{"id":9606,"date":"2015-12-03T05:30:40","date_gmt":"2015-12-03T05:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=9606"},"modified":"2015-12-01T13:23:08","modified_gmt":"2015-12-01T13:23:08","slug":"aheleuchatistas-arrebato-wordless-tributes-to-the-diy-aesthetic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2015\/12\/03\/aheleuchatistas-arrebato-wordless-tributes-to-the-diy-aesthetic\/","title":{"rendered":"Ahleuchatistas’ Arrebato: Wordless Tributes to the DIY Aesthetic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even in the fertile musical ground of WNC, Asheville isn’t really known as a hotbed of avant-garde musical adventures. But the two-man group Ahleuchatistas are nothing if not sonic explorers. The touring act came home to Asheville for a free-admission show to celebrate their new album release at Mothlight on Friday, November 20.<\/p>\n

Variously described as art rock, noise-rock, and experimental, Ahleuchatistas (drummer Ryan Oslance and guitarist Shane Parish) take the drum-and-guitar approach employed by The White Stripes, Local H, Flat Duo Jets and countless others, and head in a decidedly different and more challenging direction. But despite how foreboding terms like \u201cmath rock\u201d might look on paper, Oslance and Parish aren’t pretentious musical snobs. \u201cWe both play with a lot of different musicians in Asheville,\u201d notes guitarist Parish. \u201cWe play with people making roots, jazz, and world music. So we’re really involved in the [local music] community.\u201d He goes on to note that the inspiration for Ahleuchatistas when they formed in 2002 was \u201cprogressive and punk rock: a free-for-all, designed to be as creative as we wish.\u201d And he notes that they were surprised at the reaction to their sometimes amelodic approach: \u201cI really didn’t know that people would be as interested as they were.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ahleuchatistas

Ahleuchatistas (L-R: Shane Parish, Ryan Oslance). Photo credit: Scott Hubener.<\/p><\/div>\n

That interest \u2013 locally and well beyond WNC \u2013 has only increased over the years. The soon-to-be-released Arrebato<\/i> is the group’s eighth full-length release, and their previous work counts avant-garde legend John Zorn among its fans. The music on Arrebato<\/i> grew out of Ahleuchatistas’ recent tour of the Iberian peninsula. \u201cSome of the music on Arrebato<\/i> was composed and modified on our last trip to Spain,\u201d says Oslance. \u201cThe song ‘Rincon Pio Sound’ was composed in the car on the way to a show. We learned it at sound check, and performed it that night.\u201d Oslance says that the track expresses the anticipation and joy the duo felt as they approached a gig that would include many friends in the audience.<\/p>\n

Ahleuchatistas’ music has the feel of improvisation, though their pieces are tightly constructed, never meandering or \u201cjammy.\u201d That feeling of a bridge between form and improv is intentional, notes Parish. \u201cAll of the tunes are composed,\u201d he says, \u201cbut there’s freedom to interpret [them] differently each time.\u201d Because they create ambitious instrumental music, Ahleuchatistas’ relationship between guitar and drums is different than in a more standard format, wherein bass and drums serve as rhythm section. \u201cWe figured out how to capture a full sound before Ahleuchatistas became a duo,\u201d says Oslance. He and Parish had already begun an improvisationally-based duo as a side project; when the group’s original bassist left the lineup, the group folded that improv sensibility into their music and continued as a two-piece. Some of those improvisations made it onto the first Ahleuchatistas duo record, 2011’s Location Location<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Oslance describes some of the elements that go into Ahleuchatistas’ music: \u201cdroning bass frequencies, looping, and me filling in the low end on drums.\u201d He says that a goal of their music is \u201ckeeping the energy high.\u201d Parish believes the duo format allows \u201cmore rhythmic freedom; when things are a little more open, you can really communicate a lot.\u201d He suggests that the music can be more \u201cfluid and direct\u201d with two people, when the musicians aren’t necessarily \u201clocked into a particular groove. A groove can sometimes box you in rhythmically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahleuchatistas communicate without the use of words; but are their songs \u201cabout\u201d anything? Parish pauses to ponder the question. \u201cYes,\u201d he allows. \u201cSometimes a song title will communicate that. It’s often more of a feeling. ‘Shelter in Place’ refers to the general order that was given to the people of Boston during the time of the Marathon bombers; that was a foreboding, spooky thing to tell an entire massive city.\u201d The music aims to convey that sense disquiet and danger.<\/p>\n

The music on Arrebato<\/i> also pays wordless tribute to the DIY groups with which Ahleuchatistas formed bonds while in Spain, Parish says. Those groups share a \u201ccollectivist, community mindset, and a sort of radical ethic to create culture.\u201d But he cautions somewhat self-deprecatingly that \u201cit can be somewhat disingenuous to give most of our songs a specific meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n

An edited version of this feature appeared originally in<\/em> Mountain Xpress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even in the fertile musical ground of WNC, Asheville isn’t really known as a hotbed of avant-garde musical adventures. But the two-man group Ahleuchatistas are nothing if not sonic explorers. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9607,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,40,41],"tags":[2559],"class_list":["post-9606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avant-garde","category-instrumental","category-interview","tag-ahleuchatistas","cat-7-id","cat-40-id","cat-41-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9606","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=9606"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9612,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9606\/revisions\/9612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}