Muncie, Indiana's Everything, Now! and it's recent release "Bible Universe" will no doubtedly earned them continued praises for being the Midwest's premiere psychedelic folk visionaries. Very few bands can arrange a concept of sound that creates an entire self-realized world of music.
I'll do my best to describe their sound for the uninitiated, but I'd call Everything Now a nice combination of 1990s era Flaming Lips, with perhaps all the good songs from The Muppet Show. I mean that in the best way possible, because I love the songs from The Muppet Show. As I think about it, they share a similar ground floor as found in like-minded Country Joe and the Fish.
The arrangements on "Bible Universe" are exciting, interesting and new. Rock songs such as "Exile in Bible Universe" would be a perfect match for Dayton, Ohio's Captain of Industry. On more acoustic guitar based numbers, they never fall into the scary realm of simple folk or Americana. The reason is because the band seems to strive to make music beyond a normal scope of borders. When the organ comes in on "The World is Flat, This is the Edge" it's superb. In other tunes such as "The Myth of the Wizard Bird" the groups delves into areas Harry Nilsson touched on with the song "POV Waltz" on the great album "The Point!"
I also found out a neat secret. If you listen to "Assimilation (In the scheme of things)" and "Cursed Be" from their upcoming Ugly Magic, at the same time it sounds like one huge fucked up song that goes together. "Freedom Sex with Bible Woman" is a beautiful experimentation with Beatlesque melodies and grandiose passion.
Everything, Now! have succeeded in defining their own sound. They have also earned the award for "Creepiest Album Cover 2007."
Besides, no sooner was "Bible Universe" released then the band began putting up songs from its next release "Ugly Magic" expected to be out on Sept. 14.
Here's a brief interview with Jon "Crafty" of the band:
PWAH: With these two Cds coming out - Holy shit you guys have recorded a lot lately. (Not so much a question).
Crafty: Bible Universe was the result of a couple years worth of writing and recording songs, and Ugly Magic was sort of born out of the new ideas that started to show up while we were working Bible Universe. So it's kind of a new thing for us to release so much music in such a short amount of time, but releasing it all ourselves has made the process a lot easier. So hopefully we'll be able to keep up a similar pace.
PWAH: Could you explain the themes behind the two releases? Are they linked, or decidedly different approaches?
Crafty: Bible Universe is a parable, an illustration of the spiritual journey towards enlightenment and away from self-destruction. Ugly Magic is a sequel in the respect that it's a collection of songs about the further conflict that can result between the individual and the outside world even after the individual has ended internal conflict. The two albums are different in many ways, but I think their largest link is that they are both all about bearing witness to the troubles of mankind in the times we live in.
PWAH: How has your band's "sound" changed over the years? What are you hoping to create? You've done a nice job a creating your own world inside the songs.
Crafty: I'm not sure how to describe the changes in the sound, but I know that we've always been focused on communicating with the audience/listener. A lot of times, the music is about struggle and conflict, but we've also always carried a gospel impulse, urging people to come together and help each other continue. And although we usually just create music that we feel like we'd want to listen to, it'd be silly to pretend that we're not constantly trying to expand our audience with our sound. But I think our satisfaction with what we're creating always comes first, which could end up being a good or bad thing really... It's certainly not getting us any big money contracts.
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