Guitarist Hunter Boyd is “literally speechless, sometimes, by what these cats come up with …and this is just the beginning.”
Well, it’s essentially the beginning, but it’s been brewing for a while. True, Ypsi-based Lawless Carver began, properly, less than two years ago. They’ve kept busy (through live shows and an EP) churning out their propulsive, tone-barreling space-rock squalls and trippy/swooning ambient blends of percussive electronica and spindly, metal-zinged math-rock meditations, but most of the quintet has been playing together through other means for years.
Boyd, with bassist Andy Lukofsky and drummer Ryan Hampton had a band called We Only Kill Cops in 2009, which was “pretty much a heavier version of what we’re doing now,” according to Lukofsky. Hampton went off to join another band (Bloodlined Calligraphy) and guitarist Adam Nola joined – only to see Nola eventually leave, as Hampton simultaneously seesawed back in. However, 11 years ago, when Nola was only 14, he joined another band with Boyd and Lukofsky called Black Market Surgery.
Keyboardist Dustin Mcdonald, meanwhile, had been performing in the scene for a few years while day-jobbing at a small Ypsi venue with Hampton in the late 00’s.
“[Nola] was a youngster that would frequent the bar. He seemed alright,” Mcdonald remembers. “[He] didn’t get out of hand …usually.”
He found out later how well the youngster could play guitar – and though he’d never met Lukofsky or Boyd until Lawless Carver’s fateful birth inside Nola’s basement in early ’10, he knew, assuredly, “after a couple hours and a few adult beverages that these were guys I could really click with, musically.”
Nola said their approach is just “finding what works best around what each other is writing…” dotted with “calls and echoes between each instrument.” Lukosfky, meanwhile, said he just locks in with Hampton and shunts / shakes / surges things forward. Their sound, albeit orbiting the shimmering atmospheres of space-rock – or perhaps affecting a more keyed-up jazz-tinged post-rock trip, could never truly be pinned down. As Boyd says, each appreciates a wide palette of styles and genres.
Last month they released a live EP, recorded at Detroit’s Groovebox Studios, a fan-funded recording project secured through online fundraising site Kickstarter. The GBS EP was recorded and filmed live in one take, “no overdubs …no studio tricks.”
“We’ve been at it for years,” said Boyd, “but it wasn’t until 2011 that this Petri-dish of musical DNA sprouted legs.”
The all-instrumental format hasn’t lead them astray yet, so none of them question it. One of their recent music videos is set to avant-garde filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s work – just a whiff of the band’s other quirky/experimental cultural penchants that range from David Lynch to antiquing, dark humor, whiskey and creative people.
Boyd adds to the list, “Creativity (in anything really).” Nola chimes in: “quality craftsmanship.”
It shows.
For more information on Lawless Carver, visit http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gbsdetroit/gbs-detroit-presents-lawless-carver and lawlesscarver.bandcamp.com/album/lawless-carver-ep.
