Some of the most meaningful music never begins with an audience in mind.
It starts in a basement or a room. With friends. With time to kill and something to chase. Recording not because anyone is asking for it, but simply because making something with your friends feels like the most natural thing in the world.
Recorded between 1999 and 2001 "Leap Through Poisoned Air," by Andrew Rieger of Elf Power and Will Cullen Hart of The Olivia Tremor Controll and Circulatory System, feels like a magical musical miracle. A glimpse into a shared space where two friends, roommates at the time, were simply making things because they loved making things.
Will wrote and recorded the music. Andrew later brought lyrics, vocal melodies, and his voice to it. The result is intense, yet hazy, sweet, melodic, homespun psychedelia that carries the best qualities of both of their bands.
The fact that these recordings survived at all feels astonishing. Sitting patiently on Andrew's digital eight track for more than two decades, waiting to be rediscovered. Waiting to remind us that some of the most important art we ever make is not created with the intention of release. It is not weighed down by expectations or outcomes. It exists to capture moments with people we love. And always comes.. right on time, right when you need it most.. whenever that time may be.
Now that Will is no longer with us, the release of this music nearly 25 years after it was recorded feels especially sacred. It is not just a record arriving late. It is a moment preserved. A voice returned. A friendship still speaking.
During that same stretch of time, from 1999 to 2001, my own band, The Poison Control Center, was just beginning to take shape. I had set out to write a sprawling 25 song rock opera called A Nice Old Fashioned Romance, With Love Lyrics and Everything. I started calling friends, asking them to come over to my basement whenever they could, just to make something together. No pressure. No timeline. Just music.
We were deeply influenced by The Olivia Tremor Control and Elf Power, recording songs without any real thought of where they might end up or whether anyone outside that room would ever hear them. At the time, it felt like play. Looking back, it feels like preservation. We were all doing something similar, capturing moments, making work that would sit quietly for years, waiting patiently for the right moment to surface.
By the time The Poison Control Center had been a band for twelve years and played over 500 shows, friends began insisting that those unfinished early recordings, the rock opera that started it all, deserved a proper release. What followed was a loving act of musical archaeology. Song sketches were rescued from burned CDRs, rough mixes in various states of decay, long after the original sessions had vanished on an old Mac running some forgotten, barely legal recording software.
Like any good “lost” album, we had unintentionally built a mythology around it, one that may have grown larger than the music itself. But when our friends finally brought it into the world, they did so with complete belief, calling it The Most Anticipated Album in the History of Iowa Rock ’n’ Roll.
That quote probably does not have two legs to stand on but what I do believe in.. is the importance and love that one finds making music with your friends.
I'm so glad Andrew rescued these recordings he and Will made from his.. very well taken care of .. digital 8 track which he has used for over 25 years to make records with his friends in Elf Power.
Listen to the latest episode of Don’t Bother Wearing Seatbelts wherever you listen to podcasts. Rudy Fischmann Mathew Bell and I get to talk with one of my all time faves.. musical legend Andrew Rieger.. it must not be missed.