By David Nowacki
For a couple of years now, Curran Farris has been punishing our ears (in the most wonderful way possible) in metal powerhouse outfit Hide Your Daughters. With this crew, his modus is ripping faces and various other parts off with his twisted, tight and ear-smashingly loud riffs. More erudite local scenesters might have known him from another project, Husk, which similarly sought to cauliflower your ears, but first lulled you into a sense of security with quieter, almost droning, intros and asides in the vein of Isis or Pelican. Huge, echoing sounds that evoked more vast vistas than tense anger. Here existed a dichotomy in Farris which is now embodied in two quite separate parts. The aforementioned Hide Your Daughters taking care of the brain abusing and aural slashing, and the solo effort Greenhouse, which encompasses all that is serene, liquid and expansive about Farris’s playing. It is ambient at its truest, with droning guitar and occasional theremin painting nearly blank and formless structures of beauty, but somehow weaving them into a cohesive, gorgeous whole. We figured it would be of interest to see how the two sides of Curran Farris came together, so we did what any good journalist would do and asked him.
Stylus: After making a habit of playing in metal bands, why now ambient?
Curran Farris: A couple years back I started listening to [ambient music] more. I got into it through non-ambient artists, like heavy bands that started into more experimental stuff. I’ve played guitar since grade five, and until last year had worked as a guitar teacher. I like doing ambient because it really allows me to turn off my “guitar player” brain.
Stylus: Do you find it more challenging to write Hide Your Daughters licks or compose ambient songs?
CF: Well, the thing is, it’s not really “written;” it’s all improvised. It might just start out with an idea. Writing the structured stuff is always much harder, you have to consciously abide to all the rules.
Stylus: Is either more satisfying?
CF: Not really.
Stylus: Do your surroundings play a big part in your music? [Author inhales deeply of his own wafting genius.] Does the inherent placidity and grand scale of the prairies facilitate making ambient music?
CF: Um… not consciously.
Stylus: So, why cassettes? I’m not sure I get this whole cassette revival.
CF: The two cassettes that I have out are with Prairie Fire Tapes, which is essentially the format that they put out. For whatever reason, tapes are popular. I have CD-Rs and stuff as well. I don’t get it either.
You can hear Curran Farris in his various guitar playing iterations in both Greenhouse and Hide Your Daughters on MySpace (www.myspace.com/greenhousedrone, www.myspace.com/hideyourdaughters) and occasionally in person, and can order Greenhouse cassette tapes from Prairie Fire Tapes at www.prairiefiretapes.com.