MON., MARCH 03, 2008
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Jukebox Jury: Kelley Polar
by Todd Burns
Kelley Polar began his electronic music career as a string player-for-hire on Metro Area’s throwback disco productions in the late ‘90s. After playing with the group on a number of 12-inches, Polar struck out on his own, crafting a highly idiosyncratic brand of electronic pop that fully flowered on 2005’s Love Songs of the Hanging Gardens. Idiosyncratic because Polar’s day job is as a violist in the Apple Hill Chamber Players informs his productions so heavily that many of the tracks on his newest album, I Need You to Hold on While the Sky Is Falling, are directly influenced by classical composers such as Franz Schubert and George Enescu.
I talked to Polar recently about these influences, as well as his fondness for cheesy disco, radio plays and his secular upbringing.
Metro Area - Dance Reaction
Was it boring for you to do stuff like this? It sounds so simple.
Yeah. [laughs] It was always funny that Morgan [Geist] and Darshan [Jesrani] [of Metro Area] would be really impressed that I would come in and they’d explain it to me and I’d go ahead and be able to play something pretty quickly.
Was all of this just you? It sounds really full.
Yeah, this one is just me on violin with a ton of layering. But on a lot of them, I play viola, my usual instrument. If you listen to “Caught Up,” it’s kind of funny to hear how high the viola is pitched up. [Ed. Note: The viola is the middle member of the violin family, between the higher-pitched violin and the lower-pitched cello.]
You played with Metro Area live a few times. Which song was your favorite to play?
When I would do the Metro Area live shows, this would one would always be the most fun to play because the part is a really good combination of melodic and rhythmic, whereas “Miura” was all rhythm for the most part and “Caught Up” was all slow-moving melody. You can get down to this a little bit while playing it.
Laurice - Disco Spaceship
I read an interview where you namechecked this song. You seem to have a soft spot for cheesy disco.
Definitely. When my third album goes triple-platinum and I go on Top of the Pops with 60 people in my group, we’re totally covering this song. I’d love to make music like this. Super-happy, full of energy.
Why don’t you?
I will. I think the next album will be a bit closer to this. It’s about half-done already.
Richard Strauss - Rosenband
You named a track on your new record “Rosenband” and in a quick Babelfish session with this Strauss piece, you seem to have used the lyrics from it…
Oh, no! You got the wrong “Rosenband”! The one that I based “Rosenband” on was the version by Schubert. This one is a little too German for me.
Looking over all of the people that you seem to reference classically in your electronic work, it seems to be overwhelmingly French.
Yeah…I hate that I love French music.
Why is that?
It’s just so…French.
Do you play a lot of French music with your chamber group?
We do, we recently played the Ravel String Quartet, which is an absolutely stunning piece. If you listen to a track that I did called “Maurizio,” you can hear how I interpolated some of that in there.
Georges Enesco - Romanian Rhapsody
Your new record has a track called “A Dream in Three Parts (on themes by Enesco)” How did you first hear his music?
I have a friend who plays viola that did all the music for “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” That was her gig for years in Los Angeles and, as a result, she has this estate outside of the city. So we were hanging out there and she played a piece by Enesco that really hit a lot of buttons for me.
There are two or three Top 40 pop songs that actually use Rachmaninoff that I can’t remember off the top of my head. (I think it’s his Symphony No. 2?) Anyway, this Enesco piece screamed out for exactly the same type of treatment. I use it pretty verbatim, so if you come across it you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
What are some pieces that you think are really great for viola specifically?
There are two Brahms sonatas that he wrote for clarinet, but sanctioned for viola that are excellent. But mostly it’s 20th century stuff: Shostakovich wrote an awesome sonata while he was, like, hooked up to life-support. (It was one of the last pieces that he wrote.) Also, there’s a great sonata by this woman named Rebecca Clarke.
Cesar Franck - Piano Quintet
You mentioned recently that you’re in love with this piece in another interview that I read.
I don’t know much about the guy, actually. But apparently Franck was brought up in a very religious environment. In interviews with his wife, she talks about how much she loves the symphonies that Franck did, but that she hated the Piano Quintet. The story behind it is that he wrote the piece for this student that he was in love with, so it’s this hyper-passionate piece. The second movement especially is really interesting, because it’s hugely passionate, but you somehow feel like you’re in church at the same time.
I was thinking a lot about that piece because I was raised in this very secular household. But then I play classical music that’s very religious and, oftentimes, with very religious people. The places that we go with the chamber music group, the conflicts are all about religion. When you play music, especially these really intensely spiritual things, you can’t help but think about it a little bit.
The electronic music that I do, I feel, is me trying to connect those hyper-churchy parameters with my hyper-secular parameters.
Bruce Haack - Program Me
I think one of the few guys that seems to be a pre-cursor to what you do is someone like Bruce Haack.
I can see that. It’s funny, I only ran into his stuff about two-thirds of the way through the new album. I really like this track a lot. This is another piece that I would totally love to cover as an encore or something like that. I recently did a thing for Mixmag where I listed the three albums that have influenced me the most — and I put this on there.
What were the other two?
The only I can remember offhand is The Incredible Adventures of Jack Flanders. There’s a great story behind that. A guy named Meatball Fulton got a grant or an inheritance or something and bought a farm in upstate New York and made radio plays about mystical journeys starting in the early ‘70s. And they’re really good. It’s another formative experience. My sister and I used to listen to him on the radio when were really young. They had a guy named Tim or Tom do the music for them and I’m pretty sure he peaks on The Incredible Adventures of Jack Flanders. The outro music to that is the germinal thing for the Magic Tim remix of “Rosenband.”
So you’re Magic Tim? I was busy looking around everywhere for some other guy!
[laughs] I know! I love it. So, I’m revealing it now. Man, I really hope that guy’s name is Tim.
Blectum from Blechdom - Haus de Snaus
Your sister creates a bit of electronic music as well — and it couldn’t be further apart from what you do.
[laughs] Yeah.
Do you talk a lot with her about music?
Definitely. We’re really close. She did a radio show when she was at Oberlin a few years before I got there and it was a really good time for dance music. Aphex Twin was just coming out, those Artificial Intelligence compilations had just been released. Lots of amazing house music. So she would send me tapes of her radio show, which were great because they’d have all this awesome music and then silence because she had flipped some switch and the whole radio station had gone dead.
We’re going to be buying a house in Providence, Rhode Island together with her husband and a friend of mine very soon, actually. She says that she recently read the KLF’s book on how to create a hit record, so our plan right now is to start a band together and make millions of dollars.
I talked to Polar recently about these influences, as well as his fondness for cheesy disco, radio plays and his secular upbringing.
Was it boring for you to do stuff like this? It sounds so simple.
Yeah. [laughs] It was always funny that Morgan [Geist] and Darshan [Jesrani] [of Metro Area] would be really impressed that I would come in and they’d explain it to me and I’d go ahead and be able to play something pretty quickly.
Was all of this just you? It sounds really full.
Yeah, this one is just me on violin with a ton of layering. But on a lot of them, I play viola, my usual instrument. If you listen to “Caught Up,” it’s kind of funny to hear how high the viola is pitched up. [Ed. Note: The viola is the middle member of the violin family, between the higher-pitched violin and the lower-pitched cello.]
You played with Metro Area live a few times. Which song was your favorite to play?
When I would do the Metro Area live shows, this would one would always be the most fun to play because the part is a really good combination of melodic and rhythmic, whereas “Miura” was all rhythm for the most part and “Caught Up” was all slow-moving melody. You can get down to this a little bit while playing it.
I read an interview where you namechecked this song. You seem to have a soft spot for cheesy disco.
Definitely. When my third album goes triple-platinum and I go on Top of the Pops with 60 people in my group, we’re totally covering this song. I’d love to make music like this. Super-happy, full of energy.
Why don’t you?
I will. I think the next album will be a bit closer to this. It’s about half-done already.
You named a track on your new record “Rosenband” and in a quick Babelfish session with this Strauss piece, you seem to have used the lyrics from it…
Oh, no! You got the wrong “Rosenband”! The one that I based “Rosenband” on was the version by Schubert. This one is a little too German for me.
Looking over all of the people that you seem to reference classically in your electronic work, it seems to be overwhelmingly French.
Yeah…I hate that I love French music.
Why is that?
It’s just so…French.
Do you play a lot of French music with your chamber group?
We do, we recently played the Ravel String Quartet, which is an absolutely stunning piece. If you listen to a track that I did called “Maurizio,” you can hear how I interpolated some of that in there.
Your new record has a track called “A Dream in Three Parts (on themes by Enesco)” How did you first hear his music?
I have a friend who plays viola that did all the music for “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” That was her gig for years in Los Angeles and, as a result, she has this estate outside of the city. So we were hanging out there and she played a piece by Enesco that really hit a lot of buttons for me.
There are two or three Top 40 pop songs that actually use Rachmaninoff that I can’t remember off the top of my head. (I think it’s his Symphony No. 2?) Anyway, this Enesco piece screamed out for exactly the same type of treatment. I use it pretty verbatim, so if you come across it you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
What are some pieces that you think are really great for viola specifically?
There are two Brahms sonatas that he wrote for clarinet, but sanctioned for viola that are excellent. But mostly it’s 20th century stuff: Shostakovich wrote an awesome sonata while he was, like, hooked up to life-support. (It was one of the last pieces that he wrote.) Also, there’s a great sonata by this woman named Rebecca Clarke.
You mentioned recently that you’re in love with this piece in another interview that I read.
I don’t know much about the guy, actually. But apparently Franck was brought up in a very religious environment. In interviews with his wife, she talks about how much she loves the symphonies that Franck did, but that she hated the Piano Quintet. The story behind it is that he wrote the piece for this student that he was in love with, so it’s this hyper-passionate piece. The second movement especially is really interesting, because it’s hugely passionate, but you somehow feel like you’re in church at the same time.
I was thinking a lot about that piece because I was raised in this very secular household. But then I play classical music that’s very religious and, oftentimes, with very religious people. The places that we go with the chamber music group, the conflicts are all about religion. When you play music, especially these really intensely spiritual things, you can’t help but think about it a little bit.
The electronic music that I do, I feel, is me trying to connect those hyper-churchy parameters with my hyper-secular parameters.
I think one of the few guys that seems to be a pre-cursor to what you do is someone like Bruce Haack.
I can see that. It’s funny, I only ran into his stuff about two-thirds of the way through the new album. I really like this track a lot. This is another piece that I would totally love to cover as an encore or something like that. I recently did a thing for Mixmag where I listed the three albums that have influenced me the most — and I put this on there.
What were the other two?
The only I can remember offhand is The Incredible Adventures of Jack Flanders. There’s a great story behind that. A guy named Meatball Fulton got a grant or an inheritance or something and bought a farm in upstate New York and made radio plays about mystical journeys starting in the early ‘70s. And they’re really good. It’s another formative experience. My sister and I used to listen to him on the radio when were really young. They had a guy named Tim or Tom do the music for them and I’m pretty sure he peaks on The Incredible Adventures of Jack Flanders. The outro music to that is the germinal thing for the Magic Tim remix of “Rosenband.”
So you’re Magic Tim? I was busy looking around everywhere for some other guy!
[laughs] I know! I love it. So, I’m revealing it now. Man, I really hope that guy’s name is Tim.
Your sister creates a bit of electronic music as well — and it couldn’t be further apart from what you do.
[laughs] Yeah.
Do you talk a lot with her about music?
Definitely. We’re really close. She did a radio show when she was at Oberlin a few years before I got there and it was a really good time for dance music. Aphex Twin was just coming out, those Artificial Intelligence compilations had just been released. Lots of amazing house music. So she would send me tapes of her radio show, which were great because they’d have all this awesome music and then silence because she had flipped some switch and the whole radio station had gone dead.
We’re going to be buying a house in Providence, Rhode Island together with her husband and a friend of mine very soon, actually. She says that she recently read the KLF’s book on how to create a hit record, so our plan right now is to start a band together and make millions of dollars.
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