Astonishing Tales - Bio
Unique, Thy Name is Astonishing Tales
Astonishing Tales is an indie recording duo made up of Henry Bloomfield (vocals/piano/drums) and Davis Vigneault (vocals/guitar/bass). Davis and Henry met as freshmen at Groton School, a small high school northwest of Boston. There, they played together in and out of class, on and off stage, and in various cover bands before declaring themselves "Astonishing Tales" late in their junior year. They hit the recording studio soon thereafter and, by spring of senior year, had churned out their (almost) self-titled, debut record, Astonishing Tales of the Sea. After graduation, Henry headed out to college in Ohio and Davis stayed in Boston, but the separation only prolonged the inevitable. By the time classes started up for their junior year of college, they had released yet another album, Flipped.
Concert at 51 Walden (June 2009).
Performing "Silver-White Airplanes."
Throughout the band's existence, Henry and Davis have repeatedly been asked to categorize their music. Each time they booked a gig or passed a CD along to a soon-to-be fan, they were asked some variation of the same question: What kind of music is it? Acoustic Rock. Jazz-Infused Pop. Alternative & Punk. The answer could lie at any point along the spectrum, owing to any number of influences. What's the last song they worked on in the recording studio: "Charlie" or "The Astonishing Tale"? What's loaded in the CD player: Radiohead, Counting Crows, or Gabe Dixon Band? Who'd you ask: Davis or Henry? When asked about a single song, the two might eventually arrive at a meta-stable consensus; but any attempt to generalize that label to the band's overall sound unavoidably failed. As one fan commented after a show in June of 2009, going to an Astonishing Tales concert is a bit like "flipping through radio stations" - each song is so different from the last that, if you hadn't been watching them play, you might not have believed that the same musicians were on stage song after song. Astonishing Tales' lack of genre could be explained by the fact that Henry and Davis had each developed his own complex musical character prior to meeting the other; and when they finally came together, these two personalities tangled and danced, shouted and swooned, but never regressed to the mean.
Though Henry is a piano player by trade, he is also comfortable on a drum kit. His command over such diametrically opposed instruments affords him great versatility in his playing and composing. When working out piano voicings, Henry keeps the backbeat in his mind, seeing how the two will fit together. Therefore, though each piano and drum part has its own artistic temperament (indeed, some could pass as solo pieces), they become cascading, interplaying arabesques when overlaid (see "Bookends"). And the two are not altogether separate at his hands, making for percussive piano parts (see "The Cupcake Man") and drum lines with uncanny melodic character (see "Fall to Me"). Though piano-rock gods like Ben Folds and Sir Elton John have heavily influenced Henry's style, they have not wholly displaced the jazz greats, like Oscar Peterson and Brad Mehldau, who were so acutely present during his formal training (see "Rhythm" and "Postlude at St. John's").
Davis got his start by finger picking and belting out shuffles in blues dives and coffee shops. There, he learned to respond to the taste and mood of an unpredictable audience, allowing him to switch from the warmth of an Eastman arch-top guitar (see "Soaring") to the muscle of an electric Gibson Les Paul (see "Rhythm") to the presence of an acoustic Martin (see "The Dream") and back again. For years, Davis played crowd-pleasers by Janice Joplin, Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix, and Billie Holiday, whose music deeply influences his original songs, and whose names continue to appear in his lyrics (see "The Afterlife" and "Billie Baby"). Moreover, as Davis began to listen to modern innovators like Sigur Rós, Kaki King, and Iron & Wine, his musical style leapt into the next dimension, becoming warm but dark, brazen but contemplative, while retaining its rock and blues framework (see "Wires").
Therefore, by the time Henry and Davis began to plan Astonishing Tales of the Sea, each had already settled into his own stylistic niche: Henry in Jazz-Pop and Davis in Blues-Rock. And these lines did not dissolve away when the two collaborated. Henry and Davis composed their songs largely independent of one another before bringing them to the recording studio. Moreover, Henry and Davis performed their own lead vocals for the songs they'd written.
Cape Cod (June 2009).
Recording "Rhythm."
So why is Astonishing Tales a band and not just two guys who, individually, had only enough material for an EP? Given what they started with their junior year of high school - six piano-pop pieces and another six guy-with-his-guitar songs - it could easily have turned out that way. Henry and Davis took the crucial step when they brought their songs to the recording studio, where Davis' guitar added a sparkle to Henry's rhythm (see "Catch Up to You"), Henry's piano added depth to Davis' chord progressions (see "For Julia"), and they thickened each other's vocal lines with fluid harmonies. The net result, as far as the first album is concerned, was that neither Henry nor Davis was independently responsible for the bones (drums and bass), muscle (piano and guitar), or face (vocals) of the final recordings. Rather, their inexorable presence in one another's tracks provided a through-line for Astonishing Tales of the Sea, released in May of 2007.
But where Henry and Davis provided embellishment and support for each other's songs on Astonishing Tales of the Sea, they instead provided inspiration and structure on Flipped. During winter of freshman year, 2007-2008, Astonishing Tales recorded two songs: "Billie Baby" (Davis) and "Fall to Me" (Henry). Just as on the previous record, Davis and Henry each brought a song to the table in near-final form. Henry fleshed out "Billie Baby" with a firm drumbeat and a warm Wurlitzer solo. Likewise, Davis smoothed out "Fall to Me" with a bass line and harmony vocals. And, as always, the two left the studio charged, eager to move on to the next tracks.
The following summer, Henry drafted a new piece (what would eventually split into two tracks, entitled "Rhythm" and "Postlude at St. John's"). The song was a far cry from anything Henry had previously written. It was a jazz ballad, cool and reflective (although not down-tempo), with the form and feel of a Real Book standard, and a frightening twist just before the outro. In the past Davis had admired Henry's work, but now he was captivated by it. The song articulated something that Davis had always known, but was never able to say himself (or, at least, not so elegantly); and as a result, he felt as invested in "Rhythm" as he had ever felt in any of his own songs.
Davis' enthusiasm had a dramatic effect on the way that the duo went about recording "Rhythm" and "Postlude" (in the duo's shorthand). When recording Astonishing Tales of the Sea, Davis and Henry obsessed over the quality of each track, displaying impressive attention to detail; and they were no less particular about the finer, more technical points when recording Flipped. But this time around, Davis found himself regularly re-arming the recorder, throwing out takes based on little more than the look on Henry's face. Being unable to point out a flaw was no longer a reason to keep a take. Now, the take needed to have its very own character, and both members needed to be thrilled.
Concert at 51 Walden (June 2009).
Performing "Billie Baby."
Previously, the recording process had revolved around the author's vision for the song. It had been the job of the other to do everything he could to aid in the realization of that vision and, hopefully, to come to share it. Now, although "Rhythm" was Henry's song, the vision for it came from Henry and Davis combined. This subtle yet crucial distinction set "Rhythm" apart from anything they had previously recorded. Moreover, this new mindset proved more than a one-time shot when, shortly after completing "Rhythm" and "Postlude," the two moved on to Davis' tune, "Wires." The beat Henry constructed for the song was so incessant, so talkative, that it did as much to change the song's character as it did to complement it.
The division between new and old was so dramatic that "Billie Baby" and "Fall to Me" no longer sparked the same excitement that they had the previous winter. Though Henry and Davis were still proud of the recordings (indeed, either could have been the title song on a previous album), they feared that, no matter how they were mixed or where they were placed, they would never settle into the track list. And so, Henry and Davis scratched them both, beginning again post-perceptual shift.
They finished re-recording "Billie Baby" and "Fall to Me" the following summer and, without taking a breath, moved on to "Charlie," "I Won't Keep my Voice Down" (both Davis), and "The Astonishing Tale" (Henry). The first was a folk/rock fusion with a restless melody and unfortunate protagonist, featuring a nearly whispered vocal accompanied by acoustic guitar. Then came "I Won't Keep my Voice Down": half ballad and half anthem; singing of Queens, blue-eyed horses, and cigarettes; borrowing from Henry's keen sense for arrangement and highlighting Davis' graphic lyrical style. Then, they moved on to "The Astonishing Tale," an episodic instrumental likened to a story told in five parts by five narrators.
The sound that made these eight songs beautiful was not achieved by finding the geometric center between Henry's and Davis' musical characters, but rather by combining them in as many ways and ratios as possible. There were moments in which the author's vision was completely dependent on the contribution of the other, such as Henry's re-harmonization in the last verse of "Billie Baby" and Davis' acoustic guitar melody line in the penultimate section of "The Astonishing Tale." But these moments were juxtaposed, even within the same song, with other moments in which the author's unaffected character burst through, such as the vocal of "Billie Baby," borne out of the blues dives where Davis learned to sing, and the piano solo of "The Astonishing Tale," a stunning example of how Henry's experience with the drum kit influences his piano parts.
Groton School (May 2007).
Practicing "Let's Miss It."
Astonishing Tales' lack of genre gives them the versatility and unpredictability that makes them unique; and this lack of genre derives directly from the strength of the component musical personalities and the unusual way in which they interact. With this point in mind, Henry and Davis decided that their individual personalities were worth emphasizing in the context of the album as a whole. So, taking a cue from the Billie Holidays and Oscar Petersons of their past, they decided to divide the album into "side a" and "side b," which would consist of Davis' and Henry's songs, respectively.
By the time Astonishing Tales left the studio, June was nearly behind them. They were exhausted, having been recording fourteen hours or more per day for weeks straight, but also elated by what they had accomplished and what little remained to be done. They had completed eight songs in their entirety: four by Davis, four by Henry. As they packed their equipment into the truck, they worked out the final order of songs for the CD. As they drove down route 93 toward home, they booked time with a studio in West Springfield to have the record mastered; then, they set a date to meet in Boston with Henry's sister Emma, the band's graphic designer, and to begin developing the record's album artwork. And, lastly, they called Groton School to reserve St. John's Chapel, where they would record the last song of the album.
Since finishing Astonishing Tales of the Sea two years earlier, Davis and Henry had daydreamt about expanding the album's hidden track into a full-length song; and in spring of 2009, Henry finally took on the project. The piano part Henry composed began in much the same way as the melodic passage following "Let's Miss It" and then leapt into a driving theme that carried the song through to its arousing finale. At this point, Henry typically would have begun to work out the details of the melody and to draft lyrics; but, with a Lennon/McCartney strategy in mind, he instead handed it over to Davis to complete. This, as they both were acutely aware, would be their first co-written song, the first whose original authorship would belong to Astonishing Tales as a whole. So, with Henry's piano part spinning through his head, Davis sat down with pen, paper, and a scratch recording to write the lyrics.
"Flipped Upside Down," as the song would be named, could just as easily have been a beginning as an end, like a painting that could be either of a sunrise or sunset. And as with all things that serve as both a beginning and an end, the writing of this song is perhaps more eloquently described as a landmark, the point at which the paradigm was flipped on its head. The song was the end of separation between Davis' and Henry's work, as well as the beginning of complete collaboration; and, having pegged it as the last song on the record, Henry and Davis returned to Groton School, where they first met, to record not the first, not the last, but yet another astonishing tale.