About
Biography
Altesleben,e is the one-man recording project of Eric Altesleben, who cut his teeth musically in the fecund Detroit scene in the ‘90s, only to relocate in 2000 to Brooklyn, NY. He found himself in Brooklyn just in time for the ‘00s musical renaissance, playing keyboards live with Interpol during their early, pre-Matador days and on their breakthrough Turn on the Bright Lights tour. His talents were rarely recognized then—yet his bandmates acknowledged his erudition on guitar. Their frontman Paul Banks often marveled that Altesleben was a better guitar player than he was.
Altesleben played in numerous projects in NYC throughout the ‘00s and ‘10s, including the woozy shoegaze pastel pop act Desert Stars, and the warped, off-the-rails psychedelia of MOFO, but Altesleben,e is the most disarmingly vulnerable project Eric has ever committed himself to, the product of his sobriety now approaching four years, and also informed by the sudden overdose death of his brother Eddie in late 2013, a fixture of the Detroit music scene.
Altesleben,e exhibits just how damn prolific Eric is—he attempts to record a song a day (think Bradford Cox and Robert Pollard at their high-water marks), ranging from the gravitas of Cure and Roy Orbison covers that Altesleben nonetheless makes his own with his idiosyncratic knack for synthesizing a home recording acumen with due reverence for the classics, to instrumentals such as the “Oblivion” collection, which sounds like Stephen Malkmus’ quote about Mogwai in 1997, which called them “the first band of the 21st century.” On the glorious suite of “Oblivion” tracks, Malkmus’ quote could easily be paraphrased into something calling Altesleben,e the first act to capture what it’s like to exist in our attention-span addled borrowed times circa 2016, when politics and corporate power intersect into batshit insane flashbulb moments, but Eric’s music feels like one of the few sources of redemption, his music as the blood that sustains us, the balm that soothes us. Songs for these insane times, essentially.
Eric’s numbers with vocals such as “Animals” and “Lets” exhibit his innate knack for writing a killer melody, laced with his love of halcyon shoegaze with a self-aware ear that renders the songs original enough to blow most Lush and Ride revivalists out of the water. These aren’t songs with effects pedals masking a lack of songwriting chops—they’re meticulously crafted, yet never overthought, an illustration of a musician who sings the blues in a classic sense, in desperate yearning love and acceptance, yet with an appreciation of where he is in any given moment, which, while listening to these nutmeg sweet numbers, isn’t a bad place to be.
Altesleben’s sonic world is never cliched—he sounds like he’s got a few lifetimes under his belt, and his sobriety has obviously raised his songwriting game a few notches. Give a listen to his copious Soundcloud catalog. It’s an immersive landscape, the sonic equivalent of Mars Rover footage filtered through the universal connectedness of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It’s not always the easiest place to be, but it reflects Altesleben’s unsurpassable world of love and loss, where harmony and melody are tailor-fitted gloves stitched with endless reconciliations and the potential for even more personal redemption in Eric’s magical musical world that’s in near constant flux.
Altesleben,e play their first live show on Wednesday June 22 in Brooklyn at C’mon Everybody, supporting Cosmicide, helmed by Brandon Curtis, who also fronts The Secret Machines. Altesleben,e will be rounded out live by longtime Detroit music fixture Dominic Romano, who played with the underrated early ‘00s power pop act The Waxwings, Brad Truax, jack of all trades who has an astounding resume, including playing as a touring musician with Interpol, Spiritualized, Animal Collective, and Gang Gang Dance, as well as reuniting Alteseleben with drummer Gregg Giuffre of Desert Stars, who also plays with Hunters and Heliotropes. Hard to know what to expect, as Altesleben,e to this point has been Eric’s home recording project, but given his provenance, count on something with the act’s hallmarks, some surprises, some serendipity, and some flashes of greatness that may well portend what will happen when Altesleben,e inevitably record a more conventional LP. With the impressive pedigrees of the acts involved, no matter what, Wednesday June 22nd should be a night which illustrates what the future may hold in just one branch of the myriad roads of Brooklyn’s music in 2016, which is a damn exciting place to be.
