[0] If there's a drawback to the ongoing deluge of musical riches in this microlabel networked post-whatever age, it would have to be the sheer difficulty of keeping up with all the wondrous and varied sounds emerging from all corners of the geo-musical spectrum. It's just too damn easy for quality to fall through the cracks, especially if it's not aligned with a currently "hip" label or scene (and yes, scene-herd thinking is as alive and well on the undergrounds as anywhere else). Take, for instance, Norman, OK's Anvil Salute, whose stellar second CDR release New Crusaders of the 11^th Commandment sat in a pile beside my stereo for nearly five months before I finally got around to hearing it - at which point it immediately shouldered its way into a spot on my best-of-2006 [0] favorites list - and it's still a hypnotic collection of art-rustic instrumental drone that seems to have pricked up nearly every set of ears its met. Lee Jackson had already given the thumbs-up to their previous CDR [0], A Discreet History of Bone, back in February of '06, so we were well primed, but even so it took that long to percolate to our full conscious awareness.

A bit of digging made it clear that we weren't alone in missing out on Anvil Salute, and we quickly concluded this was a group that deserved to be much better known beyond its local environs. We got in touch to try and help address that situation on various fronts, starting with this interview, and to be followed soon by a new CDR release on the DW label (which we won't rave about here if only to minimize the appearance of using the publication to flack our own product [questionable journalistic ethics? Sure, we got those...], though it is just great).

Currently the group numbers seven (or so), centered around Gabe Wingfield, who plays guitar, bells, bowls, chord organ, lap steel, shruti box, bulbul tarang, and some vocalizing (not to mention designing the distinctive graphics on their first two CDR releases; and also running the Maritime Fist Glee Club label [more on which below]).

Gabe: Officially the history is that Anvil Salute started in mid-2001 as a solo project of mine. I played a few shows of mostly improvised guitar noise and fractured folk meanderings. I decided that I couldn't make what I heard without other people playing. So I stopped playing out for a while. Then about two years later I set up a show in April 2003. I needed someone to play with. Todd Fagin & I knew each other from a local pirate radio station, and the two of us had jammed a bit. So I asked him to play with me. That's when I think Anvil Salute actually started.

Is there any significance to the group's name?

Gabe: I needed something to put on the flyer for the first solo show. I thought using my own name was a bit pretentious... I came across the term when reading an old travelogue. Some town in Arkansas apparently used to perform an anvil salute for the 4th of July. See, the town blacksmith would haul out his anvils to the town square, place one on top of the other, fill the hollow sockets with gunpowder (or blasting powder). He would light the fuse; the gunpowder would explode launching the topmost anvil into the air up to 30 feet or so. A huge noise and lots of smoke. Sounds like fun.

[0]The group's membership fluctuated over the next several years, before stabilizing at its current size and lineup. The above-mentioned Todd Fagin primarily handles guitar (6 & 12 string, acoustic & electric), but has also added everything from bells to banjo, ukulele to organ. Jesse Butler plays esraj, tambura, some percussion, guitar, some flutes, and bowed flowers. Brad Fielder often plays drums and percussion, but also a whole array of instruments including trumpet and upright bass; he's also the group's recordist. Kelly Stevens plays bells, bongos, balaphon, concert bells, chimes, wood blocks and assorted drums. Kasra "George" Ahmadi focuses on saxophone and melodica, but also fills in on varied instruments as needed. And Rebecca Loftiss adds bowed guitar, bells, toys, and vocalizing. George and Rebecca play a little less regularly, but are still part of the core group, and most of the members are involved in other music projects as well (see the AS myspace page [1] for links to those, and more info on the group).

As the list of instrumentation above suggests, Anvil Salute takes an expansive musical approach that embraces a range of sonic possibilities, incorporating everything from folk to free jazz to drone-rock to ethnic sounds, with the folk and free elements often predominating. In some ways, this puts them in the same sonic territory as groups like Tower Recordings, or OK neighbors the North Sea, though group members mention inspirations ranging from free jazz artists like Jemeel Moondoc and Hamid Drake, to drone-rock icons like the Velvet Underground, to American primitives like Moondog and Harry Partch, to avant-garde minimalists like Steve Reich and Morton Feldman, to traditional musicians such as Bukka White and Dock Boggs (not to mention Heidegger, Chuang Tzu, Robert Anton Wilson, and Woody Allen). All of these elements and more are distilled by the group into their own wide open spaces of sound, which draw on organizational strategies spanning a continuum from the composed to the freely improvised.

Gabe: There isn't really a typical way a "song" comes about. It could start with an idea brought in by someone, or it could be a group jam that falls into place. Once we have the kernel, we all sort of come up with our own parts, try different things, and let the pieces evolve naturally. Some parts are more formalized than others, but there is always room for improvisation. When we start a piece with a more formalized idea, that is to say, when we try out a piece that already has a bit of melody, a chord progression and more a passing sense of direction, it is usually because Todd brought it in to practice. He tends to work out & up ideas for the group to finish up or flesh out, and he has a lot of ideas. I don't think he ever stops playing the guitar.

Todd: From my perspective, I sit around my house, write bits and pieces of "songs" and sometimes entire songs. However, once I bring them to the band, everyone will add their own parts as they see fit. As a result of this, the songs take on a completely different aesthetic than they originally had when I was coming up with them.

Kelly: I just try to listen to what everyone is playing and add to it - play what I hear as I hear it. Sometimes the music is quiet and simple. Sometimes it swells and freaks out.

Brad: Group expansion on a singular idea - we usually seem to improvise until we reach what might feel harmonious or "right" and then script it from that point.

Jesse: The songs exist in a state of perpetual transformation, being molded and altered through subsequent performances. The palette of sounds, rhythms, and textures involved in any given Anvil Salute song shift over time, due to a variety of factors. Beneath the flux of change, though, there is an underlying consistency to most Anvil Salute songs.

Anvil Salute plays live fairly regularly around Norman, which gives them plenty of chances to try out new approaches in a focused setting.

Gabe: When we play out, the set is usually thought out in advance. That is, we have a general game plan with definite tunes, and those tunes have specific tones, moods, overall shapes, etc. Then, I don't know, maybe 70% goes according to plan. I think we've played together enough that we are comfortable with that. That is to say, we have a feel for what each one of us might do and we trust each other enough to come back to the song.

[1]Live recordings (including those on the Discreet History of Bone CDR on Foxglove [2], and a self-titled cassette on Nerd Party [3]) show a group unafraid to stretch things out, taking chances and following paths where they may lead, but always with a larger sense of development in relation to the underlying piece (something that's not always the case with this kind of music). I asked the group whether they felt any kinship with all the "acid folk" hanging around these days.

Brad: We use musical instruments that exist in the realms of Psychedelic and Folk music - and the acoustic stringed instruments are usually amplified leading us further in the direction to be grouped into certain genres. I would say compositionally, we're more of a 21st century chamber orchestra.

Jesse: Structurally speaking, I'd say our approach to music is actually more akin to free jazz than folk. Folk is also an apt label in the sense that we often use "folky" and acoustic types of instrumentation, including a variety of traditional folk instruments from around the world, though we don't generally use traditional folk song structures. I think that "psychedelic folk" is a fitting label for some aspects of Anvil Salute: we certainly have both psychedelic and folky elements in our music. I'd say that much of our music is psychedelic in the sense that it can alter one's experience.

That experience-altering quality is intentional, and an outgrowth of the group's attitude toward playing music.

Brad: Anvil Salute is trance and ritual music, be it for a formal preparation or a spontaneous psychotic episode.

Jesse: The point is that we actively use sound to create new experiential environments in which the listener (and I include ourselves in this category) can get lost for a while. I think that this is quite conscious in the sense that the members are actively and mindfully involved in the creation of these experiential environments, but there has never really been a time when we have explicitly conceptualized this as our purpose or goal. It happens spontaneously and naturally, or so it seems to me anyway.

Todd: When I am playing, I usually like to listen to this metamorphosis. For instance, at a recent show, Brad's drum playing on a particular song evolved in a manner different from what he had been doing in practice and past performances. I became so transfixed on what he was doing, I think I probably stopped paying attention to my own playing. Stuff like that happens a lot, at least the part of digging what others are doing. I tend to zone out on the sounds, and when things are going really well, I typically have a big shit-eating grin on my face.

Gabe: Occasionally, after we finish playing, I feel like I just woke up from being hypnotized and had a good cry while I was under... you know, the way you feel like you have slept for days, where you're completely spent, a little on edge, but everything around you is calm, almost peaceful and innocent... a rebirth or an awakening. Does that make any sense?

Of course, losing oneself in the transformative properties of music has a rich history in various traditions of mysticism -- Sufi dervishes, vodun drumming, many others. The members of Anvil Salute, while aware of these, aren't necessarily driven by any particular philosophy.

[3]Jesse: Anvil Salute isn't spiritual in the sense that we all subscribe to a particular religious orientation or belief system that we infuse with our music. I, for one, do not consider myself to be spiritual and do not give much credence to supernatural accounts of reality. However, there is a sense in which our music could be understood as spiritual, in that it can be used to evoke an immediate "spirited" awareness of the present moment that transforms the perception of the participant and / or listener. I may only be speaking for myself here, but that is how I understand and approach music in general, as a perceptual tool that can alter one's immediate experience of reality in such a way that the mundane everyday-ness that our minds tend to get stuck in can be transformed into something else.

Brad: We don't try to put in anything subliminal or have a conscious higher purpose for the music - or I'll speak for myself and say that I don't - it exists as an autonomous entity that breathes and grows as it sees fit.

Gabe: The language used to describe my inner state when playing takes on a pseudo-spiritual vibe. When things are clicking, it seems like something else is in control. Well, maybe not in control, but directing things a little. I guess the best way to describe it is a loss of self.... given over to the moment, open to everything around me, taking in the sounds, the space, the smells, everything. It's as much an abnegation of ego as it is an ecstatic celebration of existence. Other times it simply feels good to make music that I like with people I love. Other times it's just shit. I don't think this really explains it any better.

Is the local cultural environment supportive of what you guys do?

Brad: Norman's a fun, easygoing place. Being a college town it supports a wide range of musical and artistic happenings.

Jesse: Norman is OK, but there isn't exactly a thriving market for our music here. We do get some support and encouragement from various folks, but more would be nice.

Gabe: It's a college town much like any other. Inasmuch as what we do is far outside of the mainstream, I'd say we've had more success than we could reasonably expect here. That is not to say the "scene" here is so closed-minded or anything. It's just that we live in an area that loves a well-crafted song. Of course, all of our friends are quite supportive, and we've been lucky enough to find more than a few places willing let us play. All in all, we seem to be most appreciated by other musicians and the art crowd.

What about the Maritime Fist Glee Club label? That's pretty much Gabe's thing, right?

Gabe: I started the label in 2001 mainly to release music by friends here in Oklahoma. I wanted to keep it loose and open. That is, I wanted it reflect my own musical interests. So it covers a lot of territory from lo-fi pop-rock to glitchy minimalism to space rock to folkier sorts of things. I released a CDR by Gown, our token international offering after I met him while he was touring with Christina Carter. That one has almost completely sold out here, but most everything else is still in print. I hope that more of these bands get picked up on. A few of them have broken up since their release, but I think that the albums are still worth checking out. Over the years, Maritime Fist Glee Club has become less and less active. I guess it's been taking a bit of a backseat to the band as that is where most of my energy has been going. There are a couple of non-Anvil Salute items on the horizon... like the Greebies (a throwback to early/mid-80s college rock performed by a couple of guys from Washington state and a friend of ours here in Norman). It was recorded and mixed by Allan Vest of the Starlight Mints.

So what's coming up on the horizon for Anvil Salute? More releases I hope?

[3]Gabe: Actually, we are in the process of finishing up a couple of new full- lengths. All the Animals of the Forest will be out on LoFi Shit, Brad Fielder's label, in the next month or so. Four of those songs are currently on our MySpace page. We're piecing together another one for Deep Water; it's a little more straight rock than anything else we've done. We're also working on something for House of Alchemy. I'm not sure what that'll be just yet.

We're working on a few concepts, including a disc based on the past few sets we've been playing lately. It's sort of an homage to 60s free jazz. You know, skronking sax with insane drums and a lot of droning raga underlying it all. It's a lot of fun to play and get lost in. We're also in the process of working up a set/record's worth of Iranian folk songs. Kasra, our saxophonist, grew up with all of those songs, and he's wanted to work them up for who knows how long. The idea is to have 2-3 instruments doing the melodies, a bass, and the rest being percussion. For that we'll be enlisting a friend of ours, Michael Lee, to play some stellar bass. He's on a couple of Maritime Fist releases (>3 and Moment Trio). We talk about doing a book on tape type of thing with children's stories and Anvil Salute background music. We're full of ideas. Now if only we had more time.

Other than that a couple of us in the band are expecting children in October. So with additions to the families and such, I expect we'll be bringing in some new blood into the band in the next couple of years. Or maybe we'll become stage parents and form the Anvil Salute Children's Choir.