Two years ago, we introduced you to Milwaukee's Elusive Parallelograms, which had just released its debut CD, "and Everything Changes," which it recorded in Chicago.
Now, the band is expanded and has a few fresh new faces and a new CD, "Modern Splendor," too. The disc, tracked in part in Milwaukee and in part in Chicago, contains 11 slices of modern rock that intersect stylistically with the likes of The Pixies and early Radiohead that are well-crafted and infectious.
We asked singers/guitarists Jon Hense and Andrew Foys about the new record and what's up with the band these days so that we can get a grip on today's Elusive Parallelograms.
OnMilwaukee.com: Elusive Parallelograms has some new members, right?
Jon Hense: Andrew (Foys), Stefan (Dostanic) and I met and began playing music in college. Since then there have been many permutations in the band line-up. Recently, Davey (Schessow) and Eric (Reiter) joined on bass and drums respectively, resulting in the current formation. There's not much to it; we enjoy a wide array of music and we all complement each other's styles culminating in the sound you hear on "Modern Splendor."
OMC: What are some of the band's musical influences?
JH: In terms of bands/artists/musicians, the list could go on forever but a few of our core are: the Beatles, Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, Bob Dylan, Nirvana, Michel Legrand, Elliott Smith, Elephant 6 collective, My Bloody Valentine, Os Mutantes, Black Flag, Jimi Hendrix, Pavement, Wire, The Stooges, Jeff Buckley, Miles Davis, Serge Gainsbourg, Led Zeppelin...
OMC: Are there geometry majors in the Elusive P's -- what's the story of the band's name?
JH: No, there are no geometry majors in Elusive Parallelograms, the name just sounded cool to our warped minds and it definitely sounded better than the Plastic Ellipses, which was the other option
OMC: Let's talk about the disc, do the songs represent material you've been playing for a while in your set or were they written specifically for the record?
JH: We had been playing "Winter Low" for the better part of a year before tracking it on the album. Every other song was tracked in a skeletal form by Andrew and I before sitting down and building on it in the studio. While it was an interesting approach, it took us far more time to "get things right" in our minds. So we will likely be constructing songs as a whole in a live setting before tracking next time around
OMC: Can you tell me a bit about recording it? The drums were tracked in Chicago, but the rest was recorded here, right?
Andrew Foys: Yes, the drums were tracked at the chicago recording company, they have a couple of amazing drum rooms and we did the last record there so it was a logical choice but for the rest of the record we approached it a bit differently.
We constructed our own studio, called Modulation Sound, at my house in cudahy. We essentially gutted an entire basement and rebuilt it to our liking from the ground up. Obviously this was a very difficult process but it enabled us to do two very important things; we were able to work whenever we wanted and also it allowed us to explore whatever possibilities we wanted sound wise without having to worry about things like time,money or studio availability
We engineered and produced every aspect of the record ourselves with the exception of the stellar contributions of our friend David Mills from the Chicago band Wolfgang Jay. David played the drums on almost all the tracks on the record in addition to helping with everything from tracking to production to mixing, his help was invaluable in making the record what it is.
Overall it was an extremely involved, complicated and rewarding way to go about doing a record. We learned a lot and have already parlayed that gained knowledge and skill into the new stuff we are working on
OMC: Are you guys hitting the road in support of the record? Is there a release party slated for Milwaukee?
JH: We're trying to play regionally as much as possible while expanding outward around the country as much as we can within our currently limited means. We're already recording new music and have some very cool stuff in the works for the near future. We had a pre-release party at the Cactus Club on March 5 so most likely that will be all but we will be playing around the area a lot.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
