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<\/p>\nCalling both Santa Cruz and Big Sur home, Flat Sun Society makes psychedelic music inspired by the jam band scene, but incorporates other musical elements. \u201cSomething that we\u2019re always working on is finding that balance of improvisation and structure,\u201d says guitarist Jake Padorr. \u201cThe magic is in the balance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The group was born out of the pandemic era; early gigs took place at the Henry Miller Library on an open stage. Padorr suggests that the group’s sound is in part a reflection of those roots. \u201cPeople want to reflect, tune in a little deeper,\u201d he suggests.<\/p>\n
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Padorr\u2019s fellow guitarist Hugh Allan says that when the group plays live, that balance is informed by the audience. \u201cSome shows, we\u2019ll jam a lot,\u201d he explains. \u201cSometimes that can be successful, but there could be a bit of a disconnect.\u201d When the band senses the latter is about to happen, the players lean more into song-based structures.<\/p>\n
But not too<\/i> far. \u201cIf we all just play songs,\u201d Allan says, \u201cwe\u2019ll feel like we didn\u2019t explore as much as we wanted to.\u201d In the end, what happens is a function of how the band feels, how the audience reacts, and how the band reacts to those reactions.<\/p>\n
Padorr and Allan are circumspect when asked to cite influences, but they admit a shared fondness for everything from ambient to krautrock to Eastern musics and space rock. \u201cWe have definitely delved into textural, droning sounds in our improv,\u201d says Allan. \u201cBut we never play the blues!\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet for a band rooted in psychedelia, Flat Sun Society is unique in that it isn\u2019t built on a foundation of electronics. Allan and Padorr are joined by Emilio Rios on bass, and a trio of percussionists: drummers Jack Reed and Jacob Gilmore plus hand percussionist Tubbyz (David Clark-Riddell). Gilmore does double duty, playing in Floratura as well. \u201cHalf of our bandmates were \u2013 or are \u2013 in that band,\u201d Padorr says with a laugh.<\/p>\n
Padorr says that the group typically plays renegade gigs and community artistic events. \u201cThose are the environments in which we best express ourselves,\u201d he says. Such all-night or all-day gatherings in nature seem to bring out the best in Flat Sun Society. \u201cThere are no rules as to how long you can play, or even how entertaining you have to be to the audience,\u201d he says. \u201cThe band grew out of the consistency of this crew of six of us jamming together.\u201d<\/p>\n
The multimedia nature of community events lines up neatly with the music that Flat Sun Society makes. \u201cIt\u2019s really personal music, and we like playing on our home turf,\u201d Allan says. \u201cBecause there\u2019s an artistic community here that surrounds the music.\u201d He describes the meeting of art and music as \u201ca mutual transaction where we’re playing for our friends, and they’re there to see us and have their art displayed.\u201d He says that the band takes inspiration from that art, and he hopes that the reverse is true as well.<\/p>\n
Presented with the genre label question, Padorr reveals that Flat Sun Society has coined a term all its own. \u201cWe call it \u2018thresh,\u2019\u201d he says with a mischievous smile. \u201cThe heavy jamming should be \u2018thrash,\u2019 but for some reason it feels more like the harvesting of an experience. So we call it \u2018thresh.\u2019\u201d flatsunsociety.bandcamp.com <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Calling both Santa Cruz and Big Sur home, Flat Sun Society makes psychedelic music inspired by the jam band scene, but incorporates other musical elements. \u201cSomething that we\u2019re always working […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27288,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,57],"tags":[5392,5390],"class_list":["post-27287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-psych","tag-flat-sun-society","tag-santa-cruz","cat-41-id","cat-57-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27289,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27287\/revisions\/27289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}