Bright Channel >> Someone's chasing me in my sleep

Bright Channel - "Night Eyes" (demo)

(unreleased, 2003)

So, back to what I was saying in the previous two posts... In February 2002, Jeff and Shannon of Volplane reassembled with a new drummer, Brian Banks, and a new name, Bright Channel.
In my 2003 interview I asked "How is Bright Channel going to differ from Volplane?"
Jeff just said "Slightly less wine..."
Shannon said "Not as loud for one (or as many amps to carry).  I'd say the Bright Channel sound is more streamlined and articulated than Volplane, with a little more power behind it.  To use a Bailter Space analogy, Bright Channel's more Solar.3 or Photon, where Volplane was more Robot World."  (In my previous question, I had asked if Robot World was a big influence on them.)
I secretly died a little inside, and thought about how every single shoegazey band that I loved soon abandoned that sound for a more "normal" rock sound.  Examples: Catherine Wheel, Verve, Lush, Bailter Space, Ride, etc.  And worst of all was Slowdive morphing into frickin' Mojave 3, jeesh.  So I honestly wasn't expecting Bright Channel's music to impress me, much less amaze me, but that's just what it did.  I have to say I disagree with Shannon's "less amps" statement, because B.C.'s music is way louder / heavier than Volplane's.

Anyway, back to the interview.  Jeff later said "Our music was designed to be as hypnotic and suggestively psychedelic as possible.  However, it was done at high volumes.  Volplane caused a great deal of hearing damage to ourselves and to fans.  I don't think we were able to capture the type of air movement or "wall-of-sound" effect we wanted on our early recordings.  Bright Channel, on the other hand, is slightly trimmed down and more focused.  Instead of multiple digital delays and amplifiers, we are using more organic effects such as fuzz and reverb."

This is a demo of a song that appeared on their self-titled 2004 debut album.  I prefer this version because it's a bit slower (hence 10 seconds longer), and the album version seems a tad too rushed to me.  This was sent to me by Smelly in 2003, or 2004 at the latest, after I asked her to track some Bright Channel songs down for me.  She is so cool that her RYM username is a fucking Swervedriver lyric.  The other demo she sent me was a crushingly heavy / amazing demo of "Ice Field."  Steve Albini produced the debut album, but I don't know if he produced (sorry, "engineered") the demos; I'm guessing not.  I could spend hours talking about why I dislike his production (sorry, "engineering") style, but I won't.  "Night Eyes" is a very subtle song, with the vocals starting off low and reptilian, and later going to a higher register and becoming more beautiful.  The guitar parts follow a similar path, like a loyal puppy dog tagging along with its owner.  The song has a weird overall marching-band swagger to it, driven by a mutant funk bassline and billowing clouds of guitar.  The drums suddenly go ballistic in the final minute.  It's only my 3rd-favorite song on the album, but it's definitely sui generis.  Rock music for people who are bored with rock music.

I know this is an early (2002 or 2003) Bright Channel pic, because I used it in my interview in '03.
Note the images of trees projected onto them.  L-R: Jeff Suthers, Brian Banks, Shannon Stein

This is a pic from the roof of the Ogden Museum of Art, taken by by sister when we visited it last week.  (See previous post.)  That's a kinetic Lin Emery aluminum sculpture on the left, the Crescent City Connection bridge in the middle, then some unknown black sculpture, then the water tower atop the Cotton Mill apartments, where she briefly lived.  This is direct from her camera to my email, not cropped or color-adjusted in any way.  Even the clouds are just perfect.

Most of Emery's stuff is in the same vein, and she has a similar, but larger and much more famous, statue right in front of the New Orleans Museum Of Art:

I was surprised that one of my favorite (one-man) bands, National Skyline, released a new album last week.  It's good, though poppy enough to maybe generate cries of "sellout" from longtime fans.  Garbs is still a master of catchy melodies, and a little bit of extra chillwave is fine by me.

Today I played hoops for about 3 hours in Thibodaux, which completely derailed an intended trip down to Houma.  Better luck next time... I lent my Del The Funky Homosapien CD to this guy so he could play it on his car stereo while we played, but it skipped on a few songs so he had to take it out.  There were around 25-30 people playing.

An amazing thing I found out about on the History Channel on Saturday: The Year Without A Summer.  Last night I watched the season finales of Dexter and Homeland, and tonight was the season finale of Terra Nova.  The ultra-intense Homeland is the best show no one knows about.

R.I.P. Christopher Hitchens, The Chris Paul era in New Orleans, and Kim Jong-Il

Planets with similar climates: DUSTdevils - "Neck Surfing" (1990), True Widow - "Skull Eyes" (2011), Bailter Space - "Hard Wired" (1989), Failure - "Heliotropic" (1996), U2 - "Bullet The Blue Sky" (1987), Idaho - "Crawling Out" (1994), Live Skull - "Cloud One" (1985).