Pleistocene
When Pleistocene’s founder Eric Gangloff named his band after the geological term for the ice age, he might have been tempting fate. After five years of moving at a pace that could only be described as glacial, the Denver outfit is finally thawing out its debut, ¡Ojalá!. After struggling with the scheduling hassles of his former band, The Vote And The Riot, Gangloff first conceived Pleistocene as a solo project built around loops and samples. But the group slowly snowballed, adding members until it had 11 players at its peak crowding local stages. Now stripped down to a lineup of nine, the ever-mutating Pleistocene mixes banjo, violin, electronic gadgets, and a three-piece brass section into traditional rock instrumentation, with its intricate songs frequently topping the 10-minute mark. Thankfully, ¡Ojalá! isn’t nearly as imposing as it may seem on paper. With the band set to play its CD-release party, Decider spoke with Gangloff about leading his small army into the frontiers of post-rock.
Decider: Surely you recognize the irony that you started a nine-member band to get away from the logistic hassles of a band.
Eric Gangloff: [Laughs.] Yeah, but it’s still kind of cool. If you have a four-piece band and one or two people can’t make practice, it’s really hard to play the tunes. When you have nine people and two people can’t make it, you can still get stuff done. You just catch those people up next time. It ends up working out pretty well. It changes the music, too, as we add different instruments. You become dependent upon them at a certain point.
Eric Gangloff: [Laughs.] Yeah, but it’s still kind of cool. If you have a four-piece band and one or two people can’t make practice, it’s really hard to play the tunes. When you have nine people and two people can’t make it, you can still get stuff done. You just catch those people up next time. It ends up working out pretty well. It changes the music, too, as we add different instruments. You become dependent upon them at a certain point.
D: It’s easy to peg Pleistocene as an avant-garde band. Does that make it seem more daunting than it really is?
EG: I guess “avant-garde” is the default for something that doesn’t fit anywhere else. I don’t know. The long, kind of weird songs just come out the way they come out. We didn’t really set out to make anything particularly weird. We just put these different elements together and see what happens. But we also have that traditional instrumentation, and it has to come back to that—that’s the nature of the way people are taught to play their instruments.
EG: I guess “avant-garde” is the default for something that doesn’t fit anywhere else. I don’t know. The long, kind of weird songs just come out the way they come out. We didn’t really set out to make anything particularly weird. We just put these different elements together and see what happens. But we also have that traditional instrumentation, and it has to come back to that—that’s the nature of the way people are taught to play their instruments.
D: A lot of today’s experimental bands like Liars or Xiu Xiu seem to avoid the way people are taught to play instruments. But you’re still rooted in pop.
EG: There’s something to be said about being reckless with your music, going out there and pushing boundaries. There’s also something to be said about doing what you know and what you like. Pretty much everyone in the band grew up on rock ’n’ roll. You just come back to that.
EG: There’s something to be said about being reckless with your music, going out there and pushing boundaries. There’s also something to be said about doing what you know and what you like. Pretty much everyone in the band grew up on rock ’n’ roll. You just come back to that.
D: Your lyrics seem very rooted in real-life issues, things that sometimes get left behind in experimental music. Is that a way to keep your songs grounded?
EG: I guess you write songs about what’s on your mind. The ones on [¡Ojalá!] are pretty political and personal, but at the same time, I was thinking of this idea of mapmaking and geography. I wrote those tunes so they had a geographical theme, with “Fallujah,” “Xela,” “Once We Launch This Thing,” and “A Cartographer’s Job Is Never Done.”
EG: I guess you write songs about what’s on your mind. The ones on [¡Ojalá!] are pretty political and personal, but at the same time, I was thinking of this idea of mapmaking and geography. I wrote those tunes so they had a geographical theme, with “Fallujah,” “Xela,” “Once We Launch This Thing,” and “A Cartographer’s Job Is Never Done.”
D: “Fallujah” is an antiwar anthem, but it takes the perspective of the Iraqis. Have you caught any grief over that?
EG: You know, my grandmother didn’t say anything about it, so I guess we’re cool. I’ve thought about that, and there are times when you don’t want to automatically alienate people, but it’s also important to sing the song for what it is.
EG: You know, my grandmother didn’t say anything about it, so I guess we’re cool. I’ve thought about that, and there are times when you don’t want to automatically alienate people, but it’s also important to sing the song for what it is.
