“IN A FULL-ON SESSION, THERE’S A PEAK MOMENT WHERE YOU FINALLY GET DOWN AND REALLY LET LOOSE”
One of the most cruel misfortunes to befall musicians of any stripe is when the memory fails just as their inspiration and abilities converge at the summit of their creative Kilimanjaro. Our best ideas often the most perishable, first to evaporate if we don’t document them, get them down on tape.
Kurt Vile is alive to the danger. He takes every precaution, booby-trapping his home studio with recording devices to ensure those song ideas get committed to something more reliable than the grey matter. The ideas might not seem like much in the moment, but that’s okay - because sometimes there’s gold right there, just waiting to be extracted.
“You just lay stuff down really fast with some keys, guitar, or whatever you have, and you’d be surprised,” he explains, speaking from his home studio, OKV Central. “Because what you are trying to do when you are writing a song, with vocals, lyrics and guitar, is to not think at all. Just lay it down fast. Like Sun Ra, he recorded everything, rehearsals and whatnot. That’s what a looper is there for, just for laying something down fast,
