Bittersweet Album Details
"Feelings that I can't explain"
On his heartfelt new album Bittersweet, Victor Krummenacher tells it like it is, like it should be and like it never was. In his third (and so far best) solo album, co-founder of Camper Van Beethoven and Monks of Doom, Victor Krummenacher, takes the stage with his best friends around him and his heart on his sleeve. This labor of loves lost and found finds Krummenacher in fine mettle, with eleven tales of affairs of the heart that range from country-inflected ballads so sweet they’ll linger on your tongue like grandma’s cherry cobbler, to intense folk-rock and pop tunes that frame Krummenacher’s strong songwriting and authoritative singing with an engaging sound that is rich and polished but never precious.
Ably assisting him in creating this fine-tuned sound is Chris Xefos, co-producer and ex-King Missile bassist who manned the control booth during the year-long recording sessions that became Bittersweet. Xefos adds his own passionate voice, lyrical bass and fine guitar and keyboard work to Krummenacherís superb acoustic, electric, baritone and bass guitar stylings expanding the texture and varying the tone with a sympathetic touch borne of their years on the road and in the studio. Folks who like their music a little on the edgy side will find Xefos’ production a thing of subtlety and finesse, cleverly mixing sitars, Optigans and other oddments in and around the obligatory guitar picking and such. Fans of Graham Parsons, Sparklehorse and Richard Thompson and Buckner alike will treasure the mix of tradition and experimentation that defines Bittersweet.
The guest list on Bittersweet reads like a who’s-who of the West Coast’s most interesting musicians: Dave Alvin (The Blasters, X, The Knitters), plays lead guitar on the chiming title track, and Carrie Akre (Goodness/The Rockfords) contributes her powerpop vocals; Carla Bozulich (Geraldine Fibbers/Scarnella) shares a gorgeous, tender waltz duet with Krummenacher on "Maybe A True Love;" Alison Faith Levy (Loud Family), lends her excellent piano and strong vocals to several tracks, most notably "Blind" and the atmospheric pyrotechnics of "Rocket Fuel." Bruce Kaphan (American Music Club) contributes top-notch pedal steel throughout, and also mixed the album. Doug Hilsinger (Waycross, Bomb) lends a hand with guitar and pedal steel, Dave Immerglück (Counting Crows) plays electric sitar, and Steve Perrone (Planet Seven) plays a fine 12-string guitar. LD Beghtol (Flare/The Magnetic Fields) sings back up. And rounding out the hoe-down is long-time collaborator, Jonathan Segel, also an alumni of Camper Van Beethoven, who turns up the heat with his fiddle and harmonium.
Victor Krummenacher on Making "Bittersweet"
"I approached the making of this album very carefully, sat on my hands until I knew I had enough songs. When the song Bittersweet got written, I knew it was about time and that the collection of songs was full and strong.
St. John's Mercy was very concise and very quick. When I did it I knew what order the songs would go in and how I was going to record it, with whom, where etc. With Bittersweet I just started at some point with a couple of demos, Rose I Found and Hands Of The Healer that seemed complete enough to be on the record. I mixed them and they seemed cool, had a good vibe.
They were very small home recordings that seemed kind of big. I was thinking about having a record that sounded pretty big and didn't know how I could afford it. But we'd been recording a lot at the house and when I started to mix the first batch of drums and compared it to Rocket Fuel that we'd already done at a larger studio, Tiny Telephone, then I knew we were happening.
Lyrically I wanted to do the dreaded "love song" album...because I had fallen in love and I also had some good love songs from the "not so happy" days sitting around and these made the piece whole. I wasn't interested in it being too one sided. I really did want to embrace to embrace the whole bittersweet aspect, the whole grass is always greener discontent that I'm prone to feeling. That was the concept behind the album but Bittersweet itself was the last song written and then it sort of congealed last minute and I was able to fit things into it. But it was a good, organic process.
I had recorded a bunch of tracks with A Great Laugh, my touring band from 95-96, after the first album, but they never really came together very well. Four of those songs, Angel Tattoo, Blind, Rocket Fuel and Radio Tower wound up on Bittersweet. The newer versions are far superior.
We recorded the entire record at home, with the exception of Rocket Fuel and a couple of overdubs. We borrowed a little bit of gear but mostly Chris Xefos and I knew what we wanted and how to get it. The album was really, actually not too difficult to record, it was a bit piecemeal, but the results we got were strong.
The drums were recorded in my kitchen or in my living room, depending on the sound we wanted. We worked hard and late, did most of the stuff with Mike Musberger in about two days. It was a good time.
I'd known Dave Alvin since the Blaster days. He was coming to town to do a Knitters gig and I gave him a call and he was gracious and happy to come over to my house to record some guitar. We were supposed to get together on the Sunday but he was too hungover from the show so we did it Monday morning instead. He was a trooper. Recording guitar at 9 in the morning wasn't the easiest thing to do but he did just fine.
Out In The Heat was a really hard record to make, because it was my first solo thing and I only knew how to think as a band and I had a hard time taking responsibilty for things. Saint John's was really rooted in trying to exorcise a particular period of time; using writing as a positive thing. And it was a positive thing, very much about moving forward.
I was, and am a little wary of elements of Out In The Heat because I was so desperate at the time, but there were good things that happened from being spontaneous. And that's what we did with Bittersweet, be spontaneous and edit the results. That, and I had a rule on this album which was that if the part didn't absolutely need to be there we took it off, and we took of a lot of things, edited out small parts. And the strange thing that happened was the recorded ended up sounding bigger and that I think is the way to go.
Out In The Heat had some expensiveness rooted in overdubs and being uptight, Bittersweet has expansiveness rooted in taking parts out and relaxing. It wasn't all at apparent that it was going to be as big sounding as it was when we were doing it, it really just flowed out of me and the musicians the way it did. Y'know this album is really good and it was a really easy record to make....if they're ever easy."
From an interview with Victor for Buckefull of Brains, 2001.