Philly Music 1/2
GRIT REMASTERED
Life in the 21st century can have its pitfalls. Is this relationship going to work? Does my life have any meaning? Will anyone miss me if I were to just disappear? These and other questions form the dark panorama of The Silence Kit's world.
The Silence Kit is a post-punk band that draws its talent from both Philly and South Jersey. This fall the band released a remastered version of their 2006 album, "In Regulated Measure." This was to celebrate the album's fifteenth anniversary. I first saw a live show of The Silence Kit back around 2006, probably at Khyber, and I'm pretty sure "In Regulated Measure" was the first of their albums I ever got. So for the past couple weeks I've been listening to both versions and doing some comparisons.
I asked Pat McCay, mastermind of the band, to tell us about the origins of the album. He says: I recorded "In Regulated Measure" on my own throughout the early aughts. "Shake and Tremble" was recorded in the living room of my one bedroom apartment in the winter of 2001, and was set aside as a demo. The rest of the songs were written and sketches were recorded through 2002 and 2003. I found friends to play with and The Silence Kit became a band in 2003, but for the next year or so a couple different lineups formed, played shows, demo'd songs, and fell apart. In 2004 or so I moved into a house and set up a make-shift "studio" in the unfinished (and uninsulated) attic and in the winter of 2005, I started in earnest writing and recording all the songs for "In Regulated Measure." It was freezing in the attic, with a space heater and a small amp, and my slightly improved recording rig. Sometimes with the amp, computer and space heater going all at the same time, I'd trip a breaker and everything would go black. I'd have to walk down a couple flights of stairs to the basement to reset the breaker and walk back up to the attic, and turn something off so it wouldn't happen again.
To describe the writing process, Pat says: For the majority of the songs, and certainly for songs like "My Name Is Another Room," "Burst Lethargic" and "Trying Not To," I programmed the drums first, and then recorded bass - the songs were very rhythm-centric. After that, I'd go about layering guitar parts and synth parts - much more than what was ultimately used. I'd go through and mute certain tracks until I found the right balance of keeping things stark, but with atmosphere. I had the majority of the lyrics already written, and I recorded vocals last.
Of the eight tracks on the new album, one track that stands out to me is "Burst Lethargic". I like the rhythm; I like the drums. In this song the new version is slightly less stark; there's a little more fuzz in the instrumentals. The main character in the song is awakening to "static", and is experiencing loss, which leads him to feel invalidated. Here are the lyrics to the song as well as the remastered audio of "Burst Lethargic".
Lost my shape this morning / woke up to the static / immersed, my heart sank slow / when it was just a dream / relief swallowed me / I had trouble letting go / cut and watch and back away / another layer is peeled away / the more you see the more you need / melt into the sheets / every fading smile / every whispered word / absorbed into the guilt / everything i was / you know, i used to be someone
And, for an overall, broad brushstroke view of what he wanted to accomplish with the remastering, Pat says: I've been recording music for the 15 years since "In Regulated Measure" and I've learned a good bit since those first days of recording, so it was a really interesting exercise to now go back through the old recordings and remix them. ... I did want to retain the lo-fi charm of the original. But I do feel the changes made in the remix resulted in a clearer, more dynamic and bracing mix, and yet it's still pretty gritty and hypnotic, which are some of the things I liked about the original.
What's a remastering? Maybe it's not just a technical exercise but also takes a fresh look at stories previously told, maybe to see them a little differently. A perspective can change over fifteen years. For example, in one of the band's more popular songs, "Sea Of My Discretion", the vocals and instrumentals in the new version seem a little more unified, not as separate as they were in the original. There's a little more cohesiveness. And, while there's more clarity in the new versions, there is also more texture and nuance. The stories and characters are still dark, troubled, and desperate, and the relationships still heavy (to the extent that they still can exist), but maybe we're not seeing them as harshly as we did fifteen years ago.
That being said, the last track on the original (and next to the last track on the remastered version) is "Trying Not To", presents one of the most dire situations any character in the album faces. He's talking to someone close; he says he feels like he's been getting "murdered every night", and "I've been beaten down". He talks gratefully about their relationship saying, remarkably, "You introduced me to myself". Find out how this encounter turns out. Here is the 2021 remastered version of "Trying Not To" :
The Silence Kit's characters talk about many emotional issues where others won't go. You should definitely check out this album. If you would like to hear more songs from either the remastered or other albums, here is the click to the band's Bandcamp page:
The Silence Kit on Bandcamp (CLICK HERE) .The Silence Kit doesn't have any live shows lined up in the immediate future, but here is the click to their Facebook page where you can keep up with what they're doing:
The Silence Kit on Facebook (CLICK HERE). (Pic below is from the band's web page.)
