Cloud Drifts of Sound

A cluster of vocals moves in unison, like a group of white
clouds drifting lazily across a blue sky. The unaccompanied harmony is
soon joined by a clucking, ticking mandolin, and by the time the second
track is underway, the music has fully evolved into momentous,
widescreen rock. Neatly folded acoustic guitars sit side by side with
circular, loping electrics, while autoharps and dulcimers provide
earthy backbone; curious drones and malleted, gong-like cymbals give
the songs an Eastern flair.

So begins Sun Giant, Fleet Foxes’ glorious first release for
Sub Pop, which has already garnered flurries of praise around the
blogosphere. They were one of the buzz bands at this year’s South by
Southwest, reaping plaudits for tight vocal arrangements and a mystic,
inventive style that gives equal share to each instrument. However,
this carefully balanced sound did not pop out of nowhere. The origins
of the band started back in school with friends Robin Pecknold and Skye
Skjelset.

“We actually have been playing together since the two of us learned
guitar at age 13 or 14,” says Pecknold. “At some point we thought it
would be fun to play with a full band instead of just the two of us on
acoustic guitars, so we rounded up some new friends we’d made after
moving to Seattle. But since 14 or so, we’ve never stopped writing
songs or playing music together, even if since that time we’ve probably
thrown out our whole catalog of songs three or four times to get to
these songs now.”

The band has advanced from the clear-eyed classic rockisms of their
2006 self-titled EP, with newer material taking those customary sounds
and filtering them through sun flares, soft lenses, and colored silk
scarves. At times, Fleet Foxes sound like David Crosby’s
marijuana-bleary If I Could Only Remember My Name with better
songwriting and tighter focus, and there’s enough billowing reverb to
fill My Morning Jacket’s grain silo. Regarding the band’s signature
vocal style, Pecknold says, “An hour and a half every practice is
devoted to just singing. It wasn’t our intention to find a group of
guys that were all strong singers; the focus was more to spend the time
singing together to get to know each other’s voices.” Songs are built
carefully, stacked like houses of cards, with dynamics carefully put in
place and no one player dominating. It’s exotic and familiar in equal
doses.

While the Sun Giant EP is proving to be the world’s
introduction to Fleet Foxes, a full-length album is due out later this
spring. Interestingly, the album was recorded prior to Sun
Giant. Pecknold explains, “When we first talked to Sub Pop, they
let us know the next available slot they had to put out a record was in
June—this was in December when we had just finished the LP. It’s
good that every band gets to have a time when their record is the
label’s main focus, so we weren’t bummed about the long wait, but we’d
worked out new songs since finishing the LP that were kind of their own
little batch. We came up with the idea of an EP and were back in a
studio in January for a week and a half to record Sun Giant. The
EP and LP are sort of a pair, and they’ll be packaged together on
vinyl.”