SXSW 2012

From Chase Hoffberger, The Austin Chronicle:

East Cameron Folkcore played the bulk of Sound & Fury: Songs in the Key of Love and Death only once, at the Hole in the Wall last spring on the night of the album's release.

"We basically evolved past those songs as soon as we released them," says Jesse Moore, head wrangler for the 10-member ECF, composed of members of Bankrupt & the Borrowers, Bridge Farmers, the Van Buren Boys, Clyde & Clem's Whiskey Business, Hobomouth, and the Bread. "A lot of those songs weren't designed to be played live at all. We had to get them out of our system to quantify them in our own grieving."

Written in memory of Jon Pettis, Moore's Bankrupt bandmate who died in an electrical fire at the band's house in October 2009, Sound & Fury is a defining work in Moore's compositional evolution, a seamlessly articulated tribute tied into an inspiring story about a neighborhood rallying to celebrate a life. Paradoxically, its elegiac message isn't indicative of typical Folkcore shows, which run loud, rowdy, and rooted in political undertones.

"Some of the songs on Sound & Fury I recorded in my bedroom – alone," says Moore. "That was more of my own project, and I used the band to get the way it needed to sound. The songs we focused on came through as more of a collaborative effort, and a process of getting everyone's sound and all their influences into the music."

In ECF's case, getting every member's sound into the music often requires fitting upward of 30 tracks into a single song's mix. Moore points to trombonist Blake Bernstein's "Charlene," one of the songs on the band's upcoming The Sun Also Rises EP, as having 32 individual tracks.

"It's crazy," laughs Moore. "It took us two whole months to just mix this EP."