Secret History: Edsel's Techniques of Speed Hypnosis
Our occasional series "Secret History" features profiles of classic D.C. albums as a way of looking back at the District's contributions to music over time. In this installment, DCist speaks with members of Edsel about the band's major-label debut, Techniques of Speed Hypnosis (Relativity, 1995).
A post-hardcore band with oversized hooks, Edsel occupied an odd spot in D.C.’s 1990s musical landscape. Guided by a consistently experimental and stylistically ambitious mindset, they cranked out quality noise difficult to pigeonhole, and specialized in a layered, tightly-wound racket informed as much by American acts like Pavement and Fugazi as by European outfits like Swervedriver, Spiritualized, and My Bloody Valentine.
“The truth is that we never fit in with any of it,” Edsel’s guitarist and singer Sohrab Habibion tells DCist about the band’s place in D.C.’s ‘80s and ‘90s indie rock scene. “Our sound was too punk for the pop kids and too pop for the punk kids. But the bands in D.C. were much more receptive and generous to each other than the audience that grew around them. I definitely felt a camaraderie with all kinds of groups that we'd never share a stage with.”
"Edsel always had this tension between wanting to be more layered, moody, and sonic like so many of the British bands (My Bloody Valentine, Tindersticks, Stereolab, Spiritualized), while at the same time never being able to stray from our post-punk D.C. instincts," added bassist Geoff Sanoff.
Habibion and drummer Nick Pelliciotto founded Edsel in the late ‘80s, inspired by Happy Go Licky (which boasted pre-Fugazi personnel Guy Picciotto and Brendan Canty) and the nervy energy of UK post-punkers Wire and Gang of Four. After founding excellent local label DeSoto (now run by J. Robbins of Jawbox, Burning Airlines, and Channels fame) in 1989 to put out their first 7”, Edsel released its debut LP, Strange Loop, in 1992 with Steve Ward on bass and future Girls Against Boys mainstay Eli Janney on sampler.
Over the next several years, the band released two more LPs - 1993’s Everlasting Belt Co. and 1994’s Detroit Folly - and saw several lineup changes, at one point hosting Chisel drummer John Dugan. By the time of the group’s 1995 major-label opus, Techniques of Speed Hypnosis, Edsel had settled on Habibion and Steve Raskin on guitar and vocals, Sanoff on bass, and Steven Albert on drums.
Though Edsel had always been stylistically diverse, Techniques of Speed Hypnosis found the band gaining more focus. Says Sanoff of the Techniques era, “[The group] had become a more coherent, defined sound unto itself… Initially Edsel was a more overtly post-punk, new wave-ish band, which transitioned towards being more indie rock over the course of its lineup changes…. The local bands we were closest to musically at the time were Jawbox or Shudder to Think.”
Observes Raskin, “I saw Edsel as a unique sound growing out of the D.C. hardcore scene I had grown up with, and with the addition of the second guitar, we were able to push that sound further.”
Prior to the recording of Techniques, the band had gone on a six week tour of the U.S., "so we were listening to plenty of music together," Albert said. "I recall the Grifters and Guided By Voices being on a lot, among others."
Non-rock sounds were also making their way into the mix, according to the drummer. “During the time of the recording, being in Liverpool, we were introduced to the world of electronic music… The sounds of the Chemical Brothers and Josh Wink permeated our heads… There was also subtle usage of samples and loops, which was coming again from the electronic music that we were listening to.”
Habibion says he has a distinct memory of the CDs the band had with them during the recording session, which included DJ Shadow’s What Does Your Soul Look Like?, Fugazi’s Red Medicine, Tricky’s Maxinquaye, and Faust’s Faust IV. "All of those records are moody and have a patchwork quality to them that we were attracted to," he said.
To record their major label debut, Edsel headed to Merseyside and enlisted Anjali Dutt – who had worked on My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless and Oasis’s Definitely Maybe, as well as with the Jesus and Mary Chain, Swervedriver, and others – to produce. “The My Bloody Valentine connection was an important one,” says Sanoff. “Anjali's work with the Jesus and Mary Chain was also a nice selling point.”
“She was great,” says Habibion of Dutt. “I give her immense credit for dealing with such a stubborn and self-righteous a group of people as us with a reasonable amount clarity and grace. She must have realized pretty early in the scheme of things that she wasn't going to change our course, so she focused on helping us get what we wanted.”
“[Dutt] encouraged our experimental side and helped us flesh out our ideas in the studio,” recalled Raskin. “The end result was a much more lush, realized sound than we had been able to do on our own on our previous releases.”
"[Dutt] was totally unfamiliar with the American indie rock work ethic thing," Sanoff said. "It's a rite of passage to get signed, cop an attitude, and act like a rock star in the UK. And then to let your producer make your record for you. Whereas we came up in an environment where acting like a rock star was frowned upon and where you made music to represent yourself not to get famous. So compared to some of the British bands Anjali and [engineer] Andy [Wilkinson] were used to, we were super down to earth. I know she was surprised by how hard we were willing to work."
“She found the Kick Horns, who'd played with Thee Hypnotics and Blur, as well as The Rolling Stones and Pete Townshend,” recalled Habibion, ”and got them to write and play on a few songs. To hear what they came up with based on rough mixes and crummy notes like ‘think spy jazz’ or whatever was completely mind-blowing.”
At 21-tracks, Techniques of Speed Hypnosis is a sprawling, chiming, charging beauty, bursting with inventive sonic slights-of-hand, balancing snarling six-string assaults with impossible-to-ignore melodies. Songs like “Glazed By The Cold Front,” with its bright backing vocals and epic hooks, and the pulsing “Measure Steps” and “Parched” serve as impressive calling cards, displaying a band at the top of its game, full of bright ideas and the chops to pull them off. “Port Wood Finish” is built around an insistent call-and-response riff, twisted chords, and pounding drums, while “Skin of the Bear” and “Number 5 Recitative” demonstrate Edsel’s ability to craft dread and sinister insinuation into winning pop. Throughout the LP, longer tracks are linked together by brief, more experimental electronic interludes, adding to the complexity of the whole.
“I was concerned with finding a balance between capturing the band live, which was unquestionably our strong suit, and being indulgent with the recording process, creating layers of detail that would make the album more interesting to listen to,” said Habibion about Edsel’s goals heading into the Techniques sessions. “[Dutt] encouraged us to explore our ideas, adding my clarinet squeals through a phaser, letting Geoff run free with an abundance of vintage keyboards. For better and for worse she did not constrain us.”
Despite some misgivings about its length, the band looks back on Techniques as a triumph. “I think the record holds up really well. If I already didn't own it, I'd buy a copy,” Albert said
“I’m proud of how musically ambitious it is… Just thinking about it reminds me of how much traveling to Liverpool and making that album changed all of us. Sounds corny, I know, but it's true,” Habibion said.