Department Of Eagles / Archive 2003-2006

American Dust

Daniel Rossen and Fred Nicolaus, known collectively as Department of Eagles, have released relatively little music together, and their catalog may seem a bit schizophrenic. How did they develop from college roommates goofing off with sampling software into the harbingers of an atmospheric and grandiose symphonic pop sound? Archive 2003-2006, comprised of lost recordings, provides the missing piece in this process. By 2005, partly inspired by bootlegs of Smile and Van Dyke Parks' Song Cycle, the pair began writing bits and pieces that reflected an interest in a kind of sophisticated, dark Americana. A series of small suite-like pieces by Rossen (some of which are included here, as the "Practice Room Sketches") would became the DNA for both the style and substance of the songs he would compose over the next few years, both for Department of Eagles and Grizzly Bear. (For example, a small section of "Practice Room Sketch 1" became the basis for Grizzly Bear's "Easier.") In January 2006, the band began a month-long session intended to produce their sophomore album. In retrospect, they had before them a rather ambitious endeavor--to produce and engineer a complete album using professional-grade equipment with which they were unfamiliar, recording every single part in about a month's time. Alone in an enormous condo-turned-recording studio (where, in fact, The Killers' Hot Fuss had been recorded), they wrote and recorded songs in six-hour spans, staying up into the morning to compose lyrics, teaching themselves to layer cello parts to create full string arrangements (what would become the epic ending to the low-key masterwork "Golden Apple"), and ultimately growing exhausted and discouraged. In the end, the "January Sessions" were deemed a failure, but as Nicolaus points out in the liner notes to this collection, they were a necessary failure. It was the first time the pair had tried to record a complete album. But if the sessions as a whole could be deemed a failure, it would be disingenuous to describe the material collected on Archive as anything of the type. While the recordings found the band taking the initial steps toward the bold new direction that would culminate in In Ear Park and Rossen's work with Grizzly Bear, they also found the pair crafting music vibrant and moving on its own terms. Waggish and at times breathtakingly intimate, this set showcases the development of Department of Eagles' detailed approach to crafting sounds. It captures their songwriting at a moment of critical development and provides the template for the ambitious, sprawling pop of their later accomplishments.

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