Thursday, February 24, 2011

q/a : loch lomond’s ritchie young ‘starts a storm’

To most Portlanders, there is only one Loch Lomond–a six-piece chamber pop band headed by the intricately shrill Ritchie Young. Thus, Portland prefers the delicacy of its own erroneous bliss, which comes in mispronouncing Loch Lah-mond, to some foreign lake in the northern reaches of the United Kingdom.

But with the release of Loch Lomond’s second official album, Little Me Will Start A Storm,via Tender Loving Empire on February 22nd, the group is picking up momentum at home after a dormant year and is finally garnering attention abroad, especially from the land of their namesake. After being personally asked by Scottish street trials pro-bike rider Danny MacAskill to use the track “Wax & Wire,” from their 2009 EP Night Bats, in an online video, the clip has now been viewed more than 7 million times worldwide.

“I think because of this Danny MacAskill thing,” says Ritchie Young, “we’ll have sold 100,000 singles [of 'Wax & Wire'] at the end of the day.”

This led to the band being invited back to Edinburgh, Scotland, to play at a Red Bull Showcase just days before they will celebrate their album release at the Alberta Rose Theatre on Saturday, February 26th, with Ramona Falls. They’ll also hit Bend on their way to SXSW playing the Tower Theatre with Damien Jurado and Viva Voce on Monday, March 7th.

Growing and shrinking over the years, Loch Lomond began as Young’s solo project, and “before we committed to a solid band that wasn’t gonna change around, the total number of people that have played with me is about 31… 32,” says Young.

“The first half of the history of the band, it was just me with friends as my solo project,” adds Young. “But about half way through the history of the band, we had the lineup that we have now, adjusted ever so slightly. But it’s pretty much the same group of people. Going from a solo project… now it’s a band, a democracy.”

For their second album, the band has worked with inimitable support from Adam Selzer (M Ward), who tracked Little Me Will Start A Storm, and with the Grammy-nominated Tucker Martine (Sufjan Stevens, Laura Veirs, The Decemberists) and Kevin Robinson (of Viva Voce and Blue Giant) mixing the album. Loch Lomond’s Ritchie Young (vocals, guitar, percussion), Scott Magee (clarinets, percussion, bass, ukulele, vocals), Jade Eckler (vocals), Dave Depper (bass, guitar, keys, vocals), Jason Leonard (vibraphone, banjo, guitar, percussion, sounds), and Johanna Kunn (vocals, piano, flute, melodica) are now ready to share their wispy, intertwining harmonies accompanied by non-traditional instruments including the saw, mandolin, theremin, bass clarinet, bass harmonica and all manner of percussion, like “lots of bells.”

Listen to the first single from Little Me Will Start A Storm, “Elephants & Little Girls”:




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And read the interview on OMN.

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