If you have been reading Wake The Deaf on anything like a regular basis then you are probably familiar with Dan Knishkowy’s Adeline Hotel by now. We reviewed his début album Leave The Lights, calling it “equally adept at sparse folk… as with folk rock”, before premièring ‘Red Coat’, a track from his new EP, How Strange It Is To See. In our recent review of the EP, we praised Knishkowy’s writing and noted how the songs were shaped by the recording process, where he moved out of New York to Pittsburgh.
“[How Strange It Is To See] exists within that small and fleeting pocket in time and space that opens just before you take off from a familiar location, everyday objects taking on new importance as the seconds tick away and your surroundings can be seen outside of the context of your own unimportant worries and wishes”
It was a release that left me with questions, and Knishkowy very kindly agreed to answer a few of them.
Hi Dan, thanks for speaking to us! Congratulations on the release of How Strange It Is To See. I saw you played a release show in a winery?
Thanks! Yeah, a solo show in Pittsburgh, where I recorded these songs. Then we’re doing a full band thing in Brooklyn this week (with Wake the Deaf fav, Ben Seretan).
As I mentioned in my review, the EP was created in the midst of a move, written in one city and recorded in another. Did you intend to write the songs as a direct reaction to the relocation? Or did you just find your life coloured your writing?
There wasn’t much intention at first. I’d been writing songs for a new record, and like most people I know, had developed a love/hate thing with New York. It felt like a good time to try somewhere new for a bit. I was messing around with ‘Everything Is Going To Be Fine’ and the other 3 came out very stream of consciousness. That’s rare for me and I wanted to capture them on record the same way. Quickly and immediately. They’re all in the same key and feel more like one song written from four narrators’ perspectives, so it felt right to put them together in a concise format. To be honest, it’s a bit weird listening now, especially being back in NY, because they are of a very specific moment.
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What would you list as the main influences on your writing? Would you say other musicians have had the biggest impact? Have novels/poetry played a role too?
Writing, definitely Jeff Tweedy….people like Neil Young, Elliott Smith, Jason Molina who have this duality of solo acoustic and blown out rock band. On guitar, British folkies like Bert Jansch and John Martyn. Lyrically, Chris Porterfield [of Field Report] is in another world; he completely changed the game for me in terms of what I thought I wanted out of songs.
Honestly, I struggle to break out of familiar points of view, so literature hasn’t found it’s way into the songs yet, but it helps my approach to writing – stuff like Flannery O’Connor, Borges, Murakami, where the seriousness is propped up by an absurdist element. The more fucked up the funnier it is. With music, I just always take shit too seriously. Something to work on.
Coming from a background strictly in the written word, I’m always fascinated by songwriting. Having to marry the two strands of music and lyrics from scratch seems like such a difficult task from the outside. How do you go about it? Do you fit the music around the lyrics or vice versa? Or is it some middle ground that only a musician could understand?
Hah, well I’m fascinated by your writing — I feel like we get to cheat because a good melody can pull the weight when the words don’t and vice versa, but every line you write has to stand on it’s own.
Most things start for me on the guitar, but I keep notebooks and iPhone notes to draw from for when that happens. I trade lyrics from song to song a lot, though not always on purpose.
Some of your songs seem pared down to the bare minimum (I’m think of ‘Left on Jewel’ in particular), with a pretty clear narrative condensed into a few short, poetic verses. Do the extended versions of these stories exist in your head, and you distil them to fit into a song? Or do you choose words and imagery more instinctively, allowing the stories to emerge, for you as well as the listener?
I’ve been making a conscious effort to write more concisely. Restraint is such a beautiful thing, but not one of my strengths at all. I usually overwrite (like seven verses for a three verse song) and then edit down. Sometimes the best lyrics aren’t really part of the story and need to be left out, which is a bummer.
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I see you are releasing a run of cassettes with Lily Tapes & Discs, who we have covered a few times in various guises. How did this come about? I’m almost completely ignorant when it comes to this sort of thing – did you approach the label? Did they come to you?
Ben Lovell, who runs Lily, is actually an old childhood friend. He taught me about Elephant 6 when we were 12 and I probably returned the favor with something like Through Being Cool. We’d been out of touch for years but started seeing each other at shows in NY and the timing worked out. His own music as Lung Cycles is so great too.
Why did you decide on tapes rather than CD or vinyl? It’s something I’ve thought about a lot recently – if physical releases aren’t the primary method of listening anymore, have they become strictly aesthetic things, nice things to put on a shelf?
I do most of my listening digitally (no streaming, just the old iPod classic), but I buy vinyl at shows. There’s still a level of independent music that’s healthy enough to sell records and make a sustainable income, but for everyone below that level (musicians and labels) it’s become about just connecting with people. There’s been a shift towards limited edition releases, tapes, lathe cuts, etc. which I think is fantastic. With digital music beginning to feel valueless, giving someone a lovingly handmade artefact puts personal value back into that relationship, even if they only play the songs via the download. I love collaboration, so with Ben and Lily that means tapes. He did the art and I think it’s beautiful.
Finally, could you name 4-5 acts you are currently enjoying? Old or new, popular or obscure, whatever you find yourself returning to.
Adrianne Lenker’s a-sides is an everyday listen; The Weather Station, especially last year’s EP; so much Mitski; Will Stratton’s ‘The Relatively Fair‘; Evan Dando’s Baby I’m Bored. I’m biased because I play in her band sometimes, but Johanna Samuels is truly one of the best songwriters around.
You can buy How Strange It Is To See now from the Adeline Hotel/Lily Tapes & Discs Bandcamp Pages.