The Art of Making a Record (inside the recording of Sons of an Illustrious Father’s We Are Dead and Reborn)

Sons of an Illustrious Father‘s new EP, We Are Dead and Reborn, is rooted in beginnings as auspicious as its title. Recorded in Marta Miller’s Stamford, Vermont dance-studio-turned-barn this past January, the emerging Hudson Valley folk-punk band stayed bundled up for warmth during recording, and lined the walls of their studio with yoga blankets for insulation. Broke from the start, they constructed baffling out of folding chairs, clothing, moth-eaten sheets and ballet bars, bound together with duct tape in order to isolate their instruments from one another in the resonant space. “All of the sounds were bleeding together into this inscrutable mush,” said Lilah Larson (vocals, guitar), “so we had these hilarious little forts built around each of us.”

Oliver's messy equipment

The result is a near-perfect consonant of life, the bleed itself integrated into their sound brilliantly by engineer and co-producer Oliver Ignatius. We Are Dead and Reborn is a visceral, evocative record, so much so that I locked myself away with it for the better part of two months. The tracks are lengthy, ranging from 5:28 (“Wisdom Psalm”) to 7:47 (“Sanskrit”), but these are stories; to make them any shorter would leave one wanting. As I immersed myself in the record, my favored tracks changed over time, with “Sanskrit” emerging as the definite victor for its perfect blending of harmonies and instrumentation, stark vocals, and breathtaking transitions – this is a flawless track. “Sanskrit” is dear to the Sons as well; Larson describes it as “the band at its most unified in a spiritual peak”. The title track, she says, is flaunted purposefully. “It’s a sort of grand opus that encapsulates a lot of thematic and musical interests not only of Jake’s (Generalli – vocals, guitar, organ, mandolin, banjo) but that we all share.”

We Are Dead and Reborn and its companion, forthcoming LP One Body (due out November 9th), are presented as a unified piece that, to the band, isn’t really complete until received; the songs were recorded together with no predestination in mind. The decision was made later to divide up the tracks in a way that would create two strong pieces of intrinsic independence. To the Sons, they are viscerally linked, the placement of “We Are Dead And Reborn” deliberately creating a circular symbolism between the EP and LP.

Despite our difficulties with recording, we had a really great time. We are a family really, and we were all there for each other in the respective hard times we were each going through. We drank a lot and played a lot of board games and Sofia kept us very well fed, making gourmet meals every night out of the food that Mama Marta had left in the house. Most notably, Sofia made a criminally delicious stew from the meat of a bear that had been shot on the mountain.

Ezra Miller (vocals, drums) and Lilah Larson (vocals, guitar)

Keeping warm

The now infamous dance-studio-turned-barn

We Are Dead and Reborn is an achingly beautiful, utterly captivating record that encapsulates the joy and pain of life in a way that few EPs have ever been able to manage. That the Sons are still such a relatively young band speaks volumes here; I can’t imagine where they’ll be five years, one year, six months from now, but I do know that it will be nothing short of gorgeous.

We Are Dead and Reborn is available now on Bandcamp. Sons of an Illustrious Father are: Sofia Albam (vocals, accordion, banjo, acoustic guitar, viola), Josh Aubin (vocals, bass), Jake Generalli (vocals, guitar, organ, mandolin, banjo), Lilah Larson (vocals, guitar), and Ezra Miller (vocals, drums). Follow them on Facebook.