cred: leia jospe
It’s the end of 2009 and I’m jamming away in Dinowalrus‘ rehearsal space with Total Slacker. A few months earlier I was playing a show at Public Assembly with Josh, Kyle, and Pete, and now, Pete and I are standing in an empty basement of the Charleston in Williamsburg. When I think Dinowalrus I think of the night I saw them perform at Death By Audio for an IMPOSE celebration, all smiles and questionable grooving (the good kind). Writing pieces of music as if their tones and progressions can repair a piece of machinery, Dinowalrus find comfort in expressing a unique pocket of sound in Brooklyn. Their pocket stitches across district boundaries, their presence is unintentionally in all spaces. They are in a league of the imaginative, the curious, and it’s in this whimsy that a clear message can be received. If reality is based on dreams, then let’s fucking dream.
FMLY: Hey Pete, so the Dinowalrus project has been around longer than the band and its present incarnation. What’s up with that?
Pete Feigenbaum: Dinowalrus the band really started in 2007 with Kyle and Josh. I had been doing weird bedroom electro stoner metal recordings earlier on using the name Dinowalrus… probably as eary as 2004. The album shaped up in 2008 mostly.
Rad, can you tell me who covers what duties in this fierce trio?
I do guitar, bass, vocals, and synth. Josh does drums and drum machine operation, plus some occasional guitar. Kyle does bass, guitar, sampler, synth, vocals, extra drumming and clarinet.
Sounds good, one of my favorite Dinowalrus attributes is your openness to experimentation; not only in the sense of gear and sound but in context. Your “unamplified” set over the Summer at Fort Tilden was one of my favorite performances of the day, are there any fantasies out of your comfort zone that you’d like to take the band?
I think our aspirations mainly involve staying flexible genre-wise. Perhaps we will head more a dance-pop direction for album #2, and then contractdict that for album #3 with a completely improvised drone album like “Mirror Eye by Psychic Ills.
Sweet. Every track on % is way dense. can you tell me a bit about the process of developing these pieces? Something i find really interesting is that the first half sticks to pop standards in terms of length, but the second half finds more elaboration with jams clocking in at 5-8mins. was this a deliberate separation?
Glad you listened to it! …I guess each track was written in a very different mindset…each attempts to contradict the previous stylistically…or explore completely new territory. I guess it just seemed like a good idea to expand outward on the B side…”draw people in” on side A with shorter more conventional structures, then challenge them on side B. Sequencing came last, so it wasn’t super deliberate!
I’m really stoked to hear you mention sides A and B. Nowadays there’s such little care for the experiences on both sides of a record, or records in general – as long as it’s on vinyl folks seem to be almost too pleased. Are you doing anything special with the presentation of the physical record or keepin’ it old school?
It’s just black! We want to keep it cheap and simple, ya know… so Kanine will continue to wanna support us!
Ha, that’s reasonable enough. Kanine is a really sweet label, how did Dinowalrus get involved?
We kept sending Lio demos and playing his Crashin’ In shows around Brooklyn. When we had a cohesive recorded + mixed and finished work, we sent it over and he was into it! Just husslin’ mainly! If the original pressing sells out, maybe we’d consider a green vinyl re-pressing with automotive water-slide-off decals slipped inside so you can spruce up your Harley.
Nice. Since we’re on %, what does the title mean to you? And to tack onto that, I’m also curious about the album art. At a glance it’s deceiving, but after hearing that you were an architectural designer and Kyle’s work in abstract painting it begins to really come together. Can you elaborate?
It’s about 2008–the year the album was conceived! % layoffs, % decline in people’s retirement investments. % is also about the way we blend and hybridize genres and the way we blend animals!!! %dino %walrus? % is also a reference to “one-percenter” biker gangs, since the album touches on themes explored in post-apocolyptic biker movies like Mad Max and Easy Rider. It’s an album of claustrophia juxtaposed against wide open meandering aural spaces. In a similar way, the textured shot of worthless suburban tract homes attempts to be emblematic of the albums’ blend of dystopian themes with playful dayglo psychedelia. And getting laid off from architecture job in November 2008 left me with nothing left to do but to focus all my attention on DINOWALRUS!
Man, shit worked out. Last question, where’s the most consistent place to get sweet t-shirts? I dig your style.
I bought a t-shirt with a hole in it (that I would later silkscreen a bullseye around) for $2 at a stall on 6th avenue between 24th & 25th. Or this might be the time to give a shout out to MISHKA!?
Isn’t it always?
Purchase Dinowalrus’ % here.
Hit up the Cake Shop tomorrow (1/16) for Dinowalrus’ album release party!
dude. this interview is thebomb.net