"What kind of music do you play?"
It's a tough question to be asked. In today's world, with sub-genre upon meaningless sub-genre creeping ever faster into everyday music conversation, it's getting tougher to pin down what a given sound is. In some ways this is good; music itself is as hard to pin down as the right words to describe it. But in some ways this attempt at pinpointing specifics with words takes focus away from the music and toward music pundits and journalists.
Brooklyn's Luke Temple tries to shy away from pigeonholing himself into such labels. He rather speaks in generalities toward his music, which are perhaps the most helpful in initiating the unenlightened.
He's always moving, developing, as all the best musicians are. With an unmistakable background in folk music, that overused term that seems to apply to anyone with an acoustic guitar these days, Temple builds upon that foundation with his strong tenor vocals and catchy melodic sense.
Originally from Salem, Mass., Temple spent the latter part of his youth in northern California. The story the biography on his label's Web site tells is he spent his first year out of high school living in a sleeping bag in the woods and working at a candy store. You can't make that stuff up.
Following his brush with asceticism, Temple moved back to Massachusetts to pursue a degree in painting at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The next five years found Temple going to school, doing odd jobs like construction and painting houses, as well as fostering his solo music career in the Big Apple.
It was only a matter of time, then, before friend and musical collaborator Rob Stillman (who, in addition to playing on Temple's albums and in his live backing band, has a up-and-coming solo career with Robert Stillman's Horses) gave Temple's first demo to Mike Manning of Mill Pond Records.
Mill Pond, based in Seattle, is a small yet efficient label run by Manning, a former Sub Pop intern. At Mill Pond, Temple found the freedom to release the music he wanted, flanked by an impressive roster of like-minded folks, including fellow Brooklyners Flying and Stillman.
Temple's debut full-length, 2005's "Hold a Match for a Gasoline World," had '70s-era singer-songwriters James Taylor and Joni Mitchell to thank as much as Lead Belly and Bob Dylan. The record displayed Temple's guitar-picking and vocal abilities, and had some of the best clarinet solos in recent memory. Songs such as "Someone, Somewhere" and "Get Deep, Get Close" seemed at once a throwback to more classic "folk" with an original, youthful twist. Still, something left Temple dissatisfied with the process and the final product.
"Definitely the process of the last record was something I wanted to move beyond," Temple said.
He's now hard at work recording his sophomore album by himself, opting for a home studio and plenty of time and freedom rather than the rushed studio experience of "Hold a Match."
Temple said to look forward to a more eclectic album of songs, as well, with more solo acoustic songs as well as full band songs.
Comparisons to current "new folk" mainstays such as M. Ward and Iron & Wine are sure to come up, and whether its folk music in the traditional sense or not, Temple said, "I think if there's any movement, I'd probably identify with it." And given the new popularity, almost ubiquity, of the music, it's no secret it's helped his career.
"I think it's really exciting that it's happening," he said. "It's given me more freedom to do what I want to do"
