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Everything has changed for the trio behind Mordecai. Brothers Holt and Elijah Bodish along with Gavin Swietnicki started making music together in Montana over a decade ago, and since then have released six full-length albums, various singles and tapes, and moved to the furthest reaches of the world. Following their latest release Seeds From The Furthest Vine (Petty Bunco) and a recent tour, we spoke with the band to learn about their Dadaist music-making practices and the ties that keep them coming back for more.
What have you all been up to lately? What have you been listening to, reading, or spending a lot of time doing?
Holt Bodish: I just moved to Urbana, Illinois for a postdoc and so I have been doing that for the last month. I reread Pynchon's Bleeding Edge, which I read five years ago and really enjoyed the first and second time. Excited for the new Mope Grooves record but I haven't been listening to much music lately. My car standards are Dead C and Jandek.
Elijah Bodish: I am spending a month in Sydney, Australia working on math problems with some people who live here. I had a week in Melbourne but caught Covid so I missed a Sleeper and Snake and R.M.F.C. gig. However, I have been able to see some great bands here in Sydney including VIPP. I also finally understand better the Melbourne vs. Sydney music distinction which I really didn't appreciate before. Cliffnotes: Sydney is way underrated and "harder" which appeals to me.
Gavin Swietnicki: I've been living in Taiwan the last three-and-a-half years. I'm working a factory job in semiconductors which is a big industry here. I've worked in this industry since I graduated college in Montana, 2015. While I've lived here, I've always made time to connect with Holt and Eli to at least hang out, and when we get the energy or the feeling is right, record. Taiwan has treated me well, I like the earthy muggy air, palm trees, and food, but I miss America and my friends there. I am also always craving for good music to see which there isn't much here to scratch that itch.
I saw you played with The Spatulas at TV Eye recently and I found your set had a real personal feeling to it, like I was invited to see some close friends jam but it resulted in something magical. What's your approach to playing live on tour?
GS: It's interesting you say that because on this last tour I heard that more than once. In Cambridge, Dan (from Mountain Movers) said something similar how he felt he was seeing three guys who have been playing together for twenty years. It does feel like that when we play. It is ironic since we hadn't played together as a group in I'm not sure how long and that was the first show we played after not even two full days of practice.
EB: Gavin flew 24 hours from Taiwan to Boston, took a cab to the Allston practice space Miranda Spatula and I rent, and we started working out the songs that night. Two days later we played our first gig in six years. Five days later we played the show you saw at TV Eye. Part of our sound is that we play very "loose" so we don't need too much rehearsal. But it was an intense few days getting back up to speed.
You used to be firmly tied to Butte, Montana but now the band's been a little more sporadically located. Can you update us on where you're all based now? What's it like when you all get back together?
EB: I live in Cambridge. Across the Charles River from Boston, MA. I now feel I have no family (literally) or friend (in the sense of keeping up with them still) connection to Butte. However, that city defined me as a human and an artist. When the three of us in the band connect it allows us to pass through some psychic wormhole to be back in Butte. We feel young again. Excited to explore beyond Butte. Which is what we always wanted growing up and through several miracles has come to be reality.
GS: Butte always had a special place in my heart. In the initial years of Mordecai, even though we lived in different places they always had the old Butte house to live in the summer. Whenever we hang out, a lot of the stories we reminisce on are from those times in Butte where we would waste time.
HB: I think we all grow up and devolve in various ways and at various times but we all still like each other. We also all work and stuff so when we get together we kinda forget about that and it can turn into a lot of hanging and not necessarily working on music. The songs on the record are pretty much first take.
Your latest album, Seeds from the Furthest Vine, is still very much connected to Butte, however. What was your approach when writing this latest set of songs? Also what sort of role does improvisation have when it comes to creating the songs?
GS: Making the songs on this record felt as natural as all the songs before. For me, there was nothing I was trying to do differently, it just happened that way as it had before. Half of the songs were recorded in a tiny house Elijah lived in Eugene and we were there the first days Holt also had moved to Eugene. It was cold. Eli had no heat and the only warmth I felt was the five minutes when I would take a shower. We were all wearing our full winter clothes inside. On those recordings, I had some piezometers that I duct-taped to the cymbal and this parlor guitar I had. I also had a simple drum kit and one technique where I played the shaker on the bongos and it sounded as full as l had wanted. The other half of the songs happened not as a full group, some Holt and Eli, some me and Holt. Holt is the fulcrum of Mordecai and is present on all songs.
HB: I'd say that whatever carcinogens we inhaled there are here to stay. In an ideal world, all our music would be improvised and a good amount is. Vocals are something that I used to be better at coming up with on the spot but recently because of lack of practice have done a bit more prep with. The usual order of operations is write a riff, jam, noodle a flurry of notes, and then record.
This album was recorded with a 4-track, and the first mention I can find of you guys using one was is in a 2017 Vice article. Back then you said you were still figuring out how to use it but now the tool has become a staple of Mordecai's arsenal. What can you say about your recording process and the learning curve?
HB: I think I figured out two things: how to bus tracks and that recording direct in is an option. We have always done 4-track recording but Elijah and Gavin use to take the reins more in the past while I would get stoned and chase girls. Now I'm possibly the more practiced home recorder though I think Elijah plays the most music practice/gig-wise out of all of us these days so there have been some role reversals. We used to have these big rooms to practice in Butte with crazy acoustics and we would try to record live with our amps turned up loud and it would be really difficult. We'd wonder why there was no track separation. After doing more intimate stuff I realized the quiet and direct in-or-room mic with acoustic guitars sounded better and was easier to manage.
EB: I love the lo-fi sound and will be happily listening to that kind of music for the rest of my life. The truth is that we still end up putting the tape on a computer with GarageBand and a headphone jack. I encourage people to get Tascams if they have the money and find a working one, but even more, just make music with whatever you have!
GS: My advice is don't ask us how to use the Tascam because we still don't know how to use it.
What was it like putting this new album together compared to the previous ones?
HB: Pretty different. We were in transition periods in life and not totally sure what the band was. 2020's Library Music was a springboard to the new style of more improvisation, less practice, and more bent songs.
GS: In Butte for the first three records, we had a space setup and a big room to use. We could leave it set up and come back the next day; very easy and convenient. The last two records we had been limited by distance and space. What is universal in all of our records is that we have never prepared songs to record, all songs are written at the time we record them. However this time, we don't have a drum set, we have lost our amps and guitars from moving or other reasons, but this has never stopped us from making music.
EB: Richie Charles from Petty Bunco told us in the summer of 2023 that he was done putting out records. A few weeks later we sent out the unmastered album to a few people and Richie got back to Holt that he was down to do it. Since we have a history with him, respect his label, and all consider him a friend, we took him up on the offer. Amazingly this record, which is not our most accessible, has been really well received. Hopefully, it means he will do the next one.
Let's talk about some individual tracks! "Empty Visions" is the album opener and it was the only single. How did this one come to be?
EB: We have three ways to write songs. One of them is I play a bass line and everyone follows. This song came out of that recipe book.
GS: As we sat down to record, I remember Eli played the bass. I thought it sounded like Alien Lanes which I liked. This was the first thing we recorded in that session after not seeing each other for a while and it took no time at all. It was in the cold tiny house.
HB: I had just had my guitar stolen during a move and was using an old Fernandez with a built-in amp that I have had since adolescence. Gavin had a contact mic we put on the built-in amp and the tone was incredible. Improvised lyrics about my incredible discomfort and confusion with reality.
What can you say about the song "Minted"?
HB: That was recorded in my apartment around 2022-23. I played guitar and drums and Elijah played bass. I like the openness in that recording. I like the opening lyric "Lost thoughts took a new turn, crossed her legs for a snooty spurn."
EB: Holt wrote me a bassline. I simplified it. I couldn't play it a year later though so I simplified again.
I also really dig the tune "When You Know Them As." How did this one come about?
GS: This one happened on my last long trip to the US before The Spatulas/Mordecai tours. We played almost everything direct in. I am proud of my guitar on these records and I have always felt Holt brings out the best in me when I am playing guitar. Holt's vox are on this jug app that I found that has a washboard, spoons that sound like nothing but a blip noise, and a jug voice which sounds like shit connected through a Bluetooth speaker. Holt and my favorite drum is a pie pan that he found at Winco or somewhere long ago that has the snare drum sound we had always been looking for since before college rock. I think on this one I threw some loose change on it and played bongos or tambourine with it. On "Oval Door," I also tied a pan lid to dental floss and hit it with a wood hammer from a hurdy-gurdy do-it-yourself kit Holt had lying around. We had to use a whole track for that pan lid alone is what I remember.
EB: We played it differently live and enjoyed that version. But I really like the ghostly sound of recording so am happy to have both. Gavin was so proud to tell me he got Holt to do the jug app vocal.
What were the inspirations behind "Transverse"?
GS: This song was from the tiny house session, and the drum track I laid down was really good although you can't hear it after the bussing of the tracks. On the last tour, I spent the whole time asking Holt if I was playing it right but none of us knew. I think I got close towards the end though.
HB: I was inspired by Rene Thom and catastrophe theory. Transversality is a way two subspaces interact and a deep result says that it is generic, so happens most of the time or can be achieved by a small perturbation. Thom has an interview with Godard that is worth watching on YouTube.
How about the titular duo in the center of the album, how do these tracks connect to and differ from each other?
HB: That is the same song cut into two portions. Gavin and I had gotten back from Dundee Fest in Oregon after seeing Pink Reason play. I had a great portable tape recorder with a stellar mic that we hooked up to 4-track and did a room recording in my living room. I think we did me on acoustic and vocals and Gavin on the delicate electric lead, and then we overdubbed Gavin on ocarina and tambourine and me on other more out guitars together as well.
GS: I had a small clay turtle ocarina from Costa Rica my friend Brent bought me. I remember my intention for this song was to lay on as many tracks and instruments as we could. I wanted a symphony. Each time we would lay one or two tracks the downstairs neighbors were outside and I felt embarrassed about what it must have sounded like: one isolated ocarina blowing noise for 8 minutes, then a bongo for 8 minutes. They were nice about it. The song came out great and I think it invokes the comedown and hangover of our experience at Dundee Lodge. I hope to go to that festival again and have always wanted Mordecai to play it.
What are some future plans for Mordecai or other projects you all maintain?
GS: This latest tour has me already thinking on when I can get all of us together again. We need to record again, I am hoping that Holt can get a setup in Illinois and we can go there and spend a time or two as we have always done.
HB: I will work on new solo recordings as I get a proper space here in Urbana and hope the guys will come visit for more Mordecai sessions. I'm pretty stoked about the new record’s sound and think we can do even better next time. Some of us will play as backing band for The Spatulas again as well if all other competent musicians are not available. I also am trying to get my partner Masha to start a band with me as well to play around the area and hopefully record.
Thank you for taking the time and talking with us. The last word is yours.
HB: Thanks for the questions and thanks to Hesske, Bryan Ramirez, Rich K, Richie Charles, and the Petty Bunco Philly scene for the myriad support and for putting out this new record. We have been incredibly lucky with the people who have helped us over the years. Coming up on Petty Bunco is a new King Blood, a new Emily Robb record (hopefully by the end of the year), and a book of Jacy Webster's art!
Seeds From The Furthest Vine is out now on Petty Bunco.