When the Room Stops Being a Room

Colin Keefe takes a hotel room jam in Portland and transforms it into the debut vocal record of Radical Man, and somehow everything works out in the end

In one version of the story, the hotel room remains just a hotel room. There’s a loop that Colin Keefe was using on a random night in Portland loop gets forgotten by morning, marked under things that seem pleasant at 2 a.m. but mean nothing by noon.

That’s not what actually happened.

"River," realesed July 24, is Radical Man's second release but first that carries a voice. For someone who has based his entire project on rhythms and the way they are built up, it’s a huge change.

Keefe, who is a part of Woof’s drumming team, has always been in between the two extremes of chaos and control. Here, this tension takes an outright form. The electronic tracks were created via spontaneous improvisation in a hotel room, without any prior plan or a click track. The music that was created in this session went to Woof’s studio for arranging, as acoustic drums and additional vocals made it complex.

In the final piece listeners can catch the spirit of both places. The free spirit of the hotel is ever-present, as well as the studio’s strict approach. “River” carefully balances the differences between spontaneous expression and stylistic control.

An artist whose practice is all about changes instead of constant, incorporates a vocalist here. A vocalist needs to be understood, while Radical Man’s music refuses to allow an easy understanding.

“River” does not solve the problem of tension; it rather creates a sense of comfort.