Features
Mason Proper
By Travis R. Wright
Sep 23, 2008, 10:06

Mason Proper
Point A To Point B

Sometime last February, Mason Proper frontman Jon Visger got a somewhat startling call from their label, Dovecote Records. They told him that in order to release a record in a seasonal sweet spot, before winter hit, they’d have to deliver in less than two months. “The whole thing happened in about 45 days,” Visger tells me with a smile and a smirk between sips of black coffee. He sighs as if it feels like this all went down years ago. Between Visger’s frantic songwriting seclusion to the band’s recording session in an empty Ann Arbor house and the rushed mix-down with the brilliant Chris Coady, Mason Proper effectively completed their affective ten-cut opus Olly Oxen Free — a faultless collection of clever, poetic, sometimes furious,  always fantastic indie jams.

Sunk into deep and worn couches at Cafe Ambrosia, Visger indulged Real Detroit by unwrapping some of the secrets behind Olly Oxen Free’s radiant swager. “More than anything,“ says Visger, “I’m just glad we got to make the record we wanted to make.”

I feel there’s a deep and diverse emotional landscape on Olly Oxen Free; moments of introspection, of sadness and several instances where I sense vindictiveness, especially on tracks like “Only A Moment.”
I’m not sure if there’s a clear answer as to why exactly it’s there, but some of what we tried to do was to be a little more antagonistic than we had been in the past. Some of the desire to be antagonistic with the record came from everything we went through with There Is A Moth In Your Chest. We were all excited that we released this album, we were heading out on the road and then just ran into a lot of bad luck— equipment breaking, vans dying — all the stuff that any band would go through, but it just seemed excessive. During that time, the songs that we were playing started to change and become ... self-destructive.

I didn’t realize it at first, but Olly Oxen Free is a groove-oriented record, there’s some subtle funkiness behind all those hooks.
That was something we set out to do from the beginning. When I was writing the songs, getting at the core of what the record was going to be about, I focused on drums. The rhythm and the drums are the primal side and you can never go wrong if you have a good beat. And with rhythm, I mean, that’s what sets music apart [from other styles of writing], that it’s “in time,” otherwise why not just write a book?

You guys don’t slack on delivering an engaging live show; performing in a rather literal sense.
I think that comes naturally. If you look at it, what’s the difference between a live show and listening to the record at home? Well, the record will be perfect to listen to, the sound is better for sure, but you’re going to a show to see something. Sometimes we can get out of control, so, especially with this new material, we’ve restrained ourselves a little. Though I’m sure it might sound stupid, that’s how I feel the songs — there’s a physical energy going though them and it moves through me.  | RDW

Mason Proper’s Olly Oxen Free CD Release  9/25 • The Blind Pig

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