Local band Russenorsk shines with unique beauty
By Jen Kessler, Entertainment Staff Writer
November 2, 2007 | noon
To linguists and scholars, the word “russenorsk” denotes a faction of a world language that has gone extinct. To Athens, Ohio, however, Russenorsk is a vibrant pulse in the local music scene, a talented band that is very much alive.
Speakeasy had the opportunity to sit down with vocalist and guitarist Tim Race and cellist Jack Martin to peel back a few layers and get acquainted with the talented hearts that beat at the core of Russenorsk.
Editor's Note: To read an unabridged transcription of Speakeasy's in-depth interview with Russenorsk, click here.
The name Russenorsk itself, as unique and attention snatching as the music it fronts, was the first matter of discussion. Pronounced ‘Roos-eh-norsk’ (“Or ‘Russ-eh-norsk’, we don’t really mind,” Race said), “Russenorsk” is a little-known dead language used during the 18th and 19th centuries.
“I was in a linguistics class fall quarter of last year, and it’s a language in between Russian and Norwegian that sailors used to communicate about fishing and sailing and trading, things like that,” Martin explains. “It’s now extinct, no longer a language.”
Race, Martin and newest addition to the band Zach Inscho (percussion), all three sophomores at Ohio University, have innervated the long dead word. The band took root and blossomed last year in Washington Hall on East Green, where Race and Martin both lived as freshmen.
“I heard Jack playing an acoustic bass. He was playing slap bass in the Washington lobby…and I was just like, ‘what is that noise going on!?’” Race said about the birth of Russenorsk. “So I went down to investigate, and he was playing with some other guys, and I was like ‘Do you guys mind if I sit in?’ So we played some guitar…but I ended up talking to Jack about how long he’d been playing bass because I thought it was really sweet, what he was doing. And he was like ‘Well, not that long, but I also play cello,’ and I was like ‘Oh really!’ There was one song [of mine] in particular that I envisioned cello on, which ended up on our record, and after we found out that that song worked with cello, we were like, “Well, why not continue it?” and it ended up being a standard thing. I’m such a fan of stringed instruments, but I didn’t want to have a full quartet kind of thing going on, and I’d never really heard of a band that had a cello as its main instrument, so we thought maybe we could do something interesting with that.”
The band’s first album In A Great Wave Of Horns, produced by Nathan Zangmeister and recorded at Epoch Studio in the spring of 2007, is a positively striking combustion of dynamic originality and authentic beauty. Mesmeric, melodic guitar intertwines with masterful cello strains that glide from dainty to haunting with immaculate ease, creating a flawless backdrop for Race’s permeating vocals. Race’s voice, beautiful and earnest, drips with a trembling, pervasive honesty that is absolutely captivating.
The album is an impeccable fusion of hefty talents. Race and Martin play off each other effortlessly, and it is this undeniable chemistry that lies smoldering deeply in the heart of Russenorsk.
“I like to say [the album] was heavily a collaboration,” Race explained. “Some of them, I’d come to Jack with rude ideas of a song, maybe even just a chord progression or something, but the song didn’t really matter to me until I heard what the cello would sound like against it. Once we’d hear that, it just kind of sparked.”
“There were numerous songs where Tim would just start, like, he didn’t even know the chord progression, he’d just give me a key,” Martin said with a laugh. “Or sometimes not even that. We’ve been writing recently, and he’ll have a few notes down, and real quickly those notes can change. It really changes so much between the time we start writing and end writing.”
“I guess the best way to describe it would be that our writing is ephemeral,” Race said. “It’s right there, and the thing is, sometimes the best writing that we do just goes away, and we forget it."
“But it’s definitely a collaborative thing, you know, because why have more than one person in the band if not everyone is writing songs?”
Russenorsk has gleaned quite a respectable reputation in Athens, playing show after show and sharing the stage with fellow local artists such as Zephuros and Adam Torres, as well as touring acts such as The Gunshy.
“It’s actually kind of an honor to be part of the Athens music scene because it’s so diverse and so unique, and it seems like every show I go to that features local bands, I walk out just blown away by,” Race said. “It started with Adam Torres, and since then I’ve just heard so many bands that I’ve fallen in love with. It’s been going really well. I don’t think we could ask for a better town to play in, really.”
Russenorsk is set to take the stage again Friday, Nov. 2, at Donkey Coffee and Espresso, alongside Zephuros. The show begins at 9 p.m.
---
To watch Russenorsk’s music video for "Science Tells Me," created and produced by Cherry Tree Productions, click here.
To purchase In a Great Wave of Horns, click here.