Jordan Geiger’s Hospital Ships returns to Lawrence with a new album
Jordan Geiger’s speaking voice is a lot like his singing voice: Soft, a little high and so gentle a good gust of wind would overrule it. It’s these characteristics that make Geiger’s new record, The Past Is Not a Flood, his first under the Hospital Ships moniker since 2013, so affecting.
All but one of the album’s six songs stretch past the five-minute mark. These are expansive, languid tracks that breathe a life of their own, operating at an uninterrupted pace. They rise and fall with mournful beats around Geiger’s delicate falsetto. The more time you spend with The Past Is Not a Flood, the more it improves.
Eight months ago, Geiger moved to North Carolina. But Hospital Ships got its start in Lawrence. (Geiger is a Boonville, Missouri, native.) He celebrates the release of his new album Wednesday, March 23, at the Replay Lounge. I chatted with him ahead of the show.
The Pitch: Tell me how long The Past Is Not a Flood has been in the works.
Gieger: The songs themselves have been in the works for a really long time — probably three or four years. I started working on them before Destruction in Yr Soul was released [in 2013]. I moved to Austin, Texas, for a few years [from 2013 to 2015], and I didn’t have time or money to work on music for a lot of the time I was down there. At some point, I just got frustrated and said, “I’m just going to schedule studio time.” And I basically improvised these songs together live in the studio. And after that, the process only took about three sessions. I overdubbed it, and John Congleton [St. Vincent, Modest Mouse] mixed it, and that was about a year and a half ago.
So it’s been done for a while, but part of that was really the process of viewing my own control-freak nature. I think my records have gotten less tightly composed as I’ve gone on, and on this record, I’ve given a lot of control up to improvisation and happenstance and the people I was playing with [in the studio]. It was very satisfying to me in that regard.
You deal with some heavy themes on this album — depression, anxiety, loneliness, obsession — which isn’t new for you, in terms of your previous releases. What attracts you to these themes?
I think my goal as an artist, or as a person, really, has been to never settle down and always be looking for new experiences and new inspiration. I think maybe the constant questioning of “What am I doing here?” and “Why am I doing it?” and “Is there something else I should be doing?” has always informed my writing.
Minus Story, my old band, was really about the cosmic questions that we as five people wanted to address, that we talked about — the supernatural, authoritarianism and all these big, wavy, philosophical things — and Hospital Ships has always been more personal. I think this record just reflects that I’ve gotten older. I’m 36 now, and I feel that maybe I’m succeeding, because I’m trying to hone in on some more complex emotions than I have in the past because I’m less interested in playing music just for the sake of it or having fun. I’m really more interested in playing something that’s satisfying. I’m not rushing to get records out anymore. Not that I ever compromised the quality, but right now, I’m trying to express a very specific thing.
You’re in so many other projects, all sort of stopping and starting — including the bands Minus Story, Shearwater and Des Ark. Hospital Ships has been kind of a constant through all that, and it’s been going on for nearly a decade. What is this project to you?
I think Hospital Ships is, at the end of the day, an excuse for me to collaborate with my friends. I think some of the bands I’ve played in have certainly been more successful, but whenever you have a certain amount of success, you have to tie down a lot of details. That’s the way that it goes: You have to tie down the members and the parts they’re going to play and everyone has to commit their lives to the project, which is great. But for me, I like having a format where I can do whatever I want without hurting anyone’s feelings.
The two shows we’re going to be playing in Lawrence will be with two people [Lawrence musicians] I’ve never played with before, and I’m really excited about it, and not a lot of musicians have the flexibility to do that. It’s been so much fun for me to rewrite the songs around these people. Every show kind of changes. By the time we’re in Lawrence, I think we’ll have a pretty decent idea of how to perform the songs with these people in this setting, and then we’ll probably never play with this lineup again. [Laughs.] So there’s pluses and minuses, too, but I might have some additional people that might play with us in Lawrence as well, just to sort of improvise. We’ll see. •
