Local musician Doug McCombs is probably best known as part of Tortoise, the genre-shifting instrumental outfit that unleashes complex compositions on stages packed with drum sets, synthesizers and vibraphones. You've likely also heard his rich bass lines in the music of Chicago-based groups like Eleventh Day Dream, the Sea and Cake and Pullman. But McCombs' most personal project is Brokeback, a constantly-evolving exploration of his own musical tastes achieved in collaboration with a rotating cast of local musicians.
Brokeback's latest record, Illinois River Valley Blues, is a suite of songs inspired by the titular waterway, around which McCombs has spent the majority of his life. The cinematic instrumental rock arrangements ebb and flow with the interplay of McCombs and James Elkington's (Tweedy) guitar melodies, buoyed by the rhythms of drummer Areif Sless-Kitain (the Eternals) and bassist Pete Croke (Exit Verse). Ahead of the Brokeback's album release show at Constellation, McCombs spoke with us about imbuing his music with a sense of place and channeling the emotional weight of Ennio Morricone's Western soundtracks.
What inspired you to write an album about the Illinois River?
To a certain degree it’s a reaction. There’s a term that floats around called "desert rock"—it’s funny because the cover of the last Brokeback album [Brokeback and the Black Rock] used a photograph I’d taken of a desert scene. I kept hearing about the "desert rock" that Brokeback plays—it would be mentioned quite often in different reviews and interviews. I started to wonder where they got this term from and I figure it’s partially my fault for having that photograph on the cover. But I wasn’t really sure what they were identifying in our music. I’m really interested in Ennio Moriconne, and a lot of people call that Spaghetti Western music, but they’re talking about three soundtracks that he made out of 500. Most of his soundtracks don’t sound like that twangy guitar music. Most of the music that I write for Brokeback has a sense of place or something that’s connected to it, at least in my mind.
So, you decided to ground your music in the place you call home.
I started wondering if I should be taking greater steps to identify this music with the place that I come from. A lot of my past experience growing up around here connected to the music that I play and I started taking that more seriously and started attaching specific ideas of place to specific songs. The record we just made is very connected to this part of the country, though it’s hard to explain why or how because there aren’t any lyrics.
Are there any other places that you’ve felt inspired to write music about?
I’m always inspired by different places I travel to and some of those influences come up regardless of what I write about. I really love Japan, Spain, Italy and Turkey. This past year one of my favorite places was New Zealand. Those locations are all tied up somewhere [in my music], usually not in a way you could nail down. I just tried to zero in on this idea of where I’m from on this record.
Was the album also influenced by the music you listened to growing up along the Illinois River?
There are a few musicians that are always an inspiration to me and they appear in almost everything I work on. Some of them are really obvious, like Television, Ennio Morricone and Neil Young. Some of the others are not so obvious—Coltrane, Roy Orbison and Ry Cooder. I feel like they all have something in common emotionally that I get out of their music. I know a lot of their music inside and out but I’ve never studied the harmonic structure of it—it just makes me feel a certain way and it’s an emotion that I’m trying to capture.
Did the history of the region and the river have any influence on the album?
A lot of it was based on memory and knowing about the river towns between Chicago and Peoria. Over the years I’ve read a lot of John McPhee and one of the big sections of his book [Uncommon Carriers] is about driving barges down the Illinois River. I think I read that after most of the album was completed but it was interesting to have that insight about the river.
Is there anything special planned for your record release show at Constellation?
We’re going to play the record in sequential order and we’ll have Azita Youssefi playing organ. She’s a really great musician and we knew she could play all the organ lines without a zillion rehearsals.
Brokeback celebrates its album release at Constellation with Mind Over Mirrors on Friday, March 3 at 8:30pm.
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