Because,

In Seattle Washington, I attended a Nevermind 20th Anniversary exhibit. On display, the Kurt Cobain drawing below, of his band Nirvana in its early incarnation with Chad Channing as the drummer.  I remember talking with my friend Mike about this image when we were kids, which we saw in the Nirvana biography, Come As You Are, by Michael Azerrad.  We appreciated the artistic license that Cobain took making the drums that funny horn shape.  This shape, however, turns out to have been the actual real shape of Chad Channing’s drum set, which was also on display.  A nearby plaque explained that the model was intended for playing jazz fusion in live clubs.

I also learned at this exhibit that both Nirvana and and my own band, Kalpana, played the same venue, NYC’s Pyramid Club, albeit about 15 years apart and at extremely different stages of the club’s relevance.

20 minutes after I learned this, I got a phone call from Aaron, guitarist for Kalpana, saying that we had just sold an album to a woman whose sister was the namesake for one of our songs.  A total stranger we heard about from television.

You see, the music is folding in on itself.

Super Sunday: Teeth on the Wheel ctd.

I thought I would follow up on Mike’s post with a perspective on the Kalpana record from someone who was not involved.

Mike wrote:

I think the songs are a big step forward from our earlier records, and we took a lot of extra steps to fill things out — extra vocal harmonies, guitar noise, programming — that give the tracks a new feel of multi-dimensionality that we never had before

This a remarkably self-aware and accurate take on one’s own music. My favorite song off of the first Kalpana album Hors de Combat was called “Save Me, You Can’t Save Me”. The reason I liked it was because there was clear melodic intention with a slow building hook that you could latch on to, followed by a massive pay off at the end. My only regret was the slight lack of fidelity. The big payoff got a touch muddy.

Teeth on the Wheel takes all of my favorite things about “Save Me” and inputs them into a larger album statement. Nearly every song contains one of those melodic hooks that keeps you interested. The best Kalpana songs have me humming or outright singing vocal melodies over them. There were a couple of these moments on Hors De Combat, Teeth on the Wheel is full of them. In addition the sound quality is outstanding.

The monster of the album (in my opinion) is the epic “O Carcass! My Carcass!” which has a couple of distinct and wonderful hooks contained within an epic slow build, the ultimate “tension and release”. The first time I listened to it I found myself singing almost fully formed ideas, until I gave up and just basked in the excellence. In the new year when we start playing around with collaborating again the first thing I’m going to do is lay down my vocal ideas. Maybe they’ll even be worth sharing!

Anyway, it gets my full endorsment. Just to reiterate you should download it here.

Super Sunday, Week Two: Teeth on the Wheel

Kalpana is the band that I started with my friends from school back in early 2003.  I play drums and keyboards, and I sing sometimes.  That image directly overhead is the cover of the album we put out back in late summer, called Teeth On the Wheel.  You can download it for an optional donation HERE.

This album was the result of a very long time spent writing and recording and mixing almost entirely by ourselves. We put our live shows on hold when we started on the record because we found that spending time on keeping the old songs fresh was getting in the way of developing anything new. Other than the drums and the mastering, this album was made totally on our computers.  Other than the drums and one night of vocals at a local practice space, the whole thing was recorded and mixed in our different apartments in Brooklyn.

This album was originally conceptualized as an EP of five songs on one continuous track called PLANET MOON.  But then we wrote some extra songs, and made our lyrics about something other than “The Vampyres of PLANET MOON” (although this was the real working title of a song at one point).

Mixing took absolutely forever, especially because we left so many possibilities open for the mixing stage.  By the time I moved to Philadelphia in August ‘08, mixing was essentially finished.  And I STILL commuted to NYC eight times that fall for mixing sessions, just to polish up all the tweaks that we knew would bother the hell out of us if we didn’t repair them.

The whole thing was a very long learning process and it was so relieving finally to put the album out, and not have to think any more about changing it.

Listening now, I think this is a great album.  The sounds are really big and cool.  I think the songs are a big step forward from our earlier records, and we took a lot of extra steps to fill things out — extra vocal harmonies, guitar noise, programming — that give the tracks a new feel of multi-dimensionality that we never had before.  I am really pleased with what we made, and I love listening to it.

Click here to download Kalpana - Teeth On the Wheel!