Ithica

The problem I have with most ambient music is that it lacks a beating heart. For me to enjoy anything — whether it’s metal, indie rock, acoustic folk or jazz — there must be some emotion that I can tap into. And much ambient music, while pretty, lacks a human element.

Ithica fought against the coldness of ambient music when creating Bertrand Russell’s Ice Cream Truck and won. The thirty-one minute album, which appropriately starts off with a ten-minute track called “Ambiently,” takes all of the most emotive aspects of Ithica’s brilliant self-titled album and distills them into an vocal-free, downtempo mix.

It’s important to note that Ithica’s self-titled debut was neither ambient nor instrumental. The fact that this is not their only genre makes this album much better. They know that a boring song in the ambient world is no artsier than a boring song in the pop world. These songs aren’t fast-paced by any means, but there’s a thread that runs through them of immediate payoff. The melodies are well-placed and not belabored or repeated. The band says what it wants to say and then gets out of there, on to the next thing.

A reverent, highly emotional mood from their self-titled album also carries over. These excellent songs create serene, contemplative soundscapes. This is mind-blowing headphone music, but it also has the power to transform the feel of an entire room. It’s not all synth washes and glacial tempos, either; there’s plenty of digital bleeps and boops (“How to Play Chess With Human Hands”), fast-paced percussion loops (“A Shiny Broken Toy”), and even some distortion going on in the title track (which I researched, but failed to discover the meaning behind).

But the best moments here are not just great, they’re revelatory. “Ambiently,” “August 5th” and “The Language of Children” tap into emotions and places in my mind that few other bands have the power to access. These are the sort of songs that I would want in the soundtrack of my life; perhaps a late-movie montage sequence where I look back on all the best thankfully but remorsefully while looking bravely to an uncertain future.

I doubt it will conjure up the same feelings in you, but I’m relatively sure it will conjure up something. These tunes are brilliant and beautiful, and I am thankful I got to hear them.
- Independent clauses

"Ithica presents a sprawling sonic dreamscape of shimmering electro-pop that recalls M83, The Postal Service and TV on the Radio. It’s an ambitious blend of electronica and organic instrumentation that’s ethereal, emotional... It’s pop on a grand scale, but it still manages to retain the intimacy of a folk artist’s labor of love."

March 2009 - Urban Tulsa

"Ithica presents a sprawling sonic dreamscape of shimmering electro-pop that recalls M83, The Postal Service and TV on the Radio. It’s an ambitious blend of electronica and organic instrumentation that’s ethereal, emotional... It’s pop on a grand scale, but it still manages to retain the intimacy of a folk artist’s labor of love."

March 2009 - Urban Tulsa

Josh grew up on the plains of West Texas/ watching his parent's love die." This begins the second track of local band Ithica's self-titled debut album. The song "Open/On/Start/Live" quickly sets the scene for the record: a conceptual work about young Midwestern lovers adrift in Cleveland and suffering the same inescapable and lonely fates as their parents.

The lyrics and layout might read like a polite extension of the dark rural narrative established by Springsteen's Nebraska among others, but do not expect a mournful harmonica and hollow acoustic guitar against a backdrop of folk history. The sound of Ithica is something modern and altogether different.

Aurally, the band gravitates towards vocalist/guitarist Damion Shade's emotive singing and astute lyrical imagery dispersed between a web of electronic beats and cache of synths.

"Damion is a singer-songwriter at heart," said keyboardist Matt Sawyer. "We thought that mixing that with my electronic background would be interesting."

The resulting sound is ever shifting. Drummer Nathan Price and guitarist Travis Hall keep the songs teetering toward the indie rock spectrum of things when the material permits. However, the influences of trip-hop artists like Portishead and Massive Attack as well as electronic artists like The Postal Service and Múm cannot be denied.

All of these sounds provide a fresh backdrop to the macabre and complex tale of Josh and his love Julie. Shade lyrically paints a desolate Midwestern setting with bowling alleys, bottle-littered parking lots, infidelity, suicide and fast food establishments. He further enhances the narrative by singing from the perspective of the lovers themselves as well as spectators and family members providing a diverse almost literary approach to the tale.

"My goal as a songwriter is to challenge myself," Shade said. "I wanted to write a story album or story songs."

During the gestation of Ithica, Shade consciously cast off the idea of writing autobiographically. But small pieces of his life and experiences gradually crept into the album. Although Shade is ambivalent about the more personal references in the tracks, the detachment of songwriting provided him with perspective on those experiences.

"When you fictionalize it [in a song], you can empathize with it. There can be some healing connected to that," he said.

Occasionally the listener gets a sense of Shade as a more traditional singer/songwriter, such as on the vulnerable acoustic guitar-led track "Norman Rockwell Revisited." But for a majority of the album, Sawyer casts an electronic and synth-tinged fog over the songs, which resemble the "inky Cleveland nights" that originally unite Josh and Julie.

For the creative process of Ithica, Sawyer said that it starts simply with Shade's songs. Sawyer then begins arranging and organizing the music, layering harmonies and adding synths to fill in the sound.

The result is "endless tweaking, endless overanalyzing," he said. The sense of completion he added is "totally based on how exhausted we are. It's never perfect."
It seems that the band has finally reached that creative threshold because Ithica performs a CD release show for their debut at The Eclipse, 1336 E. Sixth St., Friday March 26 with Fiawna Forte and Daniel(s) also scheduled to perform.

The night has been many years in the making. Sawyer and Shade trace the beginnings of the album as far back as 2006 when Ithica was essentially just the two of them.

While recording, a computer crash resulted in the loss of 90 percent of its work on the album. The group was forced to start again from scratch.

"It's probably a better record because of it," Sawyer said.

While re-recording in Sawyer's living room, the need for additional instrumentation became apparent. Hall, a member from Sawyer and Shade's old band, The Credit, began adding guitar parts.

"We started to realize how much the music needed drums," Sawyer said. Local heavyweights Hero Factor had recently disbanded in 2007, and drummer Nathan Price was looking for a new project. He was quickly recruited and what Sawyer and Shade call the "real Ithica" formed in late 2007.

While Price and Hall joined the project, progression on the album remained gradual. In hopes of saving money, the band waited for discounts on off-peak hour studio times. Ithica members also became involved with other musical projects at the time. Both of these circumstances further contributed to the lack of momentum with the production of Ithica.

Songs began to stack up for Shade, while finishing the album. During the summer of 2009 alone he wrote eight instrumental tracks that became the EP Bertrand Russell's Ice Cream Truck.

"A lot of the EP is me learning to use [the recording software] Reason," Shade said.

"It's probably a lot less accessible [than the full-length]," Sawyer said, but Shade was quick to disagree.

The sound of Bertrand Russell's Ice Cream Truck builds on the - Urban Tulsa

Released in late March 2010, Ithica’s self-titled release has been a long time in the works. It makes sense that the album took from 2007 to 2010, since there are 13 tracks and multiple layers of moody, indie pop music. The concept album follows a couple’s demise, Josh and Julie–Josh attempting to escape his parents’ fate of a failed marriage, and Julie searching for a man who can live up to her father’s image. The story, set in Cleveland, though the band is from Tulsa, speaks to an empty consumerist culture informing our lives, and keeping us from having real relationships. Josh finds it impossible to escape becoming his father, and is unable to live up to what Julie looks for in a man. After ending their relationships they each turn to popular culture, what they find “between South Park and Seinfeld,” and only feel more empty. The album is poetically written, taking literal scenes from an average American’s life and pairing them with rich metaphors and deep emotion. The juxtaposition exposes just how empty brand names and possessions can be, and has the power to create that emptiness within the listener. There are 13 tracks on the album, but I don’t want to be a spoiler so I’ve picked my three favorites to profile.
Open/On/Start/Live – This second track introduces our story, but also has a catchy hook. It is here you begin to get a feel for Damian Shade’s complex vocal meter and tone. His voice is smooth and deep, but under the layer of effects sounds distant and shielded, much like the overall tone of the album.
“With the highways and forest between them / Josh would not just turn out like his dad. / But his mom said, son you look just like him / then she turned to her boy and she said, / but you’ll be much better someday my son.”
My Father’s Son – This song is heavy on the synth part, which is accompanied by an echoey drum beat. It gives the song a spacey feeling, which becomes grounded at the chorus, with the introduction of cymbals and additional elements. These few stanzas embody the feeling of being unable to escape the roles our parents put us in, causing us to mirror their behavior as we get older.
“I remember you said you wanted someone / to love you like your dad did. / A man who’d never be this staggering sick / slurring I don’t mean it.
Broken glass on the floor / your name on my lips / I thought that I’d be like him.
well I wish I was. / I wish I was, / but I am my father’s son.
I feel his hands on the back of my brain stem. / I am my father’s son. / I hear his words in the back of my throat all night.”
Ithica – This song has a much lighter melody, due in part to the acoustic guitar and the absence of vocal and drum effects. Not that I don’t like effects, but they have their time and their place, and this is not where they belong. As the album progresses the songs get more personable, and more exposed. This song, I think is the pinnacle of that, as Shade croons,
“Quentin Tarantino films are washing over Julie’s glasses, / reminding her that she is growing cold.
All the other film school drop outs made remarks about detachment, and / how our culture is slowly getting old. / they say she’s better off this way. …
All the ATMs and the Coke Machines / Don’t give us what we need.”

This album is available on iTunes, and through Ithica’s Website. Buy the whole thing because this one, as well as its creators, are a keeper. - Independent Clause

Released in late March 2010, Ithica’s self-titled release has been a long time in the works. It makes sense that the album took from 2007 to 2010, since there are 13 tracks and multiple layers of moody, indie pop music. The concept album follows a couple’s demise, Josh and Julie–Josh attempting to escape his parents’ fate of a failed marriage, and Julie searching for a man who can live up to her father’s image. The story, set in Cleveland, though the band is from Tulsa, speaks to an empty consumerist culture informing our lives, and keeping us from having real relationships. Josh finds it impossible to escape becoming his father, and is unable to live up to what Julie looks for in a man. After ending their relationships they each turn to popular culture, what they find “between South Park and Seinfeld,” and only feel more empty. The album is poetically written, taking literal scenes from an average American’s life and pairing them with rich metaphors and deep emotion. The juxtaposition exposes just how empty brand names and possessions can be, and has the power to create that emptiness within the listener. There are 13 tracks on the album, but I don’t want to be a spoiler so I’ve picked my three favorites to profile.
Open/On/Start/Live – This second track introduces our story, but also has a catchy hook. It is here you begin to get a feel for Damian Shade’s complex vocal meter and tone. His voice is smooth and deep, but under the layer of effects sounds distant and shielded, much like the overall tone of the album.
“With the highways and forest between them / Josh would not just turn out like his dad. / But his mom said, son you look just like him / then she turned to her boy and she said, / but you’ll be much better someday my son.”
My Father’s Son – This song is heavy on the synth part, which is accompanied by an echoey drum beat. It gives the song a spacey feeling, which becomes grounded at the chorus, with the introduction of cymbals and additional elements. These few stanzas embody the feeling of being unable to escape the roles our parents put us in, causing us to mirror their behavior as we get older.
“I remember you said you wanted someone / to love you like your dad did. / A man who’d never be this staggering sick / slurring I don’t mean it.
Broken glass on the floor / your name on my lips / I thought that I’d be like him.
well I wish I was. / I wish I was, / but I am my father’s son.
I feel his hands on the back of my brain stem. / I am my father’s son. / I hear his words in the back of my throat all night.”
Ithica – This song has a much lighter melody, due in part to the acoustic guitar and the absence of vocal and drum effects. Not that I don’t like effects, but they have their time and their place, and this is not where they belong. As the album progresses the songs get more personable, and more exposed. This song, I think is the pinnacle of that, as Shade croons,
“Quentin Tarantino films are washing over Julie’s glasses, / reminding her that she is growing cold.
All the other film school drop outs made remarks about detachment, and / how our culture is slowly getting old. / they say she’s better off this way. …
All the ATMs and the Coke Machines / Don’t give us what we need.”

This album is available on iTunes, and through Ithica’s Website. Buy the whole thing because this one, as well as its creators, are a keeper. - Independent Clause