All Over Everywhere

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All Over Everywhere is a brand new band, loosely associated with the Emkog Records stable and Dan Britton. The album is brand new and I have no knowledge about the band whatsoever besides of being a rather shell-shocked owner of this album and the Emkog Records sampler, which featured one All Over Everywhere track. This explains a couple of erratic questions. 
I am pretty sure their album Inner Firmaments Decay will figure very high on a lot of Best Of 2010 albums charts at the end of this year. This album stands out in even Prog Archives eclectic database of albums and it takes eclectic progressive music to an entirely new level. 
I got in touch with All Over Everywhere and Trinna answered my questions.

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Your
 album has been out less than ten days and you are most known from the 
Emkog Records sampler which is winning a lot of admiring praise here in 
ProgArchives. One of the main reasons for this praise is the inclusion 
of a track from an unknown band called All Over Everywhere. 

When, where and by whom was All Over Everywhere set up ? Who were your musical inspirations ?

I met Dan a few years ago and we started talking.  I had written a few songs and things and wanted to try to record them.  When
 Dan said he had released music almost all by himself, without using a 
studio or a label, I thought, you know, that seems like the way to go.  So
 he also let me listen to some music he had written, and some of the 
songs seemed similar to my own, so we thought it could be a good 
collaboration.

Some
 of my favorite music is lo-fi altrock like Daniel Johnston or Galaxie 
500 and Elliott Smith, and it sounds like they just recorded everything 
at home—not in a professional studio, and that has sounds more honest 
and real to me.  I also love Joni Mitchell, 13th 
Floor Elevators, Jefferson Airplane, and The Doors, and all the 
psychedelic music from the 1960’s and newer bands like Spiritual Beggars
 or Dungen.  Of course I have become aware of this strange world of “progressive rock” music too 

Why did you choose that name and who is currently members of All Over Everywhere ?

At first it was called “Everywhere” but then we found out there were so many other groups who already had that name.  So we added “All Over.”  I think Dan had another project called “Nowhere” that was very experimental, the opposite of what Everywhere started out as.

Me
 and Dan do the songwriting, and Megan does the singing, and the rest of
 the players just help out from time to time. The songs we played at the
 few live shows we’ve gotten have been quite different than the album 
that was just finished.

Did you record and/or released anything before your debut album ?

I recorded some songs a few years ago that weren’t very good, and they were never released except just on the internet.

How did you get in touch with Dan Britton and how did you get signed on his label ? 

(already answered above)  There wasn’t a real record deal or anything to get on the label.  I think Emkog is only for Dan’s bands and projects.

Please give us your long or brief thoughts on your brand new album Inner Firmaments Decay. 

How would you describe your music here to those who has yet to purchase this album ?

Let’s see, one of the campaign slogans we settled on was: “ethereal but intricate music with female vocals, elements of symphonic prog, indie folk, and modern neoclassical music.”

Here are my thoughts on each song:

“Art of the Earth” was the first piece we worked on.  Everything came together quite nicely for this one.  The lyrics are supposed to be a plant’s perspective on the world.

The next song “Endless Night” had some controversy within the group.  I loved the original demo of this track, which was just acoustic guitar and piano, I believe.  I
 tried to add some string sounds and sound effects like hitting books 
together or using Atari sound effects and hitting a fork on a window, of
 course with a lot of reverb.  But the results weren’t so great.  Dan
 actually wanted to not include this song on the album, but we already 
had the artwork with the song's title on it, and Megan and I liked it, 
so we left it in.  I think the electric guitar really helped, although it was added in very late.  This is probably the most “lo-fi” of the songs on the album.

“The Shroud” almost captures the essence of the entire album.  It’s very grey, sad, and pessimistic but with a few bright spots.

“Honesty” was Megan’s favorite song, and a couple of other people said it was their favorite too.  I think this was almost on the Buildings and Birds album?  You’d have to ask Dan about that.

“After
 All the Years” includes a piece I wrote for a string quartet for school
 a few years ago, which Dan combined with some other ideas.  This one is probably my favorite song on the album, just because I was so surprised how seamless all the transitions turned out.

“On a Dark Street” could be the single.  Megan did a great job singing here, especially at the end.

“Until the Sun Begins to Fall” feels like an Impressionist painting to me.  The lyrics are about a sad old woman who never did all the things she wanted to do.  I
 did the creaky sound effects were made by scraping a pick against a 
bass guitar string.  I know it sounds so crazy, but those creaks are my 
favorite part of the album!

The last song “Gratitude” is the progressive rock epic, and it’s meant to be very uplifting after all the sad songs.  It’s amazing to me how big this song gets by the end.  It just sounds so huge and dynamic.  The
 lyrics are about being grateful for all of the good things in life, 
even though there are quite a lot of bad things, which I think is 
important since people have so many good things they take for granted.

The
 mix (sound) on this album is special because the vocals are unusually 
far back in the mix and feels more like an instrument than vocals. 
What's the philosophy behind this mix and sound? 

It’s a strange mixture I guess.  Dan always wants to add more instruments, which I think sound ok, but sometimes it gets a bit much.  (He would probably say the same thing about my stuff!)  I
 love reverb, but I have to be careful too, because many of the first 
recordings we did for the album had so much reverb that you couldn’t 
hear anything with all the other instruments.  So there’s a contrast between close attention to detail and sounding very distant and cavernous.  There’s also the contrast between vocal music and very serious progressive instrumental music. 

Since the beginning, we always wanted to have a cloudy and dreamy atmosphere to the album.  And Dan did a lot of work to the vocals after they were recorded, sometimes pushing them into the background.  I personally like that effect, because it reminds me of someone singing to you from far away.  Most songs always have the vocals really loud, and with nary a trace of atmosphere or vibe.  My take is, why not treat vocals like another instrument?  Let them ebb and flow, move up and down.  Sometimes people might say “But that’s not how most albums sound,” and I say well, good!  That’s even more of a reason to get creative, if it’s something nobody does very often.

Of
 course, it’s also a result of me wanting my reverb, Dan wanting his 
instruments, our inexpensive microphones, and Megan being so easy to 
work with!  In most bands, for example, the singer will say ‘The Vocals are too quiet!’  But every time Megan heard a version of the songs, she would say “That sounds great!”  I might say “do you think there’s too much reverb?” and she’d say “No, it sounds fine to me.”

And
 actually, I do think the vocals are in the right place most of the 
time.  It's like critics who said Monet's paintings were too blurry.  
You may not see or hear all the detail, but that adds to the mystery 
and atmosphere.  I love fog.  I think foggy days are just so beautiful. 
 I always wondered why, but it's probably the same reason I like reverb 
and home-made recordings.  There's so much mystery and reason for 
curiosity when you can't see or hear everything.

What is your plans for the rest of this year and next year ? 

Well I just started my first job, so I won’t be spending too much time with music for a while.  I
 did recently meet Brett d’Anon, who is a very good guitarist that has 
worked with Dan before but doesn't play live.  He helped out on this All
 Over Everywhere album, though I never met him until recently, and we 
might try to collaborate.  Dan is so busy with 
other projects that I don’t know if he’ll have time to do another All 
Over Everywhere album, even though there were many songs we didn’t use 
for the first album.

Dan
 and I were always worried about how people who like progressive rock 
would like this album. So I felt like I should be the one who tried to 
promote this album.  But when I tried to get people from other styles of music interested in it, they never were.  I was at first so enthusiastic about promoting this music, but it was really quite dreadful by the end.  People don’t reply to emails, and the myspace has become one giant can of spam.  And it’s so hard to find gigs.  A
 few years ago, I wanted to play music so much, but after having been 
through all of this, it’s not something I really want to do anymore.

Is music your main occupation or do any of you have daytime jobs outside the music scene ? 

I have a regular job as a veterinarian’s assistant, which I feel very fortunate to have.

To wrap up this interview, is there anything you want to add to this interview ? 

I
 hope the people of Progarchives don’t hate me for getting Dan Britton 
to make an album without odd time signatures and heavy growling noises!

Thank you to Trinna for this interview. 
Listening samples can be found at their Myspace page and their inclusion in PA is perhaps imminent.*
Their album is available from the likes of the usual  prog shops + Amazon and CD Baby 

Please also check out the budget price Emkog Sampler

* PA profile here: http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=5803

Edited by ExittheLemming - March 03 2012 at 20:39