Alvira by Alvira

"On December 7th 1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and the next
day the United States declared war. On February 16th 1942 a meeting
was held at a small stone church in Alvira, a small farming town in
north-central Pennsylvania. The town residents had been hearing rumors
that their land might be taken to facilitate the building of a "large
factory". Three months after Pearl Harbor on March 7th 1942 another
meeting was held at the Stone Church. Government representatives
announced plans to seize over 8,000 acres in Lycoming and Union
counties for an undisclosed war purpose. The federal government had
already paid $15 million dollars to Stone & Webster, the general
contractor, and the U.S. Rubber Company had been awarded a contract to
operate a TNT plant in Pennsylvania. Residents were told they would
have the opportunity to buy back their land. On April 14th ground was
broken, the bulldozers moved in and the Pennsylvania Ordnance Works
was born. It lasted as a production facility for only 11 months. On
January 13th 1944 the War Department gave orders to cease TNT
production (due to the progress of the Manhattan Project) and on April
15th the POW closed it's doors. The entire site was listed for sale on
October 30th 1944 with the Surplus War Property Division cautioning
that much of the land might be contaminated with acid and that the few
remaining structures had five year life expectancies at best. The
complex was deactivated on December 31st 1950. Former land owners have
never been given the opportunity to purchase back their parcel of
land.

Over the spring and summer of 2010 I had taken to doing a bit of
rambling, and one of the places i continually revisited was Alvira.
Abandoned places have always attracted me for some reason and this is
one with dual meanings. On one hand a former farming community, on the
other a military ordnance construction and storage facility. Add some
connections to the nuclear programs, United Nations (this site was
once considered as a world headquarters), JATO (Jet Assisted Take Off)
projects, and the story of the fight to save Alvira and this land
takes on a certain charge.

It was during this time also that Alex Callenberger, Val LaCerra and
myself at first flirted with and finally committed to working on a
project together. We got together a few times a week, and when we
weren't recording I was stealing away to some forest or another, or
being drawn back to Alvira.

This was a project I had dreamed about for some time. It is always a
pleasure to work with friends whose work you admire. Just like other
projects I had some vision in my head of what it would be like, and
just like other projects it turned out differently. That is the true
beauty of creation, when the unexpected blooms, and you yourself are
surprised.

We would gather in my room, sometimes as a group and sometimes as a
pair, and collectively explore abandoned sonic temples, shrines, and
vistas. Places we had left behind or maybe were too scared to venture
alone, places that held spiritual power for us. As we progressed we
sent each other off in turns on solo meditations, to find the keystone
needed to proceed. We challenged and nodded heads. It was all over
much to soon, but our fever-dream still rings out, across the corn
fields and the drill pads and the junkyards and highways. Across
Alvira and through us all. "
-Fletcher Kaufman


"To my delight, when I hear many of the songs from this album, I think
of that summer we recorded, sitting in Fletcher’s tiny room surrounded
by obscure low-budget horror films and found art stacked to the high
ceiling—listening to fresh tracks and imagining how I might influence
them. One time, I was coming down off a conversation in the kitchen
with Fletcher’s sister Moriah, and wisps of her stories of shamans
swam about my prospective lyrics and melodies. Another time, Fletcher
told me something he had heard in a documentary: the idea that when a
child first approaches an instrument, she or he has no concept of how
the instrument is traditionally used, and so the child will slap and
pull on guitar strings while the thing lay on the floor. I tried not
to think of how this related to me, a virtually untrained musician,
instead enjoying the sheer enchantment with our queer spiritual
relationship to sound—an enchantment that stuck with me as we moved
from there to working on Alvira for the day.

This is what interested me in the project: Fletcher, Alex and I all
respected each other for what we had done in our distinct musical
sandboxes, but the three of us never played together. Collaborating
made sense, and I was excited to blend our unique qualities together.
But Alvira challenged me: our decidedly experimental approach demanded
I venture outside my comfort zone. I played instruments I don’t
usually play, arranged my first beats; I played a freaking Atari. To
me, the final product, Alvira, is like a photo album. There’s us in
Fletcher’s bedroom, approaching this thing for the first time, not
knowing what to do with it and not caring! Just banging on it while it
lay on the floor day after day like a child with its first guitar; no
beliefs about what it should be. Just accepting it. Not resisting it.
Almost attacking it. I don’t know if we can recreate that again, so
I’m glad we recorded it!"
-Val LaCerra


"Working with Fletcher and Val on this project was our own twisted
version of musical chairs. At times Fletcher and I would blindly start
in to a new project by leaving it to chance to find what musical
madness would or might appear. Fletcher (the musical ring master)
would set the pace and leave the artistic freedom to its own devices.
Our musical contribution and collaboration is like the mixed candy
halloween bag of our dreams, or maybe just mine?? Val and Fletcher
have a huge influence on my music, and at times I feel like the little
kid dragging behind their constant musical evolution. This body of
work will go down as on of my proudest moments to work with two
wonderful friends and two amazing artists."
-Alex Callenberger

Album: Alvira
Written, Recorded, and Produced by: Alex Callenberger, Fletcher
Kaufman, Val LaCerra
Mastered by: Fletcher Kaufman
Art by: John Nicholson


March to Cairo:
Arrangement - Alex Callenberger, Fletcher Kaufman, Val LaCerra
Written by: Fletcher Kaufman, Val LaCerra
Lyrics by: Val LaCerra

Fletcher Kaufman - Drums, Synth, Guitar
Val LaCerra - Vocals, Synth


Piano3.1:
Arrangement - Alex Callenberger, Fletcher Kaufman, Val LaCerra
Written by: Alex Callenberger, Fletcher Kaufman, Val LaCerra
Lyrics by: Val LaCerra

Alex Callenberger - Bass, Synth,
Fletcher Kaufman - Drums, Synth, Xylophone
Val LaCerra - Vocals, Synth


Banjo:
Arrangement - Fletcher Kaufman, Val LaCerra
Written by: Fletcher Kaufman, Val LaCerra
Lyrics by: Fletcher Kaufman

Fletcher Kaufman - Vocals, Drums
Val LaCerra - Banjo


Degruf:
Arrangement - Fletcher Kaufman, Val LaCerra
Written by: Fletcher Kaufman, Val LaCerra
Lyrics by: Val LaCerra

Fletcher Kaufman - Atari 800xl Computer and Vocal Samples
Val LaCerra - Vocals, Drums, Synth, Atari 800xl Computer and Vocal Samples


Output:
Arrangement - Alex Callenberger, Fletcher Kaufman
Written by - Alex Callenberger, Fletcher Kaufman, Val LaCerra

Alex Callenberger - Drums, Synth
Fletcher Kaufman - Manipulation, Drums, Synth
Val LaCerra - Vocals


Notsochillfunkywhiteboymuzak:
Arrangement - Alex Callenberger, Fletcher Kaufman
Written by: Alex Callenberger, Fletcher Kaufman

Alex Callenberger - Guitar, Bass
Fletcher Kaufman - Drums, Synth


Valley:
Arrangement - Val LaCerra
Written by - Val LaCerra

Alex Callenberger - Bass
Fletcher Kaufman - Drums, Synth
Val LaCerra - Vocals, Guitar, Accordion

Clawfoot Slumber is most beloved for creating alluring soundscapes that are easy to slip into and lyrical compositions that are impossible to forget. Listening to Clawfoot Slumber is like fading into a waking dream in which your heart bursts with wonder, your eyes well with longing, and if you jump high you may even fly.