Walt McClements has been one busy musician. What with his stint with Dark, Dark Dark, his memorably named band, Why Are We Building Such a Big Ship?, and his work with the Panorama Jazz Band and Hurray for the Riff Raff, he seems to be always on the go. Fittingly, he performs Friday night at the AllWays Lounge in support of his new EP as Lonesome Leash.
Anchored by the sinuous accordion sound that’s become a McClements trademark, Lonesome Leash takes mad aesthetic stabs, incorporating drum loops, lush feedback and brass flourishes, in the end creating a sort of future-rustic musical environment. McClements explains: “I’d always been interested in affecting the accordion to make it sound more like a synthesizer, and more than a synthesizer, as well as including drum machines and electronics into what normally would—or could be—very traditional sounding textures.”
Live, the project takes the form of a one-man band, with McClements deftly navigating drums, accordion, trumpet, and vocals. A spectacle in and of itself, the true achievement is how quickly one forgets the multi-tasking going on, as the arrangements, sounds and words quickly overshadow any thoughts that this may just be technical gimmickry.
Lonesome Leash’s new EP, One Foot In Front of the Other, just released, consists of five songs written over a 4-month stretch of touring from January to April 2013. Recorded during a two-day pit stop in Brooklyn to unload ideas, the EP pushes out, in all directions.
McClements again worked with engineer and producer Don Godwin (Callers, REANIMATOR) to situate the songs among disparate but fluid sonic landscapes. This finds the EP traveling a vast section of textural ground, where minimalist accordion instrumentals bleed into tense and unsettling lo-fi pop, jagged fanfares punctuate layers of distorted accordions, and driving electronic beats fade into pastoral soundscapes.
