Grape Room
Grape Room’s Peter Nichols, the dawning of Nicey Music, & the great Los Angeles migration; photographed by Luke Csehak.
Allow us to quickly bring you up to speed—Peter Nichols of Spooky Town Tapes made the big jump from Brattleboro, Vermont to sunny Los Angeles, California where he launched the new imprint Nicey Music with Rabbit Rabbit’s farewell album (also featured in Impose’s “Best Music of April” article) I’ll Always Remember You ft. Nichols’ girlfriend Louise Chicoine (of Banny Grove, who also has another release soon in-store from the label). Peter’s beloved solo project of love Grape Room (formed from the ashes of The Great Valley) prepares the next Nicey release with the album Heart of Gum available now, presenting the world premiere of the electrifying eccentric-ism enjoyed on “Yankee On The Run”. Nichols pitched us the new album as being “the most modern Grape album, almost entirely synth-based and computerized,” Peter explained, being an artist known for devising the most clever of DIY home-brewed hacks to make lo-tek/lo-fi symphonies come true in a world where Windows 95 is the most cutting edge GUI/operating system around. “Even the guitars were fed to a guitar-to-MIDI interface,” Peter elaborated, “And replaced with Japanese bells and whistles, and the drums were all notated hit by hit. At the intersection of prog musicality and Prince-obsessed pop-mania, as usual.”
Imagine if Peter Nichols got the chance to re-track and remix Ariel Pink’s Mature Themes, and even then you’re not even close to encapsulating the freedom flights of delightful, freakish fancy that awaits on “Yankee On The Run”. The east coast origins of that signature Peter Nichols sound can be heard here like an earworm constructed from Lite-Brite vacuum tube takes on colonial state traditional-style hymns of the republic. The harpsichord-esque synth is put together like an 80s pop take on classic forms, where every eastern bell tone strikes a succinct chord & tone that provides further decorative detail while the audience follows a yankee doodle dandy taking flight across the song’s fleeting narrative. Read our following interview with Grape Room’s own Peter Nichols.
We’re interested in hearing about the making of what is allegedly the most modern Grape Room album to date—Heart of Gum. How did it feel to take on a more synth-based-quasi-digital approach than you’re normally used to?
Incredible. I recorded songs on a cassette 8-track every day for nine years, literally every day, that’s how we made all of the Great Valley albums. About a year ago something inspired me to try a different way. It’s been really a joy working with my computer. I’ve recorded at least 100 songs since then—these will be some of the first to see the light.
In what ways did this more electronic approach impact the recordings from your ear and view?
I lost my patience for anything real. Nothing on this album is mic’d, except the singing. All the drums are lifted from the drum machine Prince used on Purple Rain and Around the World in a Day—real crunchy synthesized but imitative sounds, programed hit by hit. Almost all the instruments are presets from a few different Japanese synths from the 80s. All the guitar parts swapped out by means of a MIDI pickup. I’m hooked on the idea that a synthesized sound can be more realistic than the instrument it’s imitating, like for example if I play the slap bass sound on my Casio it sounds more like a bass than if I point a mic at a bass amp—but also totally false. The move from analog to digital went with a whole question about authenticity for me. Also, feeling less need to look at the past for musical inspiration. Also, understanding music and pop songs now in a more theoretical context, needing these recordings to exist in a clean and codable form to represent like their true form.
What is the story behind the free-wheeling “Yankee On The Run”?
It took me five years to move to LA from the magic valley town Brattleboro, VT. This album was written right at the end of that time. There’s a line of reasoning in the northeast, probably everywhere, that’s like why would you go anywhere else? I love the sun. I found true love around that time too, and that was very freeing!
What else awesome is happening at the Nicey Music offices, and how are you taking to your new LA digs?
After this release we have a fast and hard 7″ from Mark Cone, the new 12-tone-Casio-playing alter-ego of the most popular man in punk, Jackie from Sediment Club and Urochromes. And then the maiden sail of Nicey’s flagship, Banny Grove, which I can’t say enough to prepare you for. We’ve been hosting Nicey Nights at LA’s 2 newest and coolest venues, The Roach Motel and Werk. I like LA.
Grape Room’s album Heart of Gum is available now from Nicey Music.
