“For me, music on a record is like a firefly in a glass jar, the vibrations from the performances captured forever by magnetism and electricity onto a shiny, black disc—I cannot get over that.”
“That shiny, black disc, itself a mystical union between forces of nature and human mechanics, has in its grooves a moment when a singer says her words with a certain tone in mind, says them with a unique feeling of herself during that part of her life; a performance impossible to repeat ever again.
But, because of the vinyl recording, that fleeting occasion is captured for all time! And just as it all becomes too large and timeless to grasp, I realize how frequently I’ve heard the actual air in the room on a favorite album, like on Jim O’Rourke records or D’Angelo’s Voodoo, and that just utterly pushes me over the edge.
Very often I obsess over certain music, but only once I have the physical recording. I only get that feeling from the vinyl record, that’s the thing. CDs and downloads never give me that, no matter how well the impression of the music is coded into the digital medium. The lowering of the needle onto the groove, then feeling the air around me saturate with music gives me that. Then it becomes an event, like spending time with a novel, and I play it constantly, treating it like I hold a small piece of the spirit and energy of the performers, over and over again, absorbing as much of the consciousness of the recording as possible.
When we were writing and recording “High Plus Tight” in our home studio, we listened to a lot of favorite albums for fun, or to blow off steam during long sessions. But also to get lost inside of great pieces of music, to hear and feel the space and air as much as possible, because for us in the band, the space and the sound of the molecules in the room are just as important as the notes we play, or the harmonies we sing.
And we all feel that the vinyl record is the only way to really hear that sound in the room when the band was playing, or when the singer finally laid down that timeless, gorgeous vocal which always stays with you.”
—Konstantin
Moritat’s “High Plus Tight” EP arrives in stores January 20, 2015.
