Palace of Winds to Blade of Love // BOSTON HASSLE

In the middle of a day job about three years ago, Travis LaPlante, composer of Battle Trance, had a “clear feeling” to start a band with three other tenor saxophonists he knew only tangentially: Matthew Nelson, Jeremy Viner and Patrick Breiner. After finding a way to contact them, the four of them met up, made sure they were on the same page and held the lowest note on the tenor saxophone, a B flat, for close to an hour. This sudden and odd beginning of a band shows an immediate trust and dedication to sound, or “being inside sound together” as Travis puts it.

Travis started composing Palace of Winds right away. He taught Matt, Jeremy and Patrick the parts by ear and demonstration as he began composing them. A through-composed piece, ‘Palace of Winds’ is a tight-knit composition that is capable of unhinging itself:

“It’s important for me to leave space for the unknown… I kind of feel like that is a vital aspect of Battle Trance. Working with these extremely meticulous and precise structures…it’s really like walking on a tight rope in a particular way. It basically holds two things that are seemingly opposite at the same time.”

Battle Trance met three times a week for about seven months before committing the composition to record. Totaling to hundreds of hours working out individual parts and rehearsing the piece through hundreds of times. Battle Trance have performed only this piece at shows and have performed it around seventy times.

This complete trust in sound and dedication to composition is hard to find in a band, especially to this extent. Part of the reason Palace of Winds is so durable and doesn’t age is because it’s designed to be different each time. The band relies on the piece, but the piece also relies on how dexterous all the players are. The piece and the band have had a symbiotic relationship, both using each other to mature. After three or so years it can be hard to tell the two apart.

After a minutes spent on talking about how Battle Trance have known each other through playing this one piece, Travis tells me he’s completed a new composition, Blade of Love. Travis states about the second composition Battle Trance now knows, “it goes even deeper into certain intricacies and subtleties of particular techniques that were used in Palace of Winds…I would say that it’s both a deepening and also an expansion.” True to form, Battle Trance have already spent close to a year relentlessly rehearsing the piece and are just now starting to perform it live. They’ve only performed it in New York, where they all live and rehearse, making their performance at Hassle Fest the first time they’ll perform it out of town. They plan to record Blade of Love at the beginning of next year and release it by the end of August 2016.

I ask Travis about composing the new piece, specifically if coming to know Matt, Jeremy and Patrick, their personalities and how they play, has created a bias on how he wrote parts. He says that it’s the opposite, “Its more of the fact that the four of us are so unique as an ensemble I feel is due to the fact that we can all actually empty ourselves out of our identities or of our wants or desires or personalities to become a vessel.” He goes on to say that players that need to ‘sound like themselves’ truly goes against what Battle Trance is. We finish the interview with Travis coming back to the question of how personality has bled into the spontaneously formed Battle Trance to this point. He states referring to his band-mates, “individuality is essential to Battle Trance and at the same time their ability to lose the individuality is essential to Battle Trance.”

<a href="http://battletrance.bandcamp.com/album/palace-of-wind">Palace of Wind by Battle Trance</a>

Below is the full interview. Battle Trance play their new piece ‘Blade of Love’ out of town for the first time on Friday at 8:25pm at Brighton Music Hall.

IF: So, I guess I’m going to ask the question, How did Battle Trance form?

TL: Sure, yea.

IF: I’m sure you’ve been asked that a lot.

TL: Yea, I have been. And it’s fine. I’m happy to answer it. Yea, Battle Trance formed, essentially at, I was working a job I had. This is about three years ago at this point and I just had this very clear feeling that I needed to start a band with Patrick, Jeremy and Matt, the three other guys in Battle Trance. The thing that was kind of unusual about this feeling was that I didn’t really know them very well and I didn’t really know their playing or their music or what they were interested in musically. So it was unusual in that sense. I knew, I had met all of them before just, I only met Jeremy and Matt a couple of times in passing and I had a sight-reading class with Patrick years ago. But anyway, I didn’t actually know them personally and I was not familiar with what they were doing musically. I knew that they were all supposed to be great saxophonists but I didn’t know their particular interests. Anyway, it was unusual and I didn’t have any prior intention of starting a band with four tenor saxophonists. It was not an idea that I had had for a long time. It all just kind of happened in an instant. And after I had this feeling I just tracked down their e-mails through friends and emailed them asking them if they wanted to start a band and that I was starting a band. And they all said yes and we got together. Everything just took off from there.

IF: That all happened pretty quickly, right?

TL: Yea. Extremely quickly.

IF: Once you guys met up, I don’t even know what the first meet-up was like. So, did you just meet to talk or to play?

TL: Yea, we had our instruments but we ended up just having a talk. I really talked to them about what matters to me in life and music. I just wanted to make sure that we were all on the same page, on a deep level. And that we, that there’s a particular resonance with each other. And then we ended up just holding, I think a low B flat which is the lowest note on the saxophone for forty-five minutes or an hour together just to be inside of sound together. Yea, after that there wasn’t a lot of speaking that was necessary. I feel like our connection overall was predominantly unspoken.

IF: After you first met up did you build a repertoire of doing these exercises, if you will, of like holding notes?

TL: No. Soon there after, I started writing Palace of Winds which is an album-length composition. So I began the compositional process and as the piece was being written I would bring in the material to the band and we would begin to rehearse it. The majority of that piece was transmitted orally meaning there wasn’t written music. Most of it was transmitted by demonstration and learning by ear. So in a sense we just started working on the piece once we started playing together. The piece just began to form.

IF: The piece itself, I’ve listened to the recording of all three parts of Palace of Winds. And its, recording only tells you so much about a composition because I can’t tell just from that if there would be certain parts that would be different if you were to play it right now. So does the composition itself have certain heads or motifs that you guys work from and how do you sort of transition from each part?

TL: Yea. The piece is through composed and it is scored out at this point and at the same time there are sections that the duration of the section can vary and there is various amounts of freedom kind of embedded in the composition. We work a lot with musical cues. Often sections will turn out to be shorter or are a little bit longer in length depending on the concert. You know if we’re playing and something unexpected happens, the composition really allows for us to go into the unknown together and not be held so strictly by a concrete structure. So it’s this kind of, its this fine line that I like to work with where there’s as much structure as possible where the transmission of the piece will really go through every time and that at the same time there’s enough freedom where you can hear us perform the piece twelve times and it will be different each time. And it will be a unique experience every time. And a unique experience for us, the performers, as well. So it’s something that’s not going to get old and boring as if we’re playing a piece and it’s only, you know, we’re either playing it correctly or incorrectly. It’s not that linear of a piece. I don’t know if that answers your question.

IF: Yea. I’m kind of curious because my personal understanding of Battle Trance is based off of this composition. Which it kind of seems like it’s true to an extent. How short of a time frame from you guys starting to learn this composition and then to finally recording it for everybody, on a bigger scale, to listen to.

TL: So I think we started working on it in the fall of, I don’t know. It’s so funny. The years are just a blur. I don’t know anyway we started working on it in the autumn maybe in November. During the next six months we were able to get together like three times a week and we rehearsed relentlessly during this period. And we ended up recording it the following June, about seven months later. So it was a good half a year of rehearsing for hours and hours a week. And we were extremely fortunate to all have the time to do that and it just seemed like everything happened very quickly in that sense because we were able to spend so much time together working on the piece.

IF: There were no live performances until after you guys felt like to some extent that you knew the composition.

TL: Yea, we performed before we recorded it maybe a handful of times. The piece could continue to evolve after those performances. And honestly continue to evolve after the recordings. It’s hard to talk about. On paper it was all the same but there was a sense that we were able to continue to go deeper into the piece and things were really transforming and our connection with each other was becoming stronger. The piece did continue to evolve for sure. And it’s still evolving now.

IF: I was thinking about it a little bit before I called you and over the past few days about some similar performers or projects that come to mind when I think of you guys. And I thought of the Keiji Haino, Jim O’Rourke and Oren Ambarchi, that trio.

TL: I’ve heard one of their records that one of my friends loves and I also was quite moved by it.

IF: Yea, I think about, because they’ve been releasing these records year after year for a few years now, I think about them and how they use recording as a sort of documentation of their meetings. I don’t get any impression that they rehearse at all. And then I also think of two other things specifically. I think of AACM, a little bit. Maybe at a more concentrated level, where you guys are using a composition as a way to connect and get to learn each others playing. And then I also think of Matana Roberts, a little bit. I think her approach to recording material is a little bit more conceptual, on a more literal level. But I think the thing that’s interesting about what you’re doing is that it’s spontaneous but also you’re using this idea to expand on … I don’t know. You’re using this same piece, this same composition to expand your relationship with each other and how you play with each other.

TL: Yea, absolutely. Well you don’t want, its important for me to leave a space for the unknown even in composition because first of all, there is going to be the unknown even if you think there will not be space for the unknown. But really to honor that space where something, where honestly anything can happen. And I kind of feel like that’s a vital aspect of Battle Trance. Working with these extremely meticulous and precise structures and at the same time never leaving that space for the unknown. Where it’s really like walking on a tight rope in a particular way. It basically holds two things that are seemingly opposite at the same time.

IF: I think also, the thing that kind of comes through Battle Trance, which I’ve noticed, is that even though its very meticulous compositional, you guys are using a lot of really hard techniques. I actually played saxophone in high school. So I kind of have an ear as to what you guys are doing different then maybe somebody who doesn’t know tonguing and things like that. And you guys are playing these different technique but it seems like your personalities had to have weighed in how you’ve come to, at least what I’ve heard of the recording, it seems like even when I’m going to hear you guys perform in a few weeks it’ll be a little bit more finely tuned.

TL: Yea, in a certain sense, I would say our personalities are involved, yes. I would say more so, I don’t even want to say personality but more my vision is involved specifically in the composition. However, the performative aspects of Battle Trance are much more about, I would say losing our personalities in a certain way and being able to dissolve them into something that’s greater than all of us. Meaning that we’re really striving to become one instrument, where a lot of the time were performing we don’t even know which sound is coming out of our horn and which sound is coming out of another person’s horn. Its this particular kind of dissolving process really where our identities are being surrendered to the ensemble or to the piece or something greater where you actually cant even discern the parts that are involved. It’s at least something that I strive for in the performance… If that makes any sense.

IF: Yea that makes sense.

TL: And I also will say that in Boston when we’re playing in a couple of weeks, we’re actually debuting our second piece. It’s called Blade of Love. Yea, we’re going to be playing it for the first time out of town and we’re in preparation for recording it in early 2016. If everything stays on schedule it will be out at the end of August 2016. Just wanted to say that you guys will be experiencing one of the first performances of our next full-length piece.

IF: That’s great! How long have you guys been working on that?

TL: About a year. Yea, so we’ve been rehearsing like crazy for about a year.

IF: How is it different that you guys have went through playing this one composition and now learning and playing another one?

TL: Yea, I would say that we’ve played Palace of Winds in public probably over 70 times, between 70 and 80 times. Between that and performing privately in rehearsals we’ve played that composition hundreds of times. And we’ve spent hundreds of hours playing music together at this point and hundreds of hours on tour and travelling. I feel like there is inherently a maturity that we have gained purely because we’ve spent so much time together and played so much together. There’s just more of a deeper vibe after you’ve played music with someone for so long and there’s something that you can’t speak about that is given. Like there’s no way to get to that unspeakable thing other than by touring or playing music with each other over and over and over.

IF: That’s really exciting. That’s awesome. I was going to ask you that. If you guys were going to have any new material but that’s awesome.

TL: Yea! We’re really excited to finally unveil this next piece.

IF: Yea, it’s exciting. How would you say Blade of Love is different?

TL: I can say that it goes even deeper into certain intricacies and subtleties of particular techniques that were used in Palace of Winds. I feel like Palace of Winds was scratching the surface of a lot of things and we were actually able to drop further in certain aspects of Palace of Winds in Blade of Love and at the same time Blade of Love is much more vast sonically speaking. It actually breaks apart even more what one’s idea is of what is the saxophone. I would say that it’s both a deepening and also an expansion. Both are true. But you’ll have to tell me. (Laughs) I will also that with Palace of Winds the writing process was extremely effortless and with Blade of Love there was a lot more I would say there’s a lot more blood involved in a certain way. I felt like I had to go into certain darker places within myself in order to connect with a particular sound that was coming through. And the writing process was more torturous and excruciating. Overall, it was just a much, I would say more masculine and kind of brutal process compared to Palace of Winds. There’s a very different force behind the writing of Blade of Love.

IF: Sounds like it could potentially be a little personal, maybe.

TL: Yea. Well yes and no.

IF: I think one last question about the composition is do you think maybe on some level you’ve kind of listened to what you’re other band mates might be ‘good at’ and played into that compositionally or do you think you still kind of have ego-less composition that you’re bringing into the group? Duke Ellington for example would write pieces for the members of his band, like he would play into their strengths. Do you feel like you’re doing that here or do feel like it’s still a little abstracted?

TL: Well its sort of the opposite of that. Again its more of the fact that the four of us are so unique as ensemble I feel is due to the fact that we can all actually empty ourselves out of our identities or of our wants or desires or our personalities to become a vessel where I feel like if there were certain other players in the band who had really, who really needed to sound like “themselves” or make a strong personal statement that that would actually go against the transmission of what Battles Trance is in a way. So its almost like in a backwards way I am almost writing for the three of those guys more by not writing [for them]. But because when it comes down to it, I actually don’t write, I don’t want to write based on others peoples wants or desires. Ideally the music would just be coming through. I’m trying to actually get out of the way as much as possible and get my ego out of the way and get my certain ideas or expectations of what the next piece should sound like or what I want it to sound like and actually get that out of the way so something can really come through the soul really. Not from an idea or even an aesthetic. To actually have it be coming from the depths and directly from the soul rather than from ideas or an image or anything like that. I will say at the very same time that I don’t think there any people on the planet that could actually do what Matt, Patrick and Jeremy are capable of on the instrument. So, at the same time they are vital to the band. It’s not a band that you can just get subs for. So both things are true. Their individuality is essential to Battle Trance and at the same time their ability to lose the individuality is essential to Battle Trance.

“It’s important for me to leave space for the unknown… I kind feel like that is a vital aspect of Battle Trance. Working with these extremely meticulous and precise structures…it’s really like walking on a tight rope in a particular way. It basically holds two things that are seemingly opposite at the same time.”