7,000 miles separate Chattanooga from Seoul, South Korea. But that didn't stop Carl Cadwell from joining forces with long-time collaborator Ryan Dixon to produce songs for his latest project, Summer Dregs. In fact, much of the group's "delicious, dark, semi-sweet electro-pop" was conceived as it traveled cyberspace between musicians scattered across the globe, from London to New York to Seattle to Rhode Island. The result is From Gold to Green, and a whole lot of miles—not to mention history—are behind the album's success.
According to Cadwell, Summer Dregs was born just as another of his musical endeavors ended. He describes the group's origins on their Facebook Page:
In 2007 Infradig—my previous band—was done.
Within a couple weeks of our last show I began working on tracks with no other desire than to fulfill my need to create. As I began to get lost in a noisy cloud of beats and melodies, I asked some friends to help me shape these masses into songs.... What we shaped, with the help of CreateHere’s MakeWork grant, is an album called From Gold to Green.
A Personality-Driven Collaboration
The band's MySpace page describes the group this way: "Summer Dregs is the result of Carl Cadwell collaborating with musicians of greater talent to make better music than any of us could alone." Cadwell further explains that Summer Dregs was an exercise in bringing together the musicians that inspired him during his time as keyboardist for the popular electro-funk-groove-hop band, Infradig. He was drawn to the album's diverse lineup of musicians because of how their personalities played out in their songs and performances. And for the past two years, he has used Summer Dregs as an opportunity to let those personalities shape his ideas, his songs, and his album.
When Stephen Nichols first contributed vocals and instrumentation to one of Cadwell's partial songs in 2007, things gelled immediately. So Cadwell started crafting song structures for specific musicians. He sent collaborators half-songs and asked them to write lyrics and contribute instrumental parts.
Cadwell called in Ryan Dixon and John Totten, who had previously performed together as The Quiet Ones, a power pop outfit that experienced a successful stint in Chattanooga before Dixon moved to Seoul and the rest of the band relocated to Seattle. Summer Dregs also combines stylistically dissimilar musicians like Jairus's frontman Chris Ammons and The Distribution's percussionist-extraordinaire Joshua Caleb Green. The two are masterfully paired on the album's third track, "To Convince Whom." The album's title track features the folksy songwriter Robert Heiskell's rustic musings against a backdrop of intergalactic ambiance and hypersonic rhythms.
Cadwell maintains that the album is deceptively simple. At the root of each song is one basic concept, as evidenced in "From Gold to Green," where Heiskell's acoustic guitar cuts through layers of synthesizers and glitch rhythms to close the song.
Each musician recorded their own vocals and instrumentation from their own homes. Ideas traveled back and forth across cyberspace as songs took shape, eventually forming themselves. Cadwell assembled song-parts, axed some ideas, and salvaged plenty more. The process gave each musician time, space and creative freedom. As a result, the songs became about the musicians' personalities, just as Cadwell hoped.
The Maturing Artist
The album's title is influenced by Frost's poem, "Nothing Gold Can Stay," and "signifies a maturing into contentment. It is a movement towards a focus on the subtle joy and struggles in where we are everyday now." Cadwell explains that he's come to realize that "there's nothing wrong with that contentment."
For Cadwell, this album is not so much a coming of age; rather it is an homage to the influences and process of "maturing into contentment." And though he's busy writing songs for The Distribution, another Summer Dregs project may stem from the success of From Gold to Green.
Surprisingly Cohesive, Remarkably Accessible
A (f/Stephen Nichols) by SummerDregs
Bones (f/Ryan Dixon) by SummerDregs
Cadwell is doing more than learning contentment. He's producing really good music, and Summer Dregs highlights his growth into a musical architect. The album unveils not only his reach into electro-pop; he's artfully crafted an album that places a variety of personalities against the backdrop of his own glitch-influenced back beats, kick-back keyboard chops, synthetic ambiance and distinct piano licks. For those whose musical experiences cross paths with the many collaborators of Summer Dregs, From Gold to Green is a surprisingly cohesive and complete record. And for those who simply like to support and consume good music, the album delivers a remarkably accessible collection of songs worth more than the asking price.
This intriguing mix of styles is on display in two notable tracks:
- "Bones" — The album's opening track is led by Dixon's vocal lines rising and falling against atmospheric ambiance before they are picked up and driven forward by rich electric keyboard chops, shifty back-beats and swirling keyboard lines. The song concludes with dense layers of texture, glitch-spirited rhythms and signature Cadwell piano licks.
- "To Convince Whom" — Chris Ammons delivers his Jairus-oriented less-is-more trademark appeal to the backdrop of an eery synth melody, Josh Green's auxiliary genius and an echoing voice-over by Cadwell's mother.
From Gold to Green Release Party
To celebrate the album's release, Summer Dregs is performing live at CreateHere on Saturday night.
What: Live performances by Charles Allison, Reeve Hunter and Summer Dregs
Where: CreateHere, 55 East Main Street, Chattanooga, TN
When: Saturday, November 7 from 8:00 p.m. 10:00 p.m.
Admission: $7, includes a copy of From Gold to Green
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