Under The Rotunda

After meeting and forming at Columbia College in Chicago, Maps & Atlases have been steadily building their reputation as an outstanding band. It started with their debut EP, Trees, Swallows, Houses, and continued with their latest, the You And Me And The Mountian EP. As I said a few weeks ago when the new EP came out, the band seems to have mellowed out a little this time around. Now, don't take that to heart too much, because they're still full of boundless energy and enthusiasm. What I mean by that statement is this -- the guitar seems to be a bit less spastic, a bit less wild, and the drums attack with less ferocity and more texture. This release sees them allowing their music to be more infused with pop, and a little less math rock. But it's still wildly interesting, just in a subdued manner -- well, subdued for Maps & Atlases, at least.

Before watching their performance at the Metro last week, I sat down with the band to talk. Frontman Dave Davison expounded on the new release, saying "The You And Me And The Mountain EP was a decision to try working from more simple songs and expanding them and abstracting them from there. Whereas when we did Trees, Swallows, Houses, we were finding our sound and a lot of it was spontaneous. We would be like 'Oh, this sounds cool,' and work from there musically and figure out a way to piece it together. [This time,] we wanted to make a conscious decision to have these shorter songs that were more concise, cohesive and catchy." Guitarist Erin Elders chimed in, "I think going into this record, we all had those goals in mind -- to make the songs a little simpler and easier to listen. But not really. We just wanted to strip things down a little bit." "Even in our attempt to do that, the songs are just as technical -- if not more technical -- than Trees, Swallows, Houses. They're just based more on layers. They're built upon chords, and there's more harmony within those layers. And we focused on the rhythms in a different way, a less dissonant way. Trees, Swallows, Houses was really rhythmic, but there were more stops that were jarring. This is rhythmic in that it builds in they way that rhythm should build to be effective. But we definitely like both of the records, it's just an attempt to accentuate the things that we really liked about what we did on the first EP."

Maps & Atlases have come a long way since their inception, and their songwriting continues to mature. "At the beginning of our band we were interested in writing stuff that was non-narrative. And "Exquisite Corpse" seemed to be a way of achieving that." "Exquisite Corpse" is an artistic creation technique, in which different collaborators write individual sections which are then combined. For Maps & Atlases, it helped get them on their songwriting feet. Commented Davison: "That was sort of the very first step, not even the stuff on Trees, Swallows, Houses. That was getting us to where we need to be, it was really good that we did that. For Trees, Swallows, Houses we continued to want to write non-narrative stuff, but the lyrics mimic that style rather than actually stick to it. Because all of the songs are about things, they're based on events or people. But we still wanted to keep it sort of non-narrative. Not 'here's the story, listen to this, this is what happened to me, now it's over!' We wanted to write in a language that was evocative and expressed something that was real, but hopefully was open enough that people could relate to it. And I feel like, especially during this summer and these tours, I feel like that was successful. People would come up to me and say 'This song made me think about this or that', and it's totally completely not what I would think, some really strange angle. But it's totally valid, and I really appreciate that. People say 'Is that what that song's about?', and I just say I don't know, because I don't want to tell them. That's the goal, in my opinion, in songwriting -- to get people to internalize anything that they hear and have it be reflective of their own experience. I mean, I have an interest in expressing myself, but I don't have an interest in constantly recreating my own experience and just having people look at it."

If you've ever had the pleasure of seeing Maps & Atlases live, you may have noticed their sound was complimented by a vibraphonist/percussionist. Her name is Sandy, but she hasn't always been performing with the band. When she can make it though, her playing adds a nice touch to band's sound, giving it an even fuller texture. "I would love to have Sandy play with us anytime that she could. She actually came to the Trees, Swallows, Houses record release show, a long time ago. And she gave us a CD of a band that she was playing in, and she would just come to shows and was a really nice person. Then I realized she was a great musician, too!" After a chance meeting on the street between her and frontman Davison, he invited her to come play in a rehearsal. "She came in and already had all this stuff written and was really good. She's a great musician. But she lives in New York most of the time, so she can play certain shows. She hasn't been with us on the past couple tours, but anytime that she wants to play, I'm down. And she played on the new EP, too."

So what's coming up for Maps & Atlases? I've been eagerly awaiting a full-length ever since I heard the Trees, Swallows, & Houses EP, and the band says it's on the way. "We pretty much were planning on having You And Me And The Mountain end up being a full-length, when we were working on it. We were getting ready to do a couple tours, and we had the songs that are on it done, and we got asked to do a couple more tours. Pretty much from April to now, and into October, have been completely filled up. We were just like, 'Well, we want to release this, we've been working on this. We're going to go on tour and we want people to know what songs we're playing.' That was the decision to make it an EP, and we feel like it works as an EP, too. But the plans are definitely to make a full-length. Probably after we get back from Europe in mid-October we'll start working on some stuff." Even though the You And Me And The Mountain EP was originally going to be part of their debut full-length, the songs will not reappear, and the LP will be entirely new material.

But before they can start work on that album, they've got a whole lot of touring scheduled. No worries, though, they enjoy touring. Especially Davison. His favorite part about touring? "Meeting people, having really good discussions. I really always wanted being in a band to be about hanging out with people and learning more about the world. For me, I don't know how to say it exactly -- I was going to go to grad school, but I'm in a band instead. And I don't regret that at all, because I wanted to make being in a band my experience and make it be as big of a growing experience as going to school. Just meeting people and traveling around is a really educating experience and a really great thing, for me and for all of us." It's also been a really great thing for fans of your music. Keep up the good work, Maps & Atlases.

Maps & Atlases - Artichokes (from You And Me And The Mountain EP)
Maps & Atlases - The Most Trustworthy Tin Cans (from Trees, Swallows, Houses EP)

Labels: Interviews