Navigating By Heart

Hope For Agoldensummer Winds Its Way To Ariadne Thread, The Sophomore Album Three Years In The Making

originally published December 12, 2007

Hope For Agoldensummer debuted with a handful of loose shows back in the second half of 2002, poking and prodding about the Athens scene for a place to settle in. It didn't take long for the band's handcrafted, earthy folk laments to find a niche, though, and the band's lineup solidified the following year. A number of intimate gigs and the charming sororal interplay between main vocalists Claire and Page Campbell charmed local listeners.

With the 2004 release of the band's debut I Bought A Heart Made of Art in the Deep, Deep South, Hope sat in a strong spot in Athens, frequently packing shows and garnering accolades aplenty. Looking to capitalize on that momentum, the group started recording its followup album in early 2005.

Fast forward to just as we're about to dip into '08, and the record Ariadne Thread finally hits town, but not until after a long and tortuous path.

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Recording began in 2005 with local engineer David Barbe at his Chase Park Transduction studios. The Campbell sisters, guitarist Deb Davis, cellist Will Taylor and percussionist Jamie Shepard got to work on the songs that the Campbells and Davis had been writing.

"As soon as the first album came out we were already talking about the next one," says Page Campbell, "because at that point everybody was writing songs and we were talking about what we wanted to be on the next one, having ideas about recording experiments we wanted to try, stuff like that. We got through a few months and had probably seven songs done."

Taylor left the band during the recording sessions and asked that his contributions be removed from the album. Shortly thereafter, Shepard also left. "Jamie stayed on to finish the album for a while, but there was too much tension to make it easy to record the album," says Claire Campbell, "so we just told him we were going to finish it ourselves and we took all his parts off."

A brief tour to Texas as a trio boosted confidence in their ability to soldier on, and after scrapping everything from the David Barbe recording sessions except for a few guitar and vocal tracks, Davis and the Campbells reassessed their situation and relocated to Andy Baker's studio, re-recording some songs, abandoning others and introducing some brand-new numbers.

The sound of the resulting Ariadne Thread is a departure from the woozy drama and martial up-and-at-'ems of Heart of Art. The band utilizes some more minimal, acoustic numbers and plays around with song structure more than ever before. It's both a back-porch burner and a bedroom bawler, and the group sprinkles small musical moments and flourishes throughout. In short, it's an album, and comes across as an entire work rather than just a collection of songs.

"We had the chance to go back and revise," says Page, "and with the last one, we didn't do that much. I think a lot of people want that opportunity. Of course, it's only incidental that we had as much time to work on it… if the other two members hadn't quit, the album would probably have been done and out for a while now, but it wouldn't have been as good as it is now, only because it'd have been something else. The energy would've been completely different. I kind of think of this as our third album."

For the sessions that ended up on Ariadne Thread, the band recruited a crackerjack lineup to contribute instrumentation. The 17 songs feature contributions from, among others, Heather McIntosh (The Instruments, Circulatory System) on cello, Envie's Renée Nelson on harp, Matt Stoessel (The Ginger Envelope, Don Chambers + GOAT) on pedal steel, John Fernandes of Elf Power and the Olivia Tremor Control on clarinet and Robby Handley (Birds&Wire) on upright bass.

Ariadne Thread also showcases what the band's calling its "anarchist soul choir" made up of some of the more distinctive local voices on the scene these days: Madeline Adams, Amanda Kapousouz, Liz Durrett, Count Kellam, Leslie Helpert, Sara-J Ursrey and more.

Hope For Agoldensummer is putting together 2,000 copies of the album by hand, weaving gold ribbons and extensively illustrated liner notes into the packaging, which contains illustrations and paintings by bandmembers and a short story written by Wallace Mudd, a cousin to the Campbell sisters and a member of Kansas band Drakkar Sauna. The book interprets the story of Ariadne, the character in Greek mythology who, after falling in love with the hero Theseus, gave him a ball of red fleece thread to navigate back out of the Labyrinth after killing the Minotaur. The band has commissioned a limited edition of 50 hardbound copies of the book and album.

"I know it sounds like a concept album or something, but it's not," says Claire. "Well, it kind of is, in that there's a theme throughout the whole album, but it's nothing big. I can't wait for everyone to see the album. Oh, it's gonna be beautiful. It's really something special."

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To celebrate the release of Ariadne Thread, Hope is putting on two shows in Athens over the next two weeks. The first is an ambitious multi-media extravaganza at the Rubber Soul Yoga studio in the recently renovated Leathers Building on Pulaski Street. Plans are for the core trio of the band to start the night of Saturday, Dec. 15, with a full set of material both new and old. The Theater of Pure Form, a local troupe led by Rubber Soul's Cal Clements, then puts on a theatrical performance loosely inspired by - or at least thematically parallel to - Ariadne Thread.

"We decided we wanted to play non-traditional spaces for the Atlanta and Athens CD release shows," says Claire. "We have to take all the yoga-esque qualities of the space and put them somewhere else so that we have a hardwood floor. The risers have to be built so we can fit 70 people in. We're building stage lights. There are many actors and actresses… Originally, the Hope show and the theater show were going to meld together, but at this point, we think we're going to keep them separate. We originally were going to do a song between acts, but there are so many short acts we don't want to slow down the momentum of the theater show either."

Says Page, "Cal's show kinda fits in incidentally. Thematically, the story's about trust and abandonment, helping someone get through something and the aftermath of all that. It's just something [that's] played out in my life, Claire's life, the band's life in so many different ways over and over again. But I think it is a theme."

The following week, on Friday, Dec. 21, Hope For Agoldensummer returns to the local stage accompanied by many of the musicians who appeared on the album, and Madeline and Helpert open. "We're going to have a harp player at Flicker," says Page. "Maybe someone doing cello. Some players on drums and upright bass. I think Madeline said she'd handle the Echoplex, but we might need two people for that."

The aim for the Flicker show, the Campbells say, is to recreate the more varied tapestry that's found on the album in a live setting, something they're more able to do in Athens or Atlanta than while on the road.

"A lot of the songs are less dramatic because there aren't cello lines on every song, whereas on the first album they were on every single song," says Claire, "and that was part of the sound. Same for the drums, not every song has drums. Instead we're trying group vocals, harp, horns… sometimes we'll be able to pull that stuff off live, sometimes we won't. But the Flicker show should be a big deal."

Advance tickets to both performances are available at the band's website (www.hopeforagoldensummer.com), as are combined show ticket/ album packages priced at a discounted rate. As neither Rubber Soul nor Flicker holds even 100 people, the band recommends buying tickets in advance.

Chris Hassiotis

WHO: Hope For Agoldensummer & The Forest Theater of Pure Form WHERE: Rubber Soul Yoga Studio WHEN: Saturday, December 15 HOW MUCH: $5

WHO: Hope For Agoldensummer, Leslie Helpert, Madeline WHERE: Flicker Theatre & Bar WHEN: Friday, December 21 HOW MUCH: $5