Pile Steam New Album

Pile's new album Green & Gray was recorded over two weeks
Green & Gray by Pile

Pile’s new album Green & Gray was recorded over two weeks in the upstate New York studio of engineer Kevin S. McMahon (Titus Andronicus, Frightened Rabbit, The Walkmen, Swans), Marcata Recordings, double the studio time of most of Pile’s previous albums. This allowed the band time to experiment, and to expand on the more elaborate instrumentation that crept into the margins of previous releases. Overdubs in the form of strings, auxiliary percussion and keyboards are handled with a deft touch, never overwhelming the songs, but slipping in and out of the arrangements to add a textural depth to McMahon’s expert mixes, which Maguire describes as “almost like oil paintings.

Rick Maguire on Green & Gray and life:

“I’m just trying to figure out where I’m at with the whole thing,” he says. “Living like this never ceases to be strange. I’m doing exactly what I want to do and I love it very much, that’s stayed there for me, but I’m just watching things change around me as I go. I’m a mid 30s guy on that line, and these are my own emotional observations on those feelings. I put a lot of energy into making these things that are about, on some level, how I feel, but the feelings themselves are like riddles, so the songs are the best answers I can come up with. I put a lot of myself into it. I think it’s a good honest piece of work.

The process of writing and recording Green and Gray was distinct from Pile’s previous releases, in part because their years of touring have changed the shape of the band. Longtime drummer Kris Kuss, who has been playing with Maguire since 2009, is still present, but guitarist Matt Becker and bassist Matt Connery left Pile and were replaced by Chappy Hull and Alex Molini, who live in different parts of the country. These changes, combined with Maguire leading what he describes as a “somewhat transient existence” in recent times, meant Pile had to adapt.

When we all lived in the same place we’d get together a couple times a week and that was when we would flesh out ideas,” says Maguire. “Some nights I would bring more than we had time to work and some nights I would have nothing, but at the end of it we would have a record. This time we got together for blocks of time, ten days to two weeks, that we would dedicate to writing and rehearsing, so I took a lot of liberties reconfiguring and rearranging songs because of the time we had. Leading up to those blocks there was a lot of uninterrupted time that I was able to dedicate to writing and I spent that either in my room actually playing, writing, reading, and when that wasn’t working, I would just walk around.”

Pile
Green & Gray
Tracklist
Exploding In Sound

1. Firewood
2. Your Performance
3. On a Bigger Screen
4. Other Moons
5. Hair
6. A Labyrinth With No Center
7. The Soft Hands of Stephen Miller
8. Lord of Calendars
9. Bruxist Grin
10. A Bug On Its Back
11. My Employer
12. Hiding Places
13. No Hands

Tour Dates
May 8 – Nashville – Drkmttr*
May 10 – Dallas – Three Links*
May 11 – Austin – Barracuda*
May 12 – San Antonio – Paper Tiger*
May 13 – Houston – White Oak Music Hall*
May 15 – Tampa – Crowbar*
May 16 – Orlando – Will’s Pub*
May 17 – Atlanta – 529*
May 18 – Carrboro NC – Cat’s Cradle*
May 19 – DC – Songbyrd*
May 21 – Philly – Boot & Saddle*
May 22 – Philly – PhilaMoca*
May 23 – Brooklyn – Music Hall of Williamsburg*
May 25 – Boston – Boston Calling
May 26 – Burlington – ArtsRiot+
May 28 – Toronto – Horseshoe Tavern+
May 29 – Cleveland – Mahall’s +
May 30 – Detroit – Trumbullplex+
May 31 – Chicago – Subterranean*
June 1 – Chicago – Do Division Fest
Jun 2 – Minneapolis – 7th St Entry
Jun 6 – Vancouver – Fox Cabaret ^
Jun 7 – Seattle – Vera ^
Jun 8 – Portland – Mississippi Studios ^
Jun 10 – Reno – Holland Project ^
Jun 11 – San Francisco – The Chapel ^
Jun 13 – Los Angeles – Bootleg Theater ^
Jun 14 – San Diego – Soda Bar ^
Jun 15 – Phoenix – Rebel Lounge ^
Jun 18 – Denver – Larimer Lounge ^
Jun 19 – Kansas City – The Rino ^

* w/ C.H.E.W.
+ w/ Halfsour
^ w/ State Champion

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