Malcolm McRae on more’s story so far & debut eps

more is not easy to find.    

“We’re enigmatic. Mysterious,” offers Malcolm McRae dryly, tongue firmly in cheek as he comically mocks the cliche of the unknowable, unreachable artist. But while the name of the new project from McRae and Kane Ritchotte may presently confuse search engines, its worth the effort. Wildly ambitious and remarkably fine tuned for a band born so recently they performed live just once before quarantine struck, their debut EP, 1/2, finds the Los Angeles based musicians forging a complex, imaginative sound that’s buoyed by a clear as glass production and the willingness to follow the songs where they lead. At the same time, arrangements and their many moving parts seem to know just when to flourish on their own or seamlessly work as one, all while holding onto some larger element of simplicity that drives everything forward. Even their moniker – stylized in all lowercase letters – seems to represent something simultaneously understated and impossibly grand. But as effortless as the songs sometimes feel, 1/2 almost never happened at all.  

When they met through shared acquaintances a few years back, each was pursuing music independently. McRae was in LA after leaving school, a potential career in architecture and his home in Alabama, while Ritchotte was looking for something new after previous stints drumming with Portugal.The Man and Grouplove. In hindsight, it was the perfect time to cross paths.  

“I think for each of us individually, we had a very – I don’t know how to word this,” McRae says, pausing. “We were going for a certain thing that was missing a broader scope, or it was missing the other half of the equation, and we didn’t realize that. I think we each, you know, we were happy doing what we were doing. But once we got together and saw the potential of adding this other half or this other piece, it all clicked and made sense. All of a sudden, it was like, ‘Oh yeah, I had completely been neglecting this side of the musical experience.’ And it was a lot more fun.”    

Most songs began separately with just one of the musicians and their acoustic guitar. “I think neither of us were very experienced writers so we were a little bit embarrassed, maybe,” he says with a laugh. Inspired by The Beatles and their innovative approach to production, they deliberately chose a way to demo that imposed certain restrictions – all in an effort to challenge their own ideas about recording. Specifically pointing to the groups use of an Ampex 4-track tape machine during a famously bootlegged, eventually released pre-studio run through of the White Album at George Harrison’s house, the audio and its limited tracks embody all that can happen when you give yourself the space to think outside the box. “We did demos on our iPhones, which we felt was the equivalent of bands back then limiting themselves – giving themselves certain limitations in order to be more creative within that frame,” he says, explaining how they used an app to achieve that structure. “We had to record everything through the iPhone microphone and we had to mix it within the program as such. So you would have to come up with these creative recording techniques in order to get a certain sound – where you place the iPhone at the other end of the room in order to get the room-y sound or you’d have to set up three amplifiers or whatever the hell we did. I guess that informed how we started out a lot.”     

The day to day creative process that developed was a combination of their own habits, which ultimately spoke to their strengths. Towards the end, it wasn’t unusual for McRae to bring in stripped down songs that were left open to add melodic and instrumental parts in the studio, while Ritchotte would bring in written melodies for instrumental parts with place holder lyrics. “His production ear is so incredible. His sense of arrangement – how he can organize a song, is incredible. And then I feel like I have a strength in writing material, I don’t know if that’s true, but I get in this dynamic,” he says of a project where the total is greater than the sum of its parts. “So it’s really nice because where we initially maybe had a weakness, we compliment each other in that sense.”

Production was further inspired by hip hop, The Beach Boys, Peter Gabriel, The Strokes, David Bowie and Kate Bush, though no artist was perhaps as singular an influence as the esteemed Tony Berg. McRae describes an atmosphere where, much like George Martin and The Beatles, Berg’s role as producer was crucial. “I guess he’s renowned for that in the sense that he’s a guru to a lot of these younger musician types,” he says. “Sort of ushers them into the headspace to be artists and so he was super instrumental in allowing us to understand what it was we wanted to do.” He was also a vital part of the core behind the scenes band comprised of McRae, Ritchotte and engineer Will Maclellan. “He’s like the sickest rhythm guitar player you’ve ever heard, and I didn’t know that, but he’s my favorite guitarist now,” he says of Berg. “He’s an incredible musician on several other instruments, as is Kane.” Excluding appearances by friends like Ethan Gruska and Foxygen’s Jonathan Rado, all of the music was performed solely by the four. “It was a pretty confined little thing,” he remembers. “And it took so fucking long, which was good, because we didn’t know what the hell we wanted to sound like, or have any idea of how we did sound. So it took a while to formulate that.”  

Recording lasted about a year in the studio, with 1/2 and its upcoming follow up, 2/2, originally made with the intention of being one ten song album. When that idea was slashed in favor of smaller collections, they reimagined the sequencing, splitting it into two halves of one whole.

“We knew we wanted these two songs called ‘Settled In’ and ‘Gods In The Details’ on this first EP, and then a song called ‘All American Guts,’ seemed relevant and topical because it’s an ironic song, so we knew we wanted those three on the first thing we released,” he says. “And then it was just a matter of what sounded good.”

1/2 is available now – stay tuned for 2/2

by Caitlin Phillips
12.03.20