Traveling by train has many benefits over driving to play at a venue in what can otherwise be a long distant journey filled with stress of driving. Taking a bicycle further adds to the sense of adventure and offers the means to understand the structure of the city on a smaller, more human scale than from the isolation of a car.
I’ll be interviewing Ceremonial Abyss (Bryan) on their experience taking the train long distances in relation to touring.
Seattle Noise: Can you give us a bit of introduction to your music and your background?
Ceremonial Abyss: The project started around 2014, with the first self-titled release appearing in 2015 on the cult Olympia tape label Cuss Fetish. I did some short touring for that tape in the Northeast, as always by train and bus. Around this time the tours were like, 2-3 weeks max, as I was in graduate school, getting out of town on weekends and holidays, summers, etc. I was very into this dark psychedelic hard acid. Somatic Responses, Beverly Hills 808303, all the I-F shit. A lot of West Coast influence via SPAZ and Katabatik Soundsystems. That sound morphed and changed drastically the more music I listened to. I started favoring a lot more krautrock, free jazz, and classical music. Tapes started becoming conceptualized and it was like I finally started allowing disciplines to merge; sound, text, design all merged and aligned with life and cultural interests.
Before CA, I was part of this psychedelic/industrial/A/V group called Thee Source ov Fawnation with Ashley Paer Svn. We were undergraduate students, making records on the Buchla synth at Evergreen and touring the northeast and west coast rave circuit via ridesharing, hitchhiking, buses and trains. We didn’t take it very far as we could have, but this is where I started developing certain aspects of the touring method I still use today; prioritizing public transportation and ridesharing. At this point, I have covered most of the country. I have no interest in touring by car.
Seattle Noise: That’s sort of mind boggling. When you decided to make trains and public transportation your default touring mode, did anything change with the type of gear you were bringing to make your sounds?
Yes absolutely. At first it was all hardware, so much bullshit. Now it’s a much smaller system with a few small tape decks. The idea is to travel with as little as possible—getting the most sound out of the smallest amount of equipment, if you can. One backpack, one small case. This is ideal not only for traveling, but for sharing tables and working with other artists at shows as well. Also, it’s important to have gear that you can run with incase you’re in a gnarly situation—and don’t play yourself—it’s important to bring gear that is inexpensive/replaceable in case it gets jacked. Most important thing I learned is to carry backups for whatever weird power adapters you’re using, because the Fuzz Jawn on Main St. is not gonna be packing a 15V 1.5A wall wart intended for your weird shit! Big shoutout to Drow for fixing one of my adaptors in Albany, NY, day before a show, a few tours back!
Seattle Noise: Are there any Amtrak routes or sections you find memorable or scenic?
Ceremonial Abyss: The Amtrak Cascades line, running from Vancouver, BC to Eugene. I have rode this line so many times. It never gets old. I have laughed, cried, celebrated, slept, worked, wrote, listened, contemplated, meditated my way through the stained windows for over a hundred thousand hours it seems. It does feel like home in a way.
Seattle Noise: I agree there is something special about Amtrak Cascades in the way it connects together the region. The pandemic and also the loss of a number of rail cars with the 2017 derailment on the Point Defiance Bypass put a damper on the reliability and service recovery. Sometime in 2026 Amtrak will receive new Siemens trainsets, laying the way for service to expand with additional trips along the corridor.
Last time you visited Seattle you also brought your bicycle. Was this a more recent idea?
Ceremonial Abyss: The bicycle-touring idea has been on my mind for a few years now. I’m really big into cycling and try my best to utilize that method of transport for most of the local shows I play. It’s easy to throw gear in a pannier set and throw my bike on the train, or bike to the show. It provides me with a lot more options too, when I finally land in the city. If timed correctly, post-rainfall and pre-wildfire season, a cycling-based PNW/West Coast would be incredibly cool. Maybe next summer.
Seattle Noise: Yes planning around the weather can be tricky. Other than your upcoming show later this month do you have any future plans people should look forward to?
I’ll be hitting the road in a few months, covering the west coast and southwest, and up to Colorado, by bus and train in October. Haven’t been there in a while and I’m pretty psyched. I’ve been working with this Tony Conrad tape that Joe Mygan threw me in Northampton at the end of the last tour. It’s very strange the way things find you on tour and almost take the lead in directing the path. It feels very liberating to let things go and let it fall the way it needs to.
Listen to their music on Bandcamp and Abysmal Goods. Catch their performance along with Hen House, Cube, and Myaku on Thursday, August 22, 2024 at Teatro de la Psychomachia in Seattle. No sports games are planned.
