Califone
is a critically-acclaimed [1] [2] [3] experimental post-rock band from Chicago. The band is named after Califone International, an audio equipment manufacturer.
Califone will release an album and feature film in 2009, both of which are titled All My Friends Are Funeral Singers
. The album will be released October 6, 2009 on Dead Oceans. [4] The feature film will be submitted to festivals in 2010, and the band will play a live soundtrack to the film during their tour.
All My Friends Are Funeral Singers
is the highly anticipated [5] follow-up to 2006's Roots & Crowns
, which The New York Times
called "enthralling." [6] The first single released for the album is called Funeral Singers
. [7] [8]
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CALIFONE TICKETS
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History
After the breakup of his former band
Red Red Meat, frontman
Tim Rutili formed Califone as a solo project. Rutili's solo effort soon became a full-fledged musical project with a regular and rotating list of contributors, including many former members of
Red Red Meat and some members of other Chicago bands.
According to Rutili, Califone started as a home project: "The statement of intent would have been 'easy listening' compared to what we were doing with Red Red Meat. This was supposed to be making little pop songs out of found pieces. It was supposed to be just a little home project, and it slowly grew from there. Now it seems like just about anything goes."
[9]
Califone's sound is a combination of Red Red Meat's
blues-rock and experimental music, with inspiration drawn from early American
folk music,
pop, as well as electronic and groups like
Psychic TV. Listeners familiar with
Red Red Meat can quickly tell that Califone is not an attempt to revive the old band; elements from a number of musical styles contribute to their distinctive sound.
Califone's current lineup includes
Joe Adamik (drums),
Jim Becker (banjo, violin),
Ben Massarella (percussion), and
Tim Rutili (vocals, guitar, keyboards). Each member is a
multi-instrumentalist.
Concepts
Many of Califone's albums are individually thematic, sometimes inspired by stories (All My Friends Are Funeral Singers), dreams (Heron King Blues), and films (Deceleration albums).
All My Friends Are Funeral Singers
The album's companion film is about a psychic woman who lives alone in the woods. According to Rutili, who wrote the screenplay and directed the film,
She lives in a house full of ghosts, and one day, the ghosts realize they’re trapped, and she has to find a way–even though she doesn’t want them to go–to get them out of the house. Then they start destroying her life. [10]
Heron King Blues
Califone's 2004 release
Heron King Blues
is a concept album involving a recurring dream:
Rutili has had a recurring dream since his youth, involving a giant man-bird creature, and then he discovered that the creature was actually a representation of an ancient Druid god called the heron king, which the British feared so deeply that they fled the battlefield when an effigy of the heron king was hoisted above the heads of the opposing army, and that Rutili realized that he had somehow been manifesting an image of this long-dead god figure in his head since he was a child. [11]
Deceleration series
Califone has released instrumental albums that were recorded while the band played live soundtracks for films recorded in the 2000s.
Deceleration 1
and
Deceleration 2
were released in 2002 and 2003, respectively.
Decelerations
3 and 4 are rumored to be released sometime in the future.
[12]
Collaborations
In 1997, members of Red Red Meat collaborated with members of
oRSo and
Rex to record
Loftus
for
Perishable Records.
In 2002,
Tim Rutili and
Ben Massarella collaborated with
Modest Mouse frontman
Isaac Brock and others to release the album
Sharpen Your Teeth
under the band name
Ugly Casanova.
In 2003, Tim Rutili, Ben Massarella and Jim Becker collaborated with
Ottawa musician
Miche Jetté, to record five of his songs for an independent mini-disc. This recording would later be released properly in 2005 as the first side of Jette's debut solo album (under his stage name
Flecton), for the Canadian label,
Kelp Records. The latter half Flecton's
Never Took a Wife
was recorded with
Memphis indie rockers,
The Grifters.
[13] [14]
In 2005, Califone collaborated with
Freakwater as a backing band to record the album
Thinking of You
.
In 2006, Tim Rutili teamed up with
Wil Hendricks and
Michael Krassner under the name
The Unseen Hand to record the soundtrack for
Rank
, a documentary about bullriding.
In 2006, Califone teamed up with animator/musician
Brent Green on a series of performance art pieces featuring animation, live music, and spoken word. The same year they were featured on the soundtrack for the movie
Stranger than Fiction
.
In December 2008, the Canadian band
Flecton released
The Bright Side of Dying
, with Califone as the backing band. The album was recorded in Chicago and features Ben Massarella, Tim Rutili, Joe Adamik, and Jim Becker). The eight song vinyl LP (including a cover of
Merle Haggard's "Workin' Man Blues") was released on Ottawa's Kelp Records.
[15]
Discography
- Califone
(Flydaddy Records, 1998)
- Califone
(Road Cone Records, 2000)
- Roomsound
(Perishable Records, 2001)
- Sometimes Good Weather Follows Bad People
(Perishable Records / Road Cone Records, 2002)
- Deceleration One
(Perishable Records, 2002)
- Quicksand / Cradlesnakes
(Thrill Jockey, 2003)
- Deceleration Two
(Perishable Records, 2003)
- Heron King Blues
(Thrill Jockey, 2004)
- Roots & Crowns
(Thrill Jockey, October 10, 2006)
- All My Friends Are Funeral Singers
(Dead Oceans, October 6, 2009)