motel void

MOTEL VOID: Could you introduce your project in a few sentences? I haven’t found much information about you on the internet to be honest…

ONE MINUTE YONDER: This is a brand new project we are just getting off the ground. The idea is to explore the concept of a one minute song. There are many different ways to approach this and we will be trying everything. The ultimate goal is to realize songs that exist in their best form as short songs (i.e. they would be worse if you made them longer). Some of our songs might not succeed at this, but hopefully some do. We also want to explore different styles and production techniques, so some songs may sound very different from others. At its heart, it is a songwriting project. We are putting chords and lyrics up for all of the songs on our website and Bandcamp, in hope to encourage others to learn the songs and make them their own. Do you think it should be longer? Go ahead and write some more verses. Do you think it should be a punk song? Have at it. We’d love to hear any other takes on these.

MOTEL VOID: You write songs around a minute long and plan to release a 5-song EP every 3 months. Could you tell us more about the recording and writing process of these short songs?

ONE MINUTE YONDER: I’ve been working on writing songs for this project for more than 8 years. I write whenever I can and once in a while a 1 minute song comes out, so I’ve just been collecting them as they come. A few in the pipeline are co-written with others and I hope to do more collaborations moving forward with this. There are many different vocalists on these songs and I’d love to collaborate with other vocalists moving forward. The project really tries to take a little of everything from everywhere and package it into these little songs. I record them all in my basement and get inputs from others as needed.

MOTEL VOID: Do you like artists with similar approach?

ONE MINUTE YONDER: Many of our favorite one minute songs are actually from artists that usually write normal length songs and once in a while throw in a quickie. We’ve been building a playlist for over a decade with songs like this from all different artists in a variety of different styles that has nearly a thousand songs on it. The biggest exception to this is definitely Guided By Voices, who have been consistently churning out amazing one and two minute songs scattered across all their albums for over 3 decades. Recent artists who have put out albums full of short songs that we love are The Magnetic Fields, Lomelda, Ovens, and Dan Reeder. This of course ignores lots of punk and most hardcore bands, which have been an inspiration since we first got seriously into music as teenagers.

MOTEL VOID: Who is your biggest inspiration right now?

ONE MINUTE YONDER: Lately I’ve been reading lots of flash fiction, which are these little ~1000 word stories that have definitely been inspiring. They are sort of the literary equivalent of a 1 minute song. They usually give you a rough idea of a story, where something happens but suggests a larger story behind the scenes that is left to the reader to imagine. Musically I’ve been most recently inspired by this box set from Dust To Digital called “Voices of Mississippi” that I just got of old acoustic blues and gospel recordings from the 1960s and 70s. Very lofi and raw, I love it.

MOTEL VOID: Your plans for 2024?

ONE MINUTE YONDER: Most of the songs we plan to release this year are finished, but we’d like to get a head start on the next set of 20 for next year. Most of them are written and we’ll be working on the long process of finding the right arrangement/presentation, vocalist, and production approach. There are also 1-2 other musical projects (with “normal” length songs) I’ve been working on that I’d like to make progress on and maybe get off the ground this year.