valenciablogger | 
10 24th, 2011| 
“Rider”, the third song on the latest album from exciting, up and coming American group Okkervil River, whose name derives from a story written by Russian writer Tatanya Tolstaya, appears to have been written during a trans-continental plane journey, by Will Sheff, the lead-singer, composer and driving force behind the band. You could say it was written in the heavens, in more than one sense, as for Sheff, the best songs are those whose melodies and words come together so seamlessly as if in a holy union – an idea of harmonious symphony in line with a Rimbaudian sensibility.
This at least was apparently the case with “Rider”, the third song on the list. It doesn’t however appear as number three in all editions of the release, in a nostalgic wink to the music imported from Japan for instance, where the song order is sometimes changed, and some editions of the same album are different to others. Sheff likes the idea that editions of his albums released in different continents play on this idea of variation. The singer had been trying to make himself go to sleep, without much success, for hours, as he was surrounded by sleeping bodies and lowered lights on the plane. This is how the song came about, and as the verses started to form, so too did the different musical parts and instrumentals.
Not all of Okkervill River’s songs have been born in this way of course, though they can all share a puzzle like quality, which the band then attempts to assemble. One of the compositional techniques of the lead singer is a penchant for ways of working which enable access to new and different parts of the brain, other than the ones we use habitually – and to be able to see where this takes him in terms of melodies and poetry. Or the idea of taking a song in a foreign language and trying to imagine what it is saying. Sheff, after all, is somebody whose previous experience of prose was a piece published in McSweeney’s about Norwegian Black Metal.
This is the world to be explored in their new album I Am Very Far, which will be performed on the 12th of November at Sala Mirror in Valencia http://www.discomirror.es/. Their powerful, awesome sound (around 40 musicians have contributed to the album, on songs which include up to two pianos, two drum kits, and seven guitars) has echoes of Bowie, Talking Heads and Jarvis Cocker to name but a few – a great step forward for contemporary rock music.
Paul Oilzum
If you rent apartments in Valencia don’t miss out on the gig. On the one hand, there doesn’t seem to be much exciting going on in rock today – but on the other, you’ve got bands like Okkervil River giving killer shows, each one like it was their last.
Translated by: Poppy
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