Video Interview: Conor Riley of Birth on Born, Tour Plans & More
I don’t even know how much oh-my-stars-style hyperbole has been foisted upon San Diego’s Birth for their debut album, Born (review here), which was released last month, but I’m fairly sure the point has gotten across. Melodies and mellotrons, mellow vibes and melancholia, the four-piece of vocalist/keyboardist Conor Riley, guitarist/keyboardist Brian Ellis, bassist Trevor Mast and drummer Paul Marrone — since replaced by Thomas Dibenedetto — make a home for themselves on the dusty fairgrounds of classic progadelia, too thoughtful to be lost in the cosmos but far too ready to fly to be held to ground.
So be it. A first album is always a convenient starting point, unless it sucks — not applicable here — but the context behind Born goes well beyond a nine-month gestation. Riley and Ellis previously worked together in Astra, whose two albums pioneered a lush progressive style that would inform what the San Diego heavy underground became in its well-populated 2010s boom, and Mast and Marrone are a dream team of rhythmic fluidity — the same could be said with Dibenedetto‘s name switched in; his work in Sacri Monti, Joy, Ellis/Munk Ensemble, etc. has never had any trouble keeping up with even the most winding of motions — and whether or not it becomes such, Birth‘s first full-length feels like the beginning of a longer collaboration between these players. Maybe that’s “me want more”-style wishful thinking, but listening to “For Yesterday” right now as I write this sentence and knowing from talking to Riley that it was the last song put together for the album makes me remarkably excited both for what this band is doing and what they might continue to do, probably in a few years, on their next offering.
My schedule is a mess these days, so before you jump into the video, please understand that this wasn’t necessarily easy to make happen, but I very much appreciate Riley‘s patience in coordinating with my pain in the ass self and my odd hours, especially as he’s on the West Coast and I very much am not. If you haven’t heard the record yet, it’s streaming in full below the interview, and yes, by all means, dig in and muck around in the world they create for a while. I sincerely doubt you’ll regret doing so.
Please enjoy:
Birth, Video Interview with Conor Riley
Birth’s Born is out now on Bad Omen Records. More info and updates at the links below.
