man on the moon

Os Plumerai juntaram-se em 2011 para fazer música e assim nasceu uma banda em Boston formada por Eliza Brown (voz), Martin Newman (guitarras), James Newman (baixo) e Mickey Vershbow (bateria). Lançado no passado mês de novembro de 2012 pela Darushka-4, Mondegreen é o disco mais recente do grupo; Sucede ao EP Marco Polo, lançado em janeiro do mesmo ano e tanto o EP como o disco estão disponíveis para audição no bandcamp e no soundcloud dos Plumerai.

Mondegreen é um disco fantástico porque foi composto, produzido e gravado sem grandes segredos; Envolvido por uma sonoridade indie e alternativa que balança entre a dream pop e o shoegaze, tem dez canções que melodicamente assentam numa abordagem simples, sendo esse, como referi, o seu maior encanto. A voz pura e límpida de Eliza é um trunfo explorado positivamente até à exaustão e que ganha um realce ainda maior quando as guitarras algo turvas de Martin têm a capacidade de proporcionar uma aúrea algo mística e ampliada, não só à voz de Eliza como também, no fundo, à própria mensagem das canções.

Apesar da aparente homogeneidade conceptual e sonora patente em Mondegreen, que serve para definir claramente o som dos Plumerai, uma audição atenta permite dissecar diferentes vias e infuências, já que, ao mesmo tempo que há uma paisagem sonora que transparece calma e serenidade, também existe uma tensão constante e até um certo humor que não nos deixa deixarmos de estar atentos ao desenrolar das canções e aos pequenos detalhes que nos vão surpreendendo.

No fundo, há uma enorme sensação de conforto durante a audição de Mondegreen, possibilitada por uma atmosfera rítmica única e claramente intencional, que abrange, de forma reconfortante, o espaço onde é ouvida, como se fosse um manto que permanece sonolento, mas também feliz e carregado de esperança. Confere a entrevista que a banda me concedeu recentemente e espero que aprecies a sugestão...

Blue = Eliza
Red = Martin

First of all, what are Plumerai’s main musical influences?
The boys are so much into the Cure, especially Martin and I think we can hear how they influence him in our music. I am more into trip-hop and jazz.  We make an interesting mix, I think. This questions is a tough one though. With the amount of music and artists, one can listen to nowadays and since we were kids, it sometimes hard to be aware of all our influences. I think the best people to ask are our listeners.

The Cure has been a long time influence as you can probably tell with guitar tones and the fact that we recorded covers of two of their songs.   But also I’m influenced by filmscores, some late 80’s early 90’s shoegaze, dreampop and occasional trip hop as well as more current bands like Devotchka, earlier Gogol Bordello and Leningrad.  We mash it all into our songwriting and that’s why the songs on Mondegreen vary so much stylistically.  But hopefully we accomplished having all of these styles come together under one umbrella.

Do you think that the serenity and nostalgia emanating from your music is related to being from Boston or its just a reflection of your own personal tastes, way of life or experiences?

We are all very depressed, that what it is, lol. Truly, I think we are all romantics and we often go for the more mellow and dramatic sounds. But we do have our upbeat tunes, and nowadays we are composing new songs, and focusing more on energy. We are hoping that our next album is a dancing one, at the risk of not being shoegaze anymore :).
I’ve always been fond of darker sounds, even as a child I preferred more darker toned music and then later Thrash metal bands before more wave and post punk.

What is happening musically in Boston that I should know about?
Boston has a big music scene for indie rock and jazz thanks to Berklee School of music. What's great about Boston is whatever night it is, you can always find bands playing all around the city and that upcoming bands have the opportunity to play in cool venues.
You should definitely check out The Milling Gowns, Nervous, To The Wedding and Daniel Ouellette.  I’m sure Mickey would recommend Speedy Ortiz also.

I interviewed a band from Boston, Kid Mountain.  Do you know them? 

Nope. Sorry. :( You should ask them if they know us lol!
Actually never heard of them, but that’s not odd.  There are literally 100’s of bands in the area alone.  And a lot of them are really clicky, and we’re very not part of any clicks so we may not have heard of 70% of Boston bands.

Have you thought to play in Portugal?  Portuguese people are known to usually have loving relationships with indie pop groups! 

That is a tempting thought :). We've always wanted to go back on a European Tour and I am sure Portugal would be one of our stops. I hear the food is amazing, too!

Have you ever thought to change your music style to something more commercial in order to try and achieve more success in a particular target audience or just to sell more?

I think we are commercial enough. And to alter our music for such a reason would probably be a disaster. Our music is good because we all do what we know best and love. I think the most important thing for us is to reach out to an audience who would love our style but who doesn't know about us yet. Promoting is the hardest part of being broke and musicians :). But we trust that with time, hard work, and our gift for music, you will reach out for this crowd and convince many others on the way.
Never for that purpose.  Sometimes we play more commercial style because that’s what we feel at the moment.  Like Six Ton Gorilla for example.  We’re usually not that disco but it just felt right to lay it down like that.  Also, I don’t know that we could write a commercial tune.  Sometimes I think we did but then I’ll hear an actual mainstream commercial sounding band and think how even our most poppiest of tunes is so far away from that.

I loved MarcoPolo,  do you have a favourite song on Mondegreen?
No. not a favorite. Favorites! I love Marco Polo also, and Come and Go. My favorite to perform is probably Mortality.
Definitely Come & Go, followed by 13 and Mimosa.

How has it been promoting Mondegreen?  And the concerts?
Hard but so much fun. We keep on going on tours and meeting new people. I get the chance to discover new parts of America which I am becoming to love so much. When a band lacks of money to promote, they have contacts, when they don't have contacts, they need to do something shocking and have every talk about them. We are working on that, lol. Wish us luck!
It’s been tough.  Indie and college radio has been friendly and even some local commercial radio stations with their local music show but press and blogs have mostly ignored the album.   Not completely but the ratio of people we’ve sent music to and how much press we’ve received is very disproportional

The record can be heard in 30 minutes and all the songs seems to be connected.  How was the process of writing and composing? 
Very natural. Hard at times during the recording, and the last bit of mixing, mastering, and packaging was a bit stressful but composing is very spontaneous for us. Martin and I usually come up with new tunes in one afternoon, and once we bring it to rehearsal, we let the magic happen. We put all the ingredients and then just mix and bake it:). You get to eat it. Weird Metaphor, I know :).

In the future, what can we expect from Plumerai?  What is the next step? 
We shall conquer the world.
And in the meantime, we have some shows to play and a tour of the Eastern US states to promote Mondegreen.  Then we’re back in the studio to record a few new songs in an all analog studio.  I’m not sure what will come of those recordings yet.  we’ll see how they turn out.   And of course, just keep on looking for opportunities so that we may come pay you a visit in Portugal and beyond.

01. 13
02. Trip
03. Troubled Soul
04. Come And Go
05. Six Ton Gorilla
06. Mimosa
07. Marco Polo
08. Cannibal Ladies
09. Mortality
10. Loss