13 Questions with The Corrupting Sea
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| The Corrupting Sea |
My parents live in the country. The road to their house intersects a large electrical utility right-of-way that spans a miles-wide valley. When passing under it, above the noise of the wind and wheels, cicadas and mowers, is a crackling hum. It's static tide, suspended hundreds of feet in the air, slices through the landscape like roughly sheared sheet metal through a Bob Ross canvas.
Jason Lamoreaux, recording and performing as The Corrupting Sea, provides eerily appropriate soundtracks for these scenarios. His compositions leave one questioning whether the signals being processed are incoming and being deciphered by the ear and brain, or are being created within the mind. You can find The Corrupting Sea, and other similar artists, on Jason's self-run label Somewherecold Records.
Stop. Listen. Try not to breathe so heavily.....13 Questions with The Corrupting Sea
1. What's the story with your name/ your band name?
JL: I’m a scholar that studies the religions and cultures of the ancient Mediterranean. One of my favorite books about ancient Mediterranean cultures is called The Corrupting Sea by Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell. It’s a huge tome of a book and it’s an impressive piece of work. Anyway, I was looking for a name for my project and was scanning my bookshelves for titles to see if something stuck out and that’s where I got the name.
A single came out on a compilation in Australia but, otherwise, the tracks are all but missing...
2. How long have you been together in the current configuration?
JL: I think I made my first track as The Corrupting Sea sometime around 2007. I produced a whole album, which is mostly lost now. A single came out on a compilation in Australia but, otherwise, the tracks are all but missing minus a few I have found through friends I shared them with. I then stopped producing music really as I finished up my PhD and had very little time for anything else. Well, after some rather unsettling events in my life, I turned back to music as a sort of therapy. This was around 2016 or so. I actually recorded Symphony of a Radical around this time, which became the third album I released, and I haven’t stopped since.
3. If your band was an egg laid by an animal, which egg laying animal laid you?
JL: Definitely an Octopus. A regular resident of the Mediterranean and a creature that can change its colors at any time, I think it really is a great representative of The Corrupting Sea.
4. What are your top 5 bands, ever?
JL: Well, every single time I get asked this question, I think it changes some but here are my current choices. Most of these are part of a group of artists that have probably either influenced me musically or have gotten me through a lot of rough times in my life.
Brian Eno: When I was in high school, I remember sitting at my parent’s upright piano in our house when no one was home. I would hold down the sustain pedal and just play notes as loud as I could. I would close my eyes and sit there and create these very simple and, what I thought at the time, insane sound pieces that I thought were nothing. It must have been around 1989 or so. I’d never heard Eno or Roach or any ambient artists and had no idea this was something people did. I can’t remember when it actually happened, maybe it was around 1999/2000, but the first time I heardallo Brian Eno’s Music for Airports, I thought I found myself. I was in a band in college. It was a proper alternative rock band, and every second in it was agonizing for me as a bass player. I could never put my finger on it because I loved music so much and wanted to play it. Eno showed me why. Structure really bothered me and scraped against my musical intuitions. I guess it’s why I’m drawn to bands like shoegaze bands that allow guitars to sparkle and swirl and go out of seeming control because I “feel” that, if that makes any sense.
When I was in high school, I remember sitting at my parent’s upright piano in our house when no one was home. I would hold down the sustain pedal and just play notes as loud as I could.
Slowdive: Speaking of shoegaze, I think Slowdive must be the most important shoegaze band to me. The first time I heard them was again late. I heard them in the early 2000’s and it changed the way I understood guitars, musical structure, and what it meant to create a beautiful song. While I love so many shoegaze bands, Slowdive really holds a special place in my musical heart.
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| The Corrupting Sea - Ghosts |
The Cure: As a child of the 80’s and a creative (a realization I wouldn’t come to until my later years), The Cure were a part of my formative listening years. I remember picking up Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me on tape for the first time and just being captivated with it from start to finish. The sort of ability of Smith and crew to move from abstract, dark, and brooding to perfectly crafted pop songs was just incredible to me. I remember sitting in the car with my mom, unwrapping the tape, and listening to the opener, “The Kiss”, and Smith singing “Fucking”. I thought my mom was gonna pull the tape and take it away but I don’t think she heard it and that’s history.
Moving corporate control out of the way, at least to some extent, is freeing and, in my genre, a must.
Yellow6: I probably own more Yellow6 albums, singles, vinyl, etc than any other artist in my collection. As an inspiration for my guitar work, no other artist has influenced me more than Jon
Attwood. His looping style and careful, beautifully crafted pieces just amaze me every time I hear them and this year, I got to do a split with him. A dream come true even though I see him as a good friend at this point in my life. It’s nice when your heroes turn out not to be dicks.
ON: I always get a preface statement on that one.
5. Would you rather be a working musician in the era of social media and over sharing, or a working musician in the era of wooden computers?
JL: I suppose a working musician in the era of social media simply because, which there is a crowd of people out there taking up space and competing for attention, one can break through that crowd in a way the record companies would never allow back in the day. Moving corporate control out of the way, at least to some extent, is freeing and, in my genre, a must. How many ambient artists do you really think someone at Sony records would take a chance on? I mean, it’s just that simple for me.
6. What are your biggest musical influence(s) and why?
JL: These change on a regular basis depending on what I’m listening to at the time. In the mix is a giant dollop of shoegaze bands, believe it or not. The pedals I run my synth through, and my guitar are all influenced by shoegaze type sounds and boards. So, bands like Slowdive, Airiel, The Beremy Jets, Neiv, Astobrite, and Highspire come to mind. Then there are artists like Flying Saucer Attack, Sun O)))), Landing, Windy and Carl, Brian Eno, Anders Brørby, Forest Management, Akkad the Orphic Priest, Yellow6, Stars of the Lid, Celer, and so many others sit in the background of my music. I don’t know. I’m not one of those artists that listens to a ton of other genres and then I’m like, oh but I play this other genre and I don’t know why. I really do soak in the genre I record in and then take some shoegaze and dreampop influences into the fold.
7. Your fans: brooding nodders or 'bow throwing maniacs?
JL: I’m going to be honest. I have no idea what this means.
ON: So... you've never been to a Miracle Drug show?
8. Stage rig rundown?
JL: It really depends. Lately, it’s been running an Akai Professional MPK 249 controller running through Ableton software. So I play soft synths on the Akai and then manipulate tracks as I compose on the fly through Ableton. I do have a set up where I bring my guitar and a pedalboard. I play a Mexican Strat through a number of pedals including a RAT, Strymon Big Sky, EHX Cathedral, TC Electronics Flashback X4, TC Electronics Ditto X4, Mr. Black Gold Eterna, and a Dwarftcraft Treeverb. I do have a Big Muff I sometimes use as well. Depends on what sound I’m after on the distortion/boost end. I sometimes bring my Korg Minilogue and run it through the same pedalboard. All of this is run DI through an interface from the computer.
ON: Mi Strat tambien es Mexicana. HSS.
9. Is your zen spot the studio or the stage?
JL: Definitely the studio. I go into a sort of stream of consciousness state when I record. Find a sound that really resonates with me or get a drone going and then I’m off and running. Sometimes I come out with a whole track and I’m not even sure how I got from one end to the other. It’s a weird process but it works for me.
10. Would you rather fight a grizzly bear sized hamster, or 100 hamster sized grizzly bears?
JL: 1 grizzly bear sized hamster. Sounds like a quicker death.
ON: Giant hamster seems to be the trend, and no one has been optimistic about garnering a win against it.
11. Tour van stops for gas. You go inside and buy 1 beverage, 1 snack, and 1 random thing. What are they?
JL: Some sort of sweet tea, bag of various nuts, and any Star Wars item I can find.
12. Would your 15 year old self like your music?
JL: I think my 15 year old self might have been taken with it. Like I said in my story about Eno, I think I would thank myself profusely for showing me that I could do this. I would have begged my parents for a 4 track recorder and then I would have just droned my ass off for years. So wish I would have known.
13. Favorite Louisville band that you are NOT in?
JL: I’ve lived here for a year this month. So, to be honest, I don’t know the scene like I should yet. Plus, bands are not my thing. Being in bands makes me nervous and, as I said above, structure really goes against every creative vibe in my body.
5. Would you rather be a working musician in the era of social media and over sharing, or a working musician in the era of wooden computers?
JL: I suppose a working musician in the era of social media simply because, which there is a crowd of people out there taking up space and competing for attention, one can break through that crowd in a way the record companies would never allow back in the day. Moving corporate control out of the way, at least to some extent, is freeing and, in my genre, a must. How many ambient artists do you really think someone at Sony records would take a chance on? I mean, it’s just that simple for me.
6. What are your biggest musical influence(s) and why?
JL: These change on a regular basis depending on what I’m listening to at the time. In the mix is a giant dollop of shoegaze bands, believe it or not. The pedals I run my synth through, and my guitar are all influenced by shoegaze type sounds and boards. So, bands like Slowdive, Airiel, The Beremy Jets, Neiv, Astobrite, and Highspire come to mind. Then there are artists like Flying Saucer Attack, Sun O)))), Landing, Windy and Carl, Brian Eno, Anders Brørby, Forest Management, Akkad the Orphic Priest, Yellow6, Stars of the Lid, Celer, and so many others sit in the background of my music. I don’t know. I’m not one of those artists that listens to a ton of other genres and then I’m like, oh but I play this other genre and I don’t know why. I really do soak in the genre I record in and then take some shoegaze and dreampop influences into the fold.
7. Your fans: brooding nodders or 'bow throwing maniacs?
JL: I’m going to be honest. I have no idea what this means.
ON: So... you've never been to a Miracle Drug show?
8. Stage rig rundown?
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| The Corrupting Sea - Lies Told to Me in My Youth |
ON: Mi Strat tambien es Mexicana. HSS.
9. Is your zen spot the studio or the stage?
JL: Definitely the studio. I go into a sort of stream of consciousness state when I record. Find a sound that really resonates with me or get a drone going and then I’m off and running. Sometimes I come out with a whole track and I’m not even sure how I got from one end to the other. It’s a weird process but it works for me.
10. Would you rather fight a grizzly bear sized hamster, or 100 hamster sized grizzly bears?
JL: 1 grizzly bear sized hamster. Sounds like a quicker death.
ON: Giant hamster seems to be the trend, and no one has been optimistic about garnering a win against it.
11. Tour van stops for gas. You go inside and buy 1 beverage, 1 snack, and 1 random thing. What are they?
JL: Some sort of sweet tea, bag of various nuts, and any Star Wars item I can find.
12. Would your 15 year old self like your music?
JL: I think my 15 year old self might have been taken with it. Like I said in my story about Eno, I think I would thank myself profusely for showing me that I could do this. I would have begged my parents for a 4 track recorder and then I would have just droned my ass off for years. So wish I would have known.
13. Favorite Louisville band that you are NOT in?
JL: I’ve lived here for a year this month. So, to be honest, I don’t know the scene like I should yet. Plus, bands are not my thing. Being in bands makes me nervous and, as I said above, structure really goes against every creative vibe in my body.
FIN