Joel Van Horne: From Carbon Choir to Covenhoven

 indie music, record releases  No Responses »
Sep 132013
 

covenhovenMany in the Denver area are familiar with Joel Van Horne as the frontman for atmospheric indie-rock act Carbon Choir (whom I’ve profiled here on this blog from time to time). Carbon Choir has since called it quits, and in the meantime Van Horne has taken a completely different direction–toward folk.

His new album is being released under the moniker Covenhoven, named after the log cabin in Wyoming built by his grandfather, where Van Horne spent summers as a kid. “Some of the best and lasting memories of my life are from this place,” writes Van Horne on the Covenhoven website.  “This music comes from that place… this refuge that I hold dear.”

Indeed, the songs on the record call to mind the places of natural beauty and the fond memories evoked by such a place. With an understated, reflective style reminiscent of Bon Iver, in effect, Van Horne transports the listener to his childhood, allowing us to experience the feeling of a place most of us will never actually see–and yet, we can relate to it because many of us have such a place within our own memories. This is music that is real, because it comes from a very real place, both physically and emotionally.

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Photo: Lucia de Giovanni

I have to say, I really like this turn Van Horne has taken. I’ve had the opportunity to hear him perform acoustic sets from time to time, and have really liked his songwriting style, even while playing unplugged versions of Carbon Choir tunes. While it might seem on the outside to be a drastic change of course, those of us familiar with Van Horne and his songwriting abilities can see this is a natural evolution for him.

Covenhoven will see its official release with a show on Friday, Sept. 20 at The Walnut Room in Denver, but you can sneak a listen to the entire album this week over at OpenAirCPR from Colorado Public Radio. You’ll be glad you did.

Interview with I’m With Her

 interviews  No Responses »
Oct 292012
 

Photo: Peggy Dyer

I’m With Her, the indie-folk collaboration between established artists Angie Stevens and Haley E. Rydell, has been building momentum in the Denver scene the release of their self-titled EP nearly a year and a half ago. This week, after a successful Kickstarter campaign, they are set to release their next project, Songs We Said Goodbye To, with a much-anticipated release show this Friday, Nov. 2, at The Soiled Dove Underground in Denver.

Previewing the new record, I hear a fresh passion in these songs very similar to how the duo sounds when performing live. You can stream the first single from the record, “The Good, The Bad, My Mistakes,” at the end of the interview below.

Meanwhile, I was excited to sit down and talk with Angie and Haley about their new project, and they ended up sharing some pretty meaningful insights as to how their act has come about, and where their music is headed.

….

Jeff McQ:   So first of all, obviously, tell us about the new record. What was the inspiration for the songs and the album title?

 

Haley E. Rydell: Well, it all kind of goes hand in hand, Songs We Said Goodbye To. So we had both gotten out of very serious relationships at the very same time, and writing music together was kind of the outlet for us, kind of the way to get through all the stuff we were going through. It worked out really pretty well. So that was kind of the main inspiration, just kind of starting a new chapter – ending one chapter, starting a new chapter. So all the songs kind of have their place in our own timelines of healing, I guess.

 

Jeff: Okay, so you’re not saying goodbye to the songs. You’re saying goodbye with these songs.

 

Haley: Yes.

 

Jeff:  Or using them to help you say goodbye to certain parts of your life?

 

Haley:  To certain parts of our life, yep, exactly.

 

Angie Stevens:  Yeah. In some ways we did say goodbye to the songs, in that we said goodbye to that period of time for us. We had initially wanted to name [the record] “Hang Among the Stars” and then after going through the processing, it just didn’t represent the album. It didn’t represent what we put into it. It wasn’t about the “happy place” that we found with each other in our music. It was about the treacherous journey of…

 

Haley:  That we took to get there.

 

Jeff:  You both are songwriters. So did you find that you were collaborating more on this project? Or did each of you bring your own songs to the track list?

 

Angie:  We definitely collaborated more on this than we did on the first one.

 

Haley:  Yeah.

 

Angie:  I would have ideas for songs and give her – make her, I should say, in some ways – input meaning, like, not what would necessarily go towards my song, but what would make it her song. She did that…

 

Haley:  What would make it our song.

 

Angie: Yeah, our song, but more or less I wanted her input on it. Not just what would finish the song, but what it would be from her. So it was pretty profound.

 

Haley: But yeah, so we did a lot more collaborating. I think it’s more fun that way. We both get to put what we do into it. Both of our stories are in it.

 

Jeff: So, feel free to correct me if I’ve got a misperception about this, but you both had separate acts coming into this. It seems like this began sort of as a side project, but it’s now become the main project for both of you. Is that right?

 

Haley: That is correct.

 

Jeff:  So what has prompted that shift? What made you decide to make this your primary thing?

 

Haley:  Well I moved, so that kind of changed it pretty quickly. Unfortunately I had to leave all my bands back home behind, but it was just what I felt like I needed to do. This is where my heart was at. This is where I was still able to, I think, express myself to the full extent. So that’s what prompted that.

 

Angie: I mean, you’ll see at the CD release party, we have Susan and Carlos and Ryan. So there are incorporated members of Angie Stevens the Beautiful Wreck. But this is me turning from the bar bands and having to play in loud bars and doing it for a career, and really turning to the songs that people kept telling me not to play in those situations, because they were too quiet or they were too sad.

 

Haley: They couldn’t dance to them.

 

Angie: They couldn’t dance to them. I needed a place to be sad and to be honest. You know, the best song I’ve ever written was “Don’t Wait for Me”, which is all my song. But at the same time I don’t know if I could have shared that experience with the crowd that I had for Angie Stevens. That’s what we would change. I said to the band, “I don’t want to play the drinking songs. I want to play ‘Skyline Drive’. How did we become the drinking songs?” That was really hard for me. That’s not me. That’s a great money gig, and I count my blessings that I get paid as well as I do with Angie Stevens. But I’m With Her was like a no-pressure band. It was, “Let’s take one project that no one has a say in, and if they don’t like it, who cares?” If the critics don’t like it, if management doesn’t like it, if lawyers don’t like it, if my friends don’t like it, I don’t care anymore. Honestly, that’s where you house the best music is when you stop caring and just freaking play what you feel.

 

Jeff:  You both seem to genuinely enjoy performing on stage even when the songs themselves are a bit more serious. Can you talk a little bit about what’s going on inside when you’re playing these songs? What are you feeling?

 

Haley:  I think because these songs are so honest, every single time we play them I’m thinking about where they came from, what they mean. That feeling never goes away. That song is never going to mean any less because the feelings are always going to be there. I don’t know. I think just playing with each other, I think we bring out something in each other musically that just never gets old. Every time we play together, it’s just exciting.

 

Angie:  It’s challenging. I mean, Haley has her strengths and I have mine and together it’s – every time we play it’s a new challenge. She challenges me musically and I challenge her performance-wise, every time. Again, she’s so much more casual now and so much more into it, and I’m also more into taking risks that I never took before because I didn’t believe in myself. So we have to go to that spot, and I tell her that. We’ve got to go there every single time. We have to visit that, because we have to be honest.

 

Jeff:  So what can we look forward to with the CD release show? Any surprises, anything you want to tell us?

 

Haley:  Oh, there are going to be surprises all over the place.

 

Jeff:  Can you give us a couple of hints?

 

Haley:  Yeah. We’re going to do some stuff by ourselves because that’s what I’m With Her is, it’s me and Angie. We’re [also] having, like Angie said, members of Angie Stevens and the Beautiful Wreck that will be playing with us. My brother is flying up from Fargo to play fiddle with us. It’s going to be awesome. We’ve got members of the Metro State Choir coming. We’ve got…

 

Angie:  Something Underground…

 

Haley: …Something Underground boys…

 

Angie:  All of them. We also have my sister’s benefit.  My sister was diagnosed with breast cancer, so we’re doing a fundraiser at the event, auctioning off a bunch of different things, and that’s been a whole work in progress just in itself. But I’m going to guess, there’s probably going to be over 30 musicians.

 

Jeff:  How are you planning to promote the CD itself? Are you going to try to do some stuff out of town? Or what are you going to do with it?

 

Angie:  With Angie Stevens, I essentially choked the whole idea of becoming national and tried every method that was told I should try, and it didn’t work. I am not going to go after that. The most important thing in this album was to make music. Now the most important thing is to play good shows. We’re going to do a little bit of sending out the CD to people who already supported me before… But we are not going to knock down doors. It’s just not what we’re doing. It’s not what we’re about. It’s not where I’m at.

 

Haley:  If people get it and like it, great, but that’s not what it’s about.

 

Angie:  That being said, knowing it’s the best product that we’ve ever put out, and people are very excited about it, I don’t know where it’s going to end up. I’m not saying I’m completely opposed to it, but…you have to learn your lessons from your past, and I did. Haley was very new to that, because her personal band had never tried it, and her other band kind of already was in that scene. So it’s just not on my agenda. I think you have to focus on the music. I’ve been told that by critics all the time, and I didn’t listen. Now I’m like, “I’m just going to focus on the music, and if it works, great.”

….

I’m With Her unveils Songs We Said Goodbye To this Friday night at The Soiled Dove Underground, 7401 E. 1st St. in Denver. Opening act is Jalen Crossland. Tickets are $10 each, and are still available at the time of this writing (although word is they are going quickly). Doors are at 7:00 PM. Meanwhile, enjoy the preview track below!

Glowing House “Days Run Out”

 album reviews  No Responses »
Jun 142012
 

I first mentioned husband-and-wife duo Glowing House about a year and a half ago, when I reviewed a record that was two years old back then. After a long wait, this Denver folk act has released their new album Days Run Out–and I can tell you, it was worth the wait.

I had the privilege of interviewing Jess Parsons and Steve Varney recently for an article on Examiner.com. During that interview, they shared that they were originally two solo singer/songwriters who began joining each other on gigs, and the forming of Glowing House (and the marriage) seemed a natural evolution. Even so, they told me, their first album The Annual Demise of Every Aspen was essentially put together as a hodgepodge of songs each solo artist had brought to the table without much thought as to a collective band dynamic.

With Days Run Out, however, the merger is complete, so to speak. Not only is the overall sound of the album much more uniform, but the record shows exponential growth for both artists. They have arrived on a combination that is greater than the sum of its parts. Most of the record was recorded in an old church building, which only adds to its ambience.

Don’t look for a lot of “toe-tappers” here; the songs of Glowing House are more about reflection and thought and feeling. But there’s a raw beauty in their music that captured me the first time I heard them play, and their songs grow a little bit more on me every time I hear them. I was already familiar with most of the tunes on Days because I’m a frequent visitor to their live sets around Denver, but when I heard those opening harmonies on the first track “All That Matters,” I got chills.

Glowing House is currently streaming the new album for free on Bandcamp. (I’ve embedded a couple of my favorite tunes below.) If you like what you hear, pay the moolah and download this record. This is definitely a band worth hearing, and worth adding to your collection.