INTERVIEW: Falcon Arrow Releases Patterns In Noise with Local Label Solsta Records on July 8th

Last updated on August 22nd, 2023 at 09:02 pm

Instrumental experimental rock band Falcon Arrow, composed of bassist Matt Reints and drummer Dav Kemps, is hitting another huge milestone since forming in 2007. On July 8th, they release Patterns In Noise, their second on Phil and Hannah Borreson’s Solsta Records. The special evening will be hosted inside Solsta’s St. Louis Park record store with a $10 cover, and fans can pre-order the space green vinyl and ticket together for just $25.

Their newest singles, “Nob & Tooth” and “Mizurians in the Darien Gap,” pick up where they left off with complex layering, looping, and climatic production. Intensely smart and future-forward, Falcon Arrow delivers another collection of tracks that shocks you with the ability to stuff so much sound into your speakers.

We caught up with Falcon Arrow and Phil Borreson inside Solsta Records to discuss their nontraditional label/band partnership, how they replicate their complex music live, and the benefits of vinyl over digital.

Music in Minnesota: I actually want to start with Phil. The role of the record label has obviously changed over the years and in the age of the internet. Share what that all entails with signing Falcon Arrow and how you met these two.

Phil Borreson: Somebody actually referred to it the other day as a Patreon, which I laughed really hard about. Matt came in at our old store the very first day we opened, and he brings Tower in to see if we want to sell his band’s record. There were like 10 people in the store, and at the time, my brain was fried with all the business stuff. So I was like, yeah yeah, I’ll deal with it later.

We put it on, and all of us are kind of around the record player. We’re like, holy shit, this is great. Who are these guys? I called Matt up and told them they should play a show in the store. We did that, and it was a lot of fun. Then a couple of months later, Matt was talking to me about how they were getting ready to start recording Occurrens. He’s like, we just don’t have any money, so we’re just probably gonna do cassettes. I told them to hold on as the record store was doing better than he thought. So we just kept talking for a year and a half. All of us got together at Bull’s Horn and came up with how we wanted to do it, and surely it all came together.

MIM: Your partnership officially went on paper with the 2019 release of Occurrens. As a record store owner that listens to a ton of music, what was it about their music that caught your ear?

PB: That’s a really great question. I think just the intensity of it. It just came out and punched you in the face. When you listen to Tower, you just hear it. A lot of times, I think post-rock bands are more subtle. This wasn’t a subtle album. This was just definitely an in-your-face kind of thing.

MIM: What did that mean for Falcon Arrow back in 2019?

Matt Reints: It was nice having someone else’s invested interest in it. We could ask their opinion and get honest feedback on stuff. The record wouldn’t exist if Phil didn’t help out. Phil was really good with the logistics, dealing with pressing places, and helping it get promoted.

MIM: Let’s talk about the July 8th release of Patterns In Noise. Talk me through the process and creation of this album. 

Dav Kemp: We came back to working with Knol Tate, who we worked with on our first LP, which was not an ideal recording situation, but it turned out all right.

MR: We recorded in his house, and he handled all of the tracking and mixing with a vision he had. It was pretty seamless.

DK: This album because of the pandemic, there were some songs that were not composed in a normal formula. We usually rehearse a set and then work on something new and throw around ideas. I’m always recording and will send Matt a song of the week, and we discuss if it’s good enough to refine. We pick our favorite parts and try to make that into a song.

MIM: Your music has so many layers, and I can imagine performing it with two people can be a hard process with all that gear and needing to trigger stuff.

DK: First, we don’t trigger anything. Everything is performed live. The loops are created live, the drums are all acoustic. Sometimes the songs are so complicated I have to make mental stories to remember all the parts.

MR: Not every single part we can perform live, but certainly the gist of everything. The way the looping pedal works, you have a record one time through and then record the harmony on top. If a mistake happens in that process, then that becomes a necessity, improvising on the spot to fix it.

It’s very process driven. If something goes awry, that can affect something 2, 3, or 4 steps down later in the song. It’s like a ball rolling down the hill, in a way.

MIM: As a vinyl aficionado, share the importance of having this on wax and what it does to the sound.

PB: According to my iTunes, I’ve listened to the album at least 68 times. So when we got the vinyl in, I was very impressed with the sound of it. The vinyl version definitely gives it a big huge fuller sound.

MR: Can I chime in real quick? For the artwork, we commissioned an artist in the UK named Ryan T. Hancock. He painted the whole thing on canvas, which you see on the vinyl release.

Patterns In Noise is now available for streaming, but experiencing the July 8th release inside a record store and taking home the limited edition vinyl is the ultimate participation in supporting local music. Tickets are on sale now.