Freelance Whales

“The Great Estates”
from the album Weathervanes
2009
iTunes

Having trouble sleeping makes for opportune time for counting sheep and songwriting; just ask Judah Dadone of Brooklyn quintet Freelance Whales. Though the group met two years ago online, their debut, Weathervanes, materializes like a vision of a bygone time, with its patchwork of glockenspiel and banjo woven into chirpy songs.

It sounds campy, but at the heart of the record is a fascination with the paranormal. “Most nights I wandered through our house, looking into mirrors, half-expecting to encounter strange presences or spirits,” Dadone remembers. While some kids have imaginary friends, Dadone believed a spirit was trying to reach him. “Sometimes, I would leave her a little bit of space in my bed,” he says.

The band members were working on independent projects until they connected online in early 2008. Together, they looked at Dadone’s demos and decided to “bring them to life.” He explains, “Most of the songs are based off dreams that I had much more recently, which seem to be regressions back to this part of my life.”

Then, there is the mysterious so-called “Cult House Road,” which he mentions as an unusual and inspiring spot near his childhood home. The wooded road in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania is steeped in lore about a satanic cult, awkwardly growing trees, darkened cars pursuing busybodies, and such common countryside legends. This interest in the phenomenon of haunting — songs about spirits trapped in houses, bodies, and bathtubs — could seem childish, but these words are coming from someone capable of spinning a fantastical tale; Dadone was an English major and creative writing student.

He can’t help it if mystical forces are attracted to him. A lifeguard pulled him to shore at seven years old when he was struggling in the Sea of Galilee trying to salvage a large rock. An old fisherman watching the scene called the little tyke a “freedom whale” in Hebrew, and the memory became tied to the image of a weathervane of a whale perched on the rooftop of his family home. Weathervanes, too, is a collection of lasting impressions.

The record evolved one song at a time as impressions gained layers and textures — the band had some synthesizers and acoustic instruments on-hand — and then those bits and pieces eventually acquired melodies and lyrics. A few days after its initial conception, a song would be alive in the studio. Tracks like “Location” and the more discrete “The Great Estates” evoke a sense of the otherworldly; however, the tracks manage to speak to one another in a present, earthly tone.

I am starting to sense your location / You are somewhere in the basement / Beating on a makeshift drum kit / Songs that I can hardly stomach / I’m floating on the stairwell / With my fingers shaking frantic / Thinking softly what a concrete mess we live in… Oh please believe the ghost in me / Is doing what I can to find you out —”Location”

The interplay between time and space enables Freelance Whales’ sound to radiate music box warmth. “It’s easier to turn a small space into a universe than a universe into a small space,” Dadone reflects. “Music boxes are small, and we wanted the record to sound microcosmic, not huge.”