self-titled - no. 2 - (Page 27) EP DISCO Growing Although we’ve always dug the shimmering dronescapes of Growing, self-titled sometimes has a difficult time telling their records apart. Maybe it’s because the duo’s stuck to an instrumental template for nearly a decade; either that, or it’s because bassist Kevin Doria and guitarist Joe Denardo have whittled their sprawling shards of riffs and EFX down to a distinct “Growing sound” throughout the course of countless LPs, EPs, splits, cassettes and limited live albums. Whatever the case, we asked Doria to give us a guide to most of his back catalog, including the recently released All the Way. PHOTO: SHAWN BRACKBILL Dr y Dr unk On Woman 7” (Megablade/Nail In the Coffin, 2002) We were a really young band when we made this recording. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but I definitely feel we’ve developed a lot since then. We recorded it at home, so we didn’t really have the luxury of “quality signal processing.” T h e S ky ’s Run I nto T h e S e a (Kranky, 2003) For some reason, people find this to be our most accessible release. Which is weird because the songs and the record are so long. When we were recording it, we didn’t know Kranky was going to release it. In fact, I didn’t know what Kranky was until after they said they wanted to release it. Once that happened, they sent us some of their older releases, and it was exciting. I’m still pretty naive when it comes to these things. Business has never been my forte. I was just really excited that somebody wanted to release the record we made. The S oul of th e R ai n bow a nd the Harmon y of Li g h t C ol or Wh e e l Lat er a l We definitely made a choice about shortening the songs here. I’m glad we did. It ends up making the songs a lot more active, which I’m enjoying. We’ve been playing together for almost 10 years, so to keep doing the same thing would be really difficult and extremely boring for us. A l l th e Wa y (Kranky, 2004) (2006, Troubleman unlimited) Soul of the Rainbow was recorded while I still lived in Olympia. [Drummer] Eryn [Ross] quit Growing partly because we were leaving town and because Joe and I work together so closely. We aren’t always the easiest people to communicate with when it comes to the creative process. I didn’t know a whole lot about Brooklyn before I came here [in 2004]. The only bands I really knew about were Orthrelm and Black Dice. Everything else was still pretty new to me. I don’t really think about scene stuff so much, but that’s why I miss out on things—I tend to sleep through class most of the time. His Return We definitely pulled some crazy techniques on this one. I always try to approach the studio as an opportunity to fuck with our sound. I get really motivated and will work for 14 to 20 hours straight, then sleep for a minute, wake up and start over. It’s the most exciting part of the process for me. Vi si on Sw i m EP (Social Registry, 2008) (2007, Troubleman unlimited) (2005, Troubleman unlimited) Joe sang the vocals on [“Freedom Towards Death”]. I don’t really like fucking with vocals because it’s really hard to do live when we play at smaller places. I wouldn’t be surprised if they started to come back in the future, though. We just haven’t found a way we really like to do them yet. We had a bit of a falling out with Troubleman around this time. They didn’t like the way we worked, and we didn’t like they way they worked. It was unfortunate because everybody started out as friends, and it didn’t end in a good way. I’m still bummed out about how that went down, but that’s life. We went with Social Registry [after this album] because those guys really give a shit about everything they put out. It’s a healthy relationship instead of a dysfunctional one. “On Anon” was the best Growing song we had done up to that point. I also really liked “Morning Drive.” That was when we started to get a handle on more rhythmic things, which bothered a lot of people. LP (Social Registry, 2008) We’ve been compared to Black Dice a lot. It’s fair in that neither of us make standard rock songs, but that’s about it. I’m not sure why people lean on comparisons so hard to write their story, but they do. I think it’s damaging to all the artists involved and anyone trying to listen to the record because once you have a hard association with something, you can’t really draw your own conclusions. Anyway, I think this is our best record. As far as what comes next, I don’t know. We don’t really have a set of goals other than to just keep writing music the best we can and hopefully in ways we haven’t before. 27 http://www.growingsound.com/ http://digital.othermusic.com/search/full.php?UID=302719&ref=17 http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:w9fuxqrsld6e http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:apfrxqtdldfe http://digital.othermusic.com/search/full.php?UID=167231&ref=17 http://www.discogs.com/release/1328167 http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:w9fuxqrsld6e http://www.discogs.com/release/164956 http://www.discogs.com/release/954872 http://digital.othermusic.com/search/full.php?UID=302719&ref=17 http://www.discogs.com/release/164956 http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/popmartmedia/self-titled_no1/index.php?startid=42 http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:djfixqesldte
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