Megafaun - Bury the Square & Gather, Form and Fly & Megafaun & Appalachian Excitation (2008-2013)

Megafaun is an American psychedelic folk band based in Durham, North Carolina.

From its outset, Megafaun's Bury the Square seems almost -- almost -- to inhabit that lost freak-folk middle ground: an album lacking the genre's abrasive weirdness (see: Devendra Banhart's facepaint, little boy fetish) but retaining its earthy appeal. The first song reassuringly respires with the sort of peacefulness most albums work toward in their final moments, easy "ba ba bas" in a melody suggesting at once sunsets and memories of sunsets, worn, familiar, and brilliantine. And while the album does kind of stay true to these first impressions, imbuing the subgenre with some much-needed sincerity, it also gets really weird, too, dunking the breathy opening of "Where We Belong" into deep pools of dissonant static and infusing "Lazy Suicide" with a Brian Deck phantasmagoria of percussion. But rather than attempts to shake off Califone fans, these forays into extremism feel, for the most part, genuine, which is more than can be said for a lot of their peers (see: Devendra Banhart's facepaint, little boy fetish). Even at six songs, the record feels replete but never overstuffed, and entirely heartfelt.

This was the Summer of Megafaun. Their highly-anticipated second album, Gather, Form & Fly, is a monument to a band that hundreds have experienced on stages, under trees, in galleries, on floors, in headphones, and through radios-with-the-windows-down over the past three years. All the hints they’ve given us --- from songs Stereogum described as “mournful, slow-blooming banjo-and-white-noise-laced epics” to tours with The Rosebuds, Arnold Dreyblatt, and Akron/Family --- have culminated in a record that is an ode to death, love, musical history (from blues to musique-concréte), community, tradition, and experimentation. In all, it’s an ode to the listener.

Based in Durham, North Carolina, Megafaun was built by brothers Brad and Phil Cook and fellow Eau Claire, Wisconsin, native Joe Westerlund. The trio, plus longtime friend Justin Vernon (a.k.a. Bon Iver), made the cross country move together from WI to NC as the band DeYarmond Edison, ultimately splitting in 2006. Megafaun was born from those ashes and proceeded to record the remarkable album Bury the Square in 2007. They found a home on the road, collaborating with friends (they also joined Akron/Family and Dreyblatt as backing band) and developing an American musical language that is exquisitely translated by this year’s Gather, Form & Fly.

Megafaun’s past three years ripple with the power of varied experience usually reserved for a lengthy decade: 250 shows over the past two years, supporting tours doing double-duty as backing band/collaborator with nearly every notable and diverse tourmate, and musical exploration spanning albums, generations of musical history, and fathoms of personal exploration. That self-survey daringly brings itself to the stage: “We thrive on situations that allow us to expose our nuances, our imperfections, and our spontaneity. We are not afraid of the imperfect set, but are afraid to limit ourselves to the non-spontaneous nature of recitation,” said Joe. That same spirit informed the album, which was self-recorded in three bedrooms, a kitchen, a yoga studio, a living room, a basement, and in a forbidden university piano studio that they had to break into to find an in-tune piano. In act of further embracing the new, Megafaun brought in Chris Stamey (the dBs, Holsapple-Stamey, et al) to help mix and guide Gather, Form & Fly, adding another dimension to the superb result.

Gather, Form & Fly rings out in its honesty to its makers and, thus, to its listeners --- both on wax and on stage. Phil, Brad, and Joe move with awareness of their every move, acknowledging in near-unison that this album share’s Bury the Square’s broad stylistic and emotional palettes --- group percussion, cacophony, drone, and folky narration will not disappoint --- but also reveals sounds and words that have been, somewhat silently, with them all along. There are the moments, present in every song, that will turn heads toward speakers, turn eyes toward the sky, and turn all notions of music on their sides, if just for one shimmering and genuine moment. And then, almost anywhere this Summer, you can go see them live --- and hear it all again, for the first time.

Comme dit leur grand pote Bon Iver récemment dans le webzine américain Pitchfork: "Nous réalisons tous à quel point Megafaun est un groupe important. J'ai écouté leur nouvel album ces derniers jours et pleuré comme une madeleine. Tout est si bon." Ce nouvel album de Megafaun a été enregistré dans le studio de leur ex-compagnon Bon Iver (alias Justin Vernon, avec lequel les frères Brad & Phil Cook et leur ami Joe Westerlund formaient le groupe DeYarmond Edison. Brad, Phil et Joe sont trois jeunes gens qui font partie de cette génération passionnante de musiciens animés par une curiosité insatiable. Leur maîtrise de formes anciennes (folk, bluegrass ou blues) se double d'une goût de la recherche et de l'expérimentation (ils ont étudié la musique concrète, s'intéressent au free jazz des années 60 etc). Ils pratiquent une relecture qui irrigue la tradition en y injectant des styles et des techniques qu'on a peu l'habitude d'y associer. Résultat: un magnifique album de folk mélodique, puissant et original.

The meeting of composer Arnold Dreyblatt and psych-folk trio Megafaun shouldn’t be seen as unlikely just because it’s cross-generational, or even (arguably) cross-genre. Such categorizations have to be set aside before taking in their Appalachian Excitation.

Born in New York in 1953, Dreyblatt came up under such lauded experimental groundbreakers as Alvin Lucier, Pauline Oliveros and La Monte Young, obtaining a Master’s degree in composition from Wesleyan University. Now based in Berlin, where he is active as a visual artist and as a composer. His music is based on his own vocabulary of pulse and self-designed instrumentation.

The North Carolina by way of Wisconsin trio Megafaun (comprised of brothers Brad and Phil Cook and Joe Westerlund) has been working since 1997, when the three met at the H.O.R.D.E. festival. After a decade of crafting their sound, Westerlund contacted Jeff Hunt, owner of the Table of the Elements label, looking to get in touch with Dreyblatt, whose work all three admired. The following year they were able to schedule a week long residency at Salem Art Works in the mountains of upstate New York, where Dreyblatt taught them the just intonation tuning system he’d developed as well as some of the instruments he’d devised. They presented Dreyblatt’s compositions at the 2008 Wire Festival in Chicago and concerts in Boston and NYC.

Busy schedules kept them from working together again until the 2012 Hopscotch Music Festival in Raleigh, North Carolina, just a stretch of mountains south from where they’d developed their joint sound. Excited about the performance, they booked the Pinebox Recording studio in Graham, N.C. to lay down the tracks that make up Appalachian Excitation. They connected again last February to play the Ecstatic Music Festival in New York City.

The album was recorded live in the studio with no click track and minimal separation, a new experience for the men of Megafaun. It’s “the most rewarding way to record,” said Joe Westerlund. “This record with Arnold marks a step towards Megafaun becoming more of a live-in-the-studio recording band, a more traditional and time-tested method.”

Speaking from the stage at Merkin Concert Hall during their Ecstatic Music appearance last year, Dreyblatt said such genre transcending collaborations wouldn’t have been possible several decades ago. “We are no longer one-dimensional people,” he announced. Experience the dimensions of Appalachian groove and time-honored minimalism anew with Dreyblatt and Megafaun.