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Days of Rona: Eric Crespo of Abronia

Posted in Features on April 23rd, 2020 by JJ Koczan

The statistics of COVID-19 change with every news cycle, and with growing numbers, stay-at-home isolation and a near-universal disruption to society on a global scale, it is ever more important to consider the human aspect of this coronavirus. Amid the sad surrealism of living through social distancing, quarantines and bans on gatherings of groups of any size, creative professionals — artists, musicians, promoters, club owners, techs, producers, and more — are seeing an effect like nothing witnessed in the last century, and as humanity as a whole deals with this calamity, some perspective on who, what, where, when and how we’re all getting through is a needed reminder of why we’re doing so in the first place.

Thus, Days of Rona, in some attempt to help document the state of things as they are now, both so help can be asked for and given where needed, and so that when this is over it can be remembered.

Thanks to all who participate. To read all the Days of Rona coverage, click here. — JJ Koczan

abronia eric crespo

Days of Rona: Eric Crespo of Abronia (Portland, Oregon)

How are you dealing with this crisis as a band? Have you had to rework plans at all? How is everyone’s health so far?

Yeah, we’ve had to rework plans for sure. We had shows booked in April–including a festival in California we were going to drive down to play. All canceled of course. Just today we decided to postpone our upcoming European tour until summer of 2021. It was slated to start July 24th and go until August 9th.

Things aren’t really officially canceling that far out yet, but the writing is on the wall. Only about half of the tour was booked when the shit started to hit the fan and our booking agent was finding it impossible to get anyone to agree to confirm shows for the summer months, with so much uncertainty about. We kind of came to the conclusion to cancel jointly with our booking agent–it’s nice to not be waiting around for news about it anymore. It’s kind of relieving in a way–just to not be in limbo about it anymore. Of course we’re heartbroken that we have to wait over a year to go on the tour, but it coulda been worse. Luckily, we hadn’t bought tickets yet. We were just about to buy our tickets in January when things started going south, but decided to hold off to see how things played out.

I guess the new plan is to try to get another album out before our European tour in the summer of 2021. We’ve got some local-ish shows and festival planned for summer, but who knows if those things will happen. Doesn’t seem likely that shows will be for sure happening again like they used to until there’s a vaccine widely available.

Everyone’s health is tip-top. It’s frustrating to not be able to meet up for practice. We’ve been emailing ideas for new stuff back and forth and we’ve been doing weekly zoom meetings where we talk about all the new music and everything else. Better than nothing, but it’s a far cry from the productivity we can achieve by being in the same room together.

What are the quarantine/isolation rules where you are?

Here in Portland, Oregon, it’s shelter in place. Meeting up in groups is prohibited. Parks are closed. Schools are closed until at least May but everyone thinks they’ll be closed for the rest of the school year. Basically you’re only supposed to go out for necessary supplies and exercise, unless you’re going to work and your job is deemed essential.

How have you seen the virus affecting the community around you and in music?

It seems pretty brutal. I do live sound as well as studio recording and mixing and of course there’s no opportunities for live sound engineers. And of course a lot of musicians work in bars or restaurants when they’re not on tour and all the bars and restaurants are shutting down and laying everyone off so the damage to the music community is pretty massive

What is the one thing you want people to know about your situation, either as a band, or personally, or anything?

Well we’re gonna keep being a band. This thing is really exposing all the shortcomings of our country and hopefully it will lead to better things in the future.

https://www.facebook.com/AbroniaPDX
https://www.instagram.com/abroniaband/
https://abronia.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/CardinalFuzz/
https://cardinalfuzz.bigcartel.com/
https://cful.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/FeedingtubeRecords/
https://feedingtuberecords.bandcamp.com/
http://feedingtuberecords.com/

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Abronia Premiere “Half Hail” Video from The Whole of Each Eye

Posted in Bootleg Theater on March 12th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

abronia (Photo by Joey Binhammer)

With their big drum and pedal steel guitar reverberating out over the ancient treetops of the Pacific Northwest, Portland’s Abronia released their second album, The Whole of Each Eye, last Fall through Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube Records. As the follow-up to their 2017 debut, Obsidian Visions / Shadowed Lands (review here), the richly atmospheric and periodically sax’ed up six-song/35-minute long-player brims with a heavy Americana ambience, its percussive presence both simple — indeed, centered around beating a very large single drum — and intricate, with tambourine and shakers and cymbals and other beat-keeping whathaveyou.

A few years of lineup changes find half of the six-piece newly arrived, with Rick Pedrosa on pedal steel, Shaun Lyvers on bass and Paul Michael Schaefer on guitar joining original members Keelin Mayer (vocals and saxophone), Eric Crespo (guitar, backing vocals) and Shaver (percussion and melodica), but the songwriting is likewise coherent and avant garde, with Mayer out front in post-Grace Slick form on resonant early pieces like leadoff “Wound Site” and the subsequent “Rope of Fire,” on which her repetitions of “defender!” give way to a wash of pedal steel and melodica at the end, moving smoothly into the more straightforward guitar-led progression of “Cross the Hill,” like the opening credits of a Morricone score translated into a pop progression, something of a respite from the starker atmosphere of the first two cuts, but still definitely a ceremony.

Nalin Silva and Eric Crespo recorded analog at Type Foundry in Portland, while Billy Anderson mixed,Abronia The Whole of Each Eye and neither would seem to have been a minor task — getting the material down or putting it in some semblance of order in a way that captures both the variety of arrangement elements in play at any given moment (usually, but not always) behind Mayer‘s strong voice and the sense of space essential to Abronia‘s atmospheric goals. The Whole of Each Eye succeeds in this, however, and whether it’s the sax freakout in the second half of side B’s “New Winds for the Warming Sands” mirroring the louder stretches of “Wound Site” or the album’s longest piece, “Half Hail,” which follows at 6:49, taking its time unfolding through shimmering guitar into a sense of forest ritualism and near-tribal urgency in a midsection drone/percussion solo built up Wovenhand-style as the song moves into its second half to a glorious instrumental return and shouting finish.

This leaves “Cauldron’s Gold,” which begins in more subdued fashion, to close out, which it does with a nod to folkish intent in Mayer‘s gentle delivery and the slow cymbal march taking place with the patient guitar. As the track moves into its second half, it finds more volume and tonal fullness, but cuts and recedes again before making its actual last push, hitting the record’s noisiest mark before cutting quickly to silence right about at the six-minute mark, seeming to leave the meditation almost in mid-mantra, instrumentally speaking, and no doubt purposefully. The diversity of Abronia‘s approach, even as relates to hearing The Whole of Each Eye in terms of the record they put out before it, speaks to the overarching creative depth and progressive intention, as well as to the clearheaded sense of who they are that underscores the gorgeous and sometimes threatening portrayal of nature in their material.

Drawing from as vast a landscape as they do, musically and in terms of the actual landscape(s) they’re evoking, Abronia‘s will to craft actual songs is all the more admirable. Even in their wildest stretches, they never seem entirely lost any more than they want to be in the ritualism they’ve casted, and at both their most minimal and lushest reaches, they safely guide their audience across the relatively brief but memorable journey that The Whole of Each Eye becomes.

It is my pleasure to host the premiere of the video for “Half Hail” — floating orb and all — which you can find below. Abronia currently have a European tour in the works that will culminate with an appearance at Yellowstock Festival XII in Belgium early in August. More on that to come.

Until then, please enjoy:

Abronia, “Half Hail” official video premiere

The follow up to their debut, The Whole of Each Eye sees Abronia cementing its very singular place in the canon of the broader psych rock universe. A six piece consisting of two guitars, electric bass, tenor saxophone, pedal steel, and one 32” inch bass drum (no drum set here), Abronia pulls from kraut rock, spaghetti Western soundtracks, doom, 60’s UK folk, spiritual jazz, ritualistic drone, and infuse it all with the arid haze of deserts near and far.

Video by Aubrey Nehring – https://aubreynehring.com

Abronia are:
Keelin Mayer – tenor saxophone and vocals
Rick Pedrosa – pedal steel
Eric Crespo – guitar and backing vocals
Paul Michael Schaefer – guitar
Shaun Lyvers – bass
Shaver – the big drum/percussion/melodica

Abronia, The Whole of Each Eye (2019)

Abronia on Facebok

Abronia on Instagram

Abronia on Bandcamp

Cardinal Fuzz Records on Facebook

Cardinal Fuzz Records webstore

Cardinal Fuzz Records on Bandcamp

Feeding Tube Records on Facebook

Feeding Tube Records on Bandcamp

Feeding Tube Records website

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Abronia Announce New LP The Whole of Each Eye out Oct. 25

Posted in Whathaveyou on September 16th, 2019 by JJ Koczan

abronia

Psychedelic pastoralia would seem to be the order of the day on Abronia‘s second album, The Whole of Each Eye, which is set to release next month through Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube Records. All the better. Their 2017 debut, Obsidian Visions/Shadowed Lands (review here), certainly had its share of soundscape-driven characteristics, and to hear the six-piece outfit transpose that onto far-out and more folkish vibes only adds a refreshing feel to what was an already individualized approach. Mixed by Billy Frickin’ Anderson, the long-player is out Oct. 25 and there’s no audio public from it yet, but it’s got six tracks, they’re post-everything, and absolutely work their own kind of moodiness into the proceedings. I dug the last one a lot. I have the feeling that as I get to know it better the situation will be much the same with the follow-up.

Album info follows, courtesy of the PR wire:

abronia the whole of each eye

Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube Records are proud to bring to you the latest long player from ‘Abronia’ (Portland USA)

The follow up to their debut, The Whole of Each Eye sees Abronia cementing its very singular place in the canon of the broader psych rock universe. A six piece consisting of two guitars, electric bass, tenor saxophone, pedal steel, and one 32” inch bass drum (no drum set here), Abronia pulls from kraut rock, spaghetti Western soundtracks, doom, 60’s UK folk, spiritual jazz, ritualistic drone, and infuse it all with the arid haze of deserts near and far.

Recorded, as the first album was, at Type Foundry in Portland, but mixed this time by Billy Anderson (known for his work with Sleep, OM, Neurosis, and many other heavy legends), the band builds off of the solid foundation of the first album. There are still hooks and visceral, crushingly satisfying payoffs, but there’s a deeper complexity to these arrangements that rewards careful listeners and searchers.

And while almost half of the last album was entirely instrumental, you’ll find no purely instrumental tracks on this one. This time Keelin’s voice has come to the forefront–a deep and deadly force that brings to mind Nico, Grace Slick, Jarboe, Malaria’s Bettina Köster, and White Magic’s Mira Billotte. Note the dynamics–from the subdued falsetto on the first half of “Cauldron’s Gold” to the murderous scream at the end of “Half Hail.”

Another obvious change if you read the liner notes–three of the six members have switched out since the last album, which would seem like a big deal if it hadn’t happened in such a staggered and organic way. Rick Pedrosa is deeply part of the crew by this point–he joined the band on pedal steel a month after the first album was recorded (September 2016)–replacing the lap steel player–Andrew Endres, Paul Michael Schaefer replaced Benjamin Blake on guitar just after the album release show (July 2017). Shaun Lyvers is the newest member–replacing the continent roaming Amir Amadi on bass in spring of 2018.

Abronia is very much a band. Songs are written together at practice with everybody contributing.

Tracklisting:
1. Wound Site
2. Rope of Fire
3. Cross the Hill
4. New Winds for the Warming Sands
5. Half Hail
6. Cauldron’s Gold

https://www.facebook.com/AbroniaPDX
https://www.instagram.com/abroniaband/
https://abronia.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/CardinalFuzz/
https://cardinalfuzz.bigcartel.com/
https://cful.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/FeedingtubeRecords/
https://feedingtuberecords.bandcamp.com/
http://feedingtuberecords.com/

Abronia, Obsidian Visions/Shadowed Lands (2017)

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