Abditum

“Because people don’t know what nature looks like without...

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:25:47 -0400

“Because people don’t know what nature looks like without trash.” That’s what Jon said to me after we finished filming out on the banks of the Potomac. I asked, mostly to myself, why there was so much trash out there. Stupid question, I know, but his answer revealed an awareness of his environment, and a matter-of-fact-like disappointment with the lack of everyone else’s.

Jon goes down to the banks of the Potomac often, he says, to find what little escape he can from hilltop life. Just ignore the planes, kayakers, litter, cars, joggers, bikers, dog walkers and the monuments of Rosslyn, and you find yourself in the center of nature. He often takes his little guitar with him, a hand me down from the sister of a former girlfriend, hoping to find some inspiration from what little piece of nature he can find refuge in. This song performed here was made up on the spot, an Abditum exclusive, if you will.

Jon’s music, even the more practiced number that he played in his room with loop pedals and vocal harmonies, has an air of spontaneity to it. His songs swell and recede. You get the sense that if you let him, he’d keep playing, adding layer on top of layer and emotion of top of emotion, reacting to his environment and feeding back into it in a self-perpetuating cycle.

Despite this spontaneity, Jon is very careful with the art he produces. He wants to display his creativity, and in this case his process, as best as he possibly can. Not just a glimpse into his art, or an eschewed representation of it. But an accurate, blossoming view of his creativity. And if he doesn’t capture it on the first take, well, he does it again.

Find Jon’s work here.

“Because people don’t know what nature looks like without...

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:04:00 -0400

Find Jon’s work here.

I don’t know that I’ve ever met an artist as focused on her...

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 01:08:00 -0500

I don’t know that I’ve ever met an artist as focused on her craft as Kiran Gandhi. Where other artists may either shy away from the lens (or worse, bask in its light), Kiran does neither. She hardly seems to notice that I’m there- her one and only focus is percussion.

This is all the more impressive considering that we were occupying a very small space together. Very small. A closet. For this Abditum I traveled to the home studio of Rhythm and Culture M usic, the record label that Kiran and Thomas Blondet run together. It’s a small, unassuming apartment in Dupont Circle equipped with a couple of large screens, a few powerful speakers, some scattered synths, and a makeshift recording space in the closet. I wedged myself into the corner, blanketed on either side by Tom’s impressive collection of flannel shirts, and became all but invisible to Kiran.

It’s amazing the type of dumb luck circumstances that have to come together in order to make a recording space like this possible. When I asked whether or not the noise bothered the neighbors, I learned that there was a mutual agreement between themselves and the supposedly schizophrenic next door tenant. He doesn’t complain when they play their music loud (and its loud all the time) and they don’t complain when he hollers at whatever demons plague him. Hey, whatever works.

What I loved most about this space, though, is the ease with which two lives could coexist. I got the impression that the apartment was home to a rotating cast of members, one minute they’re eating dinner, joking around, recounting the previous night, and the next they’re down to the minutia of recording. They can shift seamlessly between these two states, and that isn’t a luxury a lot of artists can afford.

Kiran’s talent speaks for itself. Her percussive gift is lyrical; it has to be to keep our attention for as long as it does. It’s at once calculated and unpredictable, jarring and melodic. She borrowed the backing track from the local DJ Obeyah, but what you see here is an original work.

Kiran is a Senior in the College majoring in Math and Government. She plays a live set with Thomas every Sunday at Eighteenth Street Lounge.

For some time, I thought I should avoid my close friends for...

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 19:13:35 -0500

For some time, I thought I should avoid my close friends for this project, determining that something is lost when the documenter and subject have a relationship that won’t be translated to the viewer. I violated that rule with this installment, big time. But hell, why should I stick to it? I surround myself with profoundly talented and ever-interesting people—exactly the type of people that you would want to see on this project. Caroline Klibanoff is one of my best friends and a perfect subject for Abditum.

She is the ideal artist; she can just as easily extract inspiration from the scrolls of history as she can from a passing comment in the street. She once told me, in reference to her song ‘Vices, ’ “Yeah this lady next to me took a big puff of her cigarette and I just wrote this song on the spot.” She has a deep understanding of the social and artistic implications of music, taking explicit cues from the narrative style of Bob Dylan and injecting her own hint of southern twang and emotionalism.

I came into her room to find her frantically brushing crumbs off her desk and throwing clothes into hampers. It is the cluttered room of an artist: cramped, overbearing, and decorated with her favorite inspirations. You’ll see little notes written everywhere, a thought, a line, a poem. If you click through her computer you’ll find drafts and drafts of half-finished songs. Caroline writes all the words to her songs first and worries about the rest later. Her emphasis on a lyrical nucleus is evident almost immediately.

In classic Carolinean fashion, I quote from The Counterlife: “…if you’re written about, if you’re turned into a character in a book, unless it is really crushingly derogatory, the very fact of being focused on like that is somehow curiously romanticizing. He certainly exaggerated my beauty.” If you ask Caroline about this video, she’ll say I made her look cooler than she really is. Anyone that knows her will know that’s not true.

For some time, I thought I should avoid my close friends for...

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 19:10:00 -0500

Weird things always happen in New South. This place was my home...

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 21:46:00 -0500

Weird things always happen in New South. This place was my home for a year, and though the details are hazy, I know weird stuff happened. Over-eager introductions, muted drinking games, romantic exploits. Not a bad breeding ground for creativity.

Tate and I agreed to meet Saturday morning, so naturally he shot me a text at around 1PM, announcing that he just woke up. Escorted in by this lethargic freshman from Los Angeles, I did my best to avoid the wise, Senior role, “Ah yes, how I too remember this very drinking fountain. She sated me well, she did.” His room, not unlike most rooms in New South, was benefited by the luxury of a sink and decorated with a few clumsy posters.

But when Tate raps, it’s the sound of a hard worker. Careful, deliberated lyricism and punctuated, emphatic delivery. He cares just as much about what he’s saying as how he’s saying it. His writing is born out of impulsion and perfected by patience. He sounds eerily professional spitting into my mic with solo cups and wet towels in the background. He’s excited about his art, really excited, and he’s happy that there are people listening. He’s got plans for a recording session in NYC and a music video in LA. We’re ready for more.

Weird things always happen in New South. This place was my...

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 21:45:00 -0500

Mike Jaroski, COL 12

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 21:44:09 -0500

Mike Jaroski, COL 12

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 21:43:27 -0500

Mike Jaroski, COL 12