{"id":23943,"date":"2015-05-27T10:42:41","date_gmt":"2015-05-27T18:42:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/?p=23943"},"modified":"2015-05-28T14:31:26","modified_gmt":"2015-05-28T22:31:26","slug":"album-of-the-week-little-wings-explains-explained-by-kyle-field-in-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/2015-05\/album-of-the-week-little-wings-explains-explained-by-kyle-field-in-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Album of the Week:  Little Wings&#8217; &#8220;Explains&#8221;&#8211;Explained By Kyle Field In Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screen-Shot-2015-04-21-at-11.14.17-AM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-23945\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screen-Shot-2015-04-21-at-11.14.17-AM.png\" alt=\"Screen-Shot-2015-04-21-at-11.14.17-AM\" width=\"552\" height=\"549\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screen-Shot-2015-04-21-at-11.14.17-AM.png 552w, https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screen-Shot-2015-04-21-at-11.14.17-AM-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screen-Shot-2015-04-21-at-11.14.17-AM-402x400.png 402w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 552px) 100vw, 552px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.littlewingsnow.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Little Wings<\/a><\/strong> has just dropped its outstanding new album <em><strong>Explains<\/strong><\/em> on new label <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/midheaven.com\/item\/explains-by-little-wings-cd#.VWXzFkZcJS0\" target=\"_blank\">Woodsist<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 We&#8217;ve been huge fans of this under-appreciated ensemble for well over a decade and were thrilled to learn of the new release.\u00a0 After non-stop, repeat listens, we believe this to be amongst the band&#8217;s best albums to date (extremely high praise given their prior output and <em><strong>Wonderue<\/strong><\/em> in particular).\u00a0 To our ears, <em><strong>Explains<\/strong><\/em> contains some of the band&#8217;s most melodic and accessible (in a blessedly off-kilter way) songs to date, and all without losing leader <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kyledraws.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Kyle Field&#8217;s<\/a><\/strong> unique wordplay and world-vantage.\u00a0 In short, <em><strong>Explains<\/strong><\/em> is amongst our favorite albums of the year thus far and has survived repeated listens phenomenally well.\u00a0 Check out the tremendous opening track <em><strong>By Now<\/strong><\/em> below, and go <a href=\"https:\/\/midheaven.com\/item\/explains-by-little-wings-cd#.VWXzFkZcJS0\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>HERE<\/strong><\/a> to buy this superb new outing from <strong>Little Wings<\/strong>.\u00a0 Afterwards, check out our email interview with\u00a0<strong>Kyle Field <\/strong>in between live performances, others&#8217; recording sessions, and a foray to Japan.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/190633219&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;visual=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Interview with Kyle Field<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lefort:<\/strong>\u00a0 Your last album&#8217;s title (<em><strong>Last<\/strong><\/em>) was a bit foreboding and, like many of your fans, we were concerned that it might indeed be your last.\u00a0 But then news of the new \u201cExplains\u201d hit and the concern was annulled.\u00a0 Is it fair to say, as alluded to on the new album, that you\u2019ve determined\/resigned-yourself to keep laying those \u201cgolden eggs\u201d for your friends and fans?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KF<\/strong>:\u00a0 The foreboding title was in some sense a reaction to the <strong>Mayan Calendar<\/strong> scare and year and it was recorded in 2012 before the world was supposed to end [<strong>Lefort<\/strong>:\u00a0 listen to the allusion thereto in the song <em><strong>By Now<\/strong><\/em> above], in turn making it the last <strong>Little Wings<\/strong> album.\u00a0 My backup meaning for that title was that <strong>Little Wings<\/strong> &#8220;last&#8221; like, survive the apocalypse or &#8220;since &#8217;98.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lefort<\/strong>:\u00a0 Having had the new album on repeat for weeks and still loving it, where do you see it falling?\u00a0 How does it differ in your mind, if at all, compared to your other albums?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KF<\/strong>:\u00a0 I have no idea&#8230;. I don&#8217;t compare my albums to each other.\u00a0 In a sense I am focusing on the new songs that aren&#8217;t recorded yet and that leaves me very little time for bean counting. [The album] survived the mixing\/mastering phase in my ears and that says a lot because you end up hearing it so many times and picking apart every moment.\u00a0 If I was forced to compare, I would say that it has more rhythmic drive and push than most of the others thanks to <strong>Zeb\u00a0Zaitz<\/strong> and <strong>Tommy McDonald&#8217;s<\/strong> ears and natural style.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lefort<\/strong>:\u00a0 Which of the songs on the new album are you most proud?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KF<\/strong>:\u00a0 I celebrate them all. I enjoy the sequence and how the record works beginning to end.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lefort<\/strong>:\u00a0 Thematically, the album seems to ask big questions and to be an assessment of your life and work.\u00a0 With questions about growing older, higher beings, the vagabond vs. conventional\u2013life, solo vs. relational life, what was the backdrop and context for the creation of \u201cExplain\u201d?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KF<\/strong>:\u00a0 It started as an idea for a list, like: &#8220;Little Wings explains: a blade of grass, this evening, etc.&#8221; So it was like a lecture about the world or something near to it.\u00a0 It bled out from there, taking on subtler angles and themes arriving at &#8220;Little Wings explains Fat Chance.&#8221;\u00a0 Explaining what I have learned by now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lefort<\/strong>:\u00a0 With respect to your last album, <em><strong>LAST<\/strong><\/em>, you said:\u00a0 &#8220;Lots of things I feel and inject into the experience I\u00a0realize are just for me and me alone as guidelines and motivations.&#8221;\u00a0 What aspects of the new album fall into that category?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KF<\/strong>:\u00a0 I think this one is more open and generous in a sense; not subduing the keyboard sounds and less hiding perhaps.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lefort<\/strong>:\u00a0 What portion of your songwriting is \u201cspontaneous inspiration\u201d versus painstaking attention to crafting a song?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KF<\/strong>:\u00a0 Besides a few band-aids (word overdubs), the lyrics for the first song <em><strong>By Now<\/strong><\/em> were completely improvised.\u00a0 I was basically serenading <strong>Tommy McDonald<\/strong> (<strong>The Range of Light Wilderness<\/strong>) who was pressing &#8220;record&#8221; in his living room where we did a lot of the secondary overdubs of the album.\u00a0 I don&#8217;t feel &#8220;painstaking&#8221; could really apply because if i get a good idea for a song, it feels like a puzzle to solve and the process is different each time.\u00a0 I don&#8217;t tend to force myself to write very often.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lefort<\/strong>:\u00a0 When and where was the new album recorded, who were the players and who produced?\u00a0 How was the process for you?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KF<\/strong>:\u00a0 The initial song-beds for the new album were recorded at a house near <strong>Morro Bay<\/strong> where drummer\/pianist <strong>Zeb Zaitz<\/strong> (<strong>Sparrow&#8217;s Gate<\/strong>) lives by <strong>John Baccigaluppi<\/strong> (<strong>Tape Op, The Hangar<\/strong>) with whom I recorded <em><strong>LAST<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Additional layering was added a few weeks later at a house in <strong>Big Sur<\/strong> where bassist\/keyboardist <strong>Tommy McDonald<\/strong> lives. I sometimes have a funny relationship with the word &#8220;produced&#8221; as I figure anyone who added to it helped.\u00a0 But I guess I would say it was produced by <strong>John, Tommy<\/strong>, me and<strong> <span class=\"il\">Kyle<\/span> Mullarky<\/strong> (who I mixed the album with at his home studio in <strong>Topanga Canyon). Paul Dutton<\/strong> added some great guitar overdubbing, and sounds.<strong> Lee Baggett<\/strong> layered guitars and a few vocals. <strong>Fletcher Tucker<\/strong> (<strong>Gnome Life, Bird by Snow<\/strong>) put on some dulcimer, bowed dulcimer,and keyboard parts.\u00a0 Tommy and I both put keyboards on it, and <strong>Joel Tolbert<\/strong> played slide guitar and accordion, which is very low in the mix. The process was pretty great; we all get along really well, and Tommy and Zeb have been friends of mine for a while, and have been in different versions of the live band over the last two years.\u00a0 Essentially I had put together [Tommy, Zeb and me] as a trio and played a handful of shows and just liked the way we sound and play together and wanted to run new songs through that tube.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lefort<\/strong>:\u00a0\u00a0 Live and on some tracks on <strong>LAST<\/strong> (<em><strong>Neptune\u2019s Next<\/strong><\/em> and <em><strong>Knock of Every Door<\/strong><\/em>), you performed a couple of songs with quasi-rap elements.\u00a0 We were anticipating some expansion into this realm on the new album.\u00a0 But you seem to have resisted\/squashed that vein for now.\u00a0 Any prospects for the future?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KF<\/strong>:\u00a0\u00a0 I feel a lot of rap in the new album, and I have introduced boasting for the first time, which i feel is even more rappy than in the past.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lefort<\/strong>:\u00a0 Like many, we enjoyed your brief collaborations with <strong>Feist<\/strong> a while back.\u00a0 Do you stay in touch and are there any further collaborations contemplated in the future?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KF<\/strong>:\u00a0 Thanks. We stay in touch here and there, and who knows? Everyone is busy with new things, but stranger things could happen.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lefort<\/strong>:\u00a0 How did the <strong>Woodsist<\/strong> collaboration come to be?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KF<\/strong>:\u00a0 I asked <strong>Jeremy Earl<\/strong> (<strong>Woods<\/strong>) if he would want to put out a Little Wings album, and he said he had been wanting to put one out for years.\u00a0 Mutual admiration i guess.\u00a0 I had been invited to play the Woodsist Festival for two years in a row ,and his interest and support seemed reliable\/attractive.\u00a0 I like his label and think it&#8217;s a nice fit\u00a0 working together.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lefort<\/strong>:\u00a0 During another musician\/artist\u2019s (<strong>Joseph Arthur\u2019s<\/strong>) recent tours, he painted canvases on stage while performing songs.\u00a0 Knowing your artistic ways, any possibility of your doing the same (we asked, anticipating a \u201cwhat-am-i-a-circus-act\u201d response)?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KF<\/strong>:\u00a0 I would love to.\u00a0 I have used an overhead projector before and drawn and sang at the same time.\u00a0 I need to hit that note again.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lefort<\/strong>:\u00a0 Out of all your recordings, do you have a favorite album and a favorite song?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KF<\/strong>:\u00a0 Not so much.\u00a0 I am usually into my latest song that has just been written, when the paint&#8217;s still wet and pre- studio.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lefort<\/strong>:\u00a0 What are you upcoming performance plans?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KF<\/strong>:\u00a0 We performed as a big band (seven piece) at the<strong> Woodsist Festivals<\/strong>.\u00a0 Now in Japan to play seven solo shows. I used to go to Big Sur in the 90&#8217;s and wondered if I would ever get to play music there, and now I play at least two times a year it seems.\u00a0 So no complaints.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lefort<\/strong>: Your lyrics in particular seem at times improvisational and at others painstakingly penned.\u00a0 Is that the case?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KF<\/strong>:\u00a0 Yes, I think I go for some sort of juxtaposition\/inconsistency in some sense because i think it&#8217;s more interesting than a blatantly straightforward narrative.\u00a0 That being said, I rebounded from that thought and began learning more country songs and then re-realized the power of straightforward storytelling. It&#8217;s hard to do.\u00a0 This album dabbles in some abstract expressionism that may feel topsy-turvy to some.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lefort<\/strong>: Are there other lyricists\/poets that have inspired your own lyrical style?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KF:<\/strong>\u00a0 Too many to name, and I am a pretty lame name dropper.\u00a0 But, you know&#8230;.poets, country singers, divas, and this rapper named <strong>&#8220;Cold G&#8221;<\/strong> from Oakland, CA.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Thanks Kyle<\/strong>.\u00a0 We will have a full review of <em><strong>Explains<\/strong><\/em> soon come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Little Wings has just dropped its outstanding new album Explains on new label Woodsist.\u00a0 We&#8217;ve been huge fans of this under-appreciated ensemble for well over a decade and were thrilled to learn of the new release.\u00a0 After non-stop, repeat listens, we believe this to be amongst the band&#8217;s best albums to date (extremely high praise [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23943"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23959,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23943\/revisions\/23959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}