Visuals record in Everyday places

 

 

PROFILE. A bathtub isn’t the first place you think of for tracking an album. Cutting backing vocals in a van on the outskirts of Chicago isn’t the norm either. And while it’s been done, creating a record via Gmail is a little cumbersome.  

But for their third album, a self-produced, self-released and self-titled effort, the Everyday Visuals chose unorthodox routes. The disc’s opening salvo, “Intro (Morning Star),” a gorgeous track lathered in Fleet Foxes harmonies and My Morning Jacket reverb, was recorded in the basement of a Brookline elementary school. Each member would record their contribution and e-mail it to the group.

“We wanted to explore different spaces and sounds, without using a plug-in or effects. We tried to get the sound at the source,” singer Christopher Pappas says. “If we wanted a really reverbed acoustic guitar, we backed off the mikes and recorded in a bigger space. Having a laptop, a portable recording studio of sorts, allowed us that luxury.”

The New Hampshire-bred, Boston-based foursome — rounded out by guitarists Eli Scheer and Kyle Fredrickson, and drummer Joe Seiders — eschewed the polished, structured approach of their sophomore disc, “Things Will Look Up,” in favor of what Pappas calls their debut’s “experimental, childlike naivete.”

Florence Foster Jenkins,” a resplendent ramble of boom and echo that Pappas intended as an ode to his father, who loved Crosby Stills and Nash, is about a turn-of-the-century Philadelphia woman who, with no apparent vocal talent (zero tone, zero pitch, zero rhythm), pursued a singing career, and achieving cult status, made it to Carnegie Hall.

“I love the fact she did what she wanted regardless of public opinion, but it's deeper than that,” Pappas explains of what resonated about Jenkins, whose story came to him a music study course in college. “I find it very inspiring that she could follow something so blindly — this idea of blind faith. When public opinion starts to seep in, I wish I could channel her. Not caring what other people think, or even what I think.”

The Everyday Visuals
with Heavy Birds
Tonight, 7
Pianos
158 Ludlow St.
$8, 212-505-3733
www.pianosnyc.com