I’ve been ravenous with books. I think I read more books in the past 3 months than the past three years. The first one I read was Patti Smith’s Just Kids. It’s so good. I think she’s a tremendous writer. Through that book I discovered Lawerence Ferlinghetti. He has a bookstore in San Francisco, City Lights, I believe. I got a collection of his poems called A Coney Island of the Mind. I reread Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion. Those ones were the top.
AG: I reread Michael Ian Black’s Navel Gazing, which has some really interesting ties into worrying about the body. I feel like everybody is worrying about the body and their health right now. I loved Stella and gonzo humor. I’ve been reading Afropessimism by Frank Wilderson III. I’m slowly making my way through Stephen King’s The Stand, because now seems like a good time for it.