Waldemar
Eau Claire, Wisconsin, United States | Established. Jan 01, 2015
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When we talk about singer-songwriters there’s an image that comes to mind. It’s the guy from Gilmore Girls strumming a guitar with a harmonica around his neck, or a girl in a coffee shop at a keyboard singing slow ballads.
These archetypes grow – if at all – by adding some musicians behind them, maybe amplifying their sound. The rhythmic strums become drum beats and the whistling melody becomes a synth line. Slowly it builds into a band you wouldn’t recognize from that coffee shop open mic.
Waldemar never started that way.
“I tend to think in terms of grandiose,” frontman and singer-songwriter Gabe Larson said, laughing. “All of a sudden the song explodes in my mind. All the different elements gravitate towards anything but simple.”
Larson began writing what is now Waldemar’s debut EP – Visions – on the backend of his former group Reverii. He holed up in his basement (classic songwriter trope), but immediately gave power to his guitar and vocals — pushing things beyond their classic sounds and experimenting with the limits.
As the songs began to take shape he partnered with his brother Nick on drums and local Eau Claire wizards Evan Middlesworth and Brian Joseph to continue to build the sound. Songs took on layer after layer, growing impossibly lush before being pared back to their essence. It was a cathartic process. There were moments of insecurity, as the process shed much of what was blanketing Larson’s voice leaving it bare, but full above the layered instrumentals.
“I think of recording as a refinement process,” Larson said.
The songs, while refined, still maintain their depth. Every listen finds something new you didn’t pick up on before, often propelling the melodies to the forefront and driving the rhythm. There are moments – like the crescendo of EP opener “Totem” – that feel so full and powerful you almost feel bad listening to it while just sitting on your butt. This is cliff-jumping, marathon-running, goal-achieving music.
That power continues through the EP, capping off with the nearly eight minute “Signe” that builds to a cacophony of drums, guitars and vocals. There’s a thoughtfulness behind each song, but that doesn’t squash the natural, improvisational feel of many moments throughout the record.
Live, Larson still plays with his brother Nick and has added veteran drummer Colin Carey and most recently trombone player Tyler Jennings Henderson. The combo is somehow able to capture that huge sound without it getting bogged down.
As Waldemar began to take flight, Larson decided (much like the music he was making) he needed to go all-in.
“Am I more afraid of trying and failing or not trying and wondering what would’ve happened?” Larson said he asked himself. “It felt like an unavoidable thing. There was no other option than to take it seriously.”
Larson has always been a musician – dating back to his choir days – and learned from his father, a trumpet player, and his mother, a singer. But Waldemar is when he decided to push towards this as a career. It’s that move that led him to invest in the recording, to start the project with tours and shows, and throw himself fully in it to find enough success to keep going.
“We have to say we’re not in it to be famous, but is it OK if I do?” Larson said. “Famous means I’ve connected to a lot of people.”
And listening to this album, there’s a lot of people who might find a connection.
Waldemar will release Visions on Nov. 18. You can learn more by finding them on Facebook. - Volume One
“Visions” is part of both a generational, and universal story, of unfulfilled purpose and hope within a society where decades of hard work and disproportional returns scatter most ambitions. Waldemar, as most good things do, began quite accidentally. Starting as simply the name and content of a song, the parallels between ‘Waldemar’ and creator and solo-artist Gabe Larson’s own identities and struggles were too clear to ignore.
“Visions” is a transcendental, ethereal treat, creating an atmosphere of tension and emotion. Vocals that fill rooms do the same for creating near-spiritual chills throughout, of which we’ve always found an indication of intentional and inspired design.
Worth mentioning is that Waldemar is of Eau Claire, WI, home to elite production talent in Evan Middlesworth and Brian Joseph, lending themselves to names like Bon Iver, Local Natives, and Sufjan Stevens.
Waldemar can be found on Facebook. Their debut EP, Visions, will be out on Jan. 13th, 2017. - Impose Magazine
Thanks to a certain Grammy-winning group that need not be named, Eau Claire, WI, is being put on the map for serene, melodic indie. Case in point, the latest video from Waldemar, for their single “Visions”. The song begins with sweeping, emotional vocal takes, and in a flip of a switch, goes from potential energy to kinetic. “Visions” sounds like the type of track that would place the band smack dab in the middle of the Eaux Claires lineup, and they are more than worthy of that distinction. The video features striking visuals, and accurately portrays the serenity of the song. Check out the clip below and see for yourself:
https://youtu.be/7dyKG1zD9Uk - Breaking and Entering
Discography
Visions EP - Release Date: November 18th 2016
Link: https://soundcloud.com/waldemarmusic/sets/waldemar-ep-unreleased/s-be2dk
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Bio
Eau Claire, WI reeks of talent. It has been blessed with the emergence of nationally recognized bands and artists to bring forth the indie scene in recent years that has no doubt been thriving all along, but was never getting the recognition it deserved. Eau Claire's most recent emergence is solo-artist Gabe Larson who prefers the stage moniker Waldemar - the royal name of lines of ancient Swedish and Danish king's as well as Larson's late paternal grandfather.
Waldemar began quite accidentally. Initially, it was the title and subject of a song that drew poignant parallels between Larson's own identity and struggles as an artist and the deep generational depression surrounding the life and work of Larson's recently deceased grandfather, Waldemar. Grandpa Waldemar, or Wally, as Larson describes, was someone he always wanted to be close to; someone he wanted to understand. But Waldemar lived most of his life in a quiet, somber solitude; as though he carried some unknown wound or unfulfilled purpose and hope in life. Waldemar lived his whole life as a Midwestern cattle farmer through the days of the Great Depression and WWII on the same plot of land granted to his immigrant Swedish family in the days of Theodore Roosevelt and the Homestead Act.
The name Waldemar carries with it a sense of personal identity and family, as well as a call to break the cycle of generational fate and destructiveness of depression in the individual and the family unit. This tension cuts through in the forthcoming debut record, Visions EP from Waldemar. Moments of levity, adventure and free-spiritedness in songs like Totem and Brotherly are tempered by songs of inner conflict, and personal dissonance in the second half of the record. The record pulls the listener through a sense of up and down throughout the arc of the record, reflecting the process and feelings of cyclical and seasonal bouts with depression.
Besides being a home for incredible performing artists, Eau Claire, WI is dense with extraordinary production talent. For the forthcoming Visions EP, Larson enlisted an elite production team of local fellow producers and friends, Evan Middlesworth (El Vy) and Brian Joseph (Bon Iver, Local Natives, Sufjan Stevens, Indigo Girls) as Co-Producers for the record. The recording process was patient and precise spanning over four months in Eau Claire at Middlesworth’s Pine Hollow Studio and Joseph’s studio, The Hive.
The sound of Waldemar is lush, intricate and layered; a vast array of instruments and elements woven tightly together. Often deviating from traditional indie song structures and favoring arrangements closer at times to modern and classical choral composers. This is owed largely to Larson's extensive years studying classical choral music since he was a child. Post-80's inspired electric guitar tones, nuanced rhythmic textures from dual drummers, trombone sectionals and near constant choral inspired harmonic vocal arrangements comprise the sonic landscape constructed by Larson's multi-instrumental artistry.
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