A quarter century later, Seattle noise-rock stalwarts Kinski are still grinding it out with a vengeance. For their first release in seven years, guitarist Chris Martin, bassist Lucy Atkinson and drummer Barrett Wilke have scaled back to their power-trio essence. Produced by Tim Green (Nation Of Ulysses) at his Louder Studios in Grass Valley, Calif., Stumbledown Terrace (Comedy Minus One) convincingly conveys the artful fury of Kinski’s live shows. As they ramped up for a string of West Coast tour dates, the band members walked us through its seven tracks.
—Hobart Rowland
1) “Do You Like Long Hair?”
Martin: “Lucy really wanted to open the record with this extended, psychy jam. She said something about standing on top of a mountain, listening to a rough mix and how it blew her mind. The title came from an interview that the website Brainwashed set up for us. They had the band Landing, who are old pals, conduct the interview. The first question was, ‘Do you like long hair?’ We couldn’t stop laughing—and that was basically the end of the interview.”
Atkinson: “On a clear night, drive up to the top of a mountain in late spring. Find a deserted spot to park so you can see the night sky in all directions. Get out, and open all the doors wide. Blast this song from the car speakers. You will see it all.”
Wilke: “I was thinking of this as an album closer, and it became the opener.”
2) “Gang Of 3”
Martin: “Matthew (Reid-Schwartz), our guitar player for 20 years, quit right at the end of COVID. It took us a while to figure out how to play as a trio again. We essentially started from scratch and wanted to build an entirely new body of work. We certainly weren’t going to stop playing—so we were now a gang of three.”
Atkinson: “When I’d only been playing bass for about a year, a friend of the band told me good players don’t look at their fingers when they play. He was talking about me. Looking at the audience freaks me out, so where else should I look? I don’t see that friend of the band much anymore. This is a groovy number. You can dance to it—not that there’s much dancing at rock shows. Maybe they’re all looking at our fingers blazing as we play.”
Wilke: “We were all interested in experimenting with the vibraphone in the studio. I practiced this one at home on a cheap set of bells a friend loaned me. I was thinking of something more elaborate, but with a tone like that, less is definitely more.”
4) “Stumbledown Terrace”
Martin: “There was a weird garden that came with the top of a house my girlfriend Karri and I were renting. We moved in right as the lockdown kicked in. The house had an amazing view of Puget Sound, so we thought, ‘We’ll just sit up here and watch the world burn.’” The terrace was where we hung out with friends for about a year. People would come over, and we’d sit in the dark—surrounded by hedges, with a string of patio lights and a bluetooth speaker—and get not-so-quietly bombed. It was very surreal. To get down to the terrace, you had to walk these crooked, loose steps and take a sharp left turn at the bottom. The feng shui really threw you off. Hence, ‘Stumbledown Terrace.’ The lyrics are about the importance of your friends in weird times.”
Atkinson: “When we were writing this song, the right groove or vibe was hard for me to figure out. At one point, we’d lost our cool rehearsal space to a giant corporate real-estate deal. When we were writing for this record, we were rehearsing at a bar in Seattle that rents out tiny cubicles with buzzing amps and drums that were always breaking. One time, they double-booked us and let us play on a stage where they usually host metal shows. I finally understood how to play this song when we played it on a big stage in a big room on big amps. Big amps rule.”
4) “Experimental Hugs”
Martin: “Kind of a fun throwaway but fun. This was inspired by that clip of Dr. Feelgood’s ‘She Does It Right’ on YouTube. I don’t know that band at all, but that video is so exciting and they all seem wired out of their minds.”
Atkinson: “I insist that all Kinski records have this kind of driving, fast song. I love playing them.”
Wilke: “In the control room at Louder Studios, Tim has an awesome velvet painting of a power trio of grizzled ’70s Southern rockers jamming hard—I think it’s the Charlie Daniels Band. Lucy took a picture of it and mocked up a quick album cover with Kinski in pink. I’m pretty sure she was kidding, but I actually wanted to use for real. Anyway, the band looks to me like they could be playing ‘Experimental Hugs.’”
5) “Staircase Wit”
Martin: “This has become my favorite song on the record to play. The working title was ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live,’ which I wish now we would’ve kept.”
Atkinson: “We recorded the end solo a few times. I was waiting to get tears in my eyes from that solo. I think Chris writes really powerful, emotional riffs. It’s why I’m always hesitant to add lyrics so much. The emotional connection can come from the melodies.”
6) “Slovenian Fighting Jacket”
Martin: “The beginning is similar in spirit to the more expansive things Kinski has done in the past. We don’t end up doing this kind of thing live very much. You have to be in the mood.”
Atkinson: “The intro has lots of pillowy layers of bowed bass—it’s kind of hard to do live. When we were recording this one, I played each of the layers separately and then we mixed them to create the atmospheric pillow. Live, I have to play and sample them, which can be tricky to get that enveloping sound.”
Wilke: “I was really giddy about what Tim was bringing to the table. I think this whole track is sculpted well. We didn’t change the arrangement of how we play it live—he just did a great job of using the studio as an instrument. Love the Bowie-like high synth tones at the end.”
7) “Her Absence Feels Like A Presence”
Martin: “This song is dedicated to a cat that Karri and I had that passed a couple years ago. We still haven’t really gotten over it. Tim plucked a piano’s insides on this track—it adds a really cool vibe. Speaking of vibes, Lucy is bowing the tone bars of a vibraphone on this as well.”
Atkinson: “This one sounds really good on that mountain top, too.”
See Kinski live.
