Glorytellers

Glorytellers

[4/5]

Geoff Farina’s music is best described in relation to itself because no one sounds quite like him. His folk-pop duo Secret Stars had a peculiar distance and chill, while the jazzy, elliptical arrangements of his post-rock quartet Karate matched his fractured lyrical ambiguities. His latest project splits the difference sonically, offering pretty, understated acoustic guitars moving with subtle angularity over jazzy drums. Farina composed these songs on flamenco guitar in Italy during 2005 and conceived them to be played sans bass on two guitars like hands on the piano, forming, complementing and coloring the chord.

The classical guitar provides an attractive bed for Farina’s vocals, which are as warm, expressive and center stage as on anything he’s done. It’s certainly appropriate to the florid, image-rich lyrics that propel the songs. While not narratives in the strictest sense, they’re well-wrought stories and reflections, from the teenage single mother that backdrops “Camouflage” to the kiss-off of “Exclusive Hurricanes,” which compares an old lover to street dogs sniffing for “garlands of carrion or some decaying protein.” While the album’s tone is consistent, none of 10 tracks sound quite alike, highlighted by the stirring meditation “Awake At The Wheel,” contemplating wrecks and shrines along the highway. Wonderfully crafted and artistic without the self-consciousness that style often implies, Glorytellers is Farina’s most broadly appealing release. (SOUTHERN) Chris Parker

Rocks Like:

Tony Furtado’s Thirteen

Iron & Wine’s Our Endless Numbered Days

The For Carnation’s The For Carnation

IN-STORE SESSION WITH FRONTMAN GEOFF FARINA

This album was almost three years in the making. What happened?

I wrote all the songs over maybe the period of a few months, at least the basic parts of them, and had planned to have that record out a couple years ago. But everything just went really slow. I basically recorded three different versions of the album, and the first couple versions weren’t really what I wanted. I had done some of the songs as rock songs more in the style of Karate, and I just wanted to do something different. I slowly got into this idea of using two guitars, sort of playing the bass lines on the acoustic guitar, and having the two guitars define the chords together.

Some of the parts–the acoustic guitar parts–took me a long time to learn, I basically knew what I wanted to play, but it was hard to actually execute it, and it took me a while to make those things sound musical. So it was definitely an experiment, and I’m glad I did it because it really opened up to a lot of different ideas. Now I’m even writing new songs and thinking about a lot of different ways to arrange them.

Within these arrangements, your vocals and lyrics really take the focus. Was that the intention?

I feel I’ve started this lyrical process, or this way to write lyrics, that is really my own and I always want to advance. That’s what these songs came from more than anything. So I think the singing really takes precedence on some of the songs, and I really want the idea of what the story is to come out and the denseness of the lyrics. My lyrics have always been relatively dense–that’s the way I approach songwriting. So it’s definitely something I wanted to be a big change from Karate. Some of the Karate songs–the ones I don’t remember too well, the ones I wanted to move past–were maybe groove with some abstract thoughts over the top of them, and I just wanted to be very focused and specific.

You toured for a couple years playing art clubs and alternative venues without so much as an album to support. How is that?

I’ve noticed with my music–Glorytellers, Karate, Secret Stars–there’s never been a big fanbase, but there’s always a handful of people really, really into it, who come to see all the different things that I do. I think in some ways its better than having these waves of popularity. I see the same faces every year, they’re really committed to it and see it as a unique thing, which is definitely a great feeling. -Chris Parker