Silian Rail conjure a post-apocalyptic sonic landscape

“[It is] a post-apocalyptic ghost town in the desert,” guitarist / drummer Eric Kuhn explains, “with awkward remnants of bricks and industry, but a lot of open space, too.

“And a lot of wild horses galloping around,” he continues, “and a bunch of people who are all holding hands and playing that game where people lie [down] and everyone puts their heads on someone else’s stomach and then laugh together.”

Silian Rail converts the most inventive and accessible aspects of math- and post-rock into melody-driven, instrumental excursions. Parhelion, their most recent album, is a collection of expansive, grandiose tracks that juxtapose moments of contemplative repetition with fits of orchestrated disorder, aptly reflecting the duality of their surroundings.

“Living in a place like Oakland, you’ve got sirens all day, people’s car alarms going off in the middle of the night and hootin’ and hollerin’,” says Robin Landy, who plays guitar. “I’m sure there’s a subconscious desire to compete with that.”

“For me, that makes my creative sensibilities become a bit more chaotic and textural and noisy,” Kuhn adds. “But it also encourages me in the opposite direction, in that it makes me enjoy creating calm, reflective space, too, because being out in the world can be kind of an overwhelming experience.”

On stage, Kuhn plays his churning, innovative drum parts while simultaneously playing guitar or foot-pedal bass synth, creating a scale of sound that most two-man bands couldn’t conjure. With Kuhn’s approach, they’re able to experiment freely and add complexity and texture without really changing the way they write songs.

Their music might take a lot of technical skill, but, to them, it’s all about feeling.

“The whole time that I’ve played music, I’ve enjoyed approaching it more on the expressive side and coming up with different colors, rather than trying to be a shredding, amazing person who’s overly focused on one particular instrument,” Kuhn says.

Dance Club Ghosts in Asheville North Carolina

Dance Club Ghosts in Asheville North CarolinaIn the late 90′s, I tended bar at a dance club in Asheville, North Carolina that was housed in quite a large, old building on the edge of downtown. The club part was a huge space but that only accounts for a part of the total space available. The penthouse was the owner’s apartment at the time. Much of the bottom floors were just storage or completely unused. Some of it looked a little derelict and ancient. There was a huge indoor pool in one part that wasn’t in use. One night at stupid o’clock after the club closed, I saw dim light coming from that room and walked in there to check it out. For maybe a minute or two, I could see lots of orbs moving around in the pool in a very organized fashion. It looked to me like an after-image of a mete or maybe a swim practice.

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