Sound and Story

Organic! is more than just a band name: it’s a creative approach, a process of letting music unfold. The title The Undoing was inspired by a discussion with yoga teacher Beth Donnelly, Guitarist John Cabán’s wife. She suggested that practicing Yoga was not about doing things to our bodies, but about undoing the tension that inadvertently creeps into our systems in the course of everyday life. Releasing stress and letting go of effort allows the physical being to resume its natural balance. To Organic! this undoing parallels their approach to creating music. When a band-member first hears something in his head, he plays his idea. The others listen until they are inspired, then they join in. Each musical idea inspires the next creating a collage of sound and texture. Organic! believes that their music is most essential when it happens organically.

Through this approach, The Undoing was born.

In creating the songs on The Undoing, Organic! played classic vintage instruments, amplifiers and effects. The band members generated every sound on this record which was recorded at Bennett’s home studio, Benny’s Wash n’ Dry. Organic! used several different approaches to record the songs on this CD: some were played live, others were edited and assembled from much longer live jams. Following are some insights about the instruments and techniques that make listening to The Undoing a rich sonic journey.

The Hammond organ is the centerpiece of Bennett Paster’s studio keyboard setup. The organ tracks were played on a 1953 Hammond C2. For most of the album, Bennett played the C2 through a Baldwin/Leslie rotating speaker cabinet containing one 12” speaker. The Leslie was powered by a ’66 Blackface Fender Bassman head. For certain songs Bennett amplified the C2 in other ways: on “Surf Rock” he chose a ’69 Fender Silverface Vibrolux guitar amplifier to imitate the campy sound of a Farfisa combo organ. On the bridge of “End of the Road,” the organ is routed through an Echoplex, which John manipulated in real-time as they recorded the track.

The sound of the Hammond organ is controlled by a series of nine harmonic drawbars. Each drawbar adjusts the relative volume of an overtone in the harmonic series. The resulting myriad drawbar combinations approximate the timbres of various reed, wind and string instruments. To Bennett, the real fun in playing the Hammond is in manipulating the drawbars while he plays so that the sound evolves in real-time. This aesthetic is his core sonic approach to the instrument. For some examples of this technique, listen to the bridge of “End of the Road” or note how the organ color breathes on “Tall Cool Glass of Betty.”

In a typical organ trio, the organist plays the bass, using either his left hand on the lower manual or his feet on the organ pedals. Bennett played left hand bass on every track on The Undoing, except “Surf Rock” which features Andy Hess on electric bass. Several songs feature organ-bass including “Shaking the Hen House” and “Sofrito,” but most feature bass-lines played on a synthesizer. Bennett used two keyboards for his synth-bass parts: the classic Minimoog as heard on “End of the Road” and the Nord Lead 2 as on “The Getaway” and “Skankness Monster” (among others). Both synths were recorded direct-to-disk, but the Nord Lead 2 was often re-amped through the Fender Bassman and a 1x15” cabinet to fatten-up the sound.

John’s main guitars for the recording were a 1982 ’57 Fender Stratocaster reissue, a ‘64 Danelectro Silvertone, a ’73 Guild F12 acoustic and his trusty 1956 Gibson Les Paul Special. He used many vintage Fender tube amplifiers including a ’67 Vibrolux Reverb, a ’66 Bassman head and a ’66 Princeton. In contrast, on “Squakzilla” he used a Roland JC-77 solid-state amplifier to create the fuzzy, feedback-drenched distorted sound on the bridge.

John used a combination of vintage and modern effects pedals to modify the sound of his guitars. He played through a Maestro Echoplex EP-3 to create the ambient melody on “Shakin’ the Henhouse.” The guitar loops on “The Getaway” were created with a Digitech 2-second sampling digital delay. John looped random guitar noise and manipulated its pitch and tone using the echo speed control. He also uses assorted boutique pedals made by Menatone, SIB and a Roy Goode custom wah-wah.

Saxophonist Chris Cheek also used an arsenal of effects pedals. He created barnyard noises on “Skakin’ the Henhouse” by playing his tenor through an ‘80s Ibanez phaser. He pinned the regeneration knob and manipulated the depth and speed controls to create squawking sounds. Chris made the textural pads on this track by playing long tones through his harmonizer. The melody on “Squakzilla” was performed using a wah-wah pedal through a digital delay.

The first song that Organic! recorded was “End of the Road.” Their group approach to composition reveals how improvisational ideas crystallize into songs. John and Bennett met with Danish drummer Anders Hentze with no preconceived compositions. During the recording session Anders suggested trying a 5/4 groove that he had created. As they played, John came up with an arpeggiated guitar riff and a melody. Bennett added the bass-line and the contrasting bridges. They jammed on the sections repeatedly until they settled into a song and form. After several attempts, they recorded one complete take. Next, Anders overdubbed additional percussion and John added acoustic guitar. As they mixed the song, John and Bennett felt that something was missing. After some experimentation, Bennett added the Zawinul-inspired synthesizer solo on the outro. Listening to the playback, they knew that the song was complete.
Two songs on The Undoing are built on loops created from “prepared piano” samples. For “Squakzilla,”

Bennett played a one-bar samba-like rhythmic pattern by striking keys on his 1933 Steinway B grand piano with his right hand while muting strings inside the piano with his left hand. The resulting sound is more like a drum than a piano. The song starts with the isolated loop and the rest of the track grows from it.

“The Bold and the Beautiful” also begins with a loop created from similar prepared-piano samples. Instead of a one-bar performance, like “Squakzilla,” this four-bar loop was assembled from individual samples. He created a variety of percussive sounds by playing the piano in unorthodox ways. The bass drum sound is actually Bennett’s hand hitting the low strings inside the piano; the other sounds are different keys striking muted strings. Bennett affected the samples using a variety of software plug-ins and then sequenced them into a new beat.

Both songs were initially comprised of only these percussive loops. Drummer Tony Mason then came into the studio and played along with each one. Bennett and John edited his grooves together later to create song forms. Only then did they add instrumental parts. Although there are similarities in their construction, the results are stylistically quite different.

“Sofrito” was created as an ode to the cooking of John’s Auntie Ligia. Sofrito is a traditional Puerto Rican seasoning of fresh garlic and herbs that she prepares to add to beans, soups and stews. Featuring drummer Courtney Williams, the song started as a 10-minute improvisation that was edited to less than 5 minutes. The track had a simple, live quality to it that yearned for percussion, so Gilad added his sweet conga playing next. Though the track had an amazing groove and vibe, it lacked melodic cohesiveness. To remedy this, Bennett reinforced the simple melodic organ idea from the beginning of the song with Minimoog. While he played the melody, John manipulated a vintage Ibanez AD-9 analog delay, creating saucy echo trails. They added the melody again later in the song to unify the composition.

With more than a year of work on The Undoing behind them, John and Bennett were looking for an appropriate closing track. Listening to the diversity of the songs, they realized that it was their collaboration that unified the album. They decided to compose a final song that would feature just the two of them playing acoustic instruments. The title-track, “The Undoing” features John on 12-string acoustic guitar and Bennett on acoustic piano. Set behind an introduction of crashing surf recorded on Martha’s Vineyard, waves of strummed piano strings and guitar harmonics evolve into a tonal drone. Out of this drone, a melody grows and a rhythm pulses. The development of this composition reveals the foundations of their collaboration- two old friends exploring a universe of sound and sharing it with the world. The music blossoms and expands as piano and guitar trade melody and accompaniment. As the final chord fades back into the primal sound of the ocean, the music awaits discovery by the next listener.