Who Are: The Instruments

File Under: Pastoral, psychedelic chamber-pop
For Fans Of: Broadcast, L'Altra, United States of America, every single Elephant 6 band
Personae: Heather McIntosh (vocals, bass, cello, acoustic guitar, dulcimer, keyboards), Derek Almstead (electric guitar), Gideon Crevoshay (vocal harmonies), Pete Erchick (piano), John Fernandes (violin and bass clarinet) Jayson Greene (violin), Emily Growden (vocal harmonies), Eric Harris (trap kit), Will Hart (vocal harmonies and guitar drone), Aaron Jollay (trombone), John Lindaman (prepared and delayed electric guitar), Alasdair MacLean (electric guitar) Jeff Mangum (vocal harmonies), Lupe Nuñez-Fernandez (vocal harmonies), Jeremy Thal (French horn and vocal harmonies)
From: Athens, GA

On her most ambitious and unabashedly gorgeous album yet, cellist and singer-songwriter Heather McIntosh leads a small army into wonderfully woozy territory. Elements of Americana, soundtrack music and psychedelic rock all dissolve into one another on this gorgeous slow-burner. If you're checking this out because Jeff from Neutral Milk Hotel or the dude from the Clientele are on it, that's cool — just know they're not on the album too much; it's hard to hear their input. By the time you realize this, though, you'll already be so in love it won't matter anyway. eMusic tracked McIntosh down to discuss the finer points of pronunciation, and how in the hell she wound up on SNL the other month.

On having one of the hardest names to Google since The The:
I wasn't thinking of it at the time; it was a name that Will Hart came up with, and it just fit. We liked that there were so many kinds of instruments that existed, but I didn't really think about how that would be a problem to search until the first record came out. It is kind of a classic Internet search adventure, us and all those other instruments: Texas ones, scientific ones, musical ones and the like.

On the new album's weird title:
Småland is pronounced kind of like Smawland — the first syllable is accented and dips down a bit if I remember it correctly. It's the name of the forested province where the Emmaboda festival takes place. It's pretty magical: mossy and super green. A lot of the Swedish folk tales come from there. I've been lucky enough to play that festival twice. Once with Elf Power — where I had to play a violin like a tiny cello because my handmade airline encasement was way too huge to carry on a flight — and another time with Great Lakes and the Gerbils. (The second was around the time we crossed paths with Danger Mouse in London.)

On joining Gnarls Barkley's touring band:
Danger Mouse used to live downstairs from me in this old big house in Athens, GA. We have stayed in touch ever since then. He came and saw Great Lakes play when we came through London right when he first got over there. I visited with him for a bit right after the Grey Album blew up and I was considering moving to Los Angeles to give a go at making film music. He came out and saw Elf Power a few times on my last tour with them. Finally, he visited me when I was tour managing the Clientele (doing merch and driving the crew around) and he asked if I wanted to join his band. Needless to say, I was super stoked — hopping around the back of the Knitting Factory like a joyous freak!

On the band itself:
Our New York crew consists of Jeremy Thal on french horn, Gideon Crevoshay on Rhodes, Eleonore Oppenheim who has played with the Philip Glass Ensemble on upright bass and Joe Bergen on vibes. I met these guys through Jeremy who was subletting a room in my house for a time up in Brooklyn.

Jayson Greene plays violin. I met him through another project called the Oratai Ensemble. John Lindaman plays electric guitar. I met him back in 2001 when his band True Love Always opened up for Circulatory System in Charlottesville, VA. They set up in front of the stage and were awesome. He happened to be friends with my New York buddies. Otto Hauser plays drums. He also plays with Vetiver and Espers and all sorts of other folks. He lives down the block from where I lived in Brooklyn for the past two and a half years.

Then there is the crew from Athens, most of which I have been playing music with for the past ten years and I recorded the majority of the new record with. Derek Almstead on electric guitar, Eric Harris on trap kit, Pete Erchick on piano, John Fernandes on bass clarinet and violin, and Aaron Jollay (new to the fold) on trombone. Will Hart did some vocal harmonies and played some guitar drones.

Alasdair MacLean played some electric guitar when he was visiting after my second round as the Clientele tour manager, and Jeff Mangum sang on it when he was passing through Brooklyn.

On the process of songwriting:
I have a pretty good idea about how the songs should sound harmonically and melodically for the recordings (before getting started). Now that I have played the songs with so many different players, I have a lot more fun with the arrangements and I let the charts be more plastic. The vocal lines kind of behave like another instrument in the band. The idea of the song is there from the beginning, but the actual words tend to come last after the music has been pretty fully realized. I am not a real "singer songwriter-ly" song writer. The words in the songs tend to be way more impressionistic.

On what is the perfect song, and why:
"Sea Song" off Rock Bottom by Robert Wyatt — because of Robert Wyatt!