Behind The Release: Lost in the Trees – A Church That Fits Our Needs

Ari Picker, the singer and principal writer for Lost in the Trees was older than most students when he entered the film scoring program at Berklee College. Now he’s 30, a recent graduate with a bachelor’s in music, and probably one of the only members of his class who has a record deal with a label like ANTI – the current home of Tom Waits, Yann Tiersen and Kate Bush.

Ari Picker

“It was tough. There were some embarrassing moments and growing pains,” Picker told me of his experience on campus. “I’d thrive in the theory classes and the composition classes and just get my ass kicked everywhere else.” He had little formal training before he enrolled, but hearing the sophisticated arrangements on his group’s new album, A Church That Fits Our Needs, it’s doubtful that anyone would have guessed.

Picker’s music is definitely informed by the godfathers of film scoring – composers like Bartok, Shostikovich, Debussy and Stravinsky. There’s even a section smack-dab in the middle of his band’s latest single, “Red”, that sounds suspiciously like a quote of Bernard Herrmann’s Vertigo theme. But despite his influences, Picker’s work has a voice of its own.

As “Red” returns to its opening motif, dominated by baroque harps that cascade over hard-rocking break beats, it becomes clear that Lost in the Trees is inventive and current, much more than it is post-modern pastiche. Most significantly, this North Carolina-based “collective” shares DNA with contemporary acts like St. Vincent and Grizzly Bear, who are also known for their intricate and ambitious arrangements. James Monger, writing for AllMusic, even compared the Picker’s work to “Sufjan Stevens at his least quirky.”

Like LITT’s last two records, there’s an earnestness to A Church That Fits Our Needs that’s impossible to shake. Picker had taken on the bulk of production duties in the past, but thanks to the budget afforded by ANTI-, he was able to step outside of his bedroom studio to find more help.

For this album, Picker built on his original demos at “real studios” (including Manifold Recording in the band’s hometown Chapel Hill) until he ended up with a recording that he describes as “a weird kind of Frankenstein.” Rob Schnapf, an L.A. producer/engineer who’s best known for his work with Beck, Elliot Smith, Foo Fighters, Toadies, and Booker T. Jones, mixed the record and helped glue all of those elements together.

“[Schnapf] really brought the songs out,” says Picker. “There’s a lot of swirling arrangements on the record, and I think that the songs can potentially get lost in that. But he did a great job of balancing all that to make sure that they both show through.”

By the time he got to work on Church, Schnapf says that “[Picker] had already mixed it once” and it “was already pretty good.”

Lost in the Trees. Photo by Chris Lane.

“Some of it felt kind of ‘in-the-box’ and maybe a little ‘hard’,” he told me. “There’s a certain thing about plug-ins and compression, where hardware still sounds better. I don’t think his goal was to come this far and work as hard as he did, just to end up at ‘pretty good’.”

Schnapf says that his one challenge on the album was in “bringing the organic sounds out in a way where they still fit.”

“’Modern’ and ‘organic’ aren’t always natural bedfellows,” he explains. “A lot of times, these days, ‘modern’ means ’hard‘ and ‘loud’. So trying to get the album to operate on both levels was the goal: Making the organic sounds ‘current’, but still welcoming, like an arm around your shoulder.”

It’s true that on A Church That Fits Our Needs, Picker’s rhythms have become more central and more driving than ever before. Schnapf is a natural for knowing just what to do with these kinds of heavy percussive sounds, but he also succeeds in adapting the colors of the orchestra into what would otherwise be “rock” mixes.

Picker acknowledges that parts of this album are more amped-up than his past efforts, and he says it was his intent to make a record that was more “upbeat” than before. (Although he also says he can’t be sure of whether or not he succeeded at that.)

Even if it is a stretch to call Church “upbeat”, the album sounds alive. Picker, who lost his mother to suicide in 2009, never comes across as despondent or defeated, even as his able, youthful tenor explores the most personal ends of his recent history. His record is wistful at times, but somehow a sense of optimism, resilience and awe-struck wonder runs through it.

“He’s humble,” Schnapf says of the man. “Humble to the process. He’s a great communicator, and I just love what he does.”

Stream “Red” and “Golden Eyelids” off A Church That Fits Our Needs:

For more on Lost in the Trees, visit lostinthetrees.tumblr.com.

Justin Colletti is a Brooklyn recording engineer and studio journalist. He is a regular contributor to SonicScoop and edits the music blog Trust Me, I’m A Scientist.

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