Sonic Boom Recordings is excited to bring young Seattle band Siberian’s debut full-length, With Me, set for release on October 23, 2007. It’s a spry collection of earnest anthems and big-hearted indie rock that recalls Radiohead’s classic album The Bends and brims with interesting structure.
Since forming in early 2004, Siberian has managed to generate a significant buzz within the Seattle music scene. Siberian’s original 4 song demo, though never intended for release, earned the band a loyal fan base, radio play, and enthusiastic praise from local critics. Described as stunning and dynamic, their music skates a delicate balance between gorgeous pop melodies and unique compositions, creating a sound that is as interesting as it is beautiful. Their debut EP, Hey Celestial!, demonstrated a surprisingly striking musicality coming from such a young group. It was a good indication of things to come, the full length debut, With Me. Recorded with Martin Feveyear (Presidents of the USA, Brandi Carlile, Amber Pacific) at Jupiter Studios, With Me finally captures the sound and energy that is the essence of Siberian's live show polished by Martin's brilliant production work.
Finn Parnell from Siberian explains the Siberian story in his own words:
My dad was a blues musician-he used to play with Robert Cray-so I was brought up listening to a lot of old blues records: John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and other music from my parent's generation like The Who, Kinks, CSNY, et. That type of music had a big influence on my musical background and how I learned how to play.
The band basically started a few years after I moved to Seattle from Hawaii. I met Colin and he was living in a house occupied by a bunch of other musicians who had a basement full of gear that they didn't mind us messing around with. So we'd play around with two guitars and I'd come up with melodies to go along. Even though a lot of the stuff we'd written early on didn't really flesh out into entire songs, it created a sort of musical mindset which our sound is still based on in many ways. That is, I'd write a melody and the basic outline of a song and then we'd sort of deconstruct it and explore the different possibilities and ways it could go. After Zach and Aaron joined the band, we just kept that same deconstructive spirit going. That's really the backbone of what Siberian is about: pop songs written and arranged in a sort of exploratory way. That's not to say that we write music with the goal of doing something different-it's insanely naïve for musicians to believe they're doing is something that's never been done before. Rather, we try to use methods of writing and collaboration which might give birth to something unique and exciting to us as musicians. This may be reaching, but the idea is sort of along the lines of Burroughs' cut-up method, but much more contained and focused thematically. It's funny because whenever I talk about this, you'd guess we'd sound like some sort of avant-garde free jazz group or something, but we're writing pop songs. However, pop songs, to me, can be just as challenging and stimulating. It's just intricacy in a different way, like layers of detail in "God Only Knows", although not insanely complex, are moving in their perfection.
With Me was written along those same lines. We had songs like “Paper Birds” and “Islands Forever”, which were really just straight forward acoustic songs that we'd add and take away from until we ended up with something we were all happy with. Although the collaborative element could sometimes be frustrating because of all the different opinions and ideas, I really believe that writing that way provides a more creative and inspiring atmosphere. The songs themselves reflect where I was at the time I was writing them. There are some gloomy moments in there, but ultimately I think it's optimistic. Some of the subject matters might seem a bit desolate, but I think the musical counterpart and overall message is hopeful and not defeatist in any way. I think it's important to just write what's real to you, regardless of whether it's sad or happy or whatever, the point is to put yourself out there and hopefully connect with other people. That's the great thing about music, you can listen to it and identify with the sound or the lyrics and it really becomes a personal thing which is amazing to me and probably the reason most musicians do what they do. I don't want to sound too cheesy here, but it's a great thing, whether through music or books, when you can say "hey, I feel the same way."
As far as the title goes, I was reading a Margaret Atwood book and there's part of the narrative where she muses about certain emotionally loaded words like "alone" and "with me" which sort of trigger a physical response or sensation when you hear them.
Siberian will be hitting the road in the fall.
Artist MySpace: http://myspace.com/siberian
Artist website: http://www.siberianmusic.com
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