Edison Suit’s latest album, Persistence of Vision, reflects a unique blend of electronic and acoustic elements that emerged organically from the band’s creative process. The project traces its origins back to an unexpected recording session. Barry Wood, acting as an engineer, and Mark Smith, invited as a session player, found themselves experimenting with a Roland Groovebox when the intended artist failed to show. “We had so much fun trading off programming parts that we made it a weekly thing,” Barry recalls. Over time, their sessions expanded to include guitar, bass, and Chapman Stick, with no concern for fitting into a specific genre. “We were basically doing whatever the hell we wanted to do and having a blast,” he adds. That ethos has carried through three albums, with evolving technology shaping their sound.
The album’s unusual song structures and time signatures reflect their preference for the unexpected. “We like music that surprises us,” Barry explains. “From the start, we broke away from the standard verse-chorus format, creating sets of related motifs and piecing the structure together later.” The band occasionally uses odd time signatures as a creative starting point. “Writing something in 15/16 can subtly put the listener off balance,” Mark adds, “but it still needs to make sense to us musically.”
Improvisation forms the backbone of Edison Suit’s songwriting process. Mark describes their sessions as iterative and open-ended. “One of us will start something, and the other will take that and run with it,” he says. Instruments like banjo, mandolin, and EBow appear in unexpected contexts. Barry emphasizes the role of spontaneity: “Sometimes a new part will spark ideas that completely change where the song originally seemed to be going.”
Both members draw on extensive experience from outside the band. Mark, who has toured globally and worked with numerous artists, attributes his contributions to his broad exposure to different styles. “Changing up the instrumentation, like adding banjo to an electronic piece, comes from those experiences,” he says. Meanwhile, Barry’s background in soundtracks and production informs his ability to shape the band’s evolving ideas. “The feeling of walking a tightrope during live tweaking adds excitement to the recordings,” he says, describing their in-the-moment approach to capturing performances.
The album also features contributions from longtime collaborators, including Paul McIntire on electric violin. Paul’s presence has been a consistent highlight across the band’s discography, providing an acoustic texture with an electronic edge. “We recorded the direct signal from his violin’s piezo pickup, which gives it a unique tone,” Barry explains. This blend of organic and processed sound aligns with the band’s aesthetic. Another collaborator, Bret Wadams, brought his rock and blues drumming to the project, pushing songs toward their final form. “He locked into the unusual song structures immediately,” Barry says, reflecting on their long-standing friendship.
The technical side of Persistence of Vision also reflects their flexibility. Barry’s mobile studio setup allowed the band to record in varied environments. “It’s a small price to pay for the flexibility of capturing performances in the moment,” he notes. Whether dealing with challenging acoustics or unconventional microphones, they focused on capturing the essence of each performance rather than aiming for perfection.
The title Persistence of Vision holds a special resonance for the band. “It had been quite a while since we’d put out an album, so the name seemed fitting,” Barry explains. Like many of their song titles, it nods to science fiction and speculative fiction, a thematic thread running through all their releases.
Despite the album’s complexity, the band has yet to bring their music to the stage. The challenge lies in the wide array of instruments and textures they employ. “If we were to perform live, it would likely be a reinterpretation of the songs,” Barry says. Instead, the focus remains on the recording process, where they thrive on improvisation and collaboration.
For Edison Suit, the journey behind Persistence of Vision is as integral as the final product. As Barry reflects, “It’s about capturing the moment—those takes where the magic happens.”
Persistence of Vision is available from Bandcamp here.
