The Postmarks

The Postmarks' "Goodbye" is indeed the perfect song for this lazy winter: soft, intimate and warm, with sweet female vocals and a dreamy, airy quality that is the trademark of this Miami threesome. A careful attention to details, lush arrangements and the beautiful voice of singer Tim Yehezkely - somewhere between Astrud Gilberto and the female French singers of past decades - complete the picture, making their debut album the first stunning surprise of 2007. Songwriter Christopher Moll is well known to indiepop.it readers thanks to its past in See Venus (a CD for March Records). We talked to him about the Postmarks, their love for nostalgia and the past and Andy Chase, Tahiti 80 producer whose own Unfiltered Records has just published the Postmarks' first album.

Can you introduce the band to our readers? We know some of you have had previous experiences in pop bands (See Venus), but when did the Postmarks started as a band, how did you all meet etc.


The band consists of myself, Tim Yehezkely and Jon Wilkins. I write the songs, Tim writes the lyrics and Jon and I engineer, play and record the music.

In the final days of See Venus, I knew that I wanted to do something a little more personal where I wore my heart on my sleeve. Romantic, timeless, cinematic...those were the thoughts that were running through my mind. I knew that I had to find the right personality to embody those moods. Jon was running a live music night at a local venue where Tim had signed up to play acoustically. Her whispered set went over so well that he invited her to come and play the following Saturday. Jon said to me, "I know you've been writing and you're putting together your new project...I think I found your new musical foil." I went to see her...and the rest, as they say...is history.


The iconography and the image of the band suggests a tendency for the past that reflects the quality of your music. Why this nostalgia for the past?


The Portuguese have a word, saudade, which is considered somewhat untranslatable. The closest description would be "a feeling of nostalgic remembrance of people or things, absent or forever lost, accompanied by the desire to see or possess them once more." It is a feeling that I've always felt and I wanted to explore it in greater depths that I ever had in my music before.


How did you meet with Andy Chase and what role has he played in the outcome of the record? Were your demos in any way different from what we hear on the album?


Andy's name was mentioned for possibly mixing the See Venus album and I was all for it but for whatever reason, the band could not come to an agreement. I filed that away in the back of my mind. Unsigned when it came time to mix the album, past experience have taught me that having a known name attached to the project can open doors. I was willing to pay him out of my own pocket...I approached him and he fell in love with it. We had a phone call...and two days later he was like "Not sure if you know that I have a label...and while I had no intention of signing any other artists on the label besides my projects and the Ivy back catalog...I'd love to have you on the label." Needless to say...we were floored.

As for the demos...they sound very, very close in concept but the finished versions obviously have more life and spunk then the demos. The vocals probably sound the most different as Tim and I experimented fairly heavily during the recording once we had an understanding where we wanted to go with the whole thing. Changing melodies around, layering etc.


Most reviewers have tried to trace your influences: french pop, bossa, Bacharach, the orchestrated pop of Brian Wilson… But I also sense traces of 80s Scottish pop, movie soundtracks and 4AD in the mid-eighites. Am I imagining it?


No...not at all. I grew up during that period so i'm sure many of those influences made their way into my music. 80's alternative/new wave/whatever the heck you want to call it. Movie Soundtracks... definitely... Jon and I are very heavily influenced by the cinematic qualities that you can portray in music. and the 4AD aesthetic for sure...


Tim's voice is probably the single elements more easily traceable to 60/70s french pop. I think she's more Claudine Longet than Francoise Hardy though. What are here reference point as a singer?


Tim and I had lengthy discussions regarding vocalists...our first real terra firma meeting point was astrud gilberto. We both had a deep love for the understated intimacy and beauty in her voice. The fragility of Claudine singing "Nothing to Lose" in The Party is definitely a high mark.


Apart from "goodbye" and a few other songs, most of the album has a sombre quality, both in music and lyrics. And sometimes it seems you're striving not to get too emotional, as if a detached attitude may balance the intimacy of your songs. Is that so?


Well...I think that when you define your own music as melancholy and recognize it...it's striking the balance between happy and sad. and for me...melancholy is a musical "sigh"...it's feeling sad but at the same time having the strength to keep on moving forward and never losing hope. I think to wallow in over-emotional sadness would have made for a very bleak listen. Looking around today...so many of the world's elements can bring you down and yet...I think you really need to focus on the hope that things can and do work out or else what's the reason for even getting up in the morning.


The outcome of the album suggests a very careful work on songs and arrangements. How much time was needed to write the songs and how much to put everything right in the studio? Have you used additional musicians?


We did spend a lot of time but I think it's the attention to detail to the sound, the lyrics and the whole presentation that people are very receptive to. I think people like the fact that it's a whole world we are creating and inviting you into. From the minute the album starts...to the second it ends...it's a journey into this cinematic world we've created.


If you could be in a different band of any era, what would that band be?


Not sure if you heard of them...The Beatles? They're so high on the list of musical gods can they even count anymore? The ones I like have never been able to hold it together for long periods of time so I'm not sure I'd want to be them...Brian Wilson, Sid Barrett, Nick Drake, Kevin Shields?


What kind of music collections you've grown up with? (I.E. being exposed to your parents' records, or older brothers'…)? And what's the first record you've bought?


My parents had quite the eclectic collection from The Beatles to Glenn Miller to Cal Tjader to Mantovani. Somehow it's all worked it's way into the way I hear and interpret my music. The first record I purchased? I'm sure it was Meco's version of the 'Star Wars' theme. As a child of the 70's...I had no choice. The other day I was mentioning that while growing up I could not decide between my two favorite role models...Darth Vader or Gene Simmons. Those were good times...

Salvatore
7/2/2007

Links:

The Postmarks: www.thepostmarks.com
The Postmarks@indiepop.it: ../bands/postmarks.htm
Unfiltered Records: www.unfilteredrecords.com