Harlan releases Spiderette to the masses at Chelsea’s

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By Jason Andreasen

Artists are rarely comfortable being confined to one medium. The questions they investigate and the statements they put forth are seldom one dimensional, so it’s only natural that the artists themselves follow suit. Case in point: John Harlan Norris.

In 2005, with an upcoming M.F.A. thesis show, Norris decided to come up with some music to accompany his striking paintings. The result, Harlan’s first CD, The Still Beat.

“I made that kind of by myself. I talked to some local musicians and they encouraged me to put together a band. The band came together after the first record,” said Norris, sporting tattered leather shoes and equally pristine jeans. “We’ve done a couple of tours up the East coast that my friends in The Eames Era helped us with. Then we started working on this record, Spiderette, and the big difference between the first record and this one is the band.”

Harlan will be having a CD Release Party at Chelsea’s Café on Saturday, May 10, disclosing Spiderette to fans for the first time. In addition to the $10 CD, there will be a very special Limited Edition version of the album that will have plenty of enticing extras.

“There’s gonna be a lot of extra art work with this one version. We’re only gonna make 100 of these, ever,” said Norris. “It’s gonna include some of my paintings, Scott [Campbell] will be silk-screening it and it’ll have some of Britt [King]’s photography. It’ll be either $15 or $20. It’s become a pretty big project.”

The band that helps bring Norris’ vision to the audience’s ears consists of guitarist, Britt King, drummer, Scott Campbell (also of Bones) and bassist, John Bossier (also of The Myrtles). The band recorded their latest effort at LSU’s Music School and at friends’ houses.

“We experimented a little bit more with this one, in terms of getting different types of sounds from different rooms,” said Norris. “It took a while. All and all, I’d say the recording process probably lasted around a year. Most of it was recorded toward the end of that and once we got rolling with that, it went pretty quickly.”

The resulting eleven tracks on Spiderette showcase the band’s willingness to explore their own limits. Using plenty of keyboards, the quartet has created a disc that might be just as appropriate within a co-ed’s dorm as an art gallery. It might be as comfortable alongside Seventies Era David Bowie as it is Eighties Era synth-pop. Harlan’s psychadelic brand of pop is technically entrancing and lyrically challenging. To put it simply, there is little simple about Spiderette.

Take for example, the album’s ninth track, “Black Globe,” which begins: “Cavernous clouds crawl by us/Orders received/Evening’s a voice that tells you/It’s time to leave.” The imagery that Norris’ songwriting employs is a direct byproduct of his background in, and love of, painting.

“I always played music in high school, but to me, I could only write songs after learning how to [paint],” said Norris. “All I know is that I always wanted to [write songs] but I couldn’t do it until I started painting. There was something about learning that process of making something from scratch, in another context, that sort of enabled me to re-approach the idea of songwriting. The conceptual connection may be questionable, but that’s not for me to decide anyway.”

Conceptually, Spiderette does follow a theme that is also prevalent in Norris’ visual art as of late. In fact, it is a theme found in the painting that serves as the album’s cover.

“I’m interested in this idea of using inanimate objects; materials, style, taste, as representation of identity that happens a lot of times with people in their twenties,” explained Norris. “It’s something that people just naturally do. There’s an emptiness in that, but it’s not something that I’m trying to judge. It’s just something we all do. It’s also a record about getting older.”

Norris will also be having an exhibition titled, Inanimates, at The Plusone Gallery on Christian Street beginning on Saturday, May 31. The exhibition will run through June 21.

To find out more about Harlan, go to myspace.com/stillbeat. If you want to find out more about Harlan’s CD Release Party, call up Chelsea’s at (225) 387-3679. Either way, Spiderette is destined to be one of the best local albums released this year, so be sure to be at Chelsea’s on May 10 to be among the first to hear it!

Originally Published: Issue 607 - May 6, 2008

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