Like any great album should, Big Light’s full-length debut Animals in Bloom (2010) draws me in more completely with every listen. The songs endlessly unravel as one’s ears open to the nuances. I’ve been enamored with the band since they debuted in San Francisco near the end of 2007 and it’s all in the combination. Skillful songs, prodigious musicianship, and a certain sincerity. It’s the kind of music you want to sit back and take in and also the kind that you want to move to and lose yourself within. It’s the best of all genres, melding the weight of rock, the earnestness of folk, the edginess of indie, and the transcendental psychedelia of jam. The band’s sound is easy to love and hits with an immeasurably depth. As my friend Melissa and I would say to each other back then, “Big Light plays just the kind of music I want to hear.”

From the grittiness of “Triceratops”, to the tenderness of “Departed”, to the touching words, melodies, and guitar riffs of “Rainbow Eyes”, Animals in Bloom gets inside. “Good Time of the Year”’s youth-filled intimacy is undeniable and “Monster” strikes with washes of sound. “Heavy” just tears it all apart. It’s not just the raging guitars that send you to oblivion but the band as a whole progressing, ripping, lying deep within the groove. Unabating until the raging finale moments of “Bonebreaker”, the album is a solid realization of Big Light’s limitless potential. The album’s lyrics are poetic, pensive, inspiring and filled with color. The songs catch inside your head and refuse to let go. It’s intimate and makes you feel included.

mp3: Big Light – Monster
Stream more tracks: Good Time of the Year, Triceratops, Panther, Caution

The San Francisco foursome features Fred Torphy (lead vocals, guitar, songwriting), Bradly Bifuclo (drums), Steve Adams (bass, vocals) and Jeremy Korpas (lead guitar, vocals). After several shifts in lineup, this band feels like the one Torphy needs to convey what’s inside his head. Torphy’s voice morphs from track to track all the while staying endearing and real. And his guitar solos soar. Bradly Bifulco contributes a strength of foundation and depth that stands out on every song. ALO’s Steve Adams exemplifies what this incredible player can do when offered an alternate existence. And the most recent addition of Jeremy Korpas seals the force of Big Light. Korpus’ ripping playing which has earned him the name “Swordfish”, raised the bar of Big Light’s musicianship, allowing the band to travel where it was ready. A nod to the benefit of timing and luck, Korpas’ inclusion came by chance after needing a place to crash when first moving to SF. By way of a friend he landed on Torphy’s couch and later joined the band. Together these four individuals gesture gratitude to the great bands that inspired them – Dr. Dog, The Slip, Wilco, and My Morning Jacket – yet seamlessly unite to create a sound that is undeniably Big Light.

Yesterday, I got to chat with songwriter Fred Torphy about the album…

How does the current state of Big Light compare to what you imagined when you originally formed the band?
Torphy: Probably closer to what I imagined it being. More professional and cohesive and focused. That was something we had to work for, a permanent lineup. You saw a lot us in the formative days. It was sprawling then and you never knew who was actually going to play. That was always really hard to deal with as a bandleader. All the coming and going of the personal and getting the band staffed probably. You don’t want to push any of those things. It needs to happen on its own. Give it time. That happening was cool. I’m just stoked that it’s where it’s at right now. And that we are more lean and mean. More focused.

Are there any unseen insights into the album that you want to share?
Torphy: Mechanically we got really experimental and went deep. There are sounds you might not hear unless you’re listening on headphones. There are all of these undercurrents of noise that prevail from the beginning to the end. We capture sounds that aren’t musical in some senses. Detuning ukuleles or dropping an amplifier on the ground so that it makes a crazy thunderous sound. We put ghosts in the recording so that they could be heard later when someone is listening a little closer.

The one thing that probably nobody one knows is that there’s one guitar amp that we ended up using for 90% of the record that we got from this dude who lives in an apartment that’s next to the studio where we recorded. He’s this guy Kidd Candelario, Jerry Garcia’s right hand man for like 30 years, his guitar tech and all this stuff, and he has a bunch Jerry Garcia’s old gear. He gave us this Fender Twin that had belonged to Jerry and that Jerry used on stage for a really long time. We went back and looked at pictures and saw this thing. We had this modified Fender Twin that was Jerry Garcia’s primary guitar amp and we used it in every situation imaginable because it was cool… it sounded so different from everything else because it was modified for him. It was really loud and you could do crazy shit with it. It was fun playing with that thing. The history, recording the album in San Francisco… We’re not a Grateful Dead leaning band at all in any respect. I mean we like improvisation, we love that band, but they aren’t a model for Big Light in any way. But we did love using that guitar amplifier to make all the cool guitar sounds.

Who’s singing the words before the chorus on “Rainbow Eyes”?
Torphy: We call that the “gang vocal”. Our friend Ty Roberts and his family, Sabrina & Ted, Chris Joseph, Ray (Bradly’s wife)… There are probably 40 voices. We threw a whiskey and pizza party one night in the studio and invited our supporters and friends and asked them all to yell “rainbow eyes”.

Below is a teaser for Animals in Bloom featuring studio and tour footage and clips from their December ‘09 performance at San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium, all set to an excerpt of the new track “Triceratops”.

For Big Light, club dates have translated into high profile gigs, including appearances at Outside Lands, Noise Pop, Wanderlust, and High Sierra and at renowned California venues such as the Troubadour and The Roxy in Los Angeles and The Fillmore in San Francisco. They’ve also been placed on bills with Spoon, Broken Social Scene, The Mother Hips, Dead Confederate, Surprise Me Mr. Davis, Everest and Howlin Rain. As a fan from the beginning, it’s truly exciting to stand back and watch Big Light constantly progress and evolve at such an electrifying rate and receive due recognition for their musical journeys. Big Light’s CD Release tour for Animals in Bloom kicks off with a performance at San Francisco’s Independent on March 4th (TODAY!).

Mar 4 – The Independent, San Francisco, CA – Animals In Bloom Release Party w/ Guns for San Sebastian and Everest
Mar 5 – 50/50 Brewery, Truckee, CA
Mar 11 – The Saint, Asbury Park, NJ
Mar 13 – Sullivan Hall, New York, NY
Mar 17,18,19,20 – SXSW, Austin, TX
Apr 8 – Crystal Bay Casino, Crystal Bay, NV
Apr 16 – Cooper’s, Nevada City, CA
Apr 17 – South Lake Tahoe Earth Day Festival, South Lake Tahoe, CA
July 1,2,3,4 – High Sierra Music Festival, Quincy, CA

Animals in Bloom is for sale on the Big Light’s website, at Amazon, and on iTunes where you can download the added bonus track of “Piece Together Wings”, co-written with Nathan Moore and featuring Dan Lebowitz (ALO) on pedal steel. Jeremiah Kille of Conspiracy Surfboards created the memorable album artwork for Animals in Bloom. Check out more of Jeremiah’s work.

Purchase from Big Light: Animals in Bloom

Download through iTunes (and get the bonus track)

Download through Amazon: Animals In Bloom

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 12:55 pm and is filed under Album Reviews, Favorites, Featured Bands, Folk, Indie, Interviews, Songs, Upcoming Tour, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.