Remora - Loving and Sincere Drones

Brian John Mitchell is a man of many facets. Lately he's been pursuing his career as a comic book author, but he's probably best known to most as the head of Silber Records, which over the years has produced gems like the albums by Alan “Low” Sparhawk, Mike “Lycia” VanPortfleet, and Lotte Kestner (aka Anna-Lynne Williams of Trespassers William).

But Brian John Mitchell is above all a musician who, with his project Remora, has kept surprising listeners since the '90s.

He started out as a drone-ambient performer, but over time has played folk, dark-wave, synth-pop and industrial. He's even released an EP of a cappella songs (“Songs I Sing”) and an album containing 14 versions of the same song (“My Brother’s Guns & Knives”)!

We got in touch with him to talk about all his different projects, including the Vlor collective (whose ranks boast the likes of Rivulets, Jessica Bailiff, Mike VanPortfleet, Aarktica, Annelies Monsere and many others), and a beautiful album with Andrew Weathers (Mitchell's biological son, given up for adoption at birth; the two reconnected when Weathers, by then an adult, decided to investigate his origins, discovering to his great surprise that his father was, like him, a drone-ambient musician).

Ambient guitars, slowcore rhythms, apocalyptic punk, shoegaze sounds: it's hard to pin a label on Remora. If someone asked you what exactly Remora is, what would you say?

“Post-apocalyptic pop” or “the southern post-rock band that kicks off the party” are a couple of the definitions I use. Normally an explanation of my music doesn't work all that well, since I've drifted pretty far from what's trendy these days, focusing solely on my own stuff. Either way, I think the best bands are always hard to pigeonhole, but I suppose it could be frustrating for people who love my guitar drones and hate my voice to figure out whether they should buy one of my albums or not.

Would you rather be remembered as a musician, a label owner or a comic book author?

I'd rather my work be remembered than my person. Silber will probably die with me and be forgotten, but maybe one of my stories or one of my songs will be lucky enough to reach other generations the same way Leadbelly and Robert E. Howard reached me.

Swans and Low have been huge inspirations for you. I read that Swans taught you to do more with more things, and Low taught you to do more with less: that's a very evocative statement, could you explain it a bit more?

I was a huge Swans fan as a teenager and saw them live a couple of times before they broke up in 1996. Thanks to them I realized that having a bunch of people in a band all doing more or less the same thing makes everything super intense and full of energy. I discovered Low because they were opening for Swans, and I really didn't know what to make of them until I heard “Songs For A Dead Pilot”. There, the music is very rarefied and lets you hear every single detail clearly. So they're kind of two opposite sides of the same coin, and I like to think there are things in my discography that go in both directions.

Which of your albums would you recommend to someone who's never heard you before?

Probably Remora's “Scars Bring Hope”. But I'm also fond of “Mecha” and “The Heart That Kills”. Usually I'm more satisfied with the more recent releases. I also really like the albums released under the Vlor name.

What are Remora's origins? The early '90s cassettes are long out of print; why haven't you put them online, like you did with “Amerse” or “Ambient Drones For One Guitar”?

I dropped out of college and bought a four-track, a Midiverb II, an octave pedal, a 2 second looper, and that was roughly the set up for my first compositions. Before that I had a couple of other projects (the original Vlor, My Glass Beside Yours, and a few other things I don't even remember the names of), and sometimes I think about making that stuff available as a download, but honestly I'd rather work on new material. Sometimes I think about re-recording some of the songs from those tapes for a sort of retro release. I don't know, it's hard to say. Let's just say nobody's ever knocked on my door asking to hear those songs.

In the first half of the 2000s, you embraced folk (“The Alcohol Ep”) and drone-pop (“Enamored”): why did you turn from an ambient composer into a singer-songwriter? Was that transformation difficult?

It's strange, but there isn't always a clear direction in what I do. I almost always start my songs on an acoustic guitar, or an unplugged electric. Songs like “The One I’ve Been Waiting For” or “Nevada Smith” work well as acoustic pieces, as drone music, or as pop-rock. I just feel lucky no matter what comes out of it.

When “Mecha” came out I was a little suspicious… Remora without guitar?! Instead that mix of industrial and synth-pop turned into my favorite album of yours! How did the audience react to “Mecha”?

I really love that record too. When it came out some people thought it was my best work, and I think they were right. But I never toured that album, and a lot of strange things happened around its release. One of the secrets behind that record is that I wrote it the way I did because my guitar had completely broken and I couldn't afford to fix it, so I went without a guitar for months.

I know you wrote your latest record “The Heart That Kills” after losing a grandmother you were very close to, so I expected emotional, passionate, moving music. Instead this album is probably your most minimal, almost non-music… Do those monotonous drones mean you were trying to push all feeling aside?

Mmm… I don't know if it's that deep. I think I was simply eager to drown in sound and become completely numb.

Why did you recently decide to release some things under your own name instead of as Remora?

Well, the album with my son Andrew needed to carry our own names because it's about the two of us. “Four And A Half” didn't feel like a Remora album or a Small Life Form album to me, and it had to come out under somebody's name anyway…

The album with your son Andrew Weathers is truly hypnotic, and the story behind it is wonderful. I imagine you've thought about it a lot… do musical tastes really get passed down in the genes? What did you think when you found out your son was playing the same kind of music as you?

That record… I've thought long and hard about it, because I don't think it's as professional and precise as the stuff I like to put out these days. It was almost a demo for me. Maybe the urge to make music is in the blood. But as for musical taste, I'm not so sure. Right now Andrew's starting to play mostly American folk, and it's funny to think I went through a similar phase when I was his age…

Originally, Vlor were an experimental guitar duo with Russell Halasz. Then, in 2006, you resurrected them as a sort of Silber supergroup. Why did you keep that name?

Actually the original Vlor were an alternative band formed in high school with Russell and a couple of other guys. Then a few years later we turned it into a duo. In 2005 I was reissuing some old Silber releases and I was surprised by how much I still loved the Vlor material. By that time I'd lost touch with Russell, and I decided I'd write some parts in that style and then have other people finish them. It just felt like the new material was the natural continuation of that project.

Will there be more Vlor material in the future? Which musicians do you dream of collaborating with?

I feel like getting to work on the new Vlor. I've been talking about it for years, but I still haven't done anything with the demos I've piled up. I'm really happy with everyone who's been involved, and I'd be glad to play with those same people again. It would be amazing if Russell came back for a track or two. And I keep hoping to get Scotty Irving (Clang Quartet) on drums for a song.

Can you describe your other side-projects Small Life Form, Panthan and Butterfly Corpse in a few words?

Small Life Form is organic ambient soundscapes. Panthan was a soundtrack project I did with Nic Slaton (slicnaton) back in 2008, but it's defunct now. Butterfly Corpse actually changed its name to Unspeakable Forces because someone else had already taken that name, and it's a kind of doom-drone metal band.

Which albums (not on Silber) have you enjoyed most in recent years?

It's been five years now, but I still think "White Chalk" by PJ Harvey is really great. I believe "Drums & Guns" by Low is from around the same time. Unfortunately I don't listen to much new music unless I'm working on something myself in some way. Right now the record I'm listening to most is "1916" by Motorhead.

Do you want to say anything else to your Italian listeners and readers?

I'd love to play some shows over there someday, as long as someone could organize them in a way that at least covers my travel costs!

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