Oregon Music News

Listen to the title tune from Chris Mosley’s album Semi Somnus:

After graduating from Berklee College of Music in Boston, the guitarist/composer spent four years living in Portland before moving back home to Austin, Texas about six weeks ago. Before he left, he recorded Semi Somnus for Portland’s Diatic Records.

He left behind a legacy of fine albums and memorable performances.

The album features Jessyka Luzzi on vocals, Jed Wilson on keys,  Bill Athens on bass, Ken Ollis on drums/percussion and Mosley on  electric, acoustic and fretless guitars.

He has settled in to his hometown and has two major projects going. I spoke with him on the phone last weekend.

What does Semi Somnus mean?

Half-asleep. For some reason, when I was in 7th and 8th grades I took Latin and I loved it. That little phrase has always stuck in my head. I liked the feeling of it. I felt like I was half-asleep when I was writing it.

It does have a dreamy quality to it. But you didn’t really feel like you were half-asleep did you?

I don’t know, man. I started writing the music to that record the winter before last…those Portland winters, man, almost put me under. I kinda go down for the count with those. When the winter comes, I kinda feel half-awake, half-asleep…I don’t know which.

So this is really your Portland record, huh?

Yeah, I would say that. It’s also my goodbye to Portland record. I decided to leave town and to record that record in the same night. I looked at my calendar and found the last gig I had, which was about three months out and I said, OK, I’m gonna call up the people I want, make sure they can all do it…call up Jimmy and see if I can get a release show at Jimmy Mak’s and then make a record. I did it.

Was some of it improvised in the studio?

Most of it was written but the things that were improvised the most were, for example, the tune Passing is one where it’s based around three sections of rhythm guitar parts…melodies built into them. I’m just playing these rhythm parts. I told Jessy, “There’s this basic melody that’s in my chords. You just improvise. Start with a phonetic thing where you almost sound like you’re speaking a language but not a language.”

Nothing was ever written down on that or set in stone, but through playing it a lot, she would come to a way that she would sing it. From one time to the next you would hear things that were similar but at the same time it wasn’t that if she didn’t do something we’d be thrown off. She was improvising a lot on that.

Has anybody snapped it up for a soundtrack yet?

I’m waiting for the call.

It wasn’t just the weather that made you leave Portland, was it?

No, just a general feeling that I needed to refresh myself elsewhere.

You could have gone anywhere, why did you go back home?

Well…it’s South…back to the weather…but I feel a really strong connection to my musical roots coming here…the musical roots of this town. They’re just very intense and very real and very much a part of day-to-day culture and part of the general Austinite, Texan identity.

I found myself drifting more and more towards the kind of whatever it is, bluesy, countryish, folkish thing that has the flavor of being down here. I was, like, if I keep on talking about how I’m from Texas and how I love this music and how I want to play more…I might as well stop talking about it and come back down.

Is that what you’re playing now?

I’m in two projects right now. One is with a really talented singer, Lex Land. She moved from L.A. about three months prior to my arrival here. I met her through Gavin Castleton who is a great Portland-based artist. I joined her band, It’s like pop, folk, jazz-drenched music.

The other thing is I’m starting up a project from the ground called Miracle Waters with one of my old musical idols, the bassist John Jordan who is one of the very first musicians I saw play a lot. He was the bassist for a long time with Chris Duarte, one of the most amazing Texas guitarists.

It’s quite an honor for me to be starting this band with John Jordan, the seven-string bassist, who has a completely wide-open musical mind. The third part is John Bush, who lived in Seattle for a while and played drums in Critters Buggin’. He’s just a tasty guy.

Our idea is just to do American music, however that comes across and however we want to do it. We’re doing a good amount of originals. We’re all songwriters. We’re doing Roy Orbison tunes and we’ve got one medley that we start with a Laura Nyro tune and go into an Ornette Coleman tune. We’re playing folk classics, country classics, soul…whatever we want to do. It’s all over the map in certain ways but it’s centered in that there’s just this through line that’s whatever it is, it is American music. We’re American musicians. It’s a natural feeling for us.

When do you think you’ll be performing or recording?

We’re hoping to do our first tour in late spring. Probably January or February we’d be recording an EP. We’re diving all into it. We’ve been spending a lot of time playing and getting a lot of material and working through it. Just trying to get whatever is going to happen to happen.

Why did you move to Portland in the first place?

To get as far away from Boston as I could.

After Berklee you mean?

Yeah. I was ready to leave and Portland seemed like a good place. I wasn’t ready to come back to Austin at that point. I visited a few times, had some friends there.

Were there musicians here that you knew?

Not musicians, just a couple of friends. That was the fall of 2005. I was in Portland for exactly four years.

Who did you start playing with when you got here?

I dropped in on Darren Littlejohn’s sessions when he was running those. I met David Valdez and he was really nice about getting me connected. He is really hospitable when somebody comes to town. I’ve noticed that with other folks. Also Willie Mathies and Dan Gaynor.

I immediately wanted to put a band together of original stuff and I went and saw Ben Darwish’s Trio at Blue Monk and this was when Ben was still living in Eugene. He had Zach Wallmark on bass and Drew Shoals on drums. I remember walking downstairs and hearing Drew play and I was like, “Yeah! That’s what I’m talking about!”

I went up to him after the show…it was just after a couple of weeks in town and went, “Hey man, I want to play.” He was cool with that and from David Valdez I got Damian Erskine’s number and just cold-called him. And I was like, “I want to play with this drummer Drew Shoals.” He had heard of Drew but hadn’t played with him. Drew said the same thing about Damian. We got a trio thing going.

I was already playing fretless guitar and getting some music together and that was the first record, Miraculous Aspect of Time.

Why fretless?

I was getting into microtonality, what’s going on in tonal systems and organization beyond the twelve-tone. I was getting curious about that and obviously fretless was a way to be able to access all the notes.

One of the biggest things is the kind of vocal stylings that you can do with the fretless. Now when I play it, a lot of what I’m thinking about is emulation Indian vocalists and Sarangi guitar inflections they put around the melody. They can make one specific note of a scale feel a very specific way by surrounding it with subtle inflections.

I spent a lot of time listening to Eastern music and trying to lift what I was hearing and put it on to the fretless.

There’s a myth, or is it a myth, that Portland and Austin have some musical relationship with each other. Is that true?

I think it definitely is true. One of the most glaringly obvious sister-city things is that both towns have “Keep Portland Weird” and “Keep Austin Weird” all over…all over. It’s a big identity thing. There’s a lot of levels to the relationship beyond just musical stuff. It’s very basic cultural mindsets like neo-hippie-green-renaissance-sustainable-living-building thing. That permeates both towns and shapes the overall awareness in both towns.

As for music, other than just a pretty constant traffic of musicians, there’s very similar Indie Rock leanings with different flavors…and similar old-timey-retro-folkie thing that’s happening in Portland…that’s happening here too.

And in the jazz world?

It’s hard to say, I haven’t done the freelance jazz musician, “Hi I’m in town, hire me for your gig,” thing yet. I don’t really see myself doing that too much. I haven’t even been to a jazz jam session yet. I haven’t hardly met any of the jazz musicians yet. I’m sure I will, I’m interested in a slightly different approach to band situations and playing music. I’m enjoying surrounding myself in a community that doesn’t exactly identify as jazz musicians. Right now, that’s just where I’m at. It adds a little more freedom. And I’m doing more songwriting too.

Are we going to see you back in town?

I’m coming back in February to play with Echo Helstrom at the Aladdin on the 13th. Hopefully I’ll be doing some other gigs with folks. I’ll be doing some recording with Jed Wilson and Sam Howard and Ken Ollis and some folks.