This article appears in our March print issue. You can pick up a copy on newsstands around campus, or at our newsroom in room 520 in the University Center.
Green and white paint adorn the walls of Window Weather’s recording studio in Hoboken, New Jersey. Light fixtures hang from the ceiling by rope and a large rug covered in amps and music gear blankets the floor. In the corner, light pours in through a window, adding to the rustic coziness of the space, making the four flight hike up the stairs worth it. The atmosphere is fulfilled even before they begin to play.
Then the performance begins. Sweet, melodic harmonies and woody guitar notes float around the room. The space becomes enveloped in sound.
Meet Window Weather: an experimental indie-rock band released their first self-titled EP on Friday, March 6th. The group was led by Lang alum Georgia Sebesky and Bard College alum Evan Dibbs. The songwriting and singing duo started playing music together during their high school years in North Bergen, New Jersey with Sebesky on vocals, Dibbs on guitar. The band got their unique name after Dibbs took a trip to Iceland and found an Icelandic term translating to ‘Window Weather’; they believe the name is fitting to their music: observed quietly and experienced how the listener envisions from their own ‘window’.
‘Winter’, a single from the debut, will drop Valentine’s Day and their EP will be available on music streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music.
We met with Sebesky and Dibb to talk about everything music related, from their mentors to why music is their passion, and attended a private performance.
New School Free Press: What genre of music would you classify the EP as?
Dibbs: Well, there’s definitely some ties to an Americana sort of feel; jazz in its harmony, but not so much in its pathos because it’s not very imprository. I guess generally we fall under the huge umbrella of indie-rock, but with those two things guiding it.
Sebesky: Yeah, and when we had our close friends listen to it and Scott Killian, our high school mentor, listen to it, and I think I find this myself, one of the common threads is that — the way the sounds are combined — it feels like you’re traveling somewhere, moving somewhere in motion. So if you could encapsulate that into a sound, that’s probably what it is.
New School Free Press: How long have you been playing music for?
Evan Dibbs: We’ve been playing music together —not as this band — for a long time. We met in high school at High Tech High School in North Bergen (New Jersey), and we were in the music program there together. We were both under the tutelage of our mentor, Scott Killian. He’s our man; we would play together at the Spring and Fall concerts and then didn’t end up playing music together for a while, like pretty much through college. And then when we both moved back to the area, we’re like, ‘Hey! We should do something.”
Georgia Sebesky: We started working on this project about a year ago.
New School Free Press: How did you get into music?
Sebesky: I think I was probably subconsciously inspired to play music because my dad is a jazz guitarist and my grandpa is an orchestrator and arranger, so it’s always been very present in my life.
Dibbs: “I asked for a guitar for Christmas one year and I got a rinky-dink, hundred-dollar, Starcaster Fender and I would just learn a bunch of tunes on my own.”
New School Free Press: Would you consider music to be a passion, or a large/meaningful part of your life?
Dibbs: I always think of [music] as being in a marriage. And that’s it; you do it because there’s the passion there, you love it. But, like in any marriage, there’s a lot of things you have to work through as well, and it’s not just this passion-filled enterprise at all times. It takes a lot of work and a lot of muscling through at times, especially if it’s your bread and butter.
New School Free Press: Georgia, with both your Dad and Grandfather being musicians, what was it like growing up around notable musicians and how did that influence your musical career?
Sebesky: It was awesome growing up in a musical family. I think it definitely, if anything, made me believe that I could do it myself; that if I cared about it enough, it was possible. I feel super-grateful to have parents and a family that know a career in the arts is valid and encourage me to pursue it no matter what. Some of the other auxiliary things are that I can always ask my dad for advice. He listened to a ton of the mixes for this EP. I played them for my grandpa in the car on the way to Thanksgiving, and he offered to make an arrangement for us on our next project, which was really cool. It’s really nice to just be able to express what it is that I love and have people in my family understand it.
New School Free Press: How long did it take to work on the EP?
Dibbs: We recorded it in our friend’s basement in Jersey City in July and probably did little bits of tracking and stuff. We did the bulk of it in a couple of days and then continued to do overdubs and stuff until September. And after that it was just mixing and mastering which was finished in January. It was about a five month process.
New School Free Press: What do you hope to achieve with your music? What are you hoping to create as you go forward?
Sebesky: In the most simple terms, I would like some sustainability from this; I wouldn’t want it to just be a one-off thing. Either in this project or as it transforms into other projects and relationships and bands. This is kind of my foray into writing original music, so I see this as a jumping off point that I hope to take as far as I can.
New School Free Press: Who are some artists who have inspired you as musicians? What specifically about their work has influenced your own? This could be both spiritually or musically.
Sebesky: Definitely as far as style goes, Amy Winehouse. Just in her freedom; she paved her own way as an artist. As far as writing goes, one of my favorite bands is called Hop Along (@HopAlongTheBand) and the front woman named Francis Quinlin. Her lyrical style really influences my own. She gets very specific, in a way that no one else could possibly know exactly what she’s talking about, but somehow feels really universal. And not to say I captured that but I definitely strive to.
Dibbs: Someone who has been a big influence for me is a guitar player Bill Frisell (@BillFrisell). It was very serendipitous how I discovered him; it was my birthday one year and my mom went into a record store and asked, ‘My son’s a guitar player. What can you recommend?’ And the guy handed her this live CD of his called “East and West” and I just gobbled that up.
New School Free Press: Tell us about your single, ‘Winter.’ What inspired you to write it?
Sebesky: I came up with the melody and the lyrics and then we worked on it together to make it what you just heard. The meaning behind the song is kind of a reacquainting with oneself after some change, or the dissolution of a relationship or a past event. It’s coming to terms with the ways in which you’ve changed, or I’ve changed.
New School Free Press: What do you think makes good music? What is good music to you?
Dibbs: I definitely feel for me like good music is separate from personally liking things because there are a ton of times where I’m like, that’s really good, and I don’t like it, you know? And actually, it happens in opposite circumstances where I was like, this kind of sucks, but I love it. But the characteristics of what actually makes it good is hard to say. When groups have a good sense of how a piece should be arranged and this sort of arc of how it is, how it’s going to play over time, creating expectations and defining them.
Sebesky: Yeah. Or as corny as it may sound. I think that good music makes you feel something. It makes you feel emotionally attached or moved or make you think about something in a different way.
Q: What do you hope people feel or receive from listening to your music?
Dibbs: I think there’s a little bit of a quiet sort of personal reflection thing that happens, this music is arranged for quieter setting. On the EP when you play it live, it’s a little louder, but and the fact it has like a sort of bedroom, basement, living room, setting to a dust those are all the places that it was recorded. People may be listening to it by themselves, and daydreaming when they listen to it.
Window Weather has tour dates booked throughout March and April. Their initial hometown release show is on Friday, March 20th at The Way Station bar in Brooklyn. Window Weather starts at 9pm, no ticket purchase necessary. To keep up with the band and what they’re working on, you can follow their Instagram @WindowWeatherBand. To listen to their music, check out their Bandcamp at windowweather.bandcamp.com, to be activated by the first single release on February 14th. You can find this article in our March Print Issue