What A Difference A Day Makes

The Quick Art Of Blak Thor's Off-The-Cuff Pop May Never Make It To The Stage, But That's Okay

originally published January 30, 2008

Improvisational music is never uninformed. That is, even when musicians are playing together without pre-structured compositions, they are still bringing the whole of their musical knowledge and influence to the table. Most often, improvisational music is presented in terms of jazz, noise, classical and other presumably erudite forms. This makes local "project band" Blak Thor both a complete - and compelling! - exception to the norm.

By working with an improvisational ethic but within the language of pop music, Blak Thor sticks to its own discipline of simultaneous composition and recording while sounding reassuringly familiar yet entirely fresh.

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Daniel Lawson and Lucas Jensen, both of local band Venice Is Sinking, hatched the idea of Blak Thor in early 2007 after growing weary of long, overly involved recording sessions endured by that band and others the pair have been in.

"It all started as a reaction to Venice Is Sinking and Pacific UV. I called Daniel and he called me with the same idea," says Jensen.

"I think we both came up with the idea separately," says Lawson. "I had just bought Golden Smog's first record in some thrift store and I started to really miss all the really lo-fi shit I used to listen to, and thought it'd be really fun to be in that kind of band. All the rules and stuff were more him."

Rules, it seems, are a pretty big part of Blak Thor. They include everybody - Lawson and Jensen along with Julie Dyles and Courtnie Wolfgang of The Folk Yous and Ian Darken of Murder Beach - coming into a recording session with no pre-written songs, lyrics or even ideas, really. The band records via a single microphone, typically at Lawson's house, and while one person is playing a part, the others are separated, off writing separate parts. No one knows exactly what a track will sound like until it's actually finished.

Wolfgang says, "I didn't do the very first one, but did all the others. Every song we've ever done has been written, performed and recorded in one session. Daniel maintains that the whole reason he wanted to do this in the first place was to be free of the strictures of 'what is the normal recording process.' This has less pressure and is more experimental - an 'anything goes' type of thing."

Adds Dyles, "Originally, when we thought of it, we were excited because we're all in bands that play live and have had the recording pressure experience, and this stuff was just to turn out how it turns out. For me, at least, it was why I was so excited about it. No pressure."

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But what about that name? Turns out the name was thought up a long time ago by Flagpole music editor Chris Hassiotis, one of Darken's roommates. "I've been trying to convince numerous friends for years to name their bands Black Thor. I just like the sound of it," says Hassiotis. "But nobody bit until recently. I'm not 100 percent behind the dropping of the 'c,' as I think that makes it seem a little too jokey and insincere, but the music makes up for that."

Dyles says of the name, "We all thought it was all really funny. I think we were originally going to be called Haunted by Vixens."

Although himself a prolific pop writer, Ian Darken doesn't actually play on the bulk of Blak Thor recordings. His role is to record the one-day sessions and mix and master them. "There's only one time I ever played and I think it was a drum part, but I don't remember what song it was," says Darken. "It took me longer to fix it in the mixing than it did to play it. I'm a pretty bad singer, so I don't really sing.

"What I like about music the most is recording. The biggest contribution I do is helping with organization of sounds, like a producer's role… structure. Sometimes we'll do a part only once and loop it. A big thing for me is to get as big a sound as possible out of one mic. I've been doing home recording for about 12 years, but I've never concentrated on taking songs to completion," he says. "This is the first time I've ever had to think about them being completely polished because of the constraints of never doing it twice. I think I've gotten a lot better at mixing and polishing the songs so they sound like songs and not demos."

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The members of Blak Thor each assumed a false identity initially inspired by an anonymous photo used for their first EP That's The Thing About Blak Thor. That photo had the subject names written on the back, thus rendering the band as Katie Thor, Leah Thor, Matt Thor, Alex Thor and Heath Thor. The Thors have finished seven different recording sessions and released three EPs. Currently available are the first three: That's The Thing About Blak Thor, That Is SO Blak Thor and Hi, Beauty!. All three are digitally available now through iTunes and eMusic, with the other four in various stages of being made ready for release. They're backed by the incestuously local label The Chamber of Commerce (www.thechamberof.com).

Although Blak Thor says it'll most likely never play live, the group has 22 recorded tracks resulting from a mere seven days of recording. And nearly every single one of those tracks sounds as if it was written, considered and practiced before a mic was ever turned on. From the spooky flagship track "Rascal" to the blissful 1980s pop of "Filler Ridge Dam" (which is nearly identical to the 1982 smash by Modern English "I Melt With You") to the sweet'n'sad "Pinchy Winchy," these folks prove that while they may be casual, they're certainly no joke. If anything, they're further proof of Athenians creating music simply for the love of creating and, man, that's what it's all about.

Gordon Lamb

Blak Thor doesn't play live, but you can find out more at www.myspace.com/blakthor.