ONLINE: Erik Kjelland (EP release)

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Dave Jackson

Erik Kjelland

press release: Local musician Erik Kjelland of The Mascot Theory will celebrate the release of his new The Andromeda EP solo album this Wednesday evening (4/29/20) during his weekly online Facebook Live concert on The Mascot Theory’s Facebook page ( http://facebook.com/themascottheory ). Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/664182404419782/ 

Distance. That’s 2020 in a nutshell so far. As a musician who doesn’t play solo shows, Erik Kjelland would much rather be creating and playing music with his bandmates in The Mascot Theory and Kerosene Kites. Kjelland and his restless mind have had to find a way to get through this new musical isolation, and in mid-March 2020 he was determined to scratch his perpetual creative itch by working on The Andromeda EP, his first solo album since 2011. With limited resources available to him in his small makeshift home studio/dining room on a non-existent budget, Kjelland tackled the producing, recording, mixing and mastering duties on his own with assists from YouTube tutorials as well as tips from friends and colleagues. The title track of the album was created mostly via digital instruments, and Kjelland was forced to wear headphones throughout the process so as to not disturb (or be disturbed by) the daily routines of his newly ever-present quarantined family members. The juxtaposition of social distancing and quarantined family life is what crafted this album, feelings of isolation mixed with moments of love and pressure and joy and frustration that come from such familial closeness. 

During the quarantine, Kjelland started playing weekly Wednesday night Live Stream solo shows as a means to connect with family and friends and fans and has found it to be a meaningful way to shorten up the gap between humans in this new reality as well as a way to share new and old music. While physical distance is stressed in these crazy times, technology allows the ability for musicians to play in living rooms across the globe simultaneously and can be a much more intimate connection than playing shows on a stage. Distance can be hard, but it is relative in nature. The proximity of one quarantined human to another is nothing compared to the distance of one star to another. Or one galaxy to another. Or so on. It's all about perspective.