EFFI BRIEST will make
you wish you were more proactive, decisive, powerful, serious, dark-haired, and
fashionable — I’m serious. Even if you’re all of the above, the fabric of
this New York-based ensemble of six immensely talented females can be pinpointed
in their sound, which showcases an evident focus towards making their music
heard. They will push you further and hit you harder than the majority of
recent sound-offs. As a group instilled with beauty and style, with a power
matching the likes of the legendary Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead, EFFI BRIEST is going to make it to
your door. The package will be meticulously wrapped, with your name and address
written in fine calligraphy.
The genre-defying band recently released their long-awaited
debut album Rhizomes on Sacred
Bones. The record is tightly woven around the “rhizomatic structure,” which
is often used to find meaning in social organizations or to found one
altogether. Reducing this structure to a condensed form, EFFI BRIEST applied
it to each one of their tracks, allowing privileged listeners a look into the group
as a functioning organism of rooted permanence and complexity while also keeping
their stage performances spontaneous and entrancing.
Elizabeth Hart, Corinne Jones, Kelsey Barrett, Jess Stathos,
Sara Shaw, and Rebecca Squiers were gracious enough to allow EasternSurf.com a look inside their
fast-paced realm of immense work ethic in and out of the media world, talking
collaborative efforts and preferred choices of hand fruits. We sent them the
following questions and in a heartbeat they replied with effective, declarative
responses, leaving us one knee to the floor with six engagement rings in each
of our palms.
ESM: Let’s start with the
basics: Influences, inspirations, instrumentation, etc.? Who do you depend on and
what are the necessities for EFFI BRIEST?
Elizabeth
Hart: Drums, bass, guitar, synth, accordion, clarinet, congas, maracas,
tambourines, bells, cabasa, Castanets, delay, reverb, distortion, cultivars, wine,
spirit, earth, fire, water, air, Corinne, Kelsey, Rebecca, Sara, Jess...
ESM: EFFI BRIEST has an
organization that is absolutely on point, but it doesn’t steal from the pace
and excitement on debut album Rhizomes.
Was this meticulous planning or did it just happen by default?
Corinne
Jones: A lot of it happened in the mixing with the help of our
engineer and producer David Tolomei. And yes, it was a meticulous process
— we had a lot of tracks to play with.
ESM: Does the organization or
structure transfer to your live performance?
CJ: Hopefully, but we also leave a window open for experimentation within the
framework of the song. Plus, we may rework a song that's been recorded and play
it differently live. For example, we usually play a combination of the last two
tracks on our record, “Shards” and “Wodwoman.”
ESM: Can you give us a bit of
background on the band’s formation and how the six of you share roles? For
example, does anyone wear the business face while everyone else gets to slam
beers?
CJ: Some shy
off from interviews. I try to do as much as possible while slamming beers.
ESM: Is the group’s name
inspired by German author Theodor Fontane’s masterpiece novel Effi Briest, in which a young woman is
faced with challenging social dilemmas involving men and prestige? Does it
reference the movie made in the 1970s, or am I stabbing in the dark just to
make myself sound smart?
EH: No, it’s
just a name, although the book often serves as an oracle for us.
CJ: I saw the
movie before reading the book; I love Fassbinder [who directed the 1974 movie Effi Briest].
ESM: How about the name for the
album, Rhizomes. Where did that
originate, and does botany play a part in it? Shooting roots and shoots from
nodes and such?
CJ: Sure,
people have used the rhizomatic structure metaphorically for different reasons.
For us it works as a metaphor for our songwriting.
ESM: As an East Coast surf
magazine and website, we’re stoked to know EFFI BRIEST resides in the New York
area. Do you all live in the city?
EH: Corinne
and I live in Manhattan. Kelsey, Jess, and Sara live in Brooklyn, and Rebecca
lives in Cold Spring, upstate.
ESM: What are your favorite hand
fruits, apples, bananas, and oranges excluded?
Kelsey
Barrett: Lemons —
my mom has been mailing boxes of lemons from the grove near our home in
Southern California. Consequently, I've been obsessively making fresh lemonade
all spring.
EH: If we
were all a fruit, we would respectively be: Jess, a fig; Rebecca, a Northern
Spy apple; Kelsey, a peach; Sara, a grape; Corinne, a blueberry; and myself, a
plum.
ESM: You guys released a split
EP with sleaze-disco goddess Peaches. Did you get any face time with her? I
always imagine she’s on Ketamine or some other drug that thwarts depth
perception in a good way. Any comment?
CJ: No, we
haven't met her, but I'm guessing she might be a durian [a strong-smelling but
deliciously flavored fruit]. A peach would be too obvious.
ESM: With the critical success
of your debut album, is music now full-time, or are there other day jobs still
in the mix?
EH: We all
have day/night jobs, and are also involved with other projects.
ESM: We usually ask bands to
come up with a funny name for us. Something you would potentially name your
parakeet, like Lemmy Schmegel, Paul Mush, Alexandra Beaumontay, etc. From EFFIE
BRIEST we expect six.
EH: Freda
Payne.
CJ: Cornelius
Cardew, Adi Dassler, Yabby U, and EFFI BRIEST.
EFFI
BRIEST TOUR DATES:
6/19 Glasslands/Sacred
Bones Showcase………. Brooklyn, NY
For all
things EFFI BRIEST, visit www.myspace.com/effibriest
