Earlimart: riddled with writer's block and rattled by a sudden death, this experimental rock band went soul-searching and turned up a shimmering new album

"It's definitely a document of a period in time," says Earlimart singer Aaron Espinoza of his group's latest record, Treble & Tremble (Palm Pictures). And given the backdrop against which it was made, that period wasn't a particularly happy one for the Fresno, California, quintet. Last October, as the band was winding down a year-and-a-half-long tour, they received word that singer-songwriter Elliott Smith, a close friend of the band, had died, apparently by his own hand. "It was a crushing blow," says Espinoza, who became fast friends with Smith four years ago, after meeting him at an Earlimart show in Smith's hometown of Portland, Oregon. To complicate matters, Earlimart was slated to record a new album upon returning home, and Espinoza, the group's chief songwriter, had little in the way of new songs. "To have an assignment like that was daunting," he says. "I wasn't in the best head space."

But as Espinoza set to work with the group's bassist, Ariana Murray, and Grandaddy guitarist Jim Fairchild, who produced the record with the band at the Ship, Earlimart's studio outside Los Angeles, his creative floodgates opened wide. "It was a real collaborative process," says Espinoza, who formed the first incarnation of Earlimart with his then roommates in Los Angeles six years ago. "The three of us sat down and really banged out the album together. It was the kind of thing where the songs just started pouring out."

While Smith's death heavily informs the tone of Treble & Tremble, his musical imprint is clear on the record as well. Forgoing the thrash-punk aesthetic of Earlimart's previous work, and building upon the string- and piano-driven arrangements of last year's Everyone Down Here, the elegiac balladry of songs like "Hold On Slow Down," "The Hidden Track," and "It's Okay to Think About Ending" not only recalls Smith's songwriting, but also rings with a similar emotional clarity. "This record is for Elliott," says Espinoza. "He was such an influence on me personally--just so smart, so one of a kind. The album isn't an ode to him so much as something more triumphant: Every track is the kind of song that runs over the credits at the end of a movie--it's a little somber, a little emotional, and ultimately, sort of hopeful. I think Elliott would have like it."

Stephen Mooallem is Interview's senior editor.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning