5. Rachel’sMusic For Egon Schiele
I must have first heard Rachel’s in the mid-’90s. I was really into that Louisville scene – Slint and Rodan – and I heard that there was this new band coming out. I hate going into Old Man Hubbert mode, but we didn’t have the internet back then, we couldn’t just bring up Spotify or whatever to hear stuff. So when we started hearing rumours about this other Louisville band called Rachel’s, I was expecting destroyed guitars, drums, maybe a wee bit of mumbling. When I actually heard it, I was really fucking shocked. I remember thinking that it was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever heard, and that it was so much more punk rock than anything else coming out of that scene. It’s very similar to what I tried to do when I started doing RM Hubbert stuff. I basically sat down and went, well, Rachel’s kind of works in that context, so maybe those audiences can handle instrumental flamenco guitar, you know? Maybe I can target it to indie kids and punk kids. If it hadn’t been for Rachel’s, it would have seemed absurd for me to try and do something like that. But I remember thinking, fuck it, if a string quartet, a string quintet, can support Godspeed You! Black Emperor and be amazing, then maybe I can do something like that too.
I probably listen to Rachel Grimes’s [Rachel’s pianist] solo album, Book Of Leaves, more now, but Music For Egon Schiele is a beautiful album, and it ties into what I do, and how, and why, and it’s ultimately why I asked Rachel to get involved [on ‘In Accordia’] with Telling The Trees.
