Burst Apart: The Line Of Best Fit meets The Antlers

Photographs by Sonny Malhotra

With their sophomore full length Burst Apart due out on 13 June via Transgressive Records, The Line Of Best Fit caught up with Brooklyn trio The Antlers to talk about their new record, the cathartic departure from their emotionally fraught debut and what it was like to record as a whole band.

Hi guys, how are you doing?

Michael Lerner: We’re good, we’re pretty excited about the album

Have you played the new album in a live setting very much?

Peter Silberman: Only at a handful of shows so far, at SXSW, in London, at The Great Escape and at a last minute Brooklyn show.

What can fans expect from the November tour? How have you been arranging your set?

PS: At South By South West we pretty much played the record through in its entirety at a few different shows.

Darby Cicci: Yeah, at the early showcases we pretty much played it straight through but I’m not sure what we’re going to play show to show.

PS: It’ll be a mix of new and old with the focus falling on the new. We’re not going to stop playing our old stuff that’s for sure, it is very much part of who we are.

Do you think it is equally important to stay faithful to the record as it is to change things up a bit?

ML: I think it’s really important for a record to become its own thing live.

DC: Staying true to the record just hangs you up on trying to recreate something that is only really possible to make in the studio. If we’re just layering samples and chasing that kind of intangible studio sound live, then its more like we’re a jukebox and we’re not performing we’re just replicating. It’s nice to retain the feel and energy of the songs and, if needed, to bring in new specific elements for that. I think it’s so important to just play well and make every show a new experience

ML: I don’t think there is one set thing we try and achieve, we just deviate and recreate organically which keeps things interesting for us and for our fans.

DC: The dynamics are something you can change and experiment easily with live, because volume changes resonate differently in each venue whereas on a record there is a set amount of sound that can come out your speakers.

Obviously, Burst Apart is quite a departure from Hospice, I mean first of all it’s not a concept album. Is there still a story arc of sorts behind the albums content?

PS: It’s not designed as a concept album but I do think there is a certain sense of movement to it. Especially lyrically, there is a purpose to it – the songs are tied together but in a less intense way. Hospice was an analogy for a relationship between caregiver and patient, this story is told a little more subtly than that, more open to interpretation. The tale picks up where Hospice left off – trying to find your bearings after something very difficult and very emotionally exhausting.

You have mentioned there is still a relationship involved in part of the record would you care to elaborate on this?

PS: Well I guess the relationship, like the record, starts off in a place of wanting distance from other people and gradually relinquishing that and welcoming closeness by the end of it. I think probably around ‘Hounds’ is where, to me’ everything starts to gel and contextualising what came before it.

The album still very much holds a distinct character whilst being more a collection of songs, do you still think it is important for albums to be appreciated as a whole?

PS: Definitely, I mean even if the story is less defined. Many of the albums I love and listen to have a story to tell. And even though collections of songs have their own merit, Burst Apart, as I said, contextualises itself with a more comprehensive, immersive listen.

Do you think it is fair to say this album is slightly more about musical exploration than personal exploration?

PS: Well for me it certainly feels like both. As a band it was definitely a huge musical exploration as we thought about the kind of music we wanted to make, the kind of music we enjoy listening to, making together and playing live But yeah of course for me it was a personal exploration, how to feel about things after the Hospice.

Burst Apart, whilst still a really beautiful album, seems to have scaled down the dramatics, does it feel strange to have put out this “epic”, deeply personal album as your debut and to now be kind of reeling it in?

PS: It felt natural to do this actually, upping the anti and continuing along that very dramatic frame of mind for the sake of it would have been completely forced. It wouldn’t have been natural because that is not where I wanted to go and that is not where I feel I am anymore. I wanted to do something that sounded more relaxed, felt lighter to listen to. It is partly due to the kind of music I listen to now but mainly how we are as a band. As people we’re not particularly dramatic and we wanted to capture the mindset of the band because this is our record.

Having written Hospice when The Antlers was just your solo project Peter, how did this record come together?

DC: Well it was a year-long process but only about 5 months of that was spent recording. We started off in January and experimented for around a month, then toured and came back in September and recorded every day, all day for 5 months and then sort of pieced things together. A lot of things came out of those early experimental sessions and grew into songs. We have our own studio so we spend as much time as we like there just the three of us.

And it’s self-produced that is correct?

DC: Yeah. For us it certainly is important to have everything self-produced. Speaking only for myself I would not want to work with a producer or anyone who was new. I don’t think it would necessarily help move things along, I feel it would impose a different vision on everything and sort of force us into a more expected direction.

PS: I think for this record a producer would have made us doubt ourselves in a way we shouldn’t be, maybe pushing us in a direction that we didn’t necessarily want to go. A big part of this record was us figuring out, as the three of us, what we wanted to make.

ML: If you only have a few weeks in a studio with a producer you just end up rehearsing a whole lot and not really having much time to figure things out. It’s not really a process, it’s just a drawn out rehearsal and then the recording is like a formality. I think more and more people are adopting a similar process to us. I think most people would love to have their own space and not be rushed, but people seeking different ends need different means

Darby, Michael – do you find it easier to connect with the new songs because of the writing recording process, do they feel more intimate to you than the last?

DC: Absolutely.

ML: Yeah, well to an extent. I mean even though Peter wrote the overall themes and lyrics for the last album Darby and I still wrote our part, so us not having anything to do with the last album is not really the case, but yeah there is definitely more of a connection here.

DC: I didn’t really feel like Hospice was something I made personally even though I played on it. But now, being intrinsically involved in the arrangement, writing and recording process is just an entirely different experience I guess.

Whilst retaining its emotionally fraught nature in songs like ‘I Don’t Want Love’ Burst Apart seems to be a more optimistic affair, especially in the muted pop bass-driven rhythm of ‘French Exit’. Would you agree?

ML: Well I don’t think it could have been any less optimistic that Hospice!

PS: I think of it as an optimistic record even if it’s heavy at times. I think you pull the optimism out of the struggle, which to me is more realistic than just blind optimism and happiness as it’s an acknowledgement of the difficulty of life.

DC: Reasonable optimism

PS: Yeah, realistic as opposed to optimistic I guess actually.

I know Brooklyn inspired a lot of what went into your first album, do you feel like it has had a lingering impact?

PS: I feel like some of these songs are definitely inspired by things that happened while in Brooklyn, but on the other hand a lot of it is influenced by travel because we toured Hospice. It’s not a tour record but just about the difference between being home and being away. I think Hospice was very much set in New York to a claustrophobic extent almost and I feel like this one is less location specific.

What influences do you think you have all brought to bear on this record?

ML: I don’t know if it was that apparent as to what our different influences were. Like the music we individually found ourselves listening to around the time we were recording and forming ideas definitely meant there were certain things we gravitated towards. It was more about knowing there was a common thread we could gravitate towards, ideas we could assimilate, feelings we could recreate having internalised certain bodies of work.

So what were you listening to while record/writing?

ML: Well for me I know it was a lot of dub and I think for all of us a lot of kind of electronic trance music that kind of sucks you in and takes you on a ride.

DC: I kind of tend to learn more from the instrument I’m playing than from other people’s music, as I’m inspired by what they’re capable of.

PS: I am definitely really influenced by listening to other people’s music I guess because I am constantly listening along, so it was a lot of dub, electronic, a lot of Motown and a lot of late Beatles stuff (for the guitar work mostly) just kind of all over the place. For this record I was just listening to a wider variety of stuff than I was when Hospice came around.

Burst Apart is released through Transgressive Records on June 13