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"With gentle psychedelia, scuzzy guitar, and a sweetly-stoned surfer attitude, they serve up summery tunes by the VW camperload." - NME
The Faraway
Places is both a spacerock band with 5-14 people, and a modal
energy music ensemble that performs omniphonic compositions at
artspaces. Both formations of the group paint in broad strokes
of volume and freeform repetition, combining tuneful California
pop slackness with a driving 60s experimentalism. Within the
sheets of sound produced by the ensemble you can find the pulsing
mechanical rhythms of Can, harmonies reminiscent of the Mamas & Papas,
the angular guitars of the Byrds and Royal Trux, the cosmic sprawl
of Sun Ra’s Arkestra, and the rock & roll kick of T.Rex.
The song-structures are finely-crafted but minimalist, allowing
various instruments to weave in and out until they combine
to form breaking waves of transcendantal noise.
As the band’s lineup expands and contracts, The Faraway
Places' constants are keyboardist and singer Donna Coppola (who
is also a performance artist -- everybody needs a day job) and
Chris Colthart, the young man who writes and produces the songs,
plays guitar, sings, and maintains well-groomed hair. After
releasing their debut, Unfocus on It, on Eeenie Meenie and Bella
Union, the four-piece band decided to go big, expanding to include as
many as …
2 drummers,
7 vocalists,
3 synthesizers,
2 clarinets,
3 electric guitars,
a 12-string electric,
and 1 solitary bass.
Members of the band have also played in Papas Fritas, The Movies,
The Brokedown, and The Bedroom Walls, as well as other eastside
LA bands. This summer, the expanded band has played a series of
art happenings and parties.
Colthart calls his band's jumbled sound "California Krautrock,”
which references both pastoral pop from the late 60s and the psychedelic
German art-rock of the same period. "I'm a perfectionist
who appreciates the soul-power that you get with performance and
collaboration," Colthart says. "I think things are too
perfect in music today -- the rough edges are where the magic
lives."
rock@thefarawayplaces.com
1886 Preston Ave.
LA, CA
90026
323.913.3223
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