Seth Bernard, Dan Rickabus and Michael Dause previewed their debut album for Local Spins on WYCE, which also premiered tracks by Annie Capps, Y-Not, Overdrive Orchestra, Earth Radio, Loren Johnson & more.
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Liken it to Frankenstein’s creation or an enticing jigsaw amalgamation.
“It was like a puzzle that we were just piecing together,” Michael Dause said of the process behind Moss Manor’s singular music. “It was just so much fun to create.”
Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Seth Bernard puts it this way: “Each of us is bringing something unique to the project, but the whole is a different animal than the sum of the parts.”
Added Dan Rickabus, the third member of this new Michigan super-trio: “We all played a ton of different instruments. We’re all the lead singer and none of us are. The most invigorating aspect is that it sounds like something none of us could have imagined or cooked up on our own.”
Not surprisingly, then, Moss Manor’s debut album is at once “very adventurous and experimental,” “richly textured and highly collaborative,” with “a myriad of unique tones” that span indie-folk, lush indie-rock, cosmic jazz and “ethereal instrumentals.”
Welcome to West Michigan’s latest synergetic, musical tour de force, with Dause of The Accidentals, Rickabus of The Crane Wives and Bernard of the Earthwork Music collective turning what started as “an experimental remote recording collaboration” in early 2020 into a full-fledged band project.
“The recording and songwriting processes were both among the most unique I’ve ever been a part of,” Rickabus acknowledged, noting that he and Dause are based in Grand Rapids, while Bernard lives in Kalkaska.
“We each recorded elements from home and sent them to Michael, who mixed the record. About 75 percent of the album was recorded totally remotely, then we met at Earthwork Farm (outside Lake City) to finish it altogether as a trio.”
For this week’s edition of Local Spins on WYCE, the trio spotlighted two tracks from the upcoming debut album – “Conversation” and “Ancients.” Scroll down for those tracks and the full radio show podcast, and listen to a single the band released earlier here.
LISTEN: Moss Manor, “Slowburn”
Inspired to start file-sharing after he and Rickabus backed Bernard at a couple of performances, Dause conceded he didn’t know how the other two would react to his entreaty to “put some emotional energy” into a remote song-building endeavor.
“I was super nervous about it,” he recalled, though all three soon plunged into the effort with gusto.
A NO-RULES APPROACH FOR ‘THIS MULTI-FI BEHEMOTH’
“We basically told ourselves there’s no rules. Whatever you’re feeling in the moment, like go with it. There was a certain amount of trust between the three of us. We didn’t know if it was even going to turn out. It was just one of those things where we said, ‘Let’s give it a shot.’”
Culled from ideas in old personal archives, fresh musical concepts and even some field recordings, Bernard said Dause “handled the colossal task of mixing this multi-fi behemoth with finesse and grace. Some of the songs were already fully composed, but the band added new elements and changed the arrangements.”
Moss Manor officially releases the self-titled debut album on Feb. 3 and plays its first live show as a band during WYCE’s upcoming Jammie Awards at The Intersection on Feb. 24.
“There’s a warmth, a lushness and a luminous quality to the sound,” Rickabus said of the final product and socially conscious lyrics which emerged from “a totally open, imaginative process where we really let each member be themselves and express what they wanted to.”
With all three band members juggling roles in other projects (folk-rock’s The Crane Wives and alt-folk’s The Accidentals both have touring plans this year), Moss Manor doesn’t yet have other performance dates on the books for 2023, but those are likely to happen along with more recording.
“It’s good to have an outlet where you can throw things at a wall,” conceded Dause, who described Moss Manor as a vessel to “empty our psyche into.”
Added Rickabus: “The further along the tracks evolved, the more fun we had, the more proud of the songs we were, the more we all bonded over the project. … I’m so grateful for the creative trust, mutual encouragement and willingness to venture out that we established in the band.”
This week’s edition of Local Spins on WYCE — which spotlights Michigan-made music at 11 a.m. Fridays on WYCE (88.1 FM) and online at wyce.org — also featured new music from Y-Not, Annie Capps, Loren Johnson (this week’s musician’s pick by Dause), T.H.V., Earth Radio, Overdrive Orchestra, Jamie Dionne and The Wild Honey Collective. Listen to the radio show here.
PODCAST: Local Spins on WYCE (1/27/23)
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