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Adam Pierce has always been independently-minded when it comes to his music. Inspired by Ian MacKaye's Dischord Records label and D.I.Y. attitude, a high school Pierce wrote "Bubblecore Records" on four-song cassette tapes back in the early nineties -years before the Bubblecore label actually existed.
Now Pierce runs his Bubblecore label out of an office in Brooklyn, N.Y., releasing albums from good friends HiM, Swirlies, Nobukazu Takemura and Pierce's own musical project, Mice Parade (a remix of Pierce's given name, for the few anagrammatically challenged readers out there).
The same ethic that inspired Pierce to form his own record label has fueled the drummer's self-indulgent experimentation with Mice Parade.
"Obrigado Saudade" (the latter pronounced sow-dah-je), Mice Parade's fourth release, is a soothing blend of pop melodies, polyrhythmic drumming and richly layered textures of sound.
The album opens with the barely there whispers of vocalist Kristin Valtysdottir (Pierce isn't completely averse to having friends help him record Mice Parade songs) and the gentle strumming of a finger-plucked guitar. "Mystery Brethren" switches things up a bit as Pierce drops a sick, almost danceable, Afrobeat-inspired rhythm. The hip-hop infused "And Still it Sits in Front of You" and spacey melody of "Here Today" round out the highlights of this genre-bending record.
"I like being selfish about the writing process," Pierce admitted. "Being alone in the studio gives me more freedom to just fuck off and try whatever."
Joined by Doug Scharin (the similarly minded man behind the aforementioned band HiM) and other friends, Pierce will take his Mice Parade project out on the road for a brief month-long tour, beginning next week in Vermont. Sunday, Feb. 8, Mice Parade will roll into Austin to play the newly renamed Parish (formerly The Mercury @ Jazz).
As Pierce explains, Mice Parade was never some set idea, a project with a generally defined idea of what the music should sound like. Mice Parade more or less came about gradually, through Pierce's constant experimentation with music and sound.
"I was just recording stuff ... that didn't really fit with some of the other things I was doing at the time," Pierce said.
The first official Mice Parade album came in 1998. "The True Meaning of Boodleybaye" both dumbfounded and intrigued reviewers, some of whom falsely credited Pierce's crisp drumming and sample-like repetition to electronic sources.
"All the reviews talked about drum machines and samplers and all this stuff that I never use," Pierce explained, with just a hint of frustration at the critics' ignorance. "I don't touch computers in the making process."
Compared to Mice Parade's previous albums, "Obrigado Saudade" is much more toned down, featuring less intricate drum work - which is still impressive to say the least - and far fewer instruments overall. Part of the reason behind this is due to the fact that originally, Pierce never really considered taking his one-man band out on the road as a "real" band. When touring finally did become a possibility, he quickly realized that what sounded so beautiful in his at-home studio may not come off quite so clean on stage. The older songs proved "incredibly difficult" to pull off on the road.
"Now that I know we're playing live it's good to write stuff that I know can be played live."
The live band that makes Pierce's self-indulgent masterpieces into something you'd pay $15 to see in person often rotates its line-up. At one point the band featured Pierce and Scharin on dueling drum sets, subdividing beats between themselves, leaving even the most rhythmically sound audiences in awe. Classical guitar, vibes, violin, keyboards and a Cheng (a traditional Chinese harp) are the instruments that typically round out the Mice Parade live band.
"The line-up for this tour - which I can't guarantee will ever be the same again - is one drum kit, two classical guitars, keyboards and vibraphone," Pierce said.
The Mice Parade live show definitely leaves room for improvisation, with songs ebbing and flowing in accordance with the mood of the night.
"The older stuff has a lot more room for improvisation," Pierce said. "The new stuff still has some improv but maybe not as much. But I can't tell you how these new songs will come across [live] because we've never played 'em. This whole tour is a new band and new material that we have yet to practice [together]."
Mice Parade and HiM will play The Parish on Feb. 3.
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