October
Project
By Lahri Bond
The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas romantically described the month of
October with images of blackbirds, whispered truths, fond climates
and sweet singers. Such images could just as easily describe the
sweeping and emphatic music of the October Project. This is a
group that, in these highly jaded times, has managed to become
widely popular by playing a mix of intelligently composed,
classically influenced, and poetically rich, rock.
While their two albums, October Project and Falling Farther In,
feature four-part harmonies, subtle washes of synthesizer and
strings and a rock and roll rhythm section, the group has been
touring this winter with a scaled-down ensemble that features just
the core members of the group. Even in this smaller configuration,
they are able to re-create the rich textures of their albums, while
leaving breathing space for the vocal intricacies between lead
singer Mary Fahl, harmony singer and keyboard player Marina
Belica, guitarist David Sabatino and composer/ keyboardist Emil
Adler. Rounding out the sound of this quintet is the driving
percussion of Urbano Sanchez and the spectral presence of lyrist
Julie Flanders, who writes for, but does not perform with, the band.
The initial conception and birth of the band can be traced back to
Adler and his partner Flanders, who met in their hometown of
Montclair, New Jersey. The couple started to collaborate on music
together and some of their earliest compositions were performed
by future October Project keyboardist Marina Belica while she and
Flanders were Morse College roommates at Yale University.
Belica, an accomplished pianist, grew up with classical training,
under the influence of her mother (who was an opera singer and
piano teacher). Many of October Project's complex vocal
arrangements are based on Belica's experience as the one-time
musical director of Yale's first co-ed a capella singing group, Red
Hot and Blue, which specialized in 8- and 16-part harmonies.
Adler was a classically-trained music major at Rutgers University.
He hooked up with young guitarist Sabatino, whom he met at a
New York jam session, and they quickly became friends and
decided to build a recording studio together. "We wanted to do
some original music," Sabatino explained. "Once we bought the
equipment we had to pay for it, so we started recording other
people's music. It was a little commercial, but it worked well."
Next came the introduction of the striking voice and presence of
Mary Fahl. Her singing has been compared to that of Annie
Haslam of the group Renaissance (for her classical folk-rock
influences) and Sandy Denny (for her power and emotional
expressiveness). Her voice has a deep, rich timbre like a cello or
French horn. It was the combination of Fahl's amazing instrument
and Flanders' image-rich lyrics that proved to be the perfect
catalyst for the band. "I had just come back from Europe and met
Julie through a friend on the street one day," said Fahl. "We got
friendly and after a couple of months, she said, 'Why don't you
come over and hang out and jam?' because she knew I was a
singer. It was really relaxed and we had no intention of forming a
band. It was a beautiful summer day and we all wound up spending
the whole afternoon together. Nothing was ever formally said, but
from that point on I just thought, 'Well, I'm in a band.'"
The final piece to the puzzle was the discovery of percussionist
Sanchez, who had played in such diverse styles as Latin/African
groups and belly dance music. On stage Sanchez backs the band
on a kit made up of primarily hand drums (congas, bongos,
dumbek and djembe) as well as a partial traps set, for the band's
fully-electric gigs. "Urbano, we met through a mutual friend as well,
and he was like the crowning touch," said Belica. "We were looking
for a really sensitive percussionist," Fahl continued.
With the group's sound pared-down and refined, they picked the
month of October as a starting date for the band to begin playing
out in clubs and venues. Adler, who is very organized, made up a
file folder and marked it "October Project." In spite of their debut
gig being postponed to that November, the name was created.
"The whole classification issue is a really irksome thing," said
Belica. "We didn't set out to sound like anything, we just sound like
we sound."
"One minute we're 'gothic,' the next minute we're 'new age,' the next
minute we're 'R & R,' the next minute we're 'alternative'," Fahl said,
laughing. "We just do what we do."
The legendary Kramer, of Bongwater/Shimmy Disc fame,
produced their demo tape. In 1993 Epic Records was quick to
respond and producer Glen Rosenstein came on board for the first
album's recording sessions. The album faithfully re-created the live
sound of the band, but also added some string arrangements (as
well as electric bass and drums) to the band's already classical
music-influenced sound. This folk-baroque, classical-rock feel
recalls the sound, but thankfully not the bombastic tendencies, of
some of the 70s "art-rock" groups (e.g., Genesis, McKendree
Spring) and may also account for comparisons to Renaissance.
Disregarding all labels, the band soon found a growing audience
who had either heard their haunting single "Bury My Lovely" on
radio or had seen them when they were the opening act for either
the Crash Test Dummies or Sarah McLachlan.
Even with an active touring regime, the band has managed to keep
up with their interest in social and political activism. They are
affiliated with LIFEBeat, the music industry's AIDS awareness
organization, which often has tables at October Project shows.
"We're also involved with a coalition for non-violence in
Minneapolis, called the Initiative for Violence-Free Families and
Communities," Sabatino pointed out.
With the band having achieved a measure of success, the record
company was quick to exercise their option for a second album.
Falling Farther In was released, but not before they experienced a
few changes in approach. The band was required to come up with
a CD's worth of new material in a relatively short time. "Jules and I
usually begin writing separately," Adler explained. "She would
finish a lyric from beginning to end and I would set it. Or I would
write a melody and she would set it to a lyric. For this album we had
to work very quickly, so we realized that process, which takes a
little more time, couldn't happen. We decided to sit in the same
room and see if that would work. It's the old Tin-Pan Alley kind of
view of how collaborators work. It was kind of a piecemeal thing
where Julie would work on a section and then I would work on
another section of the same song, simultaneously, and throw that
back and forth."
"That was interesting, too, because I write fairly prolifically and
Emil's a terrific editor," Flanders continued. "He'll sometimes go
through the lyric pile and find a fragment or verse that works,
because he writes harmonically first. He may only use 25% of what
I've written and hand it back and then I have to shed what I started
with and just be left with the kernel or a nugget. It's almost like a
game of improvisation and it's exciting because it creates a lot
more poetry."
The new album contains some of the band's most striking musical
and lyrical material to date. Songs such as "Adam and Eve," "If I
Could," and the single "Something More Than This" are good
examples of the band's virtuosity matched with Flanders' nearly
visionary lyrics. Her lyrics for this new album tend to be centered
around the concepts of innocence lost, redemption, and the
ever-present image of falling.
"We were working with a great deal of material and there was a
whole thread of things, almost like a suite of songs that revolve
around this theme of falling. We started looking at different myths,
like Adam and Eve, and Persephone. Suddenly, in the middle of all
this, Emil said, 'Wow, falling is at the center of everything, you can't
do anything in life without it.' When you are a baby and you are
learning to walk, that's a process of falling; everything else follows
from that. We decided to complete a whole series of little songs
and see what we'd get if we explored different directions on it. We
did that and we liked it, and so did the band. The loss of innocence
and falling are literally and figuratively entwined into our experience
and it's how we become tempered, wise and good people, or
damaged people if you don't get through it."
Flanders maintains an equal focus on theater and has been writing
and performing in New York City. The song "Deep As You Go" on
the new album is inspired by two characters she created for her
recent off-Broadway show, Living in Pieces. She also has made
her recording debut on this album with the spoken introduction and
tailpiece to the song "Sunday Morning Yellow Sky," the band's
most groove-oriented song to date.
Much of the warmth and spontaneity of the new album's sound is
due to producer Peter Collins, who has also worked with Nanci
Griffith and Indigo Girls. "He's fabulous," Belica proclaimed. "He is
really into the immediacy of expression, instead of doing it 21
times, until it's become some totally-buffed-and-beyond-recognition
thing of perfection. He's much more interested in the vitality of a
performance, such that we did all the basic tracks for 15 songs in
something like six days."
"His gift is that he brings out the best in people and he gets them to
a point where they don't question their own instincts, because he
doesn't question his," said Flanders. "If he knows it's right, he
knows it's right, and that not on an intellectual level, even though
he's a very educated and smart man. He's just got wonderful
instincts and a deep emotional connection."
The new album has been getting a good share of airplay and the
band has been touring more than ever, but this time as headliners.
The electric version of the band includes the core quartet with an
ever-changing group of "musical friends," such as double bassist
Dave Richards, Michael Visceglia on electric bass, trap drummer
Craig Thatcher, and Julian Coryell (son of jazz guitarist Larry
Coryell) on electric guitar. Sanchez is also a constant member of
the group, though not officially part of the band. "Urbano has been
with us since the very first time we played, and we have offered
Urbano a place in the band many, many times in our early
development. He loves us, but he is a gigging musician and it's
hard for him to make the kind of financial commitment to a group
that is required of band members," said Adler.
While weathering the fickle mass musical trends or the music
business' loss as how to "package" them, October Project
continues to make gorgeous, heartfelt, intelligent music with a
sense of passion and drama. "We love the labels we get because
they're so varied and odd," said Belica, right before she and the
band went onstage to another sold-out show. "It's such an off-beat
genre of music that we make. We were told by our first publicist not
to mention we had worked in theater music in any way, because it's
so unhip. But we probably are unhip."
Copyright © Dirty Linen: Folk, Electric Folk, Traditional and World
Music.