Being a songwriter who doesn’t particularly like writing
lyrics is a surprisingly good way to come up with some of the most
evocative songs Halifax will see this year.
Aaron Mangle has developed his unique songwriting technique in two
years of playing solo in Halifax under the name A Helpful Diagram. Last
winter he recorded Out on Town, with Stacy Lloyd Brown
engineering, filling out the songs by playing all the instruments
himself. The thought of paring the music down again to perform solo
didn’t appeal to Mangle, so he enlisted Dallin Ursenbach (Crowd Power)
on guitar, Andy March (Museum Pieces) on drums and Pat Ryan (roomdoom)
on bass last spring, and, just like that, A Helpful Diagram became
Cousins.
“I kept wanting to be way louder,” says Mangle. “When I’d play at
Gus’ I kept imagining that it would be this loud rock show, but it was
sappy and not very loud.” After seeing Cousins at a recent show at the
Khyber, it’s evident that volume is no longer a problem. During the
powerful live show, the delicate songs on Out On Town are
swathed in fuzz, creating possibly the prettiest wall of noise. Cousins
masterfully blends a jangly and playful live show with dreamy,
folk-influenced songs.
In contrast to the so-called “sappy” origins of the songs, one of
Mangle’s current goals is to “keep things playful. I think because I
was playing solo, the songs sounded sad and I was writing songs that
were really sad, and once you listen to really happy music you’re like,
‘Oh fuck, I feel like such a loser.'” Presently, Mangle is influenced
by “a lot of sunshine-y bands, California bands like Cryptacize, Thee
Oh Sees, Deerhoof.” He doesn’t think that he has a lot in common with
them, but Out on Town would fit perfectly within the ranks of
John Dwyer’s (Thee Oh Sees) label Castle Face, or Sufjan Stevens’
Asthmatic Kitty Records.
Lyrically, Mangle doesn’t rely a lot on deep, personal stories,
instead choosing to pick “one simple thing and think about it.” It’s
refreshing to listen to an album and not have to witness the performer
as a raw nerve ending. Mangle chooses to leave his darkest thoughts and
details about his relationships private. Instead, his songs are about
getting lost in a foreign city, or playing dice.
“I don’t really want to write what my feelings are, definitely the
songs are not about feelings,” says Mangle. “I’m really hard on myself
when I’m writing, and that’s probably that’s why there aren’t many
words. When I’m flipping through a book of poetry—which is really
rare, but the other night I was—I always stop at the pages that have
short verses and I don’t read the long ones.
“I really prefer a really good phrase, or words that are really
simple, or a play on words,” he continues. “Just making the words
simple so they are a little bit aloof. I don’t want to say it all.”
Cousins release Out on Town on Friday, August 28 at the
Khyber ICA with Data Cave and Duz He Knew? before setting out on a
15-date tour in September through Ontario and Quebec, including a
showcase at Pop Montreal.
This article appears in Aug 27 – Sep 2, 2009.
