Their debut album, Nightlight, has just been officially released on their their own Puffed Wheat label, and it’s not one you want to miss. I don’t normally toss out five star reviews on Onetimesone, but Nightlight is one of those timeless albums that will sound as fresh in ten years as it does now, and I can’t remember being so bowled over by a group for quite a long time. I recently spoke with main singer/songwriters Jen Appel and Marc Goodman via e-mail about all things Illumina.

Interviewer: Mark Horan


MH: First of all, congratulations on a fine debut album. “Nightlight” is still in my player after a few months of listening to it. How did the record release party go last Saturday?

Jen: The record release party was a little nerve-wracking but turned out beautifully. We threw it at a church that basically let us come in and do whatever we wanted. We decided to play the whole album all the way through, and make it super-theatrical, with programs, intermission, a stage design, lighting concept, etc. It was sort of a series of little hurdles we had to jump over to get through it – when we had the idea, there were some songs on the album that we had never arranged live, so first it was – can we play every song on the album? Check. Can we come up with a lighting concept and execute it? Check. Can we bring in a sound guy and make the church into a space for a rock show? Check. Can we organize all the musicians who played on the album to come play with us for the show? Check. So on and so forth. I was still a little nervous though!

MH: I couldn’t help but notice that it was held at a Lutheran church.

Jen: Yes, Maura, our violinist, grew up next door to the church and they basically said we could have the space whenever we wanted. We felt like it would provide a really great atmosphere and also allow us to invite our families to see us play in a place where they could sit, it wasn’t dirty, etc. The stage with the altar was actually really, really big so we were able to set it up exactly as we wanted.

MH: How long has the band been together now and how did Illumina start?

Jen: We’ve been together – well technically about three years this winter. The band started when Marc heard a three song demo tape I had recorded on my own and told me he was into playing together sometime.

Marc: And by that she means I dragged her out of her bedroom kicking and screaming and forced her to record some music at my place.

Jen: We met at NYU, where we were both going to school, I was dating the drummer of his former band. It was summer 2001 when I went to his house to just play around and record a song I had written recently. He sent it to me a few weeks later and had added all this stuff to it – I was like “Wow, this sounds even better!” So we just started recording together every now and again, one of us writing the song and then working together to arrange it. We got together for three days in January 2002 and recorded 24-7 to produce what was to become our first “album” called One Night at the Races. I left for a semester in England only a week later and Marc spent the next six months mixing. When I returned, he had not only come up with a name for us, but had asked Minna Choi (keyboards) and Pete Angevine (drums) to play so we could be a proper band. Our first show was three months later with Six Parts Seven and the Mercury Program at the Knitting Factory.

MH: The band seems to be unusually democratic for a seven piece group. Your debut album, “Nightlight,” sounds very much like a collective effort. Could you explain how the band’s creative process works in the studio?

Jen: Well, Marc, Minna and I are the primary songwriters, although Tim, our bassist, just wrote an amazing song that we’ve been playing live lately. It always starts with one of us writing the song and bringing it to the band, then it varies from song to song really – some songs we’ll arrange as a band, play live and then record. Others, like “We’re in Love Again,” have been purely studio creations, until we performed it at our record release. And there are songs like “Scratch and Save,” which was recorded to honor the live arrangement but grew by leaps and bounds in the studio, and now we play it in a way that better complements the recording. Things are always changing with us.

MH: With three different singers in the band, how do you decide who sings what? Is it simply a case of, if you wrote it - you sing it?

Marc: It started that way, and it’s certainly that way on Nightlight. But recently we’ve all been talking about writing songs for each other to sing.

MH: Do you share the same influences, or does each writer tend to bring a different style to the band?

Jen: Well, part of what I think makes us a good band is the fact that we share common loves – Bjork for example – but the stuff we all *really* love, others in the band really dislike. It prevents our songs from being too derivative, I believe. For example, I have always loved Tori Amos, whom Marc hates. Marc and Pete are also obsessed with Tom Waits, and I can’t stand him. But can you imagine if all seven of us really had a shared passion for either Tom or Tori? Everything we wrote would sound like their music. Instead, we’re able to all contribute different things that we’ve learned from artists we really love to give our sound some diversity. People have pointed out how difficult it must be to have a common sound with three distinctly different songwriters, but I’d like to think that we do a pretty good job of really making everything sound like “us” through our arrangements, no matter how different the songwriting can be.

MH: “Nightlight” is released on your own label, Puffed Wheat Records. Do you have plans to expand the label in the future, possibly adding other artists to its roster?

Jen: If someone wants to give us a lot of money, I’d love to run a label. There’s a band in NYC named Hula that we love and I’d love to help out if possible, because they’re amazing. Tim, Marc and Pete have a side project called The Minna Touch, who are also pretty excellent, in addition to lots of friends of ours who have bands in Philly with no label, etc. It would really just be nice to help get their music heard if we could sign stuff and put it out. Right now, it’s just an outlet for us though. Marc, do you think Puffed Wheat could be the Merge of Philadelphia….?

Marc: Personally, I started this band when I realized that I have no interest in either working at a label or booking bands. I was trying to get out of the “music biz” and back into making music. Now, somehow, I’m trying to do both. But at least I’m doing it for music that I really love.

MH: You recorded the album at your own studio called Strange Weather. How did the studio come into being and who gets to tweak the knobs the most? Is there one of you that is the Overlord of the mixing desk?

Jen: Marc knows everything. I know nothing except how to not break the microphone.

Marc: You never broke a microphone we couldn’t fix. Anyway, it was me and Minna who were mostly responsible for tracking. I’ve had a “studio” in my apartment for years in New York, and when I moved out to the suburbs of Philadelphia to record Nightlight I had a whole house for a few months. We tracked 95% of the record in the living room straight to ProTools LE. And at almost no point during the process were we all in a room together. Mostly it was me and Pete, then Jen and I, then myself and Minna, etc etc etc except for The New Apology which the rest of the band recorded at the mixing studio after I’d left to go on tour with another band. Go figure…

MH: Can you talk a bit about your live show? I’ve heard that they’re hugely entertaining.

Jen: If by “entertaining,” you mean “it’s sorta funny trying to watch seven people and all their crap actually fit onto a tiny little stage,” then yes. That’s us to a tee. We used to do this thing when we were a foursome where we all switched instruments (once I played drums, that was a huge disaster), but we’ve dropped that as we’ve grown, because it’s only fun if everyone switches and I don’t know a damn thing about playing the cello….

Marc: We’re also slowly becoming known for our terribly awkward stage banter…. But so far everyone seems to look over the faults. Personally, being a musician, there is absolutely no way I will ever know what the show is like in the audience. We get great responses, and they seem honest to me. And our ability to perform live and grown by leaps and bounds in the last few months. I started this band by calling up all of my favorite musicians and seeing if they wanted to play, and then praying that they’d get along together. So even if I feel down about my own performances I’m always blown away by everyone else’s. It certainly rounds us out from night to night.

MH: Are there any plans for a tour to support the release of “Nightlight?” How about coming to Europe to do some shows? I think the band would do really well here in Scandinavia.

Jen: We love Europe! We love touring!

Marc: It’s been tough trying to book shows so far, seeing how there are so many people to negotiate. But now that we have the album things are going to change. We’ll be over as soon as we get the chance.

MH: Is Illumina a full-time thing, or are some of the members involved in side-projects as well?

Marc: It hasn’t always been a full time thing, but I moved out of New York with the intention of making it one.

Jen: As far as side projects there’s The Minna Touch,

Marc: Tim’s band

Jen: who we mentioned before. And Pete also plays drums now for a really great band called The Flesh in NYC. They’re on Gern Blandsten records and they’re all very sweet people.

MH: What are your plans for 2005?

Jen: Trying to play as many shows as possible, writing some new songs, working less, maybe learning French just because, trying to learn how to wear high heels comfortably because everyone else in my band can do it but me, attempting to cut Marc’s fro in his sleep just for fun, visiting as many warm places as possible to get through the winter, spending more time with loved ones and hopefully building Puffed Wheat into what I like to call a “small empire of goodness.”

Marc: Booking us shows, booking shows, playing shows, booking shows, writing songs, until I completely lose my mind. And then I’m gonna write some songs about losing my mind.

MH: Thanks very much for taking the time to talk with Onetimesone.com.

Jen: Our pleasure! Thanks for having us!

-Mark Horan 12/05/04