#jean cook

[sinceileftyoublog]

James Elkington & Nathan Salsburg Interview: Poise, Levity, and Easygoingness

Photo Credit: James Elkington and Nathan Salsburg

BY JORDAN MAINZER

All Gist (Paradise of Bachelors), the third album of guitar duets from exploratory, thoughtful players James Elkington and Nathan Salsburg, sounds like what it is: two longtime friends and collaborators playing together, equal parts casual and focused. Since their 2015 album Ambsace, each has been busy, separately and together. Elkington's released three solo albums, played as part of Eleventh Dream Day, Brokeback, and Jeff Tweedy's live band, and recorded with Steve Gunn, Nap Eyes, and many more. Salsburg's dropped a bevy of albums and has played on records by Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Shirley Collins, and others. Meanwhile, the two have come together on four records by Salsburg's partner Joan Shelley, and Elkington produced Salsburg's Psalms, his 2021 album of arrangements of Hebrew psalms. Their duo records, however, are born of the most natural collaboration, each bringing to the table melodies they think--perhaps know--the other will respond to, combining them, and being open to feedback or changing gears entirely.

All Gist, specifically, carries the distinct quality of the Chicago winter during which it was recorded: You can picture Elkington and Salsburg sitting around the kitchen table, each culling from their vast repertoires and tendencies, creating something to warm their bodies and hearts and perk their heads and ears, unaware of any blusters outside. The songs are reflective of their shared artistic interests and inspirations, and they're rounded out by the presence of musical contemporaries with whom each has fostered relationships over the years. Opener "Death Wishes to Kill", which takes its title from T.F. Powys' Unclay, sports lilting guitar melodies that offer an affable sway, along with Wanees Zarour's violin solo. The minimal "Explanation Point" bounces along a groove that sounds bigger than it is, almost gestalt, as Jean Cook's strings and Anna Jacobson's brass shimmer. Moments of percussion come from other instruments like hand drums ("Long in the Tooth Again"), along with Wednesday Knudsen's woodwinds ("Nicest Distinction"), or as part of the sheer tactility of guitar scrapes and textures. The self-reflexive "Numb Limbs" gets its title from the physical aftereffects of playing a song that took forever to come together; you feel the spritely guitar picking and breakneck tempo in your own fingers.

Of course, All Gist has a few interpolations, namely a gentle, quiet, start-stopping version of Howard Skempton's "Well, Well, Cornelius" and a taut, concise combination of two traditional Breton dance tunes in "Rule Bretagne". Easily, the most unexpected song on the album is a version of Neneh Cherry's classic late 80s jam "Buffalo Stance". Oscillating and slowed down to an expanse, one guitarist plays Cherry's lyrical line, the other the song's instrumental melody, making something both recognizable and nostalgic as well as emblematic of the duo's adventurous nature. That combination, indeed, is the gist of Elkington and Salsburg.

Earlier this month, both guitarists answered some questions over email about All Gist, their creative process, covering songs, and their sometimes-overlapping, oft-diverging taste in art. Read their responses below, edited for clarity.

Photo Credit: Joan Shelley

Since I Left You: Why was it time again to make an album together? James Elkington: We’d been talking about it since we made the last one, but the truth is that we’ve both just been too busy. I started making solo records again after the last one, plus I got to produce one for Nathan, and we both help out with Joan Shelley’s records, so it never felt like we weren’t working together anyway. We were just working on projects in a different way. I think that Nathan and I both think there’s something about the duo’s music that is different from the other things we do, so we were keen to get back to it at some point. Fortunately for us, we got an invitation to play at a guitar festival in Chicago, and we used that as an excuse to start working on new material. I should also mention that our wives kept bugging us to do it again.

SILY: How was your collaboration on All Gist unique as compared to your other records together, and how was it similar? JE: We hadn’t played together like this for something like 7 years, so I was interested to see if we could even do it. But our writing together was as quick and easy as it ever was, and in that sense, it was really similar to how we worked before. Nathan has always worked with longer forms than me, but this time, I wanted to follow his lead a bit more in terms of writing longer pieces with less changes and more textures. We weren’t concerned this time with being able to play all of this stuff live, so we left more space for orchestration and overdubs. Nathan Salsburg: We’ve each lived through a world of experiences in the past ten years, musical and otherwise. Now that we’re each squarely into our middle age, I think the poise, levity, and easygoingness that should be attendant on this period of life show up in the music at [the] pitch they didn’t in the past.

SILY: Was there a lot of improvisation in the process of combining the different instrumental motifs you each brought to the recording session? JE: Because we don’t have a great deal of time to work together, we find things go much quicker if we come up with rough musical sketches by ourselves and then present them to the other. Nothing is ever written in stone, and the level of trust is very high. Anything Nathan suggests for one of my ideas is going to improve it. Both of us are more concerned with coming up with something that sounds cohesive and keeping the ball rolling than having any personal agenda for how this thing should be, and we always leave enough space for us to be surprised by what we end up with. I rarely have any idea what Nathan is playing, but I like how it sounds when it’s finished. We did experiment with recording something completely improvised and liked the results, but it sounded like a different record, so we didn’t use it. Maybe that’ll be the next one.

SILY: How or at what point in making each song do you determine whether it needs more musical accompaniment, from other instruments and/or players? JE: That’s a good question, and I’m not sure I have an answer, but the plan seems to be to write a piece that can stand by itself for the two guitars, record that to our satisfaction (which is nearly always the first take we can manage that has all the right parts), then start throwing other instruments at it to see what sticks. Most of that approach is me in my studio adding things and then taking them off again. There are certain pieces where, as were writing them, we can hear that a solo instrument would sound great in a certain part. Wannees Zarour’s solo in "Death Wishes To Kill" was like that. There are songs, like "All Gist Could Be Yours", where for a repeating chord sequence to have the effect we’re going for, its going to need a lot of support from other instruments, and we talked about that as we were writing it.

Cover art by Chris Fallon

SILY: Do you have a backlog of other people's songs you think might be fun or fulfilling to cover or reimagine as a guitar duet? What makes a song fit for a cover from your two artistic voices? JE: Well, I’m a little concerned that there’s a potential novelty aspect to our doing a lot of covers, but maybe it's okay. We certainly didn’t go out of our way to think of any for this record. Nathan suggested "Buffalo Stance" early on just because he loved the song and all the parts. I was resistant at first, just because I thought there wasn’t enough there for us to work with harmonically, but there’s so much good stuff going on with the synths and the bassline in that tune that it became more a process of picking and choosing what aspects of the song we wanted to shine a light on, at what time. Our Smiths cover from the last record is like that, too. It switches from the guitar line to the vocal depending on where we’re at or what seems to be most important, so I suppose we have a system for doing this. I think the only criteria we have for picking a song is whether one of us really really likes it and the other one can get their head around it.

SILY: "Death Wishes To Kill" takes its title from a T.F. Powys novel you both read. Do the two of you tend to recommend books, films, albums, etc. to each other a lot? Do you ever find you're about to recommend the same thing to one another? JE: I was going to write that we don’t have a huge amount of overlap, but I’m remembering going to his house when we hadn’t known each other long and being confronted with what appeared to be a wall of my own books. Its not as if we like exactly the same things, but there are some writers and records that we both like that NO-ONE else I can think of likes, so when Nathan suggests a book, I usually get to it pretty quickly. I think Nathan was reading the Powys novel, Unclay, and sent me a screen shot of one of the passages in the book with the caption "this is for you" underneath. He also sent me a link to an Australian liquor store commercial from the early 90’s because he knew it would make me laugh for a day and a half, and it did. NS: I remember we made common cause over Max Beerbohm not long after we met—Zuleika Dobson, maybe—but yeah, we each have some preoccupations that the other couldn’t give much of a shit about. Like, I can’t say mid-century British horror movies do a whole lot for me. I’m remembering when Jim spent the better part of an hour trying to explain the appeal of U.S. Maple, and I can’t say he succeeded. And Jim couldn’t care less about rural American string-bands of the late 1920s. But when we have an overlap—Unclay, say, or the totally under-appreciated Yorkshire singer-songwriter Jake Thackray, or Alan Partridge—and yes, these overlapping things do tend to all be English—it’s always stuff we’re super, super jazzed about.

SILY: Can you tell me about the cover art for All Gist? NS: The artist’s name is Chris Fallon, an old friend of mine from when I lived in New York City 20+ years ago. He’s a phenomenal painter, and I love his figures, his palette, and the scenes/settings that he dreams up. I asked him to create a portrait of us, and this is what he did. He’s never met Jim and hasn’t seen me in quite a few years, but I feel like he nailed something of Jim’s and my dynamic, equal parts earnest, bizarre, silly.

[alnilaem]

*heavy sigh* ……. Price

[thatmightyheart]

small notes on royhavoc

[syl-stormblessed]

the thing i want most in TSC2 is more of jean saying jeremy’s name and jeremy being gay about it

[just-myhyperfixations]

Instead of being productive let me tell you my niche and completely useless (like me ;)) aftg headcanons

Aaron is dyslexic and it pisses him off even more bc Andrew has eidetic memory

Mary made Neil pretend to be a girl at some point of their runaway life, resulting in Neil having little to no concept of gender

Nathan is from Poland (cmon we all know that last name is not American)

Katelyns (idk if the spelling is correct) family adores Aaron and thinks of him as their own

Riko and Jean hooked up, not bc they liked each other but as a power move from Riko

Jean refuses to speak Japanese after joining the trojans

Allison, Renee and Dan get manicures together every month (Neil tags along often)

Bee made a cringe motivational poster to make Andrew quit smoking, he hated it (started smoking way less)

Andrew and Renee have a knitting/crocheting club together

Jeremy uses a cherry flavoured chapstick

[rtbyg]

more valvert w/ contributions from @lambjurk <33

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

MDZS Disco Elysium AU part 2 - Psyche Skills

Part 1 - Part 3

[11oh1]

[codename-adler]

musing about jeanaaron rn.... what are your thinkings about them tell me anything

an exception from my to-do list for u orpheus and my loves Jeanaaron <3

- the height difference is EXQUISITE. 5ft vs 6ft2 😍😍😍

- backliner duo backliner tension backliner sync backliner soul

- i understand and read Aaron as a very no bullshit guy, but like, that’s it. he’s not mean about it, not cruel, not condescending, not teasing, not fake, not anything. (unless u are Neil Josten) i think that it’s very refreshing and fascinating to Jean? to meet someone who really has no ulterior motives whatsoever, in life and with his person. very trust material in Jean’s eyes methinks. the very just middle between overly sweet positivity and stabbing despair? idk, i just think Aaron shared Andrew’s honesty, but in a more neutral, idgaf way. does that make sense?

- Aaron tends to Jean’s woundssssss like no one ever has before and there is so much less pain!!!

- Jean cracks Aaron open right down the middle where nobody ever bothered to lookkkkk and there is so much more understanding!!!

- i like the Kevaaron vibe of revenge, like: you took my forever partner, i’m stealing your twin! or; you chose that moldy ginger snap, i’m choosing the same brand of bastard but he is TALL! it’s funny to me :)

- the patience they have for one another is infinite; they feel no rush, no pressure, no resentment. they would wait eternities for just one smile from the other, even if that’s all they would ever get.

- the quiet is important. silence without anticipation? a reprieve of the noise inside and outside? freely? i think they’re both silent people, but with one another there’s no forcing words, no expectations, no waiting for the other shoe to drop. the safest place where everything just stops and all is okay.

- CUDDLES. they are both hardcore heavy duty octopi in bed. holding tight tight tight tight no space all warmth. intertwined like bonsai roots.

- they looooooove to judge people together!!! especially their teammates and classmates. but the grocery store and airport are fun places too.

- i think they should learn to play instruments together. it would be very sexy. and angsty.

- i imagine them taking turns cooking, always one manning the kitchen, and the other sitting on the countertop. the kicking-against-the-cupboard-or-island length varies, but not the domesticity and intimacy of it all.

- Jean is the best teacher Aaron has ever had. for studying AND Exy. Jean is the best backliner, yes, but has that je-ne-sais-quoi that just gets through to Aaron, that just gets Aaron

- Aaron is also suchhhh a sucker for validation and making Jean proud is his #1 kink

- i think Catalina is so much like Katelyn (and woah would u look at that, such similar names 👀) that she instantly takes a liking to Aaron too, and Aaron as well right back despite his best efforts, and Jean is so touched that his bestfriend has adopted Aaron like she did with him, like he truly can have everything 🥹

- Jean immensely appreciate that Aaron is among the very very few people who does not shit on Kevin, but doesn’t worship him either.

- for what Neil did for Jean, Aaron truly starts to resent him less and less thanks to Jean offering a less idealistic vision of Neil that Andrew and the Foxes all share, but showing him Neil’s true colors that can also be good despite their violence.

- Jeanaaron on the motorcycle??? tiny beefcake plastered to Jean’s muscly broad back??? HELLO???

- back to the honesty think, i think where Jeanaaron differs from Kevaaron and is instead more similar to Andreil, is that the walls have to be taken down very painstakingly; Kevin and Aaron already know each other and have seen each others worse, there’s no armour to go through; Jean and Aaron don’t know each other at first, but they understand each other like no one, so it’s a game of truth too, one at a time, tearing down those barriers and touching that soft true heart behind; what makes them panic, what makes them scream, what plagues their nights and days, what lures in their past… it’s a whole new process of dealing with your trauma when no one else could ever handle it, much less want to look at it and kiss it better anyway.

also dusting off me old old playlist i had made for them, just for you:

take me home + 100 bandaids are really my jeanaaron anthems

[daddyduncan69]

guys no one bother nora rn she's posting songs again

[a-roguish-gambit]

So my west coast ass just had what's apparently Cajun seafood. Now I wanna see something like Gambit and Rogue teaching the other X men how to crack heir own crab legs and eat mudpuppies and those kinds of things

It made me feel like a zoo animal receiving enrichment but I was way too hungry to want to go through all the effort I was going through to get some food

Welcome to the world of cajun cuisine, mon frer!

Theres so much to love! Jambalaya, poboys, hush puppies, etouffee, banana foster, beignets, gumbo, andouille sausages, bread pudding etc….

You’re in luck! I was working on some art of the mini mutants enjoying some cajun style chocolate delight!

[random-brushstrokes]

Jean Cooke - On the balcony (1942)

[just-myhyperfixations]

Abby saying that her foxes fight always fight back shows just how much character growth Neil has done.

At the start of the foxhole court we establish that he’s a runner, if anything goes wrong he’ll just dip. But he joins the foxes, which is against his nature and everything his mother taught him, he says he’ll leave before the season starts, well maybe before they play the ravens. And then he just doesn’t leave.

HE STAYS

He makes a deal with Andrew, rips into Riko for Kevin, he knows that he should run but he doesn’t. He lets those annoying bastards into his heart. He brings the racket with him, TO FIGHT. He goes to evermore so Andrew is safe and he FIGHTS Riko the whole time there.

When he starts to get the countdown messages he doesn’t leave, he STAYS. He fights Lola after his found family aren’t in danger anymore. He gave up, because it was pointless, but in the end he fights the fbi agents. Because that’s what the foxes taught him.

He went from flight to fight and I think it’s beautiful. He always had that in him but the foxes brought it out. They made him feel safe enough to be the little sh!t he was always supposed to be.

Neil Jolsten, the man you are

[peaceinthestorm]

Jean Cooke (1927- 2008, British) ~ Nicky's House, 1960

[Source: bonhams.com]

[rtbyg]

some whiteboard doodles with the lovely @minacoleta and @lambjurk >:) we’re so funny

[lesbianspeedy]

anyways. thinking always about mia never wearing a skirt or dress again after her first issue.

thinking about her almost always having her hair in a ponytail after her first issue. (and the few times she doesn't, its when shes at home and particularly stressed out. when ollie was lying to her about joanna, after her diagnosis, after red hood. this was all on purpose to ME)

thinking about her fingernails, painted black in her first issue, being painted pink or red every issue after

thinking about her in her crop tops and cargo pants. in pink shirts and jeans. in jackets and sneakers and too-big tees and pyjamas. in the safety of wearing clothes for no one but herself