The North Atlantic - Wires In The Walls

The indie band The North Atlantic, comprised of brothers Jason Hendrix on lead vocals and guitar) and drummer Cullen Hendrix, along with their friend Jason Richards on bass, came together while the three were attending Kalamazoo College in Michigan in the late 1990s.  After Cullen's graduation, all three members relocated to San Diego, California to make a go at the music

industry.  Their debut album, the mostly-unheard Buried Under Tundra, was released there on Applep Records in mid-2001.  But the disc did get them a little bit of notice in certain quarters.

The band kept playing and touring in the Southern California area for the next couple of years, recording their sophomore album, Wires In The Walls, during this period and pressing a few hundred copies to sell at their shows.  The group went on hiatus shortly thereafter to allow Jason to go back to school to complete his degree, before reconvening in late 2005.

The North Atlantic's sound has been described as "math rock", an indie variation of '70s progressive rock championed by bands such as King Crimson and minimalist composers from that period like Steve Reich.  One definition I found of it described math rock as being "characterized by complex, atypical rhythmic structures (including irregular stopping and starting), counterpoint, odd time signatures (such as 7/8, 11/8 or 13/8), angular melodies, and extended, often  dissonant chords."  To me, this just sounds like the approach practically every other indie/punk band at the time, like Fugazi, Slint, Black Flag and Broken Social Scene, was taking.  Thus, I never have really "gotten" math rock...  It always seemed to me like the term was unnecessary, and slicing up the alternative/indie music genres/subgenres just a little too thin.

In any event, The North Atlantic had its (very) brief moment in the sun in the mid-2000s.  Shortly after Jason's college graduation and return to the band, The Syndicate, a West Coast radio promotion company, decided to expand into artist management and marketing, and picked up the then-three-year-old album for rerelease on their new label.  Wires In The Walls started getting moderate airplay on independent/alternative stations across the country.

I was living in Massachusetts at the time, and my local go-to station began playing the lead single, "Scientist Girl", fairly often.  Other than the sound and instrumentation featured in the song, what really grabbed me was that the band had the nerve/balls to not only name-check The Clash, but also lift one of their lyrics from the Clash song "Straight To Hell":

I was hooked, and based on this one song, I started looking everywhere in the Boston area for this album, without any luck.

This was also during the time when I would regularly travel three hours down the road with my toddler children to New York City some weekends.  I never spent much time in the Big Apple until I was in my mid-twenties, but from then on I always considered it a fun, "happening" place to be, and I vowed that my kids wouldn't have to wait as long as I did to see the city for themselves.  I would place the three of them in the big stroller, and we would roam all over town - visiting the museums, going to the Central Park Zoo and letting them play in the playgrounds there, browsing through the huge old F.A.O. Schwarz and Toys R Us locations, checking out new places to eat... all sorts of stuff.  I'm happy and proud to say that, now that my kids are teenagers, they KNOW New York.  They no longer have any interest in going to the touristy areas - they have their favorite shops and haunts in Soho and the Flatiron District; they know what subway trains to take to get to Harlem or Union Square; they know how to look at the light posts in Central Park and

know exactly what street they're parallel to; and before both locations closed, they regarded the Benash Delicatessen with disdain, considering The Carnegie (where we went so often, many of the staff knew their names) directly across the street the best deli in Midtown.  So I guess I did that part with them all right.

It was during one of our NYC trips late that summer that I was bound and determined to find that North Atlantic album.  So while we were there, I made a hateful side trip through Times Square (a locale I try very hard to avoid), pushing a loaded stroller through dense

crowds of tourists, in order to visit the old Virgin Megastore right there in the center of the square.  Once inside, I couldn't move around there much with three small children in tow, so I flagged down an employee and told him what I was looking for.  The guy disappeared for a few minutes, then came back with the CD I wanted.  I was in and out of there in less than five minutes!

I was happy to finally own the album... but again, I only bought it for one song.  So I can't say that this disc has been in heavy rotation in my house for the past decade and a half.  But listening to "Scientist Girl" again just recently, I still get the same sort of buzz I got when I first heard it, all those years ago.

And here it is for you all to get buzzed on as well:  Wires In The Walls, the second (and apparently last) release by The North Atlantic, originally released by the band on May 23rd, 2003, and rereleased by We Put Out Records on July 11th, 2006.  Have a listen, and as always, let me know what you think.

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