There’s a man outside the college campus up the road holding a sign that reads, “THE EARTH IS NOT SPINNING.” I want to ask him if he has the time, but I continue on my way, thinking about magnets, mobile devices, computers and the like. This doesn’t get me anywhere but home safely, which is just fine in this case. There are times to explore and times to retreat inside, times to go farther out and to dive deeper inward.
Dire Wolves’ Jeffery Alexander (above, second from the left) knows what I’m talking about:
For the last few LPs we focused on the experience of getting out of our heads, taking excursions to cloudland, and so forth. And that is what creating this music is like for me — the group mind of playing without thinking — which is so exciting and often unpredictable. When I listen back to a transportive session, I get really psyched hearing things that I don’t even know we did. It’s extremely satisfying. For this new album, we turned that attention inward - still listening intently but reaching for a heaven within rather than without… you know, the paradisiacal mind. When I think about how that would look visually, I think about the video feedback work of Andy Puls. Like when you close your eyes. Or for me, even when they are open, all the damn time.
“This new album,” The Paradaiscal Mind (Dire Wolves’ tenth or twelfth depending on how you look at it), is out November 9 on digital, cassette and vinyl formats. The Andy Puls directed video for the Zachary Watkins recorded single, “Unfettered and Alive,” premieres below, offering a first look at “Life Behind Your Eyes and in front of Alexander’s.