Northwest Arkansas-based band Modeling is giving us a new single. "At Variance" is a swirling, building, majestic four-minute, 19-second framework inspired by choreography and ballet. Justin Peck, of New York City Ballet, has a ballet called The Decalogue.
Brothers Ryan Connor and Cuinn Brogan make up Modeling. They were in the Anthony and Susan Hoy News Studio recently.
“Yeah, I've watched interviews," Cuinn said. "I've never seen a live performance of any of his ballets, obviously, because it's in New York City. But I watch a lot of videos from dances that he's choreographed. And I heard that word thrown around in there — variants. And like, they talk about variations in dance a lot. So yeah, and I watched The Decalogue thing. I kind of put two and two together. I like the whole… there was a lot of relating themes in that, The Decalogue, and what I was going through with this music.”
"At Variance" was released earlier this month, and snippets of an accompanying video feature a spinning Connor going round and round. The brothers say every visual they’re assembling to be adjacent to "At Variance" has some spinning element.
The single’s title and theme is about being just a bit out of sync with something or someone.
“So basically what Cuinn was saying about The Decalogue and the ballet and dancing and the themes of being at odds with something, whether you're out of sync — and, Cuinn, you can chime in anytime you want," Ryan said, "but things being out of sync, either you're out of sync with another person in your life or with yourself and your own life, or just the direction you're heading. I kind of, when I interpreted this theme and wrote the lyrics for it, I thought of it as two people, almost like us trying to hold something together that's falling apart. And it is similar to a dance. I took all these things that Cuinn brought to the table as, like, here's the concept. And I was like, okay, like a dance, it's like this. And so for the visuals, I wanted it to have that feeling of something kind of like spinning, like you're going in circles — whether it's a relationship or a time in your life — and you're not in control of it, and it's spinning out of control. It's not a narrative, but more so just a concept for how we show the visuals.”
Modeling's approach to releasing music is much more diligent than prolific. The process behind getting "At Variance" into the world required careful production of both audio and video.
“I don't know how it is for most people, but we love to put the work into the campaign because we love telling the story of the song through visuals," Cuinn said. "Visuals are very important to us, and it's fun now. It used to be hard work and it wasn't fun. But now-"
"It's still hard work," Ryan said. "It's fun to be creative in a different way."
"Yeah, we don't shove music out very often, Cuinn said. "It takes us a long time to write something that we like. So we're very slow at it. But once we get something, we make it a big deal because we just never put anything out.And then we'll come up with a story. Usually when the song's finished and it's done mastering, it'll take us two, two and a half months. It'll be done, ready to go, but it takes two and a half months to actually release it so we can plan out everything and make sure it's done right.”
Ryan Brogan says knowing when they're ready to release a new track — when they feel the work is done — is more objective than subjective. Rather than, this sounds finished, it's more, there are no big problems to address in production. But all that attention to detail is designed with the eventual listener in mind.
"I think whenever we write and produce music," Brogran said, "What I really like is replay value. I don't want to stuff it, but I want to put a lot of interesting things in there so you can go back and find something new every time. Those are my favorite kinds of movies. I love where I can watch it again, find something. So yeah, that's intentional, that part."
"We always try to, even if the song is very minimal and bare, we always try to put little ear candy things and details in the background just to have something that you maybe don't catch the first time, but you go back and listen again and you'll hear something new.”
The new single "At Variance" certainly has plenty for the human ear to experience.
“Yeah, I think every track we work on — I don't know why we make it so dense. Like, I grew up listening to Steve Reich, and all of his music is super dense. There's something about that I really like. So I put it into our music, and it causes a lot of problems sometimes."
"But there are some really interesting feelings you get from a dense production, like anxiety and tension."
"Claustrophobia,
"Claustrophobia. Like, there are really good things about it. Yeah, I mean 'At Variance' has that, I think, on purpose. Without the dense production, it would probably feel a lot less intense and anxiety ridden. But that was the goal for that piece of music."
The first new song from Modeling in three years, "At Variance", is out now and can be found on streaming platforms or by clicking through at Modeling Music. You can learn more about the band on Instagram.
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