The Absent Arch, Keep Calm And Carry On
(Self-released)

To ward off chills this winter in the absence of a space heater, there's an easy substitute: Play The Absent Arch's debut album, Keep Calm And Carry On. Almost every song functions as an acoustic fireplace. Will Markwardt's voice is raspy and dry and, to extend the metaphor, acts as effective kindling for the supporting instrumentation that engulfs it. The style might be described as folk-plus-trumpets, a sound at once twangy and smooth, and likely to evoke an immediate nostalgia for mittens and sleds even if you've just come in from outside. Viola, upright bass, and soft drums mingle in the background, now and then asserting themselves with a brief burst of percussion or a doleful slur. Mostly, though, the album gives the sense of being left alone with Markwardt, as his lyrics sprawl into full-blown narratives that define the structure of each song. —Max Ross
Decider Rating: A-

Link: 'Keep Calm' Review

'Keep Calm and Carry On' came in at 18 on the critics' top 20 local albums of 2008 among quite a spectacular line-up. We are humbled and thank every one of you for your support.

Here's the list:

1. Atmosphere, "When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold" -- Gold is exactly what Slug delivered on paper with this one. More than any other Atmosphere record, the lyrics read like a collection of short stories and Hold Steady-ish morals/mantras. Musically, the album is more of a mixed bag, with guitarist Nate Collis and other musicians adding gritty, often haunting sonic layers.

2. Jeremy Messersmith, "The Silver City" -- Songs about mass transit, busy crossroads and cubicle office spaces are usually the stuff of angry, dirty rock 'n' roll, but it led to beautiful, elegant, daydreamy folk/pop in the careful hands of Messersmith.

3. Haley Bonar, "Big Star" -- On her fourth and best album to date, Bonar's shimmering, girl-to-woman voice is still front and center, building her songs from intimate ballads to powerful crescendoes with even a little sweet pop harmonizing.

4. Solid Gold, "Bodies of Water" -- While so many other digi-rock/electro-punk bands seem stuck in a creative rut, this experienced trio blossomed with the help of producer Ryan Olcott and a batch of well-crafted songs.

5. Vampire Hands, "Me and You Cherry Red" -- A riveting live band, these arty punks did a better job of capturing their subversive, Eno-meets-the-Stooges sound on their second record. It's weird, wild, powerful and surprisingly catchy.

6. Doomtree, "Doomtree" -- While it generally sounds like they're having the time of their lives, the nine members of this indie-rap crew turn in some serious and seriously edgy tracks on the first CD to feature their entire entourage.

7. Muja Messiah, "Thee Adventures of a B-Boy D-Boy" -- Minneapolis' mouthiest, most street-centric rapper delivered this epic-sized, hard-knocks-filled disc with 16 punchy tracks, big guests and ample proof that Muja really is as good as he says he is. Maybe even better.

8. Ben Weaver, "The Ax in the Oak" -- His voice often sounds like a weary croak, and his songs sometimes could depress a monkey. But Weaver manages to churn out beautiful and sometimes even upbeat songs.

9. Heiruspecs, "Heiruspecs" -- St. Paul's road-tested hip-hop band used their four years off to branch out into heavy rock, jazzy electro-funk and even a little pop. Felix and Muad'dib keep it all together with their workman lyrics and free-flowing style.

10. Gary Louris, "Vagabonds" -- For his first solo album after two decades fronting the Jayhawks, Louris focused on being a singer/songwriter. The results are intimate, mellow, poetic, gorgeous and as soulful as white Minnesotan alt-country singers can get.

11. Dillinger Four, "CIVILWAR" -- After a six-year hiatus, the local punk stalwarts added just a wee bit of polish and melody but otherwise stuck to the same grimy, growling, guitar-grinding formula.

12. (tie) Mike Mictlan & Lazerbeak, "Hand Over Fist" -- Doomtree's L.A.-reared rapper turned his steaming, red-faced onstage delivery into a fiery and surprisingly funky solo debut.

Tapes 'N Tapes, "Walk It Off" -- A sophomore record by an indie-rock band that spent a year and half on the road promoting its first album: heavier, tighter and cockier, and tailored to the stage.

14. City on the Make, "$1,000,000" -- A young band born on gritty blues, hip-hop and garage punk; its frayed sound jelled into a ferocious blast on this six-track EP featuring howling songs about being broke and/or broken.

15. (tie) Chris Koza, "The Dark, Delirious Morning" -- As the title suggests, the third disc by this wistful, romantic melody maker celebrates the dark before the dawn with bright, bubbling indie-pop arrangements.

Lucy Michelle & the Velvet Lapelles, "Orange Peels & Rattlesnakes" -- The charming, quirky young ensemble debuted with a collection of living-room-quality acoustic ditties and bedroom poetry led by a Billie Holiday-ish crooner.

Paul Westerberg, "49:00" -- Was this even an album? The former Replacements frontman's latest, um, thingie sold for $.99 at Amazon.com as a single track but was actually an album's worth of songs spliced together. Hidden among the pileup was some of the most personal songwriting of the guy's storied career.

18. The Absent Arch, "Keep Calm and Carry On" -- With the Ashtray Hearts on hold, this young quintet has stepped in as the scene's moody, dark Americana band of the moment, offering an eclectic mix of accordion, strings and occasional wind instruments with singer Will Markwardt's Irish-style dose of bleeding-hearted but tough tenderness. "No Titles ... None at All" is especially a doozy.

19. Kid Dakota, "A Winner's Shadow" -- Darren Jackson's third disc ebbs and flows dramatically from quiet, serene moments to bursting, stormy climaxes, dictated by songs about urban isolation.

20. (tie) Cecil Otter, "Rebel Yellow" -- Doomtree's fedora-wearing, wry-humored rapper produced his own toxic, acid-rain-dripping beats to suit his blearly-eyed, fractured lyrics.

Private Dancer, "Trouble Eyes" -- Members of Hockey Night, the Stnnng and Falcon Crest channeled their wild noise into this sort of one-stop, catch-all group.

You can also find the full article here:
A Music Critic's Slugfest

head to the link. it's much cooler over there. with pictures and everything!

Will's Top 25 of 2008. Culture Bully, tally ho!

The Absent Arch heat up the Triple Rock

Filed under: Concert Review

The Absent Arch's Will Markwardt. Photo by Alexa Jones.

In my column this week, I wrote about the first time I saw The Absent Arch and how impressed I was by their balance and performance despite the fact that they were crammed in the corner of their trumpet player's living room. Impressively, the band was able to transfer the loose-yet-polished feel of their house party performance to the stage of the Triple Rock on Friday night, defrosting the bundled-up audience with their organic charm.

Posted by Andrea Swensson at November 24, 2008 9:55 AM

source: http://blogs.citypages.com/gimmenoise/2008/11/the_absent_arch.php

Absent Arch love that dirty basement sound

New album combines polished folk and lo-fi charm

By Andrea Swensson

Published on November 17, 2008 at 4:55pm

The first time I saw the Absent Arch, they were playing in trumpet player Brian Voerding's apartment above a record store in Minneapolis, slugging beers and trading off songs with their friends, fellow folk band Spirits of the Red City. It was an accident that I ended up in Voerding's living room at all, but the second the band started to play, I was mesmerized. Despite the fact that several instruments should have been drowning one another out, the band was amazingly balanced, and the words that were sometimes sung, sometimes shouted by lead singer Will Markwardt were crystal-clear.

Maybe it was the free beer at the party, or the fact that I love stumbling onto happy accidents, but the memory of that early summer night crammed onto a couch in Voerding's living room listening to their lush, enchanting folk music has stayed vivid in my mind ever since.

When the Absent Arch CD showed up in my mailbox a few months later, I was skeptical that the album would capture the same energy and spontaneity of their living-room performance. Surprisingly, it does; the songs are played with a loose flexibility and a building momentum, and even though some of the songs follow more typical pop structures, the disc maintains a decidedly organic feel throughout.

"We did all of the tracking on our own in our basement, over a period of eight months," Markwardt explains over a round of beers at the CC Club. "We have a lot of pretty decent recording equipment—"

"And a really bad room," interjects Voerding. "It balances everything out."

"So the good recording equipment captured the sound of the crappy basement," laughs drummer Anthony Poretti.

"That was always the intent," says Voerding. "We never wanted to have a big, clean sound. We wanted to have a sound like it was recorded in the basement. Even back to our first days, that's something we've loved."

The Absent Arch wasn't always a folk band. Voerding and Markwardt met each other through a mutual friend while attending Hamline University in St. Paul in 2002, and soon afterward they found viola player Jonathan Waldo and formed a trio. "We found Waldo because he hung up these really nerdy music signs in the music department that said, 'I love synthesizers. I really want to play in a band. Call me,'" laughs Voerding. "With those little tear-off things. Like, 'Call my dorm room.'"

With a synthesizer, a trumpet, and a viola, the three started experimenting with songs and sounds under the name Crown in the Clouds. "It wasn't ever serious," Voerding insists. "We just got drunk on Saturdays and recorded a bunch of stuff in the basement."

The group played off and on over the years but didn't really start considering themselves a serious band until they added Poretti on drums and started playing some of Markwardt's more traditional singer-songwriter compositions. By the time they officially formed as the Absent Arch in 2007, Markwardt says, he already had over a dozen songs for the band to work with. The lineup was just finalized earlier this year with the addition of upright bass player Joe Wojtysiak.

In keeping with the band's habit of playing basements and living rooms at least as often as traditional venues, the songs on their full-length debut, Keep Calm and Carry On, evoke musicians who have evolved by playing live and who prefer entertaining people over perfecting their sound in the recording studio. The instruments commingle naturally, with backing vocals yelled out in unison on some of the more boisterous choruses. In short, it's the work of band members who enjoy playing together, and their enthusiasm is evident in their recordings.

So with their lineup solidified and a promising debut full-length under their belt, what's next for this up-and-coming band?

"A lot of writing. A lot of playing. Learning how to play with an upright bass," says Voerding. He pauses, smirking. "And recording six records this winter."

"Six records this winter?" groans Poretti.

"All under different monikers," adds Markwardt.

Voerding nods. "We've gotta make the moneys."

"Yeah, and we can't saturate the name," says Markwardt. "So we have to come up with different names."

Waldo pipes up: "We could just switch out the vowel names at the beginning, you know. We'll do the Ubsent Urch next."

"That sounds dirty in some way that I can't even describe," says Markwardt.

"Yeah," Voerding agrees, looking down at his beer. "Awkward."

source: http://www.citypages.com/2008-11-19/music/absent-arch-love-that-dirty-basement-sound/

A short interview we did with culturebully.com on music and arts education. A link to the official page, the mp3 and more information on donorschoose.org and how you can help out is at the bottom of this page.

How did you get into making music, and how did arts education (or lack thereof) affect you and your music?

Speaking personally and probably for the rest of the band, we started out of a love of the idea of making music. There were a lot of different factors over the past five years that brought us together and made us what we are now. We are a mixture of music majors and curious creators. Above all else, we're together because we love what we do and we love playing together. Our band comes from such a diverse background (jazz trumpet player, classical violist, free drummer) that it makes for a fascinating mishmash (at least to us).

We all started music at a young age, some more intensely than others. I played piano at six and percussion from sixth grade to about eleventh. My friend and I created this mock rap group in sixth grade called Sumo Fighters. We put a lot of time and passion into making it as ridiculous as possible. Have you ever heard a beat made strictly out of sound effects from Streets of Rage 2? That is one thing I am definitely not ashamed of. Sumo Fighters later became a label that housed the Green Olive Posse which included most of my friends from grades 6-12. It culminated into about three albums and twenty or so side projects that were mostly never recorded. I think we just enjoyed coming up with names, lyrics and album art. After that some of us continued with music, some went off to war, some got married. I chose the first option. If there are any Sumo Fighter albums floating around out there, please get in touch with me. I think my friend's mom tossed what we had left in the garbage years ago when she was cleaning his room.

Our band is kind of like the business-oriented married man: Working 40 hours a week, only to spend all of his free time working on his lawn or car. It is a labor of love and a love of labor. Music has always been such a gratifying experience for us that putting in extra hours never seems like an issue.

Most of my musical influence has come from my peers, education in its own right, however informal. I have not had as much formal music education as the rest of the guys in the band. Some have extensive training in theory, some have played in college orchestras and jazz ensembles, but the music education I had as a kid in a band (listening to records, playing music with my friends, etc.) gave me the fundamental know-how to do what I am doing now.

If you ask the rest of the band, they would not argue that their education played a invaluable role in developing their musical abilities. It seems as though formal arts education and personal discovery/peer interaction are two sides of the same shiny coin. They both offer an infinite amount of development and creativity; it just all depends on how you approach it, consume it, study it, learn from it, grow with it.

Regardless, no child should ever be denied the option of formal music education, and there needs to be significantly more effort devoted to promoting and funding public-school music programs. Without the education I received, I might not have ever picked up an instrument. I am sure the same can be said for a large percentage of other musicians.

Creative expression is something that everyone deserves the opportunity to explore. Without the opportunity, the barrier between hearing something that moves you and being able to create something that moves someone else often becomes insurmountable. We lose our abilities to tell stories, to understand our differences, to address social and political issues, to strengthen and expand our communities. That's what music can do. And music education teaches us how.

official link:
http://www.culturebully.com/will-markwardt-of-the-absent-arch-on-music-and-arts-education

So after ten months of hard work and care, our album is finally finished and out!

As of now it is available through us (either at shows or in person, seriously come stalk us we won't care). In about a week or so it should be available in stores and up on this little web site thingy we have here, both in physical and digital formats.

Thank you to everybody who contributed or had kind words. We are really excited to have this completed project and hope you are too.

Indeed.

The Absent Arch Talk About Live and Recorded Sound Using Oddball Instruments

Will Markwardt of Minneapolis' The Absent Arch has played a number of instruments in the band despite his current focus on the guitar. The band expanded from a sort of "keep myself busy" solo project to a five piece. As the pieces were added, his duties diminished. Earlier, Markwardt talked about his guitars and keyboard. Though Markwardt concentrates on the guitar these days, we asked about some of the other instruments in his aural arsenal.

Other members of the band use a variety of instruments. When you digress from the typical (guitar, bass, drums, keyboard) sort of thing live you can sometimes run into problems with sound systems (and occasionally sound engineers). The Absent Arch use instruments including the viola, flugelhorn and trumpet.

The viola used by Jonathan Waldo has a pickup connected to to an Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail reverb and a Line 6 delay then run into a Mesa Boogie Blue Angel 4x10.

"It's my old amp, actually; he's using it because his only other choice is an old Peavey that sometimes gets stuck on a heavy distortion channel," says Markwardt. "When we toured last summer, he used a pair of cheap solid-state Fender Frontman amps and put them on either side of the stage to get stereo delay. We liked watching him haggle with various FOH guys about the necessity of it, partly because we think they were right."

Not surprisingly, the viola has also been the biggest pain in the posterior for live sound engineers, but The Absent Arch figured out a way to ameliorate the pain.

"The viola has traditionally been the biggest thorn in the side of live sound engineers, but that problem was solved when Jonathan got a Schatten Designs passive bridge pickup with a quarter inch output. It sounds pretty good through the '73 Fender Bassman and the Mesa -- not to mention our roommate's 1970s Twin Reverb, but we don't think he'll let us take that out of the house," says Markwardt. "The flugelhorn and trumpet are sometimes miked, but Brian likes to just blast over the rest of the stage directly to the audience in most venues. He used to play lead trumpet in his college jazz ensemble and sometimes just stand next to the crowd and play to the side when the overall venue volume is lower."

There were other instruments they used to use but decided to cut their losses. Sometimes what seems like a good idea turns out to be a pain in the butt for everyone at a show.

"We used to bring this cheap glockenspiel on stage, but that was just a lost cause -- though to their credit, engineers tried in vain to get it in the mix," he says. "The most nerve-wracking instrument we have ever brought on stage was a psaltery, a small auto-harp-like instrument that's bowed. Didn't work well. Not well at all."

The Absent Arch are also recording their first CD in the basement of Markwardt and band mate Brian Voerding's abode.

"Everything is going down in digital using an incomparable piece of software called [Cockos] Reaper, that we think the entire world should know about," he says. "The basement really allows us to really take a lot of time -- sometimes too much time -- experimenting with sounds as opposed to a more streamlined approach in a commercial studio. It's a basement, though, and because the heating vents ring and the ceilings are low, we're doing some of the drum takes with a friend at Owl Recording down the street."

The front end of the signal chain includes a lot of Blue microphones, a couple of Kiwis, a couple of Baby Bottles, a Bluebird and a KickBall.

"We use Oktava MC-012s (yes, the Russian ones) as drum overheads and sometimes for acoustic guitar. They were our first two microphones, which Brian bought about six years ago while drunk one night on eBay. We have a Cascade Fathead ribbon stereo pair that we recently bought (they're cheap, have fantastic sound, and are great for vocals and horns)," says Markwardt. "For pre-amps, we just have a couple of Blue Robbies, and track everything through a Midas Venice 240. It's advertised as a live board, but the pre-amps are great and hot enough that we can get enough gain for the Cascade ribbons. We don't use much for processing, either, just Reaper's built-in plugin, ReaVerb, which allows the user to upload reverb impulse files that can simulate any room for which an impulse has been made. The EQ and compression plugins are also very cool."

Markwardt says that the record has a variety of sonic interpretations for different instruments.

"There are electric guitars and acoustic guitars, viola through an amp or dry, trumpet close-miked or from across the room, vocals close-miked and from a stairwell, things like that," he says. "Partly that's because we think a recording should reflect a willingness to model sounds to the structure and narrative content of a song. Partly it's because Waldo, our band's recording genius and gear nerd, has ADHD."

The CD will be released in the late summer. Shows in the Minneapolis area are imminent and a far-reaching tour is planned for 2009.

-Patrick Ogle (gearwire.com)

direct link: http://www.gearwire.com/theabsentarch-moreinstruments.html

Will Markwardt of Minneapolis' The Absent Arch Talks About His Guitars and Keyboards

Will Markwardt of Minneapolis' The Absent Arch started playing music about five years ago with Jonathan Waldo (viola) and Brian Voerding (keyboard, guitars) in a band called Crown the Clouds -- an electronic project. After his band mates left Minneapolis Markward began a solo project to keep himself occupied while the other two members were absent.

"It was me with an acoustic guitar, loop pedal and a Roland JX-305 synthesizer. They both moved back about a year ago, and we started playing music together again. Our sound had changed -- no more drum machines!" he says. "So instead of using the Crown the Clouds moniker, we kept The Absent Arch. We brought in Will Garrison (bass) and Anthony Poretti (drums) to fill out the sound."

Markwardt says that in the past he has jumped from instrument to instrument but mostly used the acoustic guitar to write songs. Playing live, now that the band has five members, he has been able to focus more on guitars and vocals in that setting.

"My stage guitar is a 1991 Gibson Hummingbird acoustic, which has just got back from the shop in stellar shape. It really took a beating during our summer tour, and I finally got around to getting it back into acceptable shape (thank you, stimulus check and Marty at the Podium!). I also use a 1952 National arch-top acoustic and a Gretsch Synchromatic," says Markwardt. "The National's intonation is a little ornery, so it's not great for the stage, and the Gretsch, with its ridiculous sustain, is a situational kind of guitar. I've stuck with acoustic guitar because it's what I've always been most comfortable with. I find the rich, full tones of acoustics more appropriate for the sound of The Absent Arch. That makes it sound like I should take up work as a wine connoisseur, huh? 'Free wine, rich and full, just like an acoustic guitar.' I would be drunk, real drunk. They would fire me immediately. But the thing about acoustic guitars is true."

Three members of the band all owned a Roland JX-305 -- the keyboard Markwardt first used to work on the solo Absent Arch material.

"We joked about bringing them all on stage together, but Jonathan's broke a few years ago, and we scavenged the parts to build up the remaining two, and that was that." he says.

Markwardt says that if he could have any other guitars he wanted he would stay with his current set up.

"I think I would stick with what I have, believe it or not; mainly because I have fallen in love with my Hummingbird, and the National has a wonderful story to it," he says. "We were in Louisville last fall on tour and had a day to kill, so we went to this wonderful guitar shop called Guitar Emporium. I had purchased my Hummingbird only a few months before and was still making payments on that one, so I really didn't even want to step foot in the store and be tempted into anything. Brian had found this National up on the wall and handed it to me. I ended up sitting there for about an hour, even after everyone had left, just listening to it. I had never actually played a National before, let alone a National without a resonator. At this point I pretty much had to have it so I ended up selling my backup guitar (Takamine, you will not be missed) and scrounged up enough cash to take it home with me."

The Absent Arch have been recording their soon to be released first record for the past five months. Once it is released they plan to do significant touring in 2009. In the meantime shows and festivals in the Minneapolis area will abound.

More with The Absent Arch soon.

-Patrick Ogle (gearwire.com)

direct link: http://www.gearwire.com/theabsentarch-guitarskeyboards.html