Hilly Town: The Portland Maine Music Blog

Interview by Kevin Steeves.

MP3 Downloads for this post have expired. Exclusive mp3 stream/download: Distant Correspondent – “Badlands”

If you’ve been following the Brooklyn-based metal fusion band Goes Cube (who have played a few HillyTown Presents shows in Portland) for the past nine years, it might be difficult to believe that vocalist and guitarist David Obuchowski cites The Smith’s 1985 masterpiece Meat Is Murder as one of the most influential records of his youth.

“When I was about 11 years old, I had a wide awakening,” said Obuchowski. “I simultaneously discovered American heavy punk in the form of Mudhoney, as well as the British new wave and shoegaze sounds. I can remember going back and forth between my Superfuzz Bigmuff and Meat Is Murder tapes.”

While that influence might not be so obvious in Goes Cube’s two full-length releases, Another Day Has Passed and In Tides And Drifts, Obuchowski’s newest musical project Distant Correspondent firmly places these post-punk influences front and center with a preference towards the more ambient, shoegaze segment of the genre.

For the better part of the last year, Obuchowski has been hard at work putting together a collection of material for the first Distant Correspondent full-length, and the project has morphed from a collection of solo odds and ends by the Goes Cube frontman to an all-out side project. After splitting time between Maine and New York City for a few years, Obuchowski ultimately decided to move to the mountains of Colorado which is where Distant Correspondent began to take its current collective form.

After being introduced to the Colorado-based multi-instrumentalist Michael Lengel, who shared little musical similarities with Obuchowski aside from a desire to tread new sounds, the duo sent a few tracks to Emily Gray — the vocalist of the John Peel-approved, post-rock group Meanwhile, Back In Communist Russia, who quickly agreed to guest on a few tracks before becoming a full-fledged member of the collective.

“It was kind of like having an incredible dinner party, and having so much fun with your guest,” said Obuchowski. “As they’re about to leave, you call them back and ask them to move in. And rather than speed off, terrified, the guest actually says ‘Great! Which one’s my room?’”

Now after more than a year of work, Distant Correspondent is on the verge of releasing their first full-length of new material. HillyTown recently caught up with Obuchowski and talked to him at length about the development of Distant Correspondent from a solo project to an all-out collective, the difference between Goes Cube and his new project and how it’s been working with one of his favorite musicians. Continue reading Distant Correspondent Interview + mp3