Alpine Decline as "Broken Cyborgs Taking Control of the Plane"
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You can take the band out of Beijing, but you can never take Beijing out of the band. Such is the story of Pauline and Jonathan Zeitlin, the visionary and prolific duo behind Alpine Decline. Over the past decade, the two have drifted across the sonic expanses of Los Angeles and Beijing (and Los Angeles again) in turn, leading listeners on an aural escapade like a couple of cross-continental madcap Pied Pipers.
Now on their tenth record in as many years, theirs is a discography that ebbs and flows between palatial experimentalism, noise/art rock, and defiant indie-pop. Needless to say, when you dig into a new Alpine Decline release, you never quite know what you’re going to get – other than something incredibly solid, of course. Nevertheless, their newest endeavor, For the Betterment of Well People, sees the band melt into a British Invasion classicism, pierced through the soul with the sunny Sunday smiles and lysergic beatitude of 60s psychedelia.
We caught up with Jonathan to talk new processes, finding kindness in the world, and what the next ten years have in store.Pauline and Jonathan Zeitlin, the visionary duo behind Alpine Decline
First and foremost, I believe congratulations are in order as Alpine Decline just wrapped up ten years of being a band, with an equal amount of records in tow! How’s it feel to have a full decade of music-making under your belt?
Thank you Drew – it’s nice to chat with you – 过年快乐 Guònián kuàilè Happy New Year! ”10 great albums in 10 years,” just like Felt famously declared, only without a toss-off like Train Above the City, and we’re not done.
Truth be told, including pre-Alpine Decline bands, Pauline and I have been making music together for 17 years, and separately for many years before that. So it’s decades with an ’s.’ Either rising in the gyre or circling around the drain.
Now let’s talk about the new album, For the Betterment of Well People. It seems to be your (aurally) softest effort to date. What principles drove the writing process this time around?
On our previous albums, we envisioned ourselves as the warm beating human heart at the core of a swirling dispassionate synthetic chaos. That fit the life we were living and our environment and the stories we were telling, and also manifested itself literally in our production: We played our instruments together live and then wrapped ourselves in a cocoon of autodidact synthesizer patches and pumped it all through stacks of tape echoes in varying states of disrepair, letting random rule.
For our new album, we turned this on its head. We built up a very big, warm, endless summer 6-piece California band and then snuck Pauline and I into the cockpit, like broken cyborgs with obsolete hardware taking control of the plane. We were the corrupted files buried in the database and infecting the sunshine system. It was the perfect sonic analogy to how we were feeling at that place and time, back in Los Angeles after so many years away.
After ten years, you’ve certainly covered a lot of ground. What’s the process usually like between getting one record in the bag/out the door, and starting another?
For us, the moment we finish mastering an album and it cannot be changed the process is totally over and a new one begins. Saṃsāra.
It reminds me a little bit of the white room in early virtual reality prototypes. I’m not sure if this is still a thing, but some systems used to start and end every VR experience with a blank room because it was believed it would be too jarring to jump directly in and out of such an immersive environment. Once we finish mastering an album it feels like the whole world we spun up dissolves away and leaves us in the white room.
So our first instinct is to immediately start filling this empty space, but that process begins with talking about ideas and stories and characters – not sounds or musical styles. Only as the environment comes into greater focus and details are colored in does the sound of the album emerge, kind of like a byproduct – whatever feels most natural and evocative of our new bubble universe. So to be totally honest Pauline and I never really talk with each other about genres or that kind of thing when we’re writing or planning the technical recording process.The madcap Pied Pipers...
Alpine Decline always seems to be in conversation with its environment and surroundings. If that’s the case, and if the majority of For the Betterment of Well People was recorded (or even written, don’t know how long these songs have been in the works) during COVID-19 and strict stay-at-home-orders in Los Angeles, then how did that influence the writing and recording process?
We actually wrote and recorded For the Betterment of Well People prior to the pandemic, so there are no direct threads to this experience. But our music has always dealt with trying to create a moral and meaningful existence in harmony with that which is kind and gentle in the world and with detachment and distance from that which is petty and cruel. I think that applies very much to this moment.
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Speaking of Los Angeles: You and Pauline have a pretty unique perspective, bouncing back and forth between Beijing and LA. How has the coronavirus saga unfolded for you?
We were very worried for our friends when the virus first emerged in China – particularly our friends in Wuhan. Seeing China resurface and the wild enthusiasm around live music has really meant a lot to us these past months.
We watched the pandemic blast apart this country with equal parts horror and shame. There are people better suited to speak to the political or social situation here in America, so maybe I can just speak to our personal experience.
We’re quite lucky. Being in our own little bubble is quite natural for us. At home we don’t have TV or radio or anything and we’re not all that good at internetting, so we’ve just been bundled tightly in our records and instruments and books and our small family as always. “Storm clouds are raging all around my door” kinda thing....of Los Angeles and Beijing
Okay, let’s lighten things up a bit… You want to gush and tell us all the things you miss about Beijing? Cause we sure as hell miss you!
Aw! We want to be light here and talk about 煎饼 jiānbing and bomb shelter practice rooms, but truthfully we just miss our friends. Really, it’s so hard to be so far away from people we grew so close to for so long!
Maybe Mars is an amazing label: inspiring people, making and putting out inspiring music. We really got into Lonely Leary and Hiperson’s new albums, the new Run Run Run slab. I loved the “Love of Nightmares” track Birdstriking put out and can’t wait for their next full length, and also that shapeshifting six-minute track Carsick Cars put out with Li Weisi and Li Qing back in the saddle – hot damn! It’s a little older, but Fazi’s album, Heart of Desire helped push me through some particularly bleak sections of desert. It’s ALL good music – I want to listen to everything they put out!
"For the Betterment of Well People" is available now on Maybe Mars Records
And last but not least, what does the next ten years have in store for Alpine Decline?
“When you are climbing a great mountain, never look at the peak. That will overwhelm you and crush your spirit.” We’re very good at discerning the path ten feet in front of us and not much beyond that. We have become masters of inhabiting the moment and letting the future come to us when it’s ready.
For the Betterment of Well People is available to stream on all major platforms, and can be purchased by clicking 'Read more' at the end of this post.
READ: On the Record: Keeping Up With Run Run Run
Images: courtesy of Maybe Mars and Alpine Decline, Shannon Lintner
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