There is something particularly upsetting about very, very tall
people when they are sad. That being the case, there is an argument to
be made that My Haunted, the mournful and lovely new solo album
by the tallest man in indie rock—Menomena skin-beater Danny
Seim—is the most arrestingly sad record of our time. Recorded by
Seim at his Portland home between Menomena tours in the twilight months
of 2007, My Haunted collects 13 disarmingly honest, profoundly
gentle tracks composed of little more than a nylon-string guitar,
remote rhythmic rumblings, and Seim’s gossamer voice, invoking loss,
religion, and geography. Seim and I discussed his solo work, always
done under the nom-de-guitar Lackthereof, as he prepared for My
Haunted‘s digital-and-vinyl-only release on March 1 through local
label FILMguerrero.
How long have you been recording as
Lackthereof?
Since 1997, I think. I was singing and playing guitar in another
band at the time that was always trying to book studio time to make hit
records. I was, and still am, terrified of the professional studio
atmosphere because of these early experiences. I’m terrible under
pressure. I bought a cassette four-track and fell in love with the
isolated individual process. I still haven’t learned any magic formula
for nerdy stuff like making certain tones sound good, but I’ve learned
to try to put more emphasis on the quality of the song rather than the
quality of the recording. Recording has always been the central solo
activity for me.
Much has been made of Menomena’s computer-based,
non-linear writing and recording methodology. How does writing for
Lackthereof differ from writing for Menomena?
The Lackthereof process is much different. For starters, there were
only a few loops used on this new album, which is an unusual thing for
me. Also, all of the songs started out on an acoustic guitar instead of
the usual Menomena rhythmic approach. I was intending not to play any
drums on this album, but I didn’t quite make it.
Compared to the
grand scale of Menomena songs, the material on My Haunted seems to be almost in miniature, with vocals nearly whispered, and
guitar strings lightly plucked. Are you a fan of intimate folk music?
Do you consider My Haunted to fall in that tradition?
I didn’t think I liked any folk music at all until I was introduced
to Skip Spence via iTunes. (Thanks, iTunes!) And then I realized that
most of the music I grew up loving was basically folk music. Like Beck
and Pedro the Lion and Elliott Smith. I’m more drawn to the psychedelic
folky stuff now, though. Not the “wacky-for-the-sake-of-being-wacky”
psychedelic stuff. More like Lee Hazelwood or Cat Stevens. Ugh,
name-dropping.
I don’t know what “tradition” My Haunted falls
into… Not because it’s like super-genre-defying or anything. Just
because I didn’t think about it much while making it. All I knew is
that I didn’t want to have giant drums dominating everything, like
usual. So I used this cheap classical guitar that this guy in Hillsboro
once traded me for copies when I was working at Kinko’s.