Creeping Nobodies

The Creeping Nobodies’ career has followed an interesting trajectory — their acclaim grows wider as their music becomes less accessible. Seems confusing at first, but in reality it makes perfect sense: no longer "that band that sounds like the Fall” — not that there’s anything wrong with that — the Nobodies are instead making challenging music that defies easy classification and justifiably piques more interest. Sound of Joy is the second album the band have recorded with Wharton Tiers (ex-Theoretical Girls), who has also worked with Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth, only to name a couple. Though the album is just as dark and engaging as the last, Stop Movement Stop Loss, it’s even more cerebral — superficially it’s visceral and exciting, but it’s also perplexing, strange and involved. Vocals range from gingerly whisper-singing to wanton raving with equally enjoyable results, while music vacillates between uneasy calm and discordant activity in spontaneous turns — the result is obscure enough for art-rock standbys, but captivating enough to appeal those who just like music to sound good. Moreover, all the weirdness comes from inside the group’s collective head — the Creeping Nobodies have grown into their own sound, and suffice to say, it sounds really good.

How did the connection with Wharton Tiers come about? Multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Valerie Uher: Matt [McDonough] and Derek [Westerholm] just wrote him and sent previous things that had been recorded, saying, "We’d love to record with you” — and he was just like, "Yeah, sure. Okay!” They went down and recorded four songs, and it sounded exactly the way they wanted it to sound.

Your albums seem to get less and less accessible, yet seem to catch on more and more. Multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Sarah Richardson: Maybe it seems less and less derivative of other things. Valerie: The earlier stuff might have been catchier, but it wasn’t necessarily anything that new — it was to an extent, but it wasn’t taking as many chances. I think that when you’re making really "indie” music — in terms of the infrastructure you’re dealing with — if you’re making something that’s not putting yourself on the line, then people won’t care as much. The earlier stuff was catchy, but the demographic who were listening to it were probably into something weirder… I don’t think we ever tried to make music that sounds a certain way. That’s what gets you through those shitty shows, where there’s not a lot of people or reaction — you actually like what you're playing.