Skip to main contentOr, how Brent Knopf learned to stop worrying and love the song.
On a balmy summer morning, Brent Knopf—multi-instrumentalist in Portland's best known experimental-pop band, Menomena—is geeking out about the artwork for his new record. He brings the album cover—intricately drawn by local graphic novelist Theo Ellsworth—up on his phone to share the one thing he insisted be added to it: the record's title, Intuit. "It's drawn in a circle so that the world 'intuit' is in there twice," he says, blushing with enthusiasm at the artistic palindrome.
Within minutes of chatting with the 32-year-old Knopf, it's obvious he's not afraid to reveal his obsessions—many of which (math, visual art, a love of dark chocolate that had him eating two bars a day for most of the year) have nothing to do with his career as a songwriter. But it's the latter he's here to talk about. Under the moniker Ramona Falls, Knopf has created an eclectic collection of avant-pop songs that, on the surface, sound similar to his work with Menomena. It's tough to classify an album that features 35 other contributing musicians (including members of Talkdemonic and Loch Lomond, as well as Knopf's mom) as a solo project, but Intuit is unquestionably driven by Knopf's singular vision: it's not so much a streamlined version of his songs with Menomena as an opportunity to shed his skin and rethink the way his music operates.
For Knopf, rethinking meant learning how to let go of a song.
Knopf began work on Intuit in January, after it became clear that recording the next Menomena album would take longer than anyone anticipated. The hard part was for Knopf—who admits he's more interested in the "raw material stage" and the idea of a song than a finished product—to take years of fragments and melodies and turn them into an entire record. "When a song is unfinished, I can be in love with its potential," he says over sips of drinking chocolate. "When you finish it, what you are doing is reducing that infinite number of potentials down to one singular actuality—and that is terrifying to me."
To get past that fear, Knopf decided to work quickly, limiting the recording of the record to just a few months. His process seems to have been mathematical: Intuit's parts are clearly parceled and immaculately arranged, organized into acute angles and parallel lines. The resulting record has a twinkling, wide-reaching pop sound that's easier to unpack than Menomena's knotted compositions. There are moments—the waning violin solo in "Russia"; the clicky percussion on "Bellyfulla" that apes the sound of fingers hitting a typewriter; the sparse acoustic guitar and vocal arrangement on closer "Diamond Shovel"—that sound nothing like Menomena's chopped 'n' screwed version of experimental pop.
Some songs, such as the spirited "Bellyfulla," were pieced together from many different takes, and one—the lilting, trombone-backed "Salt Sack"—was actually written in 1998 and shelved in 2001 after Menomena failed to work out a proper arrangement. "Salt Sack" is emblematic of the album as a whole—though it was written by Knopf, the noisy guitar-solo centerpiece is actually two separate takes (one by Knopf, and one from Tracker's John Askew) combined later in the studio. It's one reason he's careful to avoid calling Ramona Falls a solo project, instead lauding the contributions of his friends.
Along those lines, the touring version of Ramona Falls is anchored by some of his best buds: Memomena's Danny Seim on bass, Paul Alcott of Dat'r on drums and Matt Sheehy on guitar. The band played its first show earlier this month, after a meticulous Knopf fretted for weeks about the arrangements and getting the keyboard sound just right. Still, there's a palpable excitement in his words when he describes the feeling of playing the new songs live. After years of indecision, it seems things are coming around.
"If my life was to come up with new ideas every day, I would be so happy," Knopf says. "But a friend told me something wise recently: Music doesn't have to be a closing down of possibilities. It's an opening of new things."
SEE IT: Ramona Falls releases Intuit on Saturday, Aug. 29, at Doug Fir, with Dirty Mittens. 9 pm. $12. 21+.
WWeek 2015