Friday
Sep122008
Möbius Street: Jeff and Maya Bohnhoff
Friday, September 12, 2008 at 10:45AM
Beckett and I have just launched our graphic novel blog! More about this in an upcoming Blathering, but feel free to check it out meanwhile.
Photo: Beckett Gladney
I was very excited to get my copy of Möbius Street recently: Jeff and Maya Bohnhoff's new CD release. Their Manhattan Sleeps albums is one of my favourites. Maya, by the way, is a published sf/fantasy author; you can find out more about her writing on the Mystic Fig website.
Anyway, I love Möbius Street. My favourites change each time I listen to the CD, and I'm always floored by the incredible instrumentals, exquisite arrangements, and polished vocals. As I mentioned in a post about Manhattan Sleeps, I could listen to Maya sing forever. Michelle ("Vixy") Dockrey's backing vocals added a wonderful depth to the song texture.
The guest musicians on the album include Mich Sampson (of Playing Rapunzel), Tony Levin (who has recorded with Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, among others) on bass, Jerry Marotta (Peter Gabriel) on drums, Victor Gonzales (Santana) on bass, and Scott Irwin (Avalon Rising) on drums.
You can buy a copy of the CD as well as listen to sample tracks from Möbius Street at CDBaby.
Jeff kindly agreed to answer a few questions for me to post on Blatherings:
We started working on it in 2003. My original thought was to do another album of original material after Manhattan Sleeps. I had a few sketches done, and a fairly complete version of the song Möbius Street back then. In July of that year we were asked to be Guests of Honor at Concertino in Worcester MA, and the organizers asked us to submit a song or two for a special CD to give to pre-registered members.
Maya and I decided that since we were mainly known for parodies in the Filk community, we should submit a new parody, so we recorded Come to Mordor for it. Doing that was so much fun, it deflected me toward doing another parody CD, so we ended up doing Aliens Ate My Homework first.
I had also committed to producing Stardust County for Nancy Freeman around that time, and I was transferred from Nevada City to Cupertino. It took forever for us to sell our house, so I ended up commuting, spending part of each week in Cupertino, and part in Nevada City. That made getting started on Nan's album problematic, so I sort of puttered on our album when I could. After we finished Stardust County last year, Maya and I started working seriously on Möbius Street.
Some came to the studio, some recorded elsewhere. It's really pretty easy now to collaborate over distance. With Tony Levin, I bounced down stem tracks of the songs as WAV files. Stems are basically sub-mixes of categories of tracks (vocals, guitars, drums, etc.).
Tony put the stems into Logic and then recorded his bass or stick parts. He sent me back just his parts, and I laid them into my project file. For Jerry Marotta's drums, I sent a USB thumb drive with the stems. He sent the drive back to me with about 20 tracks of drums, which I again simply laid into my project.
For Mich Sampson's piano, I sent Martin Gordon-Kerr (her recording engineer) stems, and again he sent back just the piano track. For Scott Irwin's drums, I went to Flowinglass Studio with my stems, and Kristoph Klover engineered the drum sessions.
Stoph and Scott play together in Avalon Rising, so he knows how to record Scott's drums really well. Stoph uses Pro Tools instead of Logic like I do, but that really doesn't matter, the audio files are compatible. Everyone else came here to record.
Photo: Beckett Gladney
That one is a Bahá'í prayer, sung in Arabic. The melody is very close to a traditional chant for that prayer. I've been working with the music for years, but had never come up with a lyric for it. We realized that the chanted melody worked well against the chord changes with just a few slight changes.
It's not always quite the same, but typically I'll play the guitar and sing what I have in mind for the melody to Maya. Depending on how attached I am to my melodic idea, she'll either recreate it pretty much intact, or in some cases, embellish it a bit. For my songs, I usually handle the arrangements. For Maya's songs, I'll arrange them, but Maya often has ideas that shape what I do.
Well, the "surface" inspiration was a trip we took. In the summer of 2004 we drove from Nevada City to a family reunion near Las Vegas. The route from Reno down to Las Vegas had some spectacular desert scenery. I took some of those images and used them metaphorically for the song. I find landscapes like that exhilarating, but lonely, and I was trying to capture that duality. Like most of my songs, it's really about finding connection :-).
We're planning to attend OVFF in October. We'll be at Consonance in March 09. Beyond that, I'm not sure.
I'm producing Seanan McGuire's Red Roses and Dead Things right now. Maya and I are trying to decide what to do next ourselves. One idea would be to do another parody album. We're also thinking about doing an album with purely acoustic versions of our original songs. If we do that one, I think we'll call it String Theory. Another idea would be to do an entire album of Bahá'í prayers (mostly English translations) set to music. The audience for that would be different, but it's something we've been asked to do over the years. I doubt we'll decide until Seanan's album is done.
Livejournal comments
Photo: Beckett Gladney
I was very excited to get my copy of Möbius Street recently: Jeff and Maya Bohnhoff's new CD release. Their Manhattan Sleeps albums is one of my favourites. Maya, by the way, is a published sf/fantasy author; you can find out more about her writing on the Mystic Fig website.
Anyway, I love Möbius Street. My favourites change each time I listen to the CD, and I'm always floored by the incredible instrumentals, exquisite arrangements, and polished vocals. As I mentioned in a post about Manhattan Sleeps, I could listen to Maya sing forever. Michelle ("Vixy") Dockrey's backing vocals added a wonderful depth to the song texture.
The guest musicians on the album include Mich Sampson (of Playing Rapunzel), Tony Levin (who has recorded with Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, among others) on bass, Jerry Marotta (Peter Gabriel) on drums, Victor Gonzales (Santana) on bass, and Scott Irwin (Avalon Rising) on drums.
You can buy a copy of the CD as well as listen to sample tracks from Möbius Street at CDBaby.
Jeff kindly agreed to answer a few questions for me to post on Blatherings:
How long were you working on Möbius Street?
We started working on it in 2003. My original thought was to do another album of original material after Manhattan Sleeps. I had a few sketches done, and a fairly complete version of the song Möbius Street back then. In July of that year we were asked to be Guests of Honor at Concertino in Worcester MA, and the organizers asked us to submit a song or two for a special CD to give to pre-registered members.
Maya and I decided that since we were mainly known for parodies in the Filk community, we should submit a new parody, so we recorded Come to Mordor for it. Doing that was so much fun, it deflected me toward doing another parody CD, so we ended up doing Aliens Ate My Homework first.
I had also committed to producing Stardust County for Nancy Freeman around that time, and I was transferred from Nevada City to Cupertino. It took forever for us to sell our house, so I ended up commuting, spending part of each week in Cupertino, and part in Nevada City. That made getting started on Nan's album problematic, so I sort of puttered on our album when I could. After we finished Stardust County last year, Maya and I started working seriously on Möbius Street.
Did your guest musicians record their parts in your studio?
Some came to the studio, some recorded elsewhere. It's really pretty easy now to collaborate over distance. With Tony Levin, I bounced down stem tracks of the songs as WAV files. Stems are basically sub-mixes of categories of tracks (vocals, guitars, drums, etc.).
Tony put the stems into Logic and then recorded his bass or stick parts. He sent me back just his parts, and I laid them into my project file. For Jerry Marotta's drums, I sent a USB thumb drive with the stems. He sent the drive back to me with about 20 tracks of drums, which I again simply laid into my project.
For Mich Sampson's piano, I sent Martin Gordon-Kerr (her recording engineer) stems, and again he sent back just the piano track. For Scott Irwin's drums, I went to Flowinglass Studio with my stems, and Kristoph Klover engineered the drum sessions.
Stoph and Scott play together in Avalon Rising, so he knows how to record Scott's drums really well. Stoph uses Pro Tools instead of Logic like I do, but that really doesn't matter, the audio files are compatible. Everyone else came here to record.
Photo: Beckett Gladney
I love the gorgeous harmonies in "Remover Of Difficulties." What language is this? What is the song about?
That one is a Bahá'í prayer, sung in Arabic. The melody is very close to a traditional chant for that prayer. I've been working with the music for years, but had never come up with a lyric for it. We realized that the chanted melody worked well against the chord changes with just a few slight changes.
Could you describe the collaboration process between you and Maya when arranging and recording a song that you wrote?
It's not always quite the same, but typically I'll play the guitar and sing what I have in mind for the melody to Maya. Depending on how attached I am to my melodic idea, she'll either recreate it pretty much intact, or in some cases, embellish it a bit. For my songs, I usually handle the arrangements. For Maya's songs, I'll arrange them, but Maya often has ideas that shape what I do.
"High Desert" is one of my favourites on this album. Could you tell me what inspired this song?
Well, the "surface" inspiration was a trip we took. In the summer of 2004 we drove from Nevada City to a family reunion near Las Vegas. The route from Reno down to Las Vegas had some spectacular desert scenery. I took some of those images and used them metaphorically for the song. I find landscapes like that exhilarating, but lonely, and I was trying to capture that duality. Like most of my songs, it's really about finding connection :-).
What conventions will you and Maya be attending in the coming months?
We're planning to attend OVFF in October. We'll be at Consonance in March 09. Beyond that, I'm not sure.
Have you started your next recording project(s) yet? If so, what are they?
I'm producing Seanan McGuire's Red Roses and Dead Things right now. Maya and I are trying to decide what to do next ourselves. One idea would be to do another parody album. We're also thinking about doing an album with purely acoustic versions of our original songs. If we do that one, I think we'll call it String Theory. Another idea would be to do an entire album of Bahá'í prayers (mostly English translations) set to music. The audience for that would be different, but it's something we've been asked to do over the years. I doubt we'll decide until Seanan's album is done.
tagged Filk/music
Filk/music 
. The book was a 
