Christopher Barnes formed Gem Club in Boston about five years ago, inspired by the RPM Challenge to write and record an album in a month. They quickly perfected a minimalist, quiet, and beautiful sound that set them apart, and released their third album, “In Roses,” in 2014. Gem Club now consists of Barnes with cellist Kristen Drymala and singer Ieva Berberian.
Gem Club will perform alongside Lower Dens at 3S Artspace on June 22. The Sound recently spoke to Barnes about collaborating with other bands and how the city of Boston has influenced his music.
For an interview with Jana Hunter of Lower Dens, click here.
Gem Club formed as an RPM project in 2010. Was it difficult for you to write the first album in a month?
Yeah. Actually, some of the songs that I wrote during that month in February would eventually become the “Acid and Everything” EP — there were a few that didn’t make the cut. It was a little difficult to write in that short amount of time, but that’s mostly because there were a lot of external factors at work keeping in the way of progress. I was finishing up school, I was changing apartments, and there was some pretty significant snow that year as well. I think I ended up writing and recording the thing in about two weeks. The RPM Challenge was a lot of fun because it didn’t allow for any time to second guess myself. I wrote, recorded, and worried about it later.
Why did you decide to record “In Roses” at Tiny Telephone in San Francisco? How did that experience differ from recording at home? What were your goals for that album?
“In Roses” was a bigger record than “Breakers” — there was more that I wanted to incorporate in terms of instrumentation and ideas. When I was ready to record, I was visiting a lot of studios. A few on the East Coast, one in New York, I visited a couple in Iceland. They were all incredible and each studio had something to offer that another wouldn’t, so it was difficult to choose. I spent a lot of time talking with John Vanderslice at Tiny, telling him what I wanted for the record. John played a show out here in Boston and I went out to meet with him. He was just gracious and transparent and assured me that Tiny was where I needed to make this record happen. He’s very charismatic. Aside from being able to track to tape, I also had the chance to work with Minna and Magik Magik Orchestra. I’d sent a lot of demos to Minna and we worked for a long time on arrangements, especially “First Weeks” and “Polly.” I remember I had this very gothic ending for “Polly” that I had tracked at the house. I just stacked Kristen’s cello over and over again. It was a bit morose and intense in feeling. I sent it to Minna and she took elements from that and fired back this version to me and it was just completely romantic. It was sad and romantic and beautiful. We tracked with Jamie Riotto who is basically a tape wizard. Aside from creating this supportive environment where I could record and discuss and deconstruct these extremely personal songs, Jamie is just extraordinarily talented at what he does. And it was a very foreign experience for me. I’m used to tracking everything at my house and micromanaging everything down to the last detail. You can’t do that with tape. If you don’t like it, you throw it out and do it over. I couldn’t save anything to my desktop and fix it later.
The band has a distinct visual style in its artwork and videos. How do you go about finding collaborators, and what is the process like in working with artists in other media? Is the visual element something you’re aware of as you are developing music, or does it come later?
The process of finding video collaborators comes much later, after the writing and the recording is done. Honestly, I prefer to allow filmmakers to interpret the song on their own and present a concept to me first. I mean, I can tell you when it’s presented what I like and what I don’t like, but with the video collaborations, for instance, I want whoever I’m working with to have an honest reaction to my work. I think that’s been the case so far, and I’ve been fortunate to work with incredibly talented people who have generously lent themselves to collaboration. The album artwork is a little bit of a different story. I very much sought out these artists because I had a reaction to their work and they were gracious enough to let me use it for the record covers.
How does living and working in Boston affect your creative process? Do you feel like part of a community there? What’s going on in Boston that you are excited about these days?
There’s a wealth of creativity here. There are also a lot of communities making and exchanging art. I think the difficulty is trying to tap into those resources.
Do you have a non-musical creative outlet?
I don’t have a non-musical creative outlet. I’ve tried my hand at some other mediums. I’m not very skilled at painting or drawing. I have a hard time with geometry and spatial relations. But I’ve never just sat down and tried to make something either, so maybe if I could stop trying to control it, I could have fun with it.
What art or artists inspire you?
I really enjoy film and literature. I think a lot of my songs are inspired by these sources when they’re not influenced by my own experiences. I just picked up this wonderful book by Fuji Sakuko called “Grandfather’s Envelopes.” The book is basically photographs of paper envelopes that her grandfather had made while she was growing up. She found them saved years later, took photographs of them, and then compiled them in this book. Many of the envelopes are designed like patchwork. Most paper was so thin it looked like it would get torn, so he backed it up with other paper to make it thicker. When you start to see each envelope by itself spread over the page you can really feel its strength. You can see so many different expressions in his work.
How does Gem Club work? Can you tell me about the songwriting and arranging process?
I write the songs, most from start to finish, by myself, and then work with Kristen and Ieva on completing their parts or arrangements. Ieva has an outstanding sense of harmony, so mostly I just sit in the room with her while she sings and we pick out parts that we like and work on those. “Idea for Strings,” from “Roses,” was really one of the first songwriting collaborations. Ieva had emailed me a file literally titled “Idea for strings” where she had layered her voice multiple times over and said, “Just imagine that my vocals here are actually played by strings and we can replace the voices with Kristen’s cello or a quartet or something.” And I wrote her back saying that was a good idea, but I’d rather leave her vocals in where they are. They were so dramatic and full. So, from there, I started to write the lyrics around some of her chords. We were having a difficult time deciding how it should finish, though. I remember we were a few days away from going to Tiny. I told her that if this song was going to make the record it would need an ending, so please just go home and write anything. She went home and the next morning I got an email and she was like, “This is my idea, but I’m not really sure it’s going to work, and I opened it and played it and it was just perfect. I couldn’t imagine ending the song any other way.
What would your dream collaboration be?
I have many, many dream collaborations. I think some of them are more realistic than others. Hmmm. I’d love to collaborate or even be in the same recording environment as: Gas, Julianna Barwick, Chelsea Wolfe, Low, Olafur Arnalds, Agnes Obel, Rachel Grimes, Stars of the Lid, Tindersticks — this is basically just turning into a list of artists I love.
What are you looking forward to this summer, and what’s next for Gem Club? Can we expect new music soon?
I’m working on new material. More soon.
Gem Club and Lower Dens p