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: My birthday tradition is to drink gin and tonics and listen to Smiley Smile on vinyl. I started doing this in high school, and I’ve always been curious about the relationship between legendary lost album SMiLE and underrated and often overlooked Smiley Smile. These two LPs are parallel universes of each other. SMiLE feels like walking through the different rooms of a bright museum of Americana, lush and heavily orchestrated, while Smiley feels like being in a haunted house. SMiLE was wrought with over-ambitions and obsessions and pressures, with months and months of recording and re-recording. When the bubble burst and the Beach Boys shelved the album, they retreated into Brain Wilson’s house and re-recorded simple and stripped-down versions of the songs for Smiley Smile. Most of the songs on Smiley only have one or two instruments, leaving lots of room for vocals. It is kinda like the Beach Boy’s Yeezus, super minimal but with a maximal effect. There is something very haunting and holy about the Beach Boys singing over a simple organ and bass line—it sounds epic. You can really hear the rooms of Brian’s house (including his swimming pool) and all the odd recording techniques home recording forced them to use. You can hear Brian having fun and letting go of his grip on the band, as well as reality.
Because of label politics and Brian’s departure, many tracks that should have gone on one album ended up being shelved only to be released years later on something else. Because of this, here is my Smiley Smile track listing as I feel it should’ve been. All the tracks are from the original Smiley Smile release, except where noted. Also “Getting’ Hungry” and “Whistle In” I scrapped because they were written after and should have gone on later record Wild Honey, in my humble opinion.
“Our Prayer” (20/20 version)
“Heroes And Villains”
“Vegetables”
“Fall Breaks And Back To Winter”
“She’s Going Bald”
“Cabinessence” (20/20 version)
“Little Pad”
“Surfs Up” (Surfs Up version)
“Good Vibrations”
“With Me Tonight”
“Wind Chimes”
“Wonderful”
“Can’t Wait Too Long” (Smiley Smile/Wild Honey outtake version)
Video after the jump.
