{"id":32567,"date":"2020-04-22T10:30:47","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T14:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/?p=32567"},"modified":"2020-04-21T16:26:44","modified_gmt":"2020-04-21T20:26:44","slug":"premiere-the-north-country-starting-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/premiere-the-north-country-starting-over\/","title":{"rendered":"PREMIERE: &#8220;Starting Over&#8221; Sees DC&#8217;s The North Country Doing Just That"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_32596\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-32596\" style=\"width: 1000px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-32596 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/XI9jFMv8-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/XI9jFMv8-1.jpeg 1000w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/XI9jFMv8-1-324x216.jpeg 324w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/XI9jFMv8-1-416x277.jpeg 416w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/XI9jFMv8-1-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/XI9jFMv8-1-768x512.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/XI9jFMv8-1-500x334.jpeg 500w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/XI9jFMv8-1-700x467.jpeg 700w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-32596\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo Credit: Mauricio Castro<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>America is having an identity crisis. As the talking heads on national news programs remind us daily: we&#8217;re in the midst of a pandemic that is calling into question the very foundation of our state. Releasing new music during this time (especially music that had been written pre-Corona) seems like a fool&#8217;s errand, but the new single from The North Country, &#8220;Starting Over,&#8221; proves that some songs may be predetermined for the moment at hand.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Well if you don&#8217;t make a move \/ Everything stays the same \/ Nostalgia is a crutch \/ Don&#8217;t be afraid to make a change,&#8221; bandleader Andrew Grossman sings, his voice carefully mingling with bandmates Laurel Halsey and Margot MacDonald, gently encouraging the listener to expand their point of view. The D.C. band&#8217;s lineup has changed over the years, but currently includes Grossman, Halsey, and MacDonald, along with Austin Blanton (bass), Jon Harmon (guitar), and Kirk Kubicek (drums). The project is largely Grossman&#8217;s brainchild; the D.C. native developed an interest in music back in high school, after being gifted with a guitar at his bar mitzvah.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eIRDj01o0Fc\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Chatting via Skype with Grossman, I wanted to dig deep into the religious imagery I&#8217;d heard on their albums and really understand what drives the existential nature of the band&#8217;s work. He admitted that initially his songwriting slanted toward the playful music he was drawn to in his childhood, like They Might Be Giants; it wasn&#8217;t until college that he began to explore the more heady, thought-provoking music The North Country would be known for.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s an old Miles Davis quote: &#8216;It took me a while to learn how to play like myself,'&#8221; Grossman says. &#8220;It took a while for me to kind of figure out what The North Country was supposed to be. You listen back, there&#8217;s hints along the way of where it was heading. I think it&#8217;s [gotten] there within the last two years.&#8221; That evolution comes full-circle on forthcoming LP <em>America and Afterwards<\/em> (out June 26th), though unfortunately the SXSW appearances and tour they&#8217;d planned to promote it had to be cancelled in light of the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>The band&#8217;s rotating lineup of musicians doesn&#8217;t reflect an egocentric lead singer or volatile romantic interludes between band members (Grossman is happily married and lives with his wife, a dog, and a cat). Instead, Grossman&#8217;s changing musical style and evolving subject matter is mirrored in who he worked with in the project and when. Listening to the band&#8217;s evolution is, in many ways, listening to Grossman explore a variety of styles and musical motifs: bluegrass, Americana, psychedelia, electronic. &#8220;The synth thing is definitely a more recent development. The guitar, I had mined it for most of what I was gonna find in it. I had found it. A friend kinda turned me onto synths. There was a whole other way of approaching music, thinking about music, and it was unmined,&#8221; he says.<\/p>\n<p>On the band&#8217;s Facebook page, Grossman has been exploring electronic work through live solo shows (even covering Bach&#8217;s Prelude in C from The Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1 on a synthesizer). In regards to sound, synthesizers initially proved difficult to manipulate; Grossman&#8217;s wife was mildly skeptical at his baby synth steps, wondering if the hours of &#8220;exploration&#8221; would eventually turn into music she could listen to. He said it didn&#8217;t take long, however, for him to begin incorporating these new elements into his work. His explorations have always been the framework for The North Country songs; Grossman jams out, exploring sounds on guitar and synth alike, keeping an ear out for a &#8220;spark&#8221; that will eventually lay the foundation for lyrics.<\/p>\n<p>When I asked him if this time of turmoil has been one of contemplation or creation, Grossman said he spent one week binging on Netflix, then he got to work. &#8220;Starting Over&#8221; was a song the band had already been working on, performing it live at shows last year. It was a piece they were saving for their next album, but with COVID-19 derailing their tour, it seemed like the perfect moment and the perfect song to work on together at home. &#8220;The day after we cancelled, we got on a Zoom call with everyone,&#8221; Grossman remembers. &#8220;We&#8217;re like: What do we do? We can&#8217;t tour, we can&#8217;t see each other, but we don&#8217;t want to do nothing.&#8221; Grossman described the surreal aspect of months of planning and buildup to SXSW, only to cancel just a two days before they were set to leave: &#8220;It was like driving in a car going at like 60 miles an hour, and then all of a sudden I&#8217;m standing still.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The video is a visual representation of feeling stuck. Little boxes containing pieces of a band. Each performer recorded their part solo, then the individual videos were stitched together to make a whole. &#8220;Starting Over&#8221; is a pleasant, gentle reminder we all need: that no matter how trapped we feel, the way out is always through.<\/p>\n<p><em>Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/thenorthcountrymusic\">The North Country<\/a> on Facebook for ongoing updates.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>America is having an identity crisis. As the talking heads on national news programs remind us daily: we&#8217;re in the midst of a pandemic that is calling into question the very foundation of our state. Releasing new music during this time (especially music that had been written pre-Corona) seems like a fool&#8217;s errand, but the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":32596,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[573,305,567],"tags":[8172,477,1662,6635],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/XI9jFMv8-1.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32567"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32567"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32601,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32567\/revisions\/32601"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}