Back Pockets return with Fast Cloud Slow Cloud
Emily Kempf and Co. return with a ramped-up new album
- Photo by Mike Germon
FAST CLOUD SLOW CLOUD by the back pockets Hot on the heels of SXSW last march, Back Pockets’ leading lady Emily Kempf hastily announced the dissolution of her band before retracting her statement in less than 24 hours. Now, six months later and without much fanfare, Kempf has leaked a new and totally charged album titled Fast Cloud Slow Cloud, and it’s here more than a week ahead of its scheduled August 13 release date.
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We caught up in the pre-dawn hours of Fri., Aug. 5 to discuss the album.
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Chad Radford: Your new record showed up on your Bandcamp page last night, called Fast Cloud Slow Cloud.
Emily Kempf: Yay!
CR: Is there some sort of meaning behind the title?
EK: I guess it’s an inside thing between me and one of my close friends.
CR: Go on…
EK: About three years ago I passed a notebook around a crowded porch of people. At the top of the page I wrote “WHAT ARE YOU GRATEFUL FOR?” People wrote all sorts of stuff, some goofy, some serious. This friend of mine wrote “fast clouds and slow clouds,” along with the band Can. They’re one of my favorite bands ever so I sought him out after the notebook got back to me. I didn’t know most of the people that had written in it. We became close friends after that, basically because of a shared love of Can. He’s older than me by like a decade and knows about all sorts of awesome weirdo music. He turned me on to Nina Hagen, the Residents, 13 Floor Elevators…
CR: Tell me about the record, it sounds like you’re pretty ramped-up.
EK: Well there are some oldies on there. As usual we’ve repeated some songs, but they’re all faster now. There are newbies too, “Break up” being my fave, followed closely by “So Lovely” — our one weirdo club song is quickly becoming a tradition. I kept out all of the weirdo phone calls and any low-fi songs, except for the animal noises at the end.
CR: Who recorded it?
EK: We recorded and mixed it all ourselves. It took exactly a month. Adam Bruneau, Jared Pepper, myself and Russell Owens all came together with our microphones and set up for two nights in Jared’s living room. Then me and Adam mixed during every available free moment that we had for three or four weeks straight until we left for tour from July 22 to August 3.