Wrekmeister Harmonies’ JR Robinson talks the band’s unique sound; at the Riot Room Saturday

The slow-drone lurch of Wrekmeister Harmonies brings to mind the sound of a dying world. An ever-changing collective, the group is led by musician JR Robinson, joined by Esther Shaw. Wrekmeister Harmonies has released four albums in as many years on Thrill Jockey, and the latest, 2016’s Light Falls, plays like an Old Testament verse in song, referencing the disintegration of multiple relationships in Robinson’s life. It’s beautifully elegiac, and I felt lucky to talk with Robinson via e-mail about Light Falls and his changing band.

The Pitch: Wrekmeister Harmonies has released an album a year for four years running. Where does that prolific nature come from?

JR Robinson: That’s a great question, but I honestly can’t say where the ideas for the creative process come from. The best way to put it is this: I have a friend who is a janitor in San Francisco and he loves his job and is very good at it. He’s the best-paid janitor in the city and owns a nice house at the top of a hill overlooking the city, and a new car. This all comes from the fact that he loves what he does and couldn’t think of doing anything else. There’s no way I ever expect to own a house or a nice car but I love what I do just as much as he does.

You’ve so many collaborators with which you work. How do you come upon them?

When you’ve been around as long as I have, you end up meeting lots of people.

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Given that each of those four albums has been a massive work, how do you perform pieces live?

For the Light Falls record, we had an amazing band with Timothy Herzog, Dana Schechter and Martin Farmer joining Esther Shaw and I. It was pretty great. One night we played on a boat in Hamburg, Germany, and most of the band got pretty drunk. The show went fine, and we got to sleep overnight on the boat, which was fun, if you’re not over 5-foot-5 and don’t mind a bathroom that’s about as big as a phone booth. The next morning was gray and freezing. It was also snowing. The members who were previously drunk were now desperately hungover, and we had to load-out all our equipment off this boat. And we had an almost Pink Floyd amount of gear for that tour. Gruesome.

Do new pieces always start with the idea of expanding them and connecting them into one comprehensive work, or have you considered an album that’s less cohesive?

I think cohesion is a great quality to strive for, unless you’re an abstract painter. I’ve tried to get into experimental literature, which can also be pretty loose on the cohesive front, same with theatre and film and dance … it’s tough for me. Not saying there’s anything wrong with it, it’s just not my thing. And even though I just said that, right now I’m fumbling through this Japanese experimental novel called The Box Man, and I’m not going to lie to you, it’s hard going.

How did you come to work with Rudimentary Peni’s Nick Blinko for the cover art? It seems like the themes of his writing — both literary and music — dovetail nicely with what Wrekmesiter Harmonies explores on Light Falls.

I think so too. I’ve loved Nick Blinko’s work for a long time. His band Rudimentary Peni, in my book, is just about one of the best. I made some inquiries and ended up talking with his representative in England. A deal was made. I’m pretty sure Nick got a check in the mail and had no idea what it was about. But yeah, his work is awesome.

Wrekmeister Harmonies plays the Riot Room on Saturday, May 6. Details on that show are available here.