Somewhat Indie, somewhat ambient, and whole lot talented, This Is Cinema hails from Chicago, delivering a sound that is comparable to that of Muse, Pete Yorn, and Silverchair ala Diorama.
With five years of making music under the shared belt of Ben Babbit and Marcin Sulewski, eight months ago This Is Cinema welcomed Theo Karon to their ensemble, creating the band as it is today. With a wide variety of other projects in their pasts, more recently, Ben plays guitar alongside friend Dan Smart in The Field Auxiliary (You can read our interview with The Field Auxiliary here, and a review of their recent show here), teams again with Theo and Mark Trecka from Pillars and Tongues, and Marcin drums in a hot jazz trio. Theo also creates music under the guise “Howling Tunnels”- a “mysticaly, elusive, and mostly in-studio band of ghosts that live inside my tape machines.” A roster large enough to prove that these musicians are interested in exploring all that the creative process can offer.
With instrumentals that are come across crisply well composed and vocals that are nothing short of soulful and sultry, the bands single release to date, Birth is not difficult to get behind and enjoy. A great use of percussive sound as well as of their other many strengths shine in this EP, and with it being the soul release we’ve seen since 2006, we can only imagine what could have been brewing between these musicians since then. The trio took the time to talk with Telegram Sam about just that, as well as what influences them, and where they got their start in music.
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Telegram Sam: Tell us a little bit about This is Cinema’s past, and any new music you’ve been working on.
Ben: Well, the only release we have put out so far is an EP called ”Birth”, but we are working on a new record at the moment. The gestation period for these songs has been quite long, so we are looking forward to finishing them so we can start fresh. When we made our last record, we were pretty much still half in the womb, and were quite a different band. So, perhaps the last one was a document of our beginning, and being very young and very serious, and now we are, dare I say, more mature? And know how to have fun a bit more.
T.S: What can we look forward to from This Is Cinema in the coming year?
Theo: Overwhelming and all-pervasive sexual liberation, gender equality, and freedom from oppression, which will come packaged with a brand-new full-length studio album.
Ben: A lot of new music and shows.
T.S: Is there any particular muse or concept behind your band?
Theo: “Everything is going to be O.K.”
Ben: I don’t feel like there is some sort of singular muse or concept behind our band. We feel like we are just making the music that we like, and would want to listen to. We live in this coach house together, and have set up a studio in the basement, mostly comprised of Theo’s recording stuff and all of our various instruments. Our roommate Jon has christened it Hotel Earth, and it’s like the clubhouse we never had when we were kids. We have been working on our own music there, writing and recording and practicing, but it’s also become a sort of communal space for us and our friends and friends of friend’s to play and record music. There is always something happening there, and usually it’s something different from the previous day. That has been really inspiring to me personally, and I feel like it has inevitably influenced our band and how we do things.
T.S: What is the most memorable show you’ve ever played? Attended?
Theo: This one show we played in our basement a little while ago was a lot of fun. I have been to a lot of great shows, but the most recent really good one was Mount Eerie at the Lakeshore Theatre a couple of months ago.
Ben: Last year, this pianist came to my school and gave a concert that consisted only of a two hour long set of piano pieces called, “Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus” by the French composer, Olivier Messiaen. It’s a long and difficult piece, and he played it entirely from memory! By the end of it, it felt like he and the music had put every molecule in the room under a spell, I will never forget that. The Rolling Stones at the old Sox Stadium when I was 12 was also sweet.
T.S: How did you each get your start in music?
Theo: My parents forced me to take classical piano lessons from when I was very young, which I was initially very unhappy about. I played in middle school and high school orchestras, and then someone bought me ’Odelay’ by Beck and, in an unfortunate turn, I started making loops of weird noises on my computer and rapping over them. After buying an old TEAC reel-to-reel 4 track at a garage sale, I realized that forcing myself to keep sonic experimentation happening in real time, within the confines of analog media, produced much more compelling results, and I have been refining and adding to that idea ever since.
Marcin: One day my father brought home drums that were being thrown away in an alley, starting my interest in percussion. I was also in orchestra playing bass from 2nd grade to 7th. I’ve been interested in rhythm (playing drums and bass) for most of my time as a musician, but I feel an urge to play guitar).
Ben: I grew up with music in my house, because my parents are musicians. They played mostly classical music in the house, and I know I enjoyed it to a certain degree when I was a kid, but it was more like air to me at the time. Then, on a family vacation, my cousin played me “In Utero” by Nirvana, and I woke up. Also, watching Marty McFly play “Johnny B Good” in the first “Back to the Future” movie gave me the irresistible desire to play the electric guitar.
T.S: Who are your top five musical influences?
Theo: The Microphones/ Mt. Eerie, Scott Walker, Animal Collective, Glenn Branca, Bjork
Marcin: Earth, sky, sun, textures, day dreams, being in (sometimes mentally constructing) synaesthetic experiences. I (maybe we) make music to try and describe or document experience of spirituality or connection to nature or certain landscapes.
Ben: People, traveling, memory, leibe. The music of Brian Eno, Charles Mingus, Will Oldham, Flying Lotus, Nina Simone…
This Is Cinema will be playing a FREE show at the Double Door Tuesday, January 19th
This is Cinema
Paperbear
Yawn
Hey Rabbit
Doors at 8pm, Show at 9 21+
Tags: Interview, Upcoming Show
