Ari Picker felt exhausted and burned out by Lost In The Trees’ A Church That Fits Our Needs. The 2012 album memorialized Picker’s mother, who committed suicide in 2008. The project was deeply personal and deeply ambitious. It made many critics’ 2012 top-10 lists (including the top spot for the Wall Street Journal), and it led the North Carolina band to appear at New York’s Lincoln Center for the American Songbook Series. But the tour that preceded that show was fraught with challenges: Rock clubs weren’t the ideal venues for the band’s delicate dynamics and string arrangements for cellos and violins. After all that, Picker questioned his desire to make another album. But he has made another. Past Life (Anti-) jettisons many of Church’s identifying markers: It’s abstract and impressionistic rather than overtly personal, and it’s minimalist rather than maximalist. Picker will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Lost In The Trees feature.
Picker: This feels like the Goonies meets Jack The Ripper, and it is pretty much the only book I remember from college. G.K. Chesterton‘s wit and style fuel this epic allegory about an Edwardian-era detective who goes undercover and journeys into the layer of a gang of anarchists. Nonstop action and suspense ensues a our hero as he chases and is chased through a surreal and nightmarish London. Why there is no solid movie adaptation of this, I have no idea, but I think the Coen brothers would do a fine job.
Video after the jump.
