photo by Tod Seelie
White Hinterland
Casey Dienel discusses why her newest release, Phylactery Factory, isn’t for faint-of-heart dainty ladies
By Katy Henriksen
Published: February 28th, 2008 | 10:00am
Don’t make the mistake of describing White Hinterland, a.k.a. Casey Dienel, as precious. At first glance, the cover art to White Hinterland’s Phylactery Factory (released March 4, 2008 on Dead Oceans) looks innocent enough with scribbled swirls, wispy blades of grass, and a swarm of cheetahs. But a closer examination reveals that these cute little beasts are devouring a bloody zebra carcass.
The same duality exists within White Hinterland’s music. While surface listening renders Factory a breezy atmospheric collage of a melancholy cinematic scope, it proves more complex and satisfying than simply an enjoyable jazzy folk record.
“I’d say I feel very un-precious,” Dienel says ironically over a lady-like brunch at the Roebling Tea Room in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood. “Philosophically, the things that move me are usually very different from what I’m packaged and boxed beside.”
After ordering — “I eat a lot. I have a very big appetite,” she gushes — the discussion shifts back to White Hinterland’s music. A multi-instrumentalist and composer, Dienel expresses frustration with being lazily compared to the handful of women who happen to play the piano and write their own songs.
“My biggest pet peeve is when there are things like my hair color in a review,” she remarks. “They’ll do that for a lot of women. They’ll describe what they look like, how they’re dressed, but in a very precious way. I think that preciousness about women in artistic fields isn’t actually there.”
Dienel’s passionate statement doesn’t mean she rejects femininity altogether. “I think it is a very feminine record,” she says of Factory. “But there are elements or presences of masculine forms. All the music that I love has both. It’s always funny when I read things like: ‘oh, very girly music.’ Well, actually it could go both ways. Throughout the record there is reconciliation between Man and Woman in different places.”
Dienel — who released her first record, Wind-Up Canary, in her own name — switched to the White Hinterland moniker because she wanted a stage name more representative of her musical oeuvre. “I felt like going by my name was getting funny. There was this big disconnect between Casey playing music and Casey who hangs out with her friends,” she explains.
Whereas Canary was a more straightforward recollection of resolvable stories sung by a 19-year-old, Factory represents a move to something more nebulous. “I thought it was time to embrace that side of myself rather than try to be the singer-songwriter that I never really was,” she says.
Indeed Factory is anything but precious, with themes of destruction, disassembly, and death. “A Beast Washed Ashore” recounts the gruesome taking apart of a beached whale. And in “Destruction of the Art Deco House,” Dienel chillingly sings, “You’re just sinews and bones.”
Factory also utilizes a full band, an all-star lineup of Portland musicians that includes guitarist and producer Adam Selzer and other musicians associated with M. Ward. “They’re so fun to play with. We’d all eat burritos and drink absinthe,” she recalls, quickly adding, “Only after we were done recording.”
A self-described “brain,” Dienel sent a seven-page sound manifesto to Selzer prior to recording. “I had a lot of textural notes for him,” she says of the experience. “I speak really literally. I don’t use musical terms. I’ll say I need it to sound like a squeaky door hinge here.” Rather than making notations, Dienel relays parts by singing them to band members. “The whole record for me was about working with people and not being the controlling agent to everything,” she says.
Now on a nationwide tour, her current backing band is a different assemblage that consists of longtime friends from back home in Massachusetts where she currently lives. Dienel admits that she’s still negotiating her stage fright and vocal delivery, which she describes as sometimes “froggy” or “glitchy,” and explains why — even though there are still parts of her that have the urge to disappear while in front of a crowd — she keeps on. “If I didn’t sing these songs, no one would, so I think that necessity instills some fearlessness when I’m in front of people,” she says. “I really feel a very strong, brazen ownership over it.”
Each time she performs, her songs evolve. “A lot of these songs are maybe unresolved or they’re evading answers. Things might not be tied up neatly in a bow, but I think that’s okay. It makes playing them more fun for me,” she says. “Every time I’m playing them I feel like I’m getting deeper with them and learning more about myself.”
Phylactery Factory documents Casey Dienel’s transition from a teenager still searching for her distinct voice into White Hinterland, a musical persona at once magical and dark. Those who don’t bother to linger in Factory’s subtle complexity are surely missing out on the ferocity of an evolving artist.
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Issue #26
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