Clap the Houses Dark

Clap the Houses Dark is a band busy making a new kind of music—complex compositions and improvisations that are in close relationship with poetic language. “I wouldn’t be able to describe the sound,” poet Greg Glazner says, “but I’m sure the music we’ve loved has made our sound possible: Radiohead, Minutemen, Television, Wilco, Oxbow, Talking Heads, King Crimson, jazz, blues, minimalist compositions, poetry, on and on…” Glazner, author of four collections of poetry and former professor at College of Santa Fe, and Jon Davis, former Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, write and (mostly) speak the words. They had decided against setting existing poems to music, which had been Glazner’s method for many years. Instead, they had started from scratch letting words and music take form together, and the result had the force and unity of a complex rock song. Glazner composes the main contours of the music, speaks, sings on occasion, and plays electric guitar. Behind one drum kit is the current Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, Tommy Archuleta, powering the rhythm section alongside accomplished bassist Jon Lucero and engineer and drummer Jon Trujillo. And everyone in Clap the Houses Dark is ultimately a co-creator and co-arranger of the songs in their final form.