
Hume’s summer was probably more blissful than yours. The D.C. band left town at the end of May for a country house on a 100-acre property in the village of Argyle, in Upstate New York. They found it on Craiglist. Apparently the price was reasonable; they quit their day jobs.
“We made great creative strides in a pretty finite amount of time,” says Wilson Kemp, the quartet’s drummer. Hume’s members lived together, ate together, and handled the business of operating a band together. The keyword, according to Kemp: “holistic.” Trippy.
For the first two weeks of the stay, the band improvised all day, every day, and then recorded for several weeks. “[The songs are] much more organic,” says Kemp. “We all arrived there in the moment.”
Back in December, I praised Hume’s 43-minute EP (43-minute EP!) Penumbra for not quite meandering despite its lengthy track lengths. The record flirted with that strange, early-’70s moment in which psychedelic music transformed into prog rock.
The new stuff, Kemp says, is “much more linear and way more layered,” says Kemp. It has intention, he says, and focus. The band laid down about 90 minutes of music, and is returning to Argyle soon to record vocals and mix the record. Then they’ll tour for two months in the fall.
I’m guessing what this means is that the band is now tighter and more graceful and more concise, which is why their Comet Ping Pong show tonight with Dope Body and Buildings should be fascinating. The first 20 people in the door get a free silkscreen, says Kemp. And the band is selling a limited edition CD demo containing material from the Argyle sessions.
There are still some open questions for the band. Will they release the next record on local label Sockets? Can they make the band sustainable? (The current two-week tour with Dope Body has been successful “financially and vibe-wise,” Kemp says.) Will they return to D.C.? They’re planning an Arglye-like session in Savannah, Ga., this winter, but after that, the future is wide open. I can dig a nomadic Hume. Tonight’s show is at 10:30 p.m. $10.