on the road to consciousness carnival

It’s no secret that we have Hear Hums tattooed over our heady hearts, and after hearing “Change” and “Sunsoaked” you could say we’re pretty damn stoked. Their homegrown 2009 release of Notions Shift at Tryptamine Bay made my jams of ’09 list, and if I had it to do over they would certainly make the top ten due to sheer creativity and tenderheartedness. In anticipation of Hear Hums’ sophomore release, Psyche Cycles, I sent our frnds some silly fanboy questions. Above is a brand spankin’ new jam off of the new record and below you’ll find the accompanying video for “Sunsoaked” as well as the previously raved about “Change”.

FMLY: So this is Hear Hums’ second record, can you tell me what has happened with the band between Notions Shift At Tryptamine Bay and now?

Mitch: Between Notions Shift at Tryptamine Bay and now, we’ve made this new album and progressed with the way we perform live. Marcos has been with us—until just recently—through this growing process in regards to creating the sounds for the record, how we’ve found our way performing live, idea generating for the projected visuals, and work on the album art. Kenzie and I have become more equal with decision making, but for right now I think in different aspects.

Kenzie: Yeah, with the live set we’ve come a long way which I’m really proud of. With Marcos’s departure the live set had to be reworked. It’s interesting because as a three person set, I think it had more of a free-form type energy, probably more due to mine and Marcos’s dual drumming and trying to work off each other in new ways, usually as we went. Now I feel like the two person set is more focused percussively and brings more of the interesting sounds that are really prominent on Psyche Cycles into the mix as well. It’s been a fun process.

FMLY: Having only heard two pieces off of psyche cycles, I’m presented with the feeling that this record is much more rooted in environment and universal feeling rather than presenting and arranging specific ideas (‘change’ against ‘these things’) in time, space or place – what does this record represent to the two of you?

Mitch: I think the record is rooted equally in “environment and universal feeling” as “presenting and arranging specific ideas in time and space”. With Psyche Cycles, I’ve explored new sounds and environments and really crafted my palette compared to the first album, which relied less on these things or really considered things like that. All the songs are arranged in a specific way, it’s not really random or accidental, and the progression in each song in time and space are important. I don’t think Psyche Cycles can be fully represented with just “Change”, “Forest Vibus”, and/or “Sunsoaked”; these songs exemplify certain aspects of the album while as songs like Hexagon or Ay probably exemplify different things to me.

Kenzie: Psyche Cycles is the first album or release that I’ve been involved with, seeing as I joined Hear Hums as Tryptamine Bay was being finished up. So for me, Psyche Cycles represents a real induction or something. I feel like it’s a better representation of the two/three of us musically, or at least it’s a step in the direction I want to go in and I feel more comfortable with this style than I did performing stuff off of Tryptamine Bay.

FMLY: You’re part of a deeply talented scene in florida, are there any guests on the record and can we look forward to future collaborative pieces? The Sumsun vid with both of ya on drums is fucking rad. And I know Kenzie has gotten down with Emily and David during shows. And I realllly wish I got to see the Voltron set!!

Mitch: No one outside of the band contributed to this album. It was kind of a personal process, at least my part of it was. As of now there’s no talk of collaborating with anyone else, Kenzie and I both are pretty focused on doing Hear Hums, but I’m really interested in Sumsun and Totally Nebular’s process and wouldn’t be opposed to some sort of collaborating with them one day.

Kenzie: We’ve both done some improv stuff on a few of our friends’ sets before. Like you mentioned, myself and Mitch drummed for Sumsun at Endless Bummer and I along with David of Levek played drums for Emily Reo a few times which is always fun and again at Endless Bummer I was so excited to be able to play on the Voltron set with Caleb of Truman Peyote, Vacation Dad, Orchard Thief, Emily Reo, Dark Sea of Awareness and everyone else, it was so fun. But besides stuff like that, Mitch and I are really wanting to buckle down and focus for a while, but hopefully we’ll do some stuff with others in the future.

FMLY: I was lucky enough to catch you at total bummer in march, but unfortunately missed Endless Bummer in July. Can you tell whats going on in Gainesville during this time? People, places, the festival, etc..

Mitch: Kenzie and I just moved to Gainesville; right now I’m working during the day and doing music stuff and hanging out at night. I’m not super acquainted with the city yet but I’m really excited for the shows going on all the time.

Kenzie: We moved here for the scene more or less, so I’m really excited to start playing shows. The house shows here are really great, we’ve made friends with some really cool guys Evan and Joey who are in charge of this beautiful art space / creative space called ‘The Church of Holy Colors’ and they’re interested in having shows there occasionally. We really like Rabbit Punch, Michael Parallax, and Levek. JT has helped us out a lot so can’t wait to play some shows with those guys .

We’ve spoken about Hear Hums hitting the road, any ideas when that will happen / where you’d like to go / who you’re hoping to play with along the way?

Mitch: We were supposed to do it this summer, it didn’t work out because there wasn’t enough time to plan it; I didn’t know if we’d for sure have a van by the time summer came around, so when we did get one, there was only a month or two to plan shows and it just wasn’t working out. Although we haven’t talked about a specific time yet, I think a few months in the future we’ll do a tour; that way there’ll be plenty of time to plan it out. We’re still interested in going up the east coast as our first leap outside of Florida, but that’s not really set in stone right now either. As far as people to play with, It’d be really cool to play with Prince Rama again, their set was really awesome at Total Bummer

Kenzie: If we were to go up the east coast, we’ve talked about wanting to play with people like Many Mansions and Truman Peyote in the northeast, so hopefully we can do that soon.

FMLY: And when is psyche cycles gonna drop!?

Kenzie: Ahh it’s only a matter of time, we’re really eager to get it out, just have to finish up a few things. Hopefully by the end of the year. It’d be really cool if someone wanted to release it on vinyl, whether or not that happens, everyone should be able to hear it soon.