Ready to learn about another multi-instrumentalist who is creating some great music under a new moniker? We’re excited to introduce to you Rainshadower. This is the first solo project of A. Ball, who has been well-known within the Pacific Northwest music scene for the past few decades. A new project for all of us to shed some light on. I dig that, and I hope that you do too. Welcome to or back to SWT.
In fact the press release for his debut album under this project entitled Charred Scars describes Ball’s story as follows, “Over the past many years, Ball has played an integral role in the fabric of the Seattle area music scene, lending his talent to multiple albums, shows, and tours in bands such as Cumulus, the Cops, Idiot Pilot, the Saturday Knights, Virgin Islands, Police Teeth, Dryland, and many others.”
The release sheds some more light on him, stating, “Ball has been an active participant in creating music with the bands he has played in since the 90s, primarily as a drummer. ‘A lot of that music was written organically with everyone in the room together, and I’ve always felt compelled to throw out ideas and make suggestions on whatever music I’ve been a part of creating collaboratively.’ But it was in 2012 that Ball first started seriously writing music on his own when he landed in the hospital with acute appendicitis less than a month after getting home from a tour with Virgin Islands, who were supporting Cursive on their I Am Gemini run. ‘The resulting surgery meant that I couldn’t play drums for several months for the first time in my adult life, and with the downtime at home, I really dove into figuring out how to demo songs in GarageBand.’ Ball would mess around on an old keyboard, and eventually that developed into writing entire songs. He leaned into the bass guitar, which he had been playing a lot of during that period as well, and bought a Fender Rhodes, which would also become a signature part of Rainshadower’s sound.”
Furthermore, on this debut and the moniker, “This beautiful album draws from his life experience and the natural melancholic beauty of the Cascade Mountains and the surrounding forests he grew up exploring. The name Rainshadower is inspired by the Northwest Washington climate, where rain and overcast skies have been a consistent element and influence for the vast majority of his life. ‘I love the rain and the beautiful, lush green that it brings, yet I also find it to be oppressive, dreary, and miserable at times.’ Rainshadower combines two words with negative connotations to create a positive, a guard against, and a reprieve from the sometimes oppressive weather.”
Rainshadower. Photo credit to Tommy Calderone.
Charred Scarswas released recently on November 21st. I recommend listening to the entire album. The organ-heavy project is a journey through the PNW on a rainy, contemplative day. The melodies are well-crafted with multiple instruments, and each song has its own rhythm and flow from dreamy to dreary, from majestic to melancholy moods while paying homage for the PNW and nature, and exploring universal, relatable themes. The harmonies from Alexandra Lockhart add some depth and improve both songs. The result is a good listening experience that uses a perfect amount of synth and organs and balances guitars, drums, and other percussion. Synthy goodness. Hell yeah. Check the entire album out for yourself, listener.
Giving credit where it’s due. Credits for CharredScars include:
Rainshadower: A. Ball – Vocals, Rhodes, Vibes, Moog, Grand, Drums and Percussion, Acoustic, Electric, and Bass guitar
Additional vocals on tracks 2 & 8 by Alexandra Lockhart
Engineered by Alex Heubel and Nicholas Wilbur at the Unknown
Mixed by Nicholas Wilbur at the Unknown
Mastering by Carl Saff at Saff Mastering
Layout by Clyde Petersen
Cover photo by Stefan Lee Goodwin
Special thanks to Hendrix, Jasper, and Megan
All songs written by Rainshadower
In the Singles Spotlight series, I pick one song to use as a lovely introduction. Within this album, serving as a fitting song to introduce many from SWT to Rainshadower’s project, I chose “Daybreak the Spell” as the opening, with its organ chords and steady thumping percussion that caught and held my attention. And it’ll do the same to you. The introduction of additional percussive and other instrumentation, as well as Ball’s vocals that explore lyrics that are both reflective inward and outwardly pushing future changes forward. The song as a whole hooks you in from start to finish. An excellent opening to the album. Kudos to you, A. Ball.
Check out the fantastic natural video for the song, “Daybreak the Spell,” that was shot and edited by award-winning filmmaker Clyde Petersen and appears on Rainshadower’s YouTube channel:
(All credits and rights to Rainshadower)
And now some more insight from Rainshadower himself, first about the video then the song:
About the concept behind the music video for Daybreak The Spell.
One of the first pieces of the concept that came to me was the final shot. I knew that I wanted to come out of the water and walk toward the camera while singing the last lines, and realized that it would be so cool to learn to sing those lines backwards and have that sequence play out in reverse. It seemed like a powerful idea and aligned nicely with the overall spooky, haunting, and beautiful vibe of the track. From there I kind of worked backwards (no pun!) to figure out why I was coming out of the water and landed on the idea of a quest and a map appearing out of thin air.
Most of the shots were relatively easy to execute. I had done extensive location scouting and knew where I wanted to shoot certain sequences. Some of the backwards stuff like jumping off the log/flying into the air to land on the log were a little challenging to make seem natural but just took a few takes. The “magic” fire starting sequence had my production assistant just off camera with one of those long BBQ lighters to light the fire “with my hands/through osmosis”. The hardest shot to execute was the final shot by far. I spent a good bit of time learning to sing the last two lines of the song backwards and then we practiced the timing of me walking backwards off the dock and falling into the water several times, but really, we only had one chance to get the shot because once I actually went into the water, I was wet and there wasn’t the ability to reset. I think it turned out pretty well, though of course, I wish it was more perfectly executed but considering that I just had one chance to get the shot, I think it worked out pretty darn good. It’s definitely unique, weird, unsettling, and powerful and that’s exactly what I was going for.
About how the music video was filmed in the same areas he would hike while coming up with lyrics for the songs on the album.
I spend a lot of time walking the trails in the foothills of the Chuckanut mountains. It’s a wonderful, serene place to be alone with my thoughts. To contemplate life, think about and develop music and lyrics, and find peace and solace. There are miles and miles of trails and incredible natural beauty. It’s such a powerful, wild, and inspiring place, and it’s literally 10 minutes from downtown Bellingham. I love being out there and often won’t see another person for miles. I started noticing interesting things on my walks like weird, moss-covered hollow logs, tons of different, amazing, huge fungi, dead trees decimated by woodpeckers, etc. and made mental notes of where those things were. Eventually I started taking pictures on my phone to be able to plan the execution of getting all the shots together, and be able to draw some of the interesting elements on the map that guides the quest in the video. One of the things that I noticed was that there were a bunch of different berries still on the vines even though it was winter. I thought that the idea of having them on the map, gathering them, and then using them to paint my face red, white & black during the fire/fungi tea sequence was so incredibly weird and unsettling that I just couldn’t not do it. I mean, what the actual fuck?! Haha.
About this song being one of the first he wrote for the debut album.
There’s something about the lonely, sparse, spooky vibe of this song that made me think of Twin Peaks. That haunted, dreary, grey, mysterious world that we live in here in the Pacific Northwest for about half of the year.. year after year. Incredibly beautiful in its own weird way, but also sad and lonely. Dark and cold. Months and months of grey rain that washes away the hope. Holding on for dear life for the spring to return and bring back the light and the warmth and the green.
I think this song really did set the tone for a lot of the music that followed. It’s somewhat sparse, there’s percussion (tamborine & shaker) that gently propels the front half of the song, the Rhodes line is simple and memorable, and maybe most importantly, the slide guitar shows up only in the choruses and solo to support the song instead of driving it. The bass is really the most driving element of the whole song, though since it’s the bass, you don’t really notice how much is going on there since it’s in that lower register. A lot of these elements, the sparseness, slide guitars appearing and disappearing in different sections of songs, percussion instead of full drum kit, simple Rhodes melodies, and super melodic bass appear throughout the whole record.
I knew that I wanted to get as far away from guitar-based sound as possible, and using the Rhodes as my primary writing tool just seemed like the most logical way for me to find a new sound and differentiate Rainshadower from anything I’d been a part of in the past. I’d always loved the sound of the Rhodes but I’d literally never played in a band with a keyboard player before, so to write this whole record on the Rhodes was unchartered territory for me for sure. Luckily for me, the tone & sound of the Rhodes itself is so unique, dreamy, lush, and beautiful, that I found even the simplest melodies came to life to my ear in a wonderful way. I didn’t have the power and adrenaline-fueled sounds of distorted guitars and slamming drums to rely on like I had in every band I’d been in since I was a teenager, but the Rhodes took me to a place that was so pure and inspiring, it really opened up a new world of music for me.
The cover art for Charred Scars:
The track list for the Charred Scars album:
Daybreak the Spell (3:18)
Cold Comfort of Grey Days (3:28)
Serpentinea (4:05)
Descending Under the Surface (6:39)
On Wings (4:09)
Slipper Slope (5:10)
Rainwash Through the Haze (3:24)
Untethered (4:21)
You can connect with and listen to Rainshadower at the following links:
Scummy Water Tower Productions co-founder, reviewer, business manager, and editor. Thank you for visiting this site: scummywatertower.com, and YouTube for Water Tower Sessions!
Contact me: alex@scummywatertower.com
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