If Diary, The Faculty’s first recording, is Krystle’s ‘Songs of Innocence’, then Extended Play, The Faculty’s latest, is Krystle’s ‘Songs of Experience’.
Diary led to Circles, which Ben Kane co-produced with Voodoo engineer Russell “The Dragon” Elevado. Circles was bought by Because Music in France, but Krystle still recorded Love Songs in New York, a double album that invokes a Blakean duality with its two subtitles, “A Time to Refrain from Embracing” and “A Time You May Embrace.”
Love Songs was produced with most of the Faculty (Zach was on tour with Amos Lee) and a slew of guest musicians in Brian Bender’s Brooklyn studio, The Motherbrain. Bender’s assistant, Jonathan Anderson, would later go on to replace Dave Moore on keys.
If Diary, The Faculty’s first recording, is Krystle’s ‘Songs of Innocence’, then Extended Play, The Faculty’s latest, is Krystle’s ‘Songs of Experience’.
Diary led to Circles, which Ben Kane co-produced with Voodoo engineer Russell “The Dragon” Elevado. Circles was bought by Because Music in France, but Krystle still recorded Love Songs in New York, a double album that invokes a Blakean duality with its two subtitles, “A Time to Refrain from Embracing” and “A Time You May Embrace.”
Love Songs was produced with most of the Faculty (Zach was on tour with Amos Lee) and a slew of guest musicians in Brian Bender’s Brooklyn studio, The Motherbrain. Bender’s assistant, Jonathan Anderson, would later go on to replace Dave Moore on keys.
The Faculty has always been a tenuous project for everyone involved because of the distance and the schedules. While everyone remains close friends, the band members are spread across the globe. Krystle in France. Riddleberger in New York and Zach in Woodstock. Solomon and Jonathan in Los Angeles. And then they are all working musicians, touring, recording, and collaborating with an impressive list of artists. Musicians like, in no particular order: D’Angelo, Hercules and Love Affair, Donald Fagen and the Nightfliers, Joan As Police Woman, Jose James, Emily King, Janet Jackson, Ron Sexsmith, The Dixie Chicks, Amy Helm, Stevie Wonder, Taylor Swift, Rufus Wainwright, Kylie Minogue, Sara Bareilles, Natalie Merchant, Kesha, Bleachers, Emylou Harris, Amos Lee, Lana Del Rey, Broken Social Scene, Teddy Thompson, Lakecia Benjamin, Jenny Lewis, and honestly that’s less than the half of it.
The Faculty has always been a tenuous project for everyone involved because of the distance and the schedules. While everyone remains close friends, the band members are spread across the globe. Krystle in France. Riddleberger in New York and Zach in Woodstock. Solomon and Jonathan in Los Angeles. And then they are all working musicians, touring, recording, and collaborating with an impressive list of artists. Musicians like, in no particular order: D’Angelo, Hercules and Love Affair, Donald Fagen and the Nightfliers, Joan As Police Woman, Jose James, Emily King, Janet Jackson, Ron Sexsmith, The Dixie Chicks, Amy Helm, Stevie Wonder, Taylor Swift, Rufus Wainwright, Kylie Minogue, Sara Bareilles, Natalie Merchant, Kesha, Bleachers, Emylou Harris, Amos Lee, Lana Del Rey, Broken Social Scene, Teddy Thompson, Lakecia Benjamin, Jenny Lewis, and honestly that’s less than the half of it.
So they have been busy, and they have gained a lot of experience since the days of sneaking into ElectricLady late night or playing for meager pay and free wine at an East Village Italian resto. And while Diary and Circles and Love Songs were recorded with everyone in the same room (Three the Hard Way was just Krystle and Kane together), Extended Play was recorded disparately and assembled together by the steady hands and ears of Kane and Krystle. There is distance between the musicians in the recording process, but there is still a close emotional connection that can be heard in these songs.
So they have been busy, and they have gained a lot of experience since the days of sneaking into ElectricLady late night or playing for meager pay and free wine at an East Village Italian resto. And while Diary and Circles and Love Songs were recorded with everyone in the same room (Three the Hard Way was just Krystle and Kane together), Extended Play was recorded disparately and assembled together by the steady hands and ears of Kane and Krystle. There is distance between the musicians in the recording process, but there is still a close emotional connection that can be heard in these songs.
The songs that make up Extended Play are songs of experience—the lyrics reflect on a crush from high school, a departed musical hero, and others who live in memory. There is nostalgia in Extended Play, and a forlornness.
Krystle describes “When I Look Back,” the last song of the album, as “an apology to my teenage self.” Eighteen years ago she was writing songs about what happened day-of because being young is about immediacy and living in the present tense. Now the songs are about years past because life slows down, and we are allowed the time to “look back.”
But as Krystle sings in “Rising,” “Future lingers while past is present.” She’s writing about the past because we are all our collected histories—or as she puts it in “When I Look Back”: “there’s still something of her that stays.” The future, of course, still lingers, always there waiting for us, for the next move. The album ends with a recording of Audre Lorde’s gravelly voice. She says,
The songs that make up Extended Play are songs of experience—the lyrics reflect on a crush from high school, a departed musical hero, and others who live in memory. There is nostalgia in Extended Play, and a forlornness.
Krystle describes “When I Look Back,” the last song of the album, as “an apology to my teenage self.” Eighteen years ago she was writing songs about what happened day-of because being young is about immediacy and living in the present tense. Now the songs are about years past because life slows down, and we are allowed the time to “look back.”
But as Krystle sings in “Rising,” “Future lingers while past is present.” She’s writing about the past because we are all our collected histories—or as she puts it in “When I Look Back”: “there’s still something of her that stays.” The future, of course, still lingers, always there waiting for us, for the next move. The album ends with a recording of Audre Lorde’s gravelly voice. She says,
I’m going on to something else, the shape of which I have no idea. ‘Only thing I know, is it’s going to be quite different. What I leave behind has a life of its own. I’ve said this about poetry… Well in a sense, I’m saying it about the very artifact of who I have been.
I’m going on to something else, the shape of which I have no idea. ‘Only thing I know, is it’s going to be quite different. What I leave behind has a life of its own. I’ve said this about poetry… Well in a sense, I’m saying it about the very artifact of who I have been.
Krystle Warren & The Faculty still have more to come. They have built eighteen years of memories, experiences, recordings, and shows, and with the release of Extended Play, they continue to show a commitment to growing as musicians together, even if apart.
Krystle Warren & The Faculty still have more to come. They have built eighteen years of memories, experiences, recordings, and shows, and with the release of Extended Play, they continue to show a commitment to growing as musicians together, even if apart.
