Photo by Chris Glass
OVER THE PAST few years, the Next Wave festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music has had a chokehold on the hearts of indie kids. Don’t believe me? Just read the reviews of Sufjan Stevens’ BQE performance. These folks are totally obsessed with high-art collaborations, and it’s about to get even more intense as The Long Count—a much-anticipated piece featuring the brothers Dessner of The National, the sisters Deal of the Breeders and renowned visual artist Matthew Richie—premieres Oct. 28 for a run at BAM’s opera house.
The project is ambitious in scope.
Clocking in around 70 minutes, composers Bryce and Aaron Dessner lead the musical charge.Throw in some singing from our other favorite twins (Kim and Kelley Deal) as well as Matt Berninger (The National’s singer), Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond fame and a 12-person orchestral ensemble, and you’ve got yourself quite the event. On the visual side, Richie has prepared a unique combination of temporary architecture; screens and mirrored flooring that will serve as an elaborate backdrop for a video that coincides with the music.
“My brother collaborated with Matthew Richie a few times over the years, but recently we worked with him at an opening of his gallery show at the White Cube in London,” explains Aaron Dessner. “We sort of improvised in this white cube in space and it had been really interesting. It was something we hadn’t done before. The artwork installation had light panels in the walls and ceilings. It was a real environment with surround sound. The combination of music and visuals was something we all were struck by, so it made sense to take on a bigger collaboration” Collaboration and creation are forefront issues for the Dessners. For them, it truly goes back to the beginning of both their lives and time itself.The main inspiration for the piece is Popol Vuh—a Mayan creation myth partially based around heroic twins, which works perfectly for the collaborators. Richie excels at tying cosmologies to art environments and the Dessners are, well, twins.The original myth forms an abstract foundation for The Long Count to explore the history shared between siblings.
“In Popol Vuh, the brothers play catch,” says Aaron. “We merged that with this idea we had been working with surrounding the Big Red Machine—you know, the 1976 Cincinnati Reds… The Reds beat the Yankees that year in the World Series.That was the height of the Big Red Machine and we grew up in Cincinnati. Still in our house’s bedrooms, it’s all huge posters of Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Pete Rose. When I first started thinking of songs we might use, I actually wrote one called ‘Big Red Machine’ with Bon Iver. He interpreted the phrase to mean the human heart,” he laughs. “Our work in The Long Count is still song-based, though. I’m not sure how obvious any of this stuff will be.”
The lyrical and vocal collaboration with Kim and Kelley Deal also reinforces the bond amongst twins and shared flyover background for both families. Both sets of twins are from Southern Ohio and have performed in bands with their siblings from an early age. When the Dessners came to the Deals with the concept of an art piece surrounding
Popol Vuh, they immediately connected, hit the books for research and returned with lyrical contributions. Other collaborators such as Berninger have shared a deep, brotherly chemistry with the Dessners for years.
“We grew up kind of worshiping The Breeders,” says Bryce Dessner. “We lived about 30 minutes away from where the Deal sisters grew up in Ohio. More recently, we played a show with them and organized a rally in the center of Cincinnati for voters before the last election. As my brother and I were trying to figure out this upcoming performance, we thought it would be so cool if they would consider collaborating.They have been very involved. About a third of the show has them on stage with us and playing.”
The Long Count carves another notch in the Dessners’ creative belt after the success of last year’s indie-rock wet dream Dark was the Night compilation album (which they produced).The show brings together enough luminaries to come across as another big event for the indie rock world, but instead of pointing to derivative similarities between bands, it suggests there are still some unique creative minds at work with loftier aspirations. Dessner hopes that more bands will follow suit and experiment with ambitious endeavors.
“I’ve been a fan of BAM for a long time,” reflects Bryce. “Joe Melillo [BAM’s executive producer] really sees and understands the diversity in our generation. It’s not just indie rock; there are so many different kinds of musicians. People like us want to do things that don’t apply to a normal rock tour.We wanted to try something different based around collaboration. I’m not really sure who will show up, because on some level, BAM already has a mixed audience. For some, this might appear conventional. For others, it’s out there. We weren’t interested in making another 40-minute record that stays within a pop format. With this, we can push things as far as we want to push them. That’s a real luxury.”
Given the explanations surrounding the piece’s source material and compositional strategies, it’s still a bit difficult to predict what it will actually sound like. While the Dessners emphasize the need for songs and the importance of choosing your quiet moments wisely, the only leaked audio track contains no vocals. It’s a beautiful, slow, repetitive instrumental with ambient guitar figures floating in the ether—an enticing preview for sure, but one could hardly assume the track is indicative of the performance given all the collaborators involved.
“We are still focusing on the show, but recording the piece afterwards is definitely an option,” says Aaron. “It really came out better than we expected and there’s some really special moments in there with all the different voices involved. I’d say there’s a good chance that we’ll all get together and record something for the fans that couldn’t be there.”
> The Long Count
Oct. 28 through 31, Brooklyn Academy of Music, 30 Lafayette Ave. (as Ashland Pl.), Brooklyn, 718-636-4100; 8, $20
