Eugene, Oregon post-rock outfit This Patch of Sky reissues its 2014 self-titled album on September 21 via Translation Loss, bringing the album back as a CD and 2xLP package with two limited edition vinyl variants. A contemplative and robust musical adventure the album was limited to 100 copies in its first run, allowing the LP to find a new audience in a new year. Fans of acts such as Mono, Sonna, and Mogwai will rejoice in This Patch of Sky‘s elegantly-composed pieces, including the soundtrack worthy “Time Destroys Everything, But Our Foundation Remains”, the resolute passages of “The Winter Day Declining” and the brooding parts of “Wait and Hope”.
The band’s Kit Day recently reflected on this album and its imminent rebirth.
How did material for this album differ from what you’d done before?
As we approached writing the self-titled disc, we wanted to change our writing style as a whole and attempt to create more of a soundtrack than an album. Our goal was for the songs to flow into each other and take you on a journey like a movie. With that in mind, we also wanted to incorporate cello into some of the songs. When it came time to record, we began looking for a cello player to record on a few songs that were already written. Out of that, we found our current cello player, Alex Abrams, who ended up becoming a full-time member of the band.
Was there a piece that emerged early on that set the tone for the record?
I think the piece that set the tone for the album was “Time Destroys Everything, But Our Foundation Remains”. It set the mood for much of our current writing style and what we wanted to accomplish with the album as a whole.
The album works as a connected piece of music. Was it challenging to think/perform in those terms or did you see that as something you’d long wanted to do finally being realized?
We all had always wanted to write/perform our music as one connected piece of music from beginning to end. We had never done that before, so it was a little challenging at first. One thing we used to do when writing the material was to try and visualize a scene in a war movie and create the emotions for that scene. This process helped us to get away from writing isolated songs to writing more compositions that would fit movie soundtracks. After adopting this process, we also shifted our live shows to follow this outline as well. When we begin our live show, we don’t stop or pause in-between songs. Everything flows into each other, and we try to take our listeners on a musical journey.
What was the recording process itself like? Were there long hours together in the studio or did it fall into line fairly quickly?
We’ve never spent a crazy amount of time in the studio on any album we’ve recorded. We try and prepare ourselves with fully thought out demos before entering the studio. For this one, I believe we recorded everything in four days and had it mixed in under a week. We generally already know all the little pieces we want for each song and have those prepared beforehand.
“In the House of Wolves” really stands out for its dramatic nature. There are elements that almost recall Goth or post-punk, but it never drifts too far from the core sound you’ve established.
“In The House of Wolves” was inspired by This Will Destroy You’s “Tunnel Blanket”. We wanted to write something that mixed both ambience with a heavy/darker sound. This was the first time we had ever written a heavy hitting song, so it was a nice challenge for us to step out of our comfort zones and create something a bit darker than usual. During the writing process for this song, I do remember visualizing soldiers being carried by a huge warship to land to fight in a war, and trying to create the heavy anxiety feeling a soldier might feel during this. This song is probably one of my favorite songs to also play live; I’d love to write more songs that resemble it.
There are those clean, chiming tones for the guitars and big drums that appear throughout but “Love Is in Beauty and Chaos” is a fantastic example of that sound but also the ensemble nature of the band.
After writing “In the House of Wolves”, I wanted to create something that gave a breath of fresh air immediately after the song ended. I had been experimenting with tuning down to C# on my acoustic guitar at home during that time, and I remember just picking it up one evening, and everything flooded to me quickly. A lot of our songs generally have a big, climactic ending. I love that this specific song stays at one level and accomplishes what it was intended for: peace and freedom.
You released this to a very limited audience, at least in physical format, with only 100 copies. What was the reaction and why such a limited run?
When This Patch of Sky was formed, it was a band that was made as a fun project to create music with friends. We weren’t pushing our music to the masses and generally only played local shows a few times a year. After releasing this album in 2014, we had a few online magazines pick it up to promote it, and a lot of people began to discover us. We honestly had no clue so many people would love this album. We had a ton of requests for us to release it on vinyl, so we ended up just doing a very small run. The vinyl sold out when we put up pre-orders. Unfortunately, the whole process of trying to self-release the vinyl ourselves was painful. We constantly ran into roadblocks because we had never done anything like it. We are so excited to team up with Translation Loss to re-release it properly.
It’s possible that this reissue will attract new listeners. Where should they go from here?
For those new to This Patch of Sky, I would recommend listening to our latest release, These Small Spaces. We released it in late 2017, and you can hear the musical progression we made between it and the self-titled album. We continued to push ourselves to write more cohesive pieces that sound like a movie soundtrack, and we are proud of both of these albums! We have also recently begun writing a new album we hope to begin recording in 2018.
TOUR DATES
9/19 San Francisco, Neck of the Woods
9/20 Los Angeles, The Hi Hat
9/21 Phoenix, The Rebel Lounge
9/22 Las Vegas, Artisan Las Vegas
9/23 Reno, The Saint