La Strada
A Feeling Of Feeling, Moving Through Moving
Feb 7, 2010
Words by Sean Moeller
Illustration by Johnnie Cluney
Sound engineering by Patrick Stolley
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Welcome to Daytrotter
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Loved You All Along
original version appears on La Strada
James: This song is a simple number that was written as one of three of songs we wanted to tie together. That didn't happen, but it made the grade and saw the light of day. It was fun to see Ted work with the slide guitar. We still play it at shows.
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My New Home
original version appears on New Home
James: This is one of those tunes that came out of my writing the verse and chorus and vocals, and then taking it to the band and watching it become something I could have never imagined. A great collaboration, this one.
Devon: Yea, this one took an awful long time to put together. I have at least a hundred different recorded versions from our rehearsals... all very different. But once we got it to where it is now we all felt really happy with it.
Ted: Many scientists believe that universe will one day cease expanding and eventually the outward flow of the cosmic ether will reverse, slowly at first, until billions of years later, quickly, back to a singularity. This song has that shape as well. And in this song, as with our real universe, we reach an epistemological dilemma: As the big crunch reaches its final moment, will the big bang occur again?
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Starling
original version appears on La Strada
James: This song felt like our Manhattan Project when we were doing it. I never went through so many drafts for lyrics. And we had all these ideas we wanted to incorporate without the song sounding too crowded. It was a fun, long process.
Devon:
This song was kind of like a jigsaw puzzle... we kept coming up with new ideas and we just sort of let them settle into place over time... For a while the whole ending section was just that melody over and over... the orchestration and arrangement of it was the last thing written but it felt very natural, not tacked on.
Daniel: When we were rehearsing string parts for the EP recording, the other string players and I had a little game where we would tell each other what went through our minds when we played particular lines or sections of a song. The outro to Starling, where the strings go wild, has always been 'drunken starling' to me. I've been playing the violin since first grade, and the outro to "Starling" is right up there as one of my all-time favorite things to play. I consider myself lucky to be playing Devon's string parts.
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Wash On By
original version appears on New Home
James: This song came out of a jam, believe it or not. We were all in the studio and rhythms and melodies came up that stuck. Then we just worked on it and worked on it and it became this fun number. I'm glad it made the album.
Brady: We played that simple driving rhythm for a very long time, adding lines and harmonies to it--it just felt good in the practice room. I like how this one evolved so naturally from a random improvisation. I'm pretty sure it will hit the dance charts hard.
Ted: I've been haunted lately by visions of David Byrne in his Stop Making Sense-era gigantic suit. There is no direct musical influence here but I love the idea that some things don't always fit right, and yet, they fit just right.
It's as if the pipe smoke is engulfing us. It's of a sweet tobacco leaf, and it's rich with a kind of refined smell that makes you want to roll around in it, like a spearmint patch or a wild honey clover. It's the sophisticated scent of a man who's puffing contentedly in the study, with the hi-fi playing classical pieces, but there he is breaking out his mad scratching skills and mashing some Wolfgang Amadeus or even Meredith Wilson scores with the Decemberists or the Arcade Fire, making for a new sound that's summery and still something that he could choose to read to, if it were playing behind him, slightly lighter. It's the sound of young Brooklyn group La Strada, a five-piece that utilizes accordions and strings in big, big, big arrangements and couples them with the kinds of winning lyrics that lead music journalists into calling such bands a bunch of learned gents with a bent on literate indie rock and roll, and assuming like they do with Colin Meloy, that the members of the group go nowhere without their spectacles and a New York Times rolled up under their arms. There will be much made next week of the debut full-length from The Soft Pack, a California band that used to famously be called the Muslims, and rightfully so, but this group is just as worthy of the praise for a likeminded approach to classic pop songwriting and a groove that's impossible to deny. It gets the hitch out of your step and diminishes your inhibitions to the point where you just start feeling your forehead greasing up with sweaty residue, making your bangs drip with action. James Craft, the band's primary songwriter and lead singer, keeps his songs pumping with such great vigor and an astounding array of feeling - making everything on the band's excellent debut full-length, "New Home," sound as if it's bursting with passion and little squalor. It's a polished run of sentiment that sounds as if it's over the moon, sweeping milk-ily across the roaming heavens with heaves and hums of sparkling trails of kisses. "Wash On By" is an anthem to take to the streets, moving us to keep chopping up the distance and just bask in our desires, our hungers and our dreams. It feels like young hopes and getting wrapped up in the opportunity to just freak out and break away from dead days and stagnancy. Craft sings, "Can't find a woman to save me," as he's out there with the crowded streets and feeling like a small and insignificant figure, though still sensing that he's got something special coursing through. It's a song that epitomizes so much about a group that has potential to do some gigantic things.
La Strada Official Site
Ernest Jenning Record Co.
