Burnside’s Brent Knopf Spectacular!

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[Music Editor's note:  Sometimes it's interesting what albums resonate among our writers.  Of course, any album with a heavy Portland connection is likely to be featured in the virtual pages of Burnside, but the new album from Menomena's Brent Knopf (as Ramona Falls) managed to be the subject of two pieces submitted nearly simultaneously, so we put them together for your enjoyment.]

Intuit, a review and interview with Brent Knopf

by Dylan Peterson

Did anyone follow Pitchfork’s “Best Tracks of the Decade” thing a few weeks back? Do you want to hate music now? What was “All My Friends” doing at number 2? I mean, it’s a cool song, but the second best song of the decade? What a bizarre list.

Immature Pitchfork bashing aside, one of my favorite bands’ tracks ended up way back at #442. “Wet and Rusting” by Menomena. The wonderful little voice you hear singing on that track is a Portland man named Brent Knopf.

I asked Brent if he feels honored to be a part of the list. “I find the most gratification in just creating music, so I’m not too concerned with “honors,” per se, although I’m grateful to people who spread the word about my music.”

Brent’s music seems to spread itself around naturally. Ramona Falls is the name of his latest project, and the first album under that moniker, Intuit, is out now on Barsuk Records. This music is for Menomena fans who enjoy the more melodic and pop-friendly sides of the band. Fans of Arcade Fire will definitely dig Brent’s multi-instrumental indie rock, too. It’s full of synth-heavy, rhythm-happy, quirky-introspective loveliness. The album was sort of a community project of Portland musicians. “I’ve lived in Portland my whole life,” Brent explains, “and I’m amazed by the number of incredible musicians here.  The Ramona Falls project was a great excuse for me to call up lots of musicians that I admire and ask them each for 3 hours of time.” Just a few of the contributors to Intuit include members of  Mirah, The Helio Sequence, Talkdemonic and as well as some of Knopf’s Menomena brethren.

Portland people might even recognize the project name as one of Oregon’s most stunning waterfalls. Intuit is a community album in every sense, and you can feel the love when you put it on. “I didn’t want it to sound like a “solo-album,” I wanted it sound like an “album.”  So, I reached out to viola, trombone, and upright-bass players (among others).  Tons of folks sing on the record, including a small New York church choir.  It was fun to take these new instruments and voices and distill them into an album that I hope feels cohesive.”

The album is certainly a collaborative effort, but the songs all come directly from Brent Knopf. Where do his hoards of creativity come from? “I piece the ideas together like a jigsaw puzzle. …Oh yeah, I also eat a ridiculous quantity of chocolate, so maybe that’s my secret.” Whatever he does, the result is always a massive juxtaposition of avant-garde sensibilities and simplistic melodies.

Creatively and spiritually, Brent has an astute ability when it comes to relaying a visceral idea through song. “I was taught Christian stories as a child, and my comfort with incorporating religious imagery (mud/ash in eyes, crown of thorns, holy water, etc) in lyrics reflects my particular upbringing.” But he doesn’t take his religious influences lightly either, he includes them in his art. “One of the trickiest aspects of talking about spirituality is definitions.  We often assume (wrongly) that people agree on what words like “religious” or “spiritual” mean.  So, I’ll instantiate a temporary definition of the word “spiritual” and define it more as “questions and paradoxes that inspire wonder and compassion.”  In this way, music-making is quite spiritual : a song is often a place where I try to grapple with questions or paradoxes I can’t easily resolve.”

Brent isn’t the only mastermind of Menomena to release a solo album recently. Danny Seim (Menomena’s drummer and Ramona Falls’ touring bassist) gave us Lackthereof last year. ” I’d like to see all the projects (Ramona Falls, Menomena, Lackthereof) positively reinforce each other,” Brent hopes. But Brent reassured me that another Menomena album is well on the way, “I think the Ramona Falls and Lackthereof records reflect that the recording of the next Menomena album is taking longer than we expected. But we’re working on it.”  For this listeners, there’s no rush, Brent.  I find that there’s still more to take in from this project.  Ramona Falls’ Intuit is an album that demands replay.

A look the artwork of Intuit.

by Michael Dallas Miller

While recording his upcoming Barsuk release under the name Ramona Falls, Portland’s Brent Knopf spent more time with the man who would illustrate the cover to Intuit than any musician with which he collaborated. Knopf spent only three hours with other musicians recording tracks, but he spent hours upon hours with Theo Ellsworth sharing dreams, discussing thoughts about the universe, and deciding what animal head Knopf would most like to replace his own. While Knopf does laundry in his Portland home and Ellsworth drives up the California coast, Sound grabs a minute with both creative sides—the inspired and inspirer—to find out how 11 songs of left-field rock ‘n’ roll and some colored pencils creates a single piece of art known as an album.

"Intuit" - Ramona Falls

A) OPENING AZTECS

With nearly all of Ellsworth’s illustrations, it can be difficult to find a center-point—a figure that gives our eye something to focus on. There is nothing that is just as it appears to be. Brent Knopf would not have it any other way. Knopf says these opening, layered figures perfectly visualize one of the central themes of his album. “I like the idea of people inside of people,” says Knopf. “You never know what you you’re sharing, or what of other you’re really seeing.” When asked how he decided to portray this idea through ancient Aztec men, Ellsworth claims, “it came in flash. I have a thing, I guess, for ancient art. People tell me a lot that my stuff ends of looking like Aztecs.”

B) THE MAZE

Just below the album cover’s central image, there is a maze. And, as Brent Knopf sees it, underneath all of our words and kind deeds and politeness, there is a maze of misery and mystery and love. “This comes out in ‘Always Right’ where I try to figure out how to talk to someone who thinks they are always right, when I think I’m always right too,” says Knopf.  “There is a lot going on that we don’t see—and that is more the truth of things.” Ellsworth claims he only illustrated through listening to the general feel of the album, and paid little to no attention to particular lyrics, so all the creatures running through the maze mean nothing in themselves, but can the same be said for all of the numerous other animals?

C) AN OWL AND AN ELEPHANT

“One day, I asked Brent if he was to have the head of any animal replace his head,” says Theo from San Francisco. “Brent said, ‘An owl and an elephant.” It could just be a over-interpretation from a background of literary theory and bible class, but these two figures seem altogether religiously symbolic and point towards Hinduism (see the third eye on the figures’ foreheads) although Knopf he says he is only vaguely interested in Taoism (“I like the celebration of thought of paradox,” says Knopf, his laundry folded) and Ellsworth claims no lyric gave him the motivation to draw the third eyes. “I’ve never been drawn to any one religion, but I draw every day,” says Ellsworth. “That is my devotion to something higher.”

D) FLYING AWAY

“Brent and I spent a lot of time together sharing our dreams with each other. At the time of the making the album, I was having a lot of visions of Benjamin Franklin,” says Ellsworth. Thus, a fish kite, lightning and a golden key. These figures are flying somewhere—all figures are going somewhere and this, to Ellsworth, is one thing that makes his art unique. “I draw comics, too,” says Ellsworth. “My book and all pictures are stories that are not completed. There is always something before and something after. I don’t do commissioned work much, so I was nervous about this project and fitting my art to someone else’s. I don’t draw to please people.” Neither, it seems, does Knopf—an artist who intentionally set up challenging circumstances (why would anyone limit himself to three hours with his contributing musicians?) and put out Intuit. He did not, in our interview, mention a word about how he hoped the public might receive it.

Theo Ellsworth lives and creates in Portland. His work can be found at theoellsworth.blogspot.com.

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