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Self-Evident: Ten years after
Pulse of the Twin Cities
It would be an impossible task to catalog the bands that have started in the Twin Cities in the past 10 years. Let's just agree that there are a lot. The local music scene is fertile--new bands pop up daily--but it's also volatile: Those bands usually don't make it beyond a few years. So how does an angular, mathy, indie rock three-piece now in their tenth year keep it together? "As long as we're enjoying it--let's keep doing it," says Self-Evident guitarist and singer Conrad Mach.
With bassist Tom Berg and drummer Brian Heitzman filling out the trio, the band has released six records and done numerous tours. They've seen the various trends in local music; they talk about extinct opportunities like Quest for Mayhem--a local concert series that was hosted at the now defunct Quest nightclub--and playing Bon Appetit, another defunct proving ground in back of a gyro shop in Dinkytown. The band reminisces about other bands they played with that just couldn't make it. They joke about outliving bands and then also outliving reincarnations of those same bands.
Living through different labels, playing with different bands, performing at different venues, this band that started in 1997 just out of high school feels as if they have achieved a lot, but still have a lot left to try. They survived the tumultuous life of a rock band intact until last year, when Heitzman quit.
When it was the original three, the idea was that if any of them wanted out, the band would fold, but when Heitzmann turned in his sticks for good, Berg and Mach knew almost immediately that they couldn't let the band die. And they also knew almost immediately who they wanted to take Heitzmann's place behind the drum kit. Ben Johnston of local rockers Clair de Lune is transitioning from that band to Self-Evident and bringing with him a more straightforward and deliberate style. Influenced and maybe even inspired by their new drummer, the band delivers an urgent record of anthemic rock songs.
The band feels like this is a new beginning and the fact that Self-Evident's new album is self-titled is not a coincidence. "I feel like the band was reborn because of the lineup change. I feel like we have a whole new energy," says Mach.
"I feel like Ben's drumming now really makes sense of what we are doing," says Berg. "It makes rock songs … it brings it down to a more simple rhythmic level."
And, indeed, the record is all about rhythm. Berg's bass offers a counterpoint to Mach's angular and jazzy grooves--at times offering an anchoring bottom end and at times creating countermelodies, but it all comes back to a persistent groove that drives the songs. The excellent musicianship offers the opportunity for the trio's rhythms to wrap around each other and create a huge driving wall of sound. On top of that, Mach summons his best Ian Mackaye to convey a sense of importance and urgency with his vocals. Although his call to action may not always be clear, the effectiveness of the music lies in its ability to get you moving. Packing 12 songs into just over a half-hour is indicative of the no-frills approach the band took on this record. In the past, they tended toward a bit more experimentation and sprawling epics, but everything the band has to say on this record is concise and direct.
To be clear though, understand that Self-Evident still don't travel in the "three chords and the truth" model of direct communication. The jazzy instrumental interplay is still there. The band is not ear candy; it takes some commitment to listen to Self-Evident. The shimmering yet dark music is complicated, but the reward is that the constant pushing the band does results in a truly unique listening experience. With so many genre bandwagoneers making up the music landscape these days, Self-Evident is that rare band that blooms ever more vibrantly with each album.
The band exudes a confidence in their music, but also a reserved humbleness about any accomplishments they've achieved in the last decade. Both of these traits have helped them reach this 10-year mark--the desire to conquer all, but the steadfastness to try again when faced with inevitable disappointment.
When all three members are stuffed into a booth in a dark corner of the 331 Club, the same interplay that exists onstage exists between them in conversation: a casual ease, genuine love of music and intense passion. The trust and experience that comes with playing thousands of shows and rolling thousands of miles in a van together can either break or make a band. Self-Evident has taken all those shows and miles to heart, and it seems like they've reached a special point in their career. But no matter what happens, the band has been through enough to take whatever happens in stride. "I think what this band has done has exceeded my expectations a long time ago," says Mach. "We're still enjoying ourselves."
I Sing the Equation Quadratic
City Pages
Tom Berg is playing against type. Halfway through a basement paint job, he's slacking off. The color spreads along the wall promisingly, but then ends in jagged brushstrokes. White strips of drywall tape crisscross the ceiling like miniature runways, leading the eye to where the drywall itself gives way to exposed beams. Yet one would expect that the bass player for Self-Evident, one of the Twin Cities' longest-lived and most accomplished progressive/math-rock bands, wouldn't call quits on a project until it was fully realized, perfectly constructed, and meticulously detailed.
That neglected basement seems especially out of character when listening to Self-Evident's latest album (their fifth in nine years). Berg and the other two members of Self-Evident—guitarist/vocalist Conrad Mach, and new addition Ben Johnston (formerly of Clair de Lune) on drums—recently gathered in Berg's strangely unfinished basement to discuss their new, self-titled release. With the addition of Johnston (who replaced original drummer Brian Heitzman), Self-Evident is decidedly more tight and concise than previous releases. It explodes from the first millisecond of the opening track into an incredibly taut, angular, jarring, and hypnotic exploration of obsessiveness.
"The other albums just wandered a lot more. People thought they were heady when we weren't trying to be," Mach says. "I think this album is the most polished of anything we've done. It's the truest to what we do live."
A big, burly man who looks more than a little like Grizzly Adams, Berg says the band is often compared to the likes of Fugazi, Rush, and Milk. Fine company, to be sure, but Self-Evident demonstrate an intimacy and economy in their writing that their vaulted peers often lack. Difficult as it may be to imagine, it's almost as if they are some unlikely mash-up between Primus and Halloween, Alaska. That dichotomy is best illustrated on "Missing," which lurches between spare, ethereal guitar work accented by Johnston's minimalist cymbals and a crushing assault of furious drums and jagged guitars that erupt without warning.
Whether you call it math-rock or post-rock or progressive rock, there are certain adjectives that apply to this genre of music: intelligent, challenging, experimental, and virtuosic. Unfortunately, more often than not, you would be hard-pressed to add "accessible" to that list. Unless your idea of a fun time is to solve quadratic equations in your head, math-rock is not likely to be your casual listening choice.
But Self-Evident have managed to solve that problem. Throughout the album's 12 tracks, they pair odd time signatures with approachable melodies, jumpy syncopation with moments of quiet reflection, and accomplish it all without sounding like a schizophrenic mess. Not an easy feat. They pull this off particularly well on "The Standard," which begins with Mach shouting over a nervous guitar line that tinkles like breaking glass, but then deflates into a wistful ending that is as gentle and unassuming as any Love Cars song. You get the feeling your subconscious is being exposed to a crash course in advanced music theory, but you don't care—you're enjoying yourself.