{"id":3060,"date":"2018-08-03T14:35:49","date_gmt":"2018-08-03T18:35:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.burnttoastvinyl.com\/blog\/?page_id=3060"},"modified":"2020-11-25T22:31:10","modified_gmt":"2020-11-26T02:31:10","slug":"btv114-foxhole-well-kept-thing","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.burnttoastvinyl.com\/blog\/?page_id=3060","title":{"rendered":"BTV115 Foxhole : Well Kept Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\nFoxhole
\nWell Kept Thing<\/em> (btv115) cd\/LP
\nBuy cd Online<\/a>\u00a0\/\u00a0Buy LP Online<\/a>
\nTrack listing:
\nSIDE A<\/span>
\n1. After the Walk (3:37)
\n2. Count Basie and His Daughter’s Shoes (4:59)
\n3. Noble Scales (4:28)
\n4. Something or Other (3:11)
\n5. Gottlieb Deux (2:19)
\n6. Enlist Now (3:20)
\nSIDE B<\/span>
\n1. Gottlieb’s Dragon (4:52)
\n2. Calm Blood (5:10)
\n3. Supermonster (5:55)
\n4. Eight Belles at Midnight (2:33)
\n5. Pine Resin Transfer, Amber Hands (4:15)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

Blistering drums, masterful melodic interplay, dynamic composition and a distinct smattering of brass \u2014 these are the defining qualities of Foxhole<\/strong>, a post-rock group of limited output but surprising longevity. And on their third proper album, Well Kept Thing<\/em>, the band builds on their diverse foundation to deliver a (mostly) instrumental album for the ages.<\/p>\n

Written across 12 years, five states and three countries, Well Kept Thing<\/em> is a sonic autobiography, telling the story of a band growing up and journeying apart, while fighting against distance and the demands of adulthood to preserve their friendship.<\/p>\n

The beginnings of the album lay in Bowling Green, a midsize Kentucky town where the members met as teenagers nearly two decades earlier. Those threads are laid bare in the album\u2019s oldest track, \u201cNoble Scales,\u201d a cavernous post-rock ode with a linear build punctuated by an iconic guitar riff; one of the few tracks to have been written with the members together in a single location, its name honors the late Jason Noble, a fellow Kentuckian whose bands Rodan, Shipping News and Rachel\u2019s were formative to Foxhole\u2019s<\/strong> sound, and to the region\u2019s distinct musical stylings.<\/p>\n

The album\u2019s opener, \u201cAfter the Walk,\u201d is a party anthem (if ever post-rock had one) that hints at the more complex structure and tone that would come to mark Foxhole\u2019s<\/strong> next decade of songwriting. After two members coincidentally moved to Austin, TX within months of each other, they penned the song\u2019s melodic guitar and piano parts under a live oak tree off South Congress before sending the tracks east for additional guitar work in Louisville and drum tracking in Nashville.<\/p>\n

Slowly, a new writing process emerged, and with it a new aesthetic. Emails and mp3s were exchanged with scraps of ideas captured on phones and laptops. As those scraps became songs, they graduated to a server where a version control system tracked every change \u2014 syncing them to all five members and bridging disparate locations, time zones and work schedules. It was a rhythm that a different band might have found frustratingly slow, but played to the strengths of a group committed as much to each other as their music.<\/p>\n

As members started new careers (as a coffee shop owner, a farmer and commercial fisherman, a creative director, an admission to MIT\u2019s Media Lab), married, had children and continued their nomadic tendencies (Colorado, New York, Massachusetts, Alaska, Switzerland, Austria), each change brought a new perspective on a growing repository of ideas.<\/p>\n

A solemn bass line written in Vienna in the Spring of \u201807 was overlaid with a hopeful Rhodes piano in the winter of \u201811 to become the hypnotic \u201cCalm Blood.\u201d Feedback recorded in a Kentucky church in \u201805 underpins wailing Tennessee guitars from \u201809 to produce the thrashing \u201cGottlieb Deux.\u201d And a rumination on a dead racehorse from \u201808 gained haunting electronics in \u201817 to become \u201cEight Belles at Midnight.\u201d<\/p>\n

In December 2016, it was time. Using an earlier, week-long tracking session as the foundation (recorded in 2010 at The Brown Owl in Nashville by former drummer Jason Torrence), the band convened back in Bowling Green to turn these independently evolved ideas into a coherent whole. Each song was mapped and a project plan produced, outlining the brass, keys, and electronics that would eventually stitch the album together during a recording session in a rural Massachusetts cabin.<\/p>\n

Mixing soon fell to Grammy-winner Stephen Roessner<\/strong> (Saxon Shore), with mastering by Bob Weston<\/strong> (Shellac) \u2014 the same Weston who\u2019d tracked Jason Noble\u2019s Rodan some 23 years earlier. Packaging design by Adam Moore<\/strong> hides hints to the band\u2019s 18-year history throughout, with the nine cities involved in the production etched into the margins of the vinyl.<\/p>\n

The album concludes with \u201cPine Resin Transfer, Amber Hands,\u201d an operatic ballad sung by harpist and long-time collaborator Timbre Cierpke<\/strong>, containing the album\u2019s sole lyrics. They tell the story of the Well Kept Thing<\/em>: the friendship among these members, after all these years \u2014 the expression of which is the music contained therein.<\/p>\n

About Foxhole <\/em>
\nFormed around the turn of the century, Foxhole<\/strong> has released three proper albums. Their full-length debut, 2004\u2019s We The Wintering Tree<\/em>, (Selah Records; reissued in 2008 on Burnt Toast Vinyl) would go on to acclaim from post-rock and experimental publications as one of the best albums released that year, and tracks from it can still be heard behind television shows, skateboard videos, and NPR segments. The year 2006 brought Push\/Pull<\/em> (Burnt Toast Vinyl), a five-track album inspired by a friend lost at sea. Push\/Pull<\/em> saw a tighter focus, with emphasis on composition and a rich sonic range, and the band toured to support the album off and on for the next couple years. On Sept 28th, 2018, Foxhole<\/strong> will release their new LP \u2014 the culmination of more than a decade of writing, recording, revising and waiting. Well Kept Thing<\/em>, indeed.<\/p>\n

Foxhole<\/strong> is Derek Holt (bass), Greg Leppert (brass, keys, electronics), Adam Moore (guitars), Justin Shepherd (guitars) and Chris Vicari (drums). Past members include drummers Matthew Wilson and Jason Torrence, electronics guy Brian Toppenberg, and founding member Nathan McBroom.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Foxhole Well Kept Thing (btv115) cd\/LP Buy cd Online\u00a0\/\u00a0Buy LP Online Track listing: SIDE A 1. After the Walk (3:37) 2. Count Basie and His Daughter’s Shoes (4:59) 3. Noble Scales (4:28) 4. Something or Other (3:11) 5. Gottlieb Deux (2:19) 6. Enlist Now (3:20) SIDE B 1. Gottlieb’s Dragon (4:52) 2. Calm Blood (5:10) 3. Supermonster (5:55) 4. Eight Belles at Midnight (2:33) 5. Pine Resin Transfer, Amber Hands (4:15) Blistering drums, masterful melodic interplay, dynamic composition and a distinct smattering of brass \u2014 these are the defining qualities of Foxhole, a post-rock group of limited output but surprising longevity. And on their third proper album, Well Kept Thing, the band builds on their diverse foundation to deliver a (mostly) instrumental album for the ages. Written across 12 years, five states and three countries, Well Kept Thing is a sonic autobiography, telling the story of a band growing up and journeying apart, while fighting against distance and the demands of adulthood to preserve their friendship. The beginnings of the album lay in Bowling Green, a midsize Kentucky town where the members met as teenagers nearly two decades earlier. Those threads are laid bare in the album\u2019s oldest track, \u201cNoble…Continue readingBTV115 Foxhole : Well Kept Thing<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":2970,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3060","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.burnttoastvinyl.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.burnttoastvinyl.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.burnttoastvinyl.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.burnttoastvinyl.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.burnttoastvinyl.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3060"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.burnttoastvinyl.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3870,"href":"https:\/\/www.burnttoastvinyl.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3060\/revisions\/3870"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.burnttoastvinyl.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.burnttoastvinyl.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}