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: Diane Rehm‘s interviews and commentary on current events, historical matters, politics, social issues, authors and their books are some of the best I’ve heard. How anyone can be that informed and well-read blows my mind, and apparently she never went to college! I can blame this podcast for pretty much taking up most of my listening time. For me, sitting with my coffee and listening to the Friday News Round up is what watching sports is to my friends. It keeps me feeling educated. And on top of it, the theme music, with its seamless segue from baroque fugue to jazz trumpet, is remarkable. I will say her musical guests are far and few between, although her conversation with Kenny Rodgers was the cutest thing I’ve heard, with Diane almost as giddy as a school girl. The day she interviews Thom Yorke or Jeff Mangum will be the day I die. I deeply admire Diane, her wits and her tenacity.
Video after the jump.
