Living With Giants on Revisiting The World Is Held by a Taut String Fifteen Years Later

Fifteen years after the release of The World Is Held by a Taut String, Living With Giants return to the story that first defined the project, not with a sequel, but with a retelling shaped by time, reflection and perspective.

Ahead of the release of The World is Held…, we spoke with the band about revisiting old narratives, the meaning behind “Farewell,” the symbolism woven throughout this new cycle, and why silence itself became part of the art.

For readers discovering Living With Giants for the first time, how did the project originally begin and what inspired you to start making music under this name?

Living With Giants started as a way to express myself in a more ambient voice. There was always something that drew me into a long warbling sustain or the sound of a decaying cymbal alone that I felt more emotionally connected to than the pop-punk and hardcore riffs I was playing with the bands I was in at the time. I wanted to explore that tension and space felt between the notes in the piece and try to elicit the meditative and emotional states found between them.

The project started as a solo endeavor before evolving further. How has the creative process behind Living With Giants changed over the years?

At the time Living With Giants started, I had never heard of “post-rock” and most of my influence came from bands such as Taking Back Sunday, Anberlin and Angels & Airwaves, but otherwise the influence for the sound was simply expressive instrumentation in the beginning before formatting into a more structured approach for live performances, which grew the band.

By 2011 we had formed into a 4 member line up for shows and the structure became what we hear with the first album The World is Held by a Taut String. During these years, the music was contribution based with each member contributing their own ideas into the live performances but ultimately left the recording, structure and curation to myself and Carver.

Post hiatus material typically has been a majority of my writing for the guitar parts and the structure being posted for the others, and from there we all curate ideas and confer on what elements are needed to help further facilitate the pieces and their intent.

Post-rock often leaves space for interpretation, yet your music feels very narrative driven. When you compose, do you start with a story in mind or does the story emerge from the music itself?

Typically, the direction is figured out first, almost like reading a map to get to a destination. We know the end destination but the road and path are curated as we go through the terrain of the piece. But the path we take is determined as we explore the concepts we aim to address within the pieces.

While we have a loose narrative that we follow, it’s important to acknowledge that it doesn’t mean you can't attribute your own variables into the narrative. Within the band, we all would have different aspects of the narrative that mean completely different things to us, even internally.

Your 2011 album The World Is Held by a Taut String is the story you are now revisiting fifteen years later. Looking back today, what did that record represent to you at the time it was written?

At the time it was recorded it was almost like a black box recording of a crisis. It was a first person immersion of the psychology of a person who feels themselves fading into the background of their own existence, but the record represents a ground zero just as much. It was our first story that we acknowledged as an official release (not a demo EP or live recording.) It opened a lot of avenues for us as a band and helped introduce our music to the community at the time. To have that album available felt like finally having a voice to share with others.

When you released that album, did you ever imagine you would return to its story fifteen years later?

In 2011 when we originally recorded The World is Held by a Taut String it had never crossed our mind to revisit the pieces from a different vantage point. We were always just retelling the same stories from the same point of view. At that point our only interest in revisiting it was to improve on quality, even prior to our hiatus.

The new release revisits that narrative from a new perspective. What made this the right moment to return to that story?

Over a decade later, with the anniversary in mind, we finally set out to achieve that goal. But with time, the pieces had grown into something that just breathed differently. When I came to address what it was, the answer came down to the powers of time and perspective had a play on how these stories are now told. In the years when we performed these pieces after the original release, we grew with them and learned where to and how best to inflect different aspects and in years following we gained better engineering and mixing practices which made the production process much better than what we were doing in 2011. But ultimately, we had grown as artists and engineers and we felt it was due time to rehonor these pieces and tell them again with a new vantage point.

You describe the new record as a retelling rather than a sequel. What does that distinction mean to you artistically?

15 years is a fair amount of time to develop something beyond what you conceived possible at the start. You can develop a sense of mastery with a craft such as woodworking, water colors, metalwork or you could have a developed business that started out as just a dream. I think that revisiting these pieces now, 15 years later, is similar to revisiting an old art portfolio with the intent to paint the same landscapes you started with. We see and tell stories differently as we age and this album, The World is Held…, is the retelling of these stories from a matured vantage point, instead of one that didn’t know there was a future perspective to be had.

Looking back at the original material after fifteen years, did revisiting it change the way you understand that period of your life?

I would say it changed how I personally understand that time in my life. Truly, it is a reflective and healing process to go through which ultimately is the mission statement for this album, “to be well.” With time comes more details that emerge as dust settles from whatever event and then incorporate those things into the truths we find later on. While I do agree that revisiting old times can be painful, the acceptance of the change that comes with time is important to recognize just as well.

The single “Farewell” seems to hold a central role in the story. What does this piece represent within the larger arc of the album?

“Farewell” is the anchor of the retelling. What once was a desperate grasp to the last measures of the existence of one's self, is now replaced with a final send off to the stories that we held with us for 15 years and a final parting wish for both parties (The Witness and The Subject) “to be well.” We wanted to highlight this difference in perspective prior to the release of the album to establish the mission statement of the retelling first and foremost to preface it as a retelling to the original story, not as just a reiteration.

The rollout around this release is quite unusual, with cryptic teasers and a deliberate silence from the band. What inspired this approach?

I feel that it’s important to only say what’s needed when it comes to art. Art is a language in of itself, through geometric structures, symbols and color, we already tend to say a lot with art.

The “313” series leading up to the release of “Farewell” was a 30 day cycle meant to represent and honor the time necessary to come and revisit past events, starting with the intent and housing of the memory and following through as we dismantle the container of the memory we are trying to access before finally arriving to the memory and slackening the string that tethered us to it.

In life, I feel silence is just as important as noise and sometimes more so. In this time, we refer to it as a “Liturgy of Silence”, we aimed to respect our audience and not overexplain. The silence is meant to be reflective and allow for those who wish to inquire the meaning of the work the space to do so.

You described this idea as a kind of “Liturgy of Silence.” Why was it important for the music to speak without explanation during this period?

While the pieces have been narrative driven, that doesn’t mean you can’t interpret your own meanings and attributions to what is being presented. That’s a beautiful thing about art, you can attribute your own value into what's there and find personal meaning from a piece of work from someone else whose experience still remains their own yet their stories are shared in digestible formats. This period of silence is meant for reflection solely on what is presented.

During the previous cycle you introduced the symbol known as “The Mark of The Witness.” What does this symbol represent within the philosophy of Living With Giants?

The Mark of The Witness is an interactive tool meant to represent both the darkness and light with equal divinity. The fall is a prerequisite to feel the rise and the cycles are meant to be inquired and thought on.

The quote describing the mark speaks about darkness and light existing with equal divinity. How does this idea connect to the themes explored in the music?

During our last cycle, we explored the concept of acceptance of change to make it to the other side of metamorphosis. Embracing The Fall is an important step to be able to feel the power of The Rise. In the music, we have explored various themes of darkness and tenebra throughout our releases, such as with “Rest” and “Embraced,” but even in those darker themes, we try to find the beauty in what we have to explore. It's with these low points that we can feel The Light that comes through as a part of the cycles we experience in life.

With this retelling bringing closure to a story that has existed for fifteen years, does this album feel like the end of a chapter or the beginning of something new for Living With Giants?

There’s a dual meaning in the last of the “313” series of images. “Ave” can mean both “hail and farewell”. We chose this as the final send off because, simply, it truly is both a closing of a chapter and a new beginning at the same time. It stands to reason that even when we close a door, we still are passing through a threshold.

Living With Giants have been part of the Post-Rock Nation ecosystem for some time. How do you see communities like this helping artists and listeners connect in a genre that often lives outside the mainstream?

We’ve always believed in community within this genre. It’s how I personally found a lot of artists who I fell in love with and follow. I think it’s been a blessing to be able to be a part of this community for the years that we have and it’s always a pleasure to see how much everyone and the genre have grown even since we started sharing our music. Within the scope of where we are now, I feel community and support of the artists is vital for the scene we’re a part of especially in the age of streaming and technology. Specifically within Post-Rock Nation, it’s been a pleasure to see it grow as both a platform for artists and the community as well as a database of artists within the genre.

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