Experimental indie-pop band Le Loup rattles a few cages

by Len Righi

The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.) (MCT)

24 March 2008

Sam Simkoff, the alpha male of D.C.-based indie-pop collective Le Loup, almost snorts when asked about the most accessible song his band has recorded, “We Are Gods! We Are Wolves!”

“It’s one of my least favorite musically,” says the 23-year-old experimentalist somewhat dismissively of the tantalizing patchwork of percolating synth beats, hand claps and breathy vocals. “It’s built around a very easy pop-chord progression.”

The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly

(Hardly Art; US: 11 Sep 2007; UK: Import)

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However, Simkoff almost salivates when the talk turns to the message behind the music, which is replete with Old Testament references, including the near-death experience inflicted by Abraham on his son Isaac and airy choruses that ask, “Have you ever loved enough to destroy?” then counsel, “Give your soul to us, give your heart to us.”

“This is told from the viewpoint of a pack of wolves who after a destructive storm mock the values we expound in the Old Testament and religion in general, and how religion can be used,” explains Simkoff, who is riding in a van headed from Austin to Atlanta.

“It’s about nature versus the man-made, which is one of the themes of the album. Most of (the song) is tongue-in-cheek, but if this were another age, I’d be burned at the stake for it,” he adds with a laugh leavened by pride.

Simkoff’s art may be idiosyncratic, but therein lies its allure. He recorded Le Loup’s first CD, “The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly,” on his home computer during the latter half of 2006. The disc’s name was appropriated from a 9-foot-high work built from trash over 14 years by Washington, D.C., janitor/outsider artist James Hampton, which is now housed in the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Some of Simkoff’s lyrics are inspired by Dante’s “Inferno” - “I was supposed to read it in high school but neglected it because I was lazy,” he says. “Days after I graduated from college, I picked up a copy. I wanted to challenge myself.”

And Le Loup’s music is dominated by the plinks and plunks of Simkoff’s banjo and vaporous vocals as well as his band mates’ layered guitars, unearthly synth rumblings and spare-but-supple rhythms.

Simkoff’s choice of the banjo as a main instrument was serendipitous. “The banjo was given to me as a gift two months before I started recording,” he notes. “And though I am extremely limited in my ability to play, those limitations came out in very different, interesting ways. I would play a simple part, and then overdub another simple part. My technical limitations created part of (the CD’s) sound.”

That method evolved over time “because I wanted to create a grandiose song and couldn’t quite get it,” says Simkoff. “So I would overdub and overdub and overdub.”

The result eventually became the song “Look to the West,” a meditation both pacific and apocalyptic that was written on a beach in Oregon. “It was pretty much the sound I was looking for,” says Simkoff.

That layering technique also was used by Simkoff for something more delicate and intricate. For example, “Outside of This Car, the End of the World,” which is full of “faceless phantoms” and “towns adrift and nameless ... bruised with orange light,” communicates an acute picture of shabbiness and gloom.

“That’s rooted in real-world experience,” says Simkoff. “I was driving through a Midwestern industrial town at 2 in the morning and it looked like a ghost town. Concrete buildings and gray factories were glowing with ghostly orange light in the background. It was so desolate.”

Simkoff started writing “The Throne ...” after graduating from Ohio’s Kenyon College in 2006 with a degree in political science. The Portland, Ore., native’s parents (cardiologist/pre-med school jazz pianist father, high school history teacher mom) started him on piano at age 6 ("I hated it at first") and “piped good music into my ears - the Beatles, Talking Heads, Blind Faith, Led Zeppelin, The Band, The Grateful Dead.”

Throughout his school days, he made music with friends. “In high school I was in a poppy band, and we were pretty proud of our songs,” says Simkoff. “We’d organize small concerts and play at the school coffeehouse. We even recorded some of what I wrote. My friends still have (the recordings). It all sounds very dated. I listen to it now and chuckle.”

In college, looking for people to play with “was kind of how I socialized,” says Simkoff. “I am an awkward person. All of my roommates were musicians. I was in an ill-conceived funk band for a while, but mostly I was just playing for myself.”

When he moved to D.C., he advertised for musicians on Craigslist. “It was really born out of cost,” says Simkoff. “I could have posted a bunch of fliers across town, but that would mean spending a lot of money I didn’t have. So I decided to go the free route.”

His online “shot in the dark” paid off handsomely - three guitarists (Mike Ferguson, May Tabol and Jim Thomson) and a keyboardist (Nicole Keenan) joined him almost immediately and a rhythm section (bassist Dan Ryan and drummer Robert Sahm) about two months later. “Dan and Robbie have known each other since before high school,” says Simkoff. “They came as a package deal.”

“The recorded music relies heavily on many simple instrumental lines piled on top of each other,” says Simkoff. “To get that sound live, I knew I’d need a lot of instruments.”

Only six people are accompanying Simkoff on Le Loup’s current tour, which will focus on “Throne” material but also include a couple of new, as-yet untitled tracks.

Christian Ervin, Simkoff’s long-time friend and collaborator who plays computer and guitar, is MIA. “It’s his last semester attending Rice University,” says Simkoff. “He’s now in Paris finishing up his architecture (degree). I’m hoping he will become a more permanent member of the band.”

Is Le Loup planning to do any cover songs?

“At one point I proposed `Marquee Moon’ by Television, but it fell by the wayside,” Simkoff says. “With seven people in the band, no one can agree on a song.”