Well perhaps it seems like this distant past as we all had to endure months of deep sleep space travel in order to make this work.....
For more info, check out the review HERE.
otherworld is a decidedly trippy exploration in to many different kinds of sounds, but all of them slightly alien and from the past.
Glacially Musical: Thank you for taking some time for me today.
Evil Triplet: (Joe Volpi) You're welcome.
(Steve Marsh) It's our pleasure.
GM: Your music is really hard to categorize. I'm looking at as a post hippie pre doom metal. Where do you think you fit in?
ET: (SM) I'd say "heavy psych rock with experimental, noise, and krautrock diversions". But that's just me.
GM: How long did it take you to write and record the double LP?
ET: (SM) A couple of songs date back to the late 80s and a band I had called Miracle Room, radically reworked.
The rest developed over the course of the year and a half we were together before recording, although some of the lyrics were in development before that. The recording took place over a week plus a few days of overdubs and a week or so of mixing.
From the start of recording, through mastering and pressing, until the record was released took one year.
GM: Was there ever any thought of holding some of the material back for your next release?
ET: (SM) Not once the label suggested a double LP!
GM: A great album for me always has an identity, but otherworld seems like a series of EPs, each containing their own identity.
Side A is like the album Iron Butterfly always hoped to make. Side B is post hippie/early 70's pre Led Zeppelin. Side C is like Steppenwolf/Zeppelin. Side D is a little more avant garde. Am I anywhere close to how you guys see it?
ET: (SM) I'm intrigued by your impressions; I only see it as a whole. Or as parts of a trip in no particular order.
GM: Now, let me say, for the sides' identities, it all sounds like Evil Triplet to me, but each one has a different feeling than the others. 4 sides, 9 tracks. Was the length intentional or a by product?
ET: (JV) It was the material we had ready.
(SM) I think the double LP length was suggested because the songs were all long and a 4 song LP seemed a little half-assed.
GM: There are a lot of different sounds, phasers, keys, synths, but I want to know about the melotron. I didn't even know you could still find those.
What's it like playing one?
ET: It was fun!
But I should say that it was a digital Mellotron, model M4000d. Similar to the original in that each note lasts a maximum of 8 seconds (length of the original tape loops), but without the tape degradation or tracking issues.
And with a LOT of sounds! Kirk ended up sampling a bunch of sounds for his Nova synth.
GM: What do you think the five most important albums of all time are?
ET: (JV) Black Sabbath - Paranoid; Sleep - Holy Mountain; Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention - We're Only In It For The Money; John Coltrane - Giant Steps; Ween - 13 Golden Country Greats.
(SM) For the purposes of this interview, let's go with Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland; Gong - You; David Bowie - Man Who Sold The World; Butthole Surfers - Psychic, Powerless… Another Man's Sac; Fripp and Eno - No Pussyfooting.
GM: What would you be doing if you weren't playing music?
ET: (JV) I'd probably be insane or dead.
(SM) Standing around on various stages night after night with a quizzical look on my face.
GM: Tell me the story about We Are The Aliens.
ET: (SM) It developed out of a series of thought experiments I had, after a lifetime of studying alternative philosophies of mind, in which it became clear to me that our consciousness may not be ours, and this so called reality may not be real, and what we call "aliens" may not be from space, but from within.
Just a little bedtime story I tell myself sometimes.
GM: Did I miss anything?
ET: (SM) I don't know, did you?
(JV) I don't think so. We'll be on tour in late april so come see us if we play near you.
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