Sam Carlson Photos
Noah Silvestry struck the opening chords of the song “Ancient” in front of a rapt crowd at Cafe Nine, signaling both the start of the show and the first-ever live appearance by his band, Luke Ellingson. Silvestry, a Pennsylvania native, moved to New Haven for school and has made his way into the local music scene recording at his home studio in Wooster Square under the Luke Ellingson moniker. His most recent release, Clementine, is out now on the Connecticut-based label Funnybone.
The band that appeared at Cafe Nine Saturday night featured seasoned musicians Ben Mueller (a.k.a. Low Ceilings), Connor Rog of Bajzelle, Ditch Boys, and Kicker Pictures, and Jake Gagne of Won Ton Death.This may have been the band’s first show together, but its musicians played like they’d been a group forever. Playing new material as well as tracks from the newly released Clementine, Luke Ellingson set the tone for an evening with Closebye, up from New York City, and (in full disclosure) my group, The Tines.
The songs that became Clementine arrived quickly in 2019 while Silvestry’s previous effort, Like Wires Humming, was in the process of being released. Both records are lush and dense, full of texture and life. Clementine in particular is awash with echoes and sounds that are unfamiliar but never unpleasant.
“I’m very much exploring while I’m recording,” said Silvestry. “I’ve figured out how to be super efficient in my little room. I’ve learned where the good sounds live and how to find them fast.”
Clementine does feel like Silvestry’s sandbox. The album features 12 tracks that share common threads, but each feel realized in their own right. The blend of acoustic and electric instruments is prominent, as are the impeccably picked drum parts (Silvestry’s primary instrument).
Both Clementine and Like Wires Humming are mostly Silvestry, but also feature his cousin Max Mines on bass and a friend, Max Kulicke of the band American Trappist, on lead guitar. Other tracks feature fellow Funnybone artist Laura Wolf on cello and Silvestry’s father on 12-string guitar.
As Luke Ellingson, Silvestry has also worked on a number of pet projects with other artists — like Daniprobably, with whom he appears on the Funnybone compilation Room For You.
“I become heavily invested in things that I work on. I like it when someone comes to me with an open mind and lets me point them in a direction,” he said. He then quoted producer John Congleton, saying “often the thing that is coolest about an artist is the thing they are least comfortable with.”
To that end, he worked with his own voice a lot on Clementine, trying on a different character and singing in a different and higher style from the Luke Ellingson heard on Like Wires Humming.
“I’ve been learning what I do well and what I should avoid. I had never sung on a record prior to these two.” But being a new hand has served him well in the past. “There’s something about being new to it and not knowing what you’re doing. I did such dumb crazy stuff to the sounds on Wires Humming that I would never think to do now.”
Outside of his musical life, Silvestry is attending graduate school at Yale’s school of architecture and working at Gray Organschi, the team behind Firehouse 12 and Common Ground High School.
“The way I experience music has to do with architecture in that I experience it very spatially,” he said. “Thinking about the timbre and texture of instruments as materials. As a producer I think about articulating transitions. Architecture is about mediating thresholds and the character of the architecture is largely defined by how you navigate thresholds as you move from inside to outside.”
The same could be said of performance; that it is a complex set of navigations that the artist brings the audience through. With his band arriving fully formed and a third record currently in the works, we’re certainly looking forward to thresholds Luke Ellingson will cross next.
Clementine and other releases from Luke Ellingson are available on Bandcamp.