SNOWDEN

?You go a little crazy,? says Snowden's Jordan Jeffares, ?thinking, am I screwing things up by holding on to them and working with them for so long? Did I do the right thing by sticking with it?? The short answer is an emphatic yes. More than a half-decade after their breakthrough debut album, Snowden has returned and the extended wait has proven resoundingly worth it. No One In Control is a remarkable collection, lit with impassioned creativity and coruscating emotional power. Jeffares ? the multi-talented mind behind Snowden ? toiled for almost six years, pushing

holding on to them and working with them for so long? Did I do the right thing by sticking with
it??

The short answer is an emphatic yes. More than a half-decade after their breakthrough debut
album, Snowden has returned and the extended wait has proven resoundingly worth it. No One
In Control is a remarkable collection, lit with impassioned creativity and coruscating emotional
power. Jeffares ? the multi-talented mind behind Snowden ? toiled for almost six years, pushing
himself and his music ever closer to madness, and that hermetic intensity can be heard in the
record's every finely etched facet. From the syrupy pulsebeats of ?So Red? to the nihilistic
euphoria of the first single, ?The Beat Comes,? Snowden has crafted a vivid portrait of obsession
and isolation, of gut-wrenching doubt and ultimate redemption. With its seamless integration
of haunting melodies, rhythmic ingenuity, and hypnagogic songcraft, No One In Control sees
Snowden's artistry and ambition ascending to hitherto untouched new heights.

Snowden emerged in 2004 and were soon hailed as one of the Atlanta underground's leading
new artists, with MTV linking the band alongside Deerhunter and Black Lips as avatars of the
burgeoning scene. Released in 2006, Anti-Anti fully delivered upon the band's promise, earning
worldwide popular success and critical applause for its enigmatic blend of deep grooves and
post punk atmospherics. Snowden toured hard, building a fervent fan following via innumerable
headline dates and shows alongside the likes of Arcade Fire and Kings of Leon.

But just as Snowden prepared their next move, Jeffares found himself entangled in contract
dispute that put the kibosh on whatever career momentum he had gained. Trapped in legal
limbo, he eased back into the life of a starving artist, subletting and setting up studios wherever
he landed, from Chicago to Atlanta to New York. In due time, Jeffares had begun constructing a
boldly beautiful song cycle inspired by the seclusion.

?I was always paranoid about writing ballads. In a bout of writer's block I let one through.?

He ended up writing quite a few, though unsurprisingly, ?they were all a little bit twisted.? Songs
like ?Don't Really Know Me? and the title track were marked by romantic pessimism and cynical
seclusion, their introspective exploration buoyed by Jeffares' tricky unification of Anti-Anti's
spellbinding shoegaze melodics with ebullient Big Beat and Madchester-inspired rhythms.

?I didn't want my stuff to have that swarm this time,? he says. ?I wanted it to have more kick to
it. I was always trying to balance that. It's a hard line to walk.

Time marched on as Jeffares spent countless all-nighters in the studio, tinkering away on the
record while also trying to find it a good home. Night after night, he would question his previous
evening's efforts, gutting songs then rebuilding them from the naked track up. The process, he
admits, ended up snowballing into OCD.

?Everyone kept saying, you've got to stop working on this record,? Jeffares says, ?but with no
good way to release it, I kept tweaking it. I could've had a finished record at any point, it just
wouldn't have been the record that I would've had six months later.?

In 2011, Snowden's old friends and tourmates Kings of Leon invited Jeffares to join forces with
their newly launched Serpents & Snakes Records. With the finish line now in sight, Jeffares

considered self-producing the final album, but knew that he couldn't be objective having listened
to some of these tracks more than 500 times. He reached out to producer Bill Skibbe ? known
for his work alongside The Kills, The Dead Weather, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Adult. ? and in
November, lit out for Skibbe's Benton Harbor, Michigan studio for three weeks of sessions.

?I made the commitment that I was going to walk in and walk out with a record,? Jeffares says,
?and there's not going to be any messing with it after that.?

Having already tracked ? and re-tracked ? most of the album on his own, Jeffares and Skibbe
spent much of their time ?experimenting? with guitar textures and vocal arrangements. Longtime
Snowden drummer Chandler Rentz came in to lay down an array of taut rhythms and clattering
beats based on the original programming.

?Bill helped me figure out better ways to get some sounds,? Jeffares says, ?more ways to get
emotion in the recordings. I'd been messing with these tracks for so long there wasn't a lot to
do to most of them.?

Indeed, No One In Control is a remarkably detailed and visceral work, Jeffares' infinite
adventurism resulting in a fully realized aural universe in each individualistic track. With its
complex architecture and inverted bursts of entropic energy, the epic title piece stands out as
a tour de force of incandescent psychedelia and lacerating self-examination. Other milestones
include a stark take on Love & Rockets' ?No Words No More? (first heard on 2009's New Tales To
Tell tribute) and the elegiac finale, ?This Year,? which closes the album with surprising delicacy
and hope. Upon completing the sessions, Jeffares held true to his initial promise to himself and
pulled away from the material he'd been obsessing over for the better part of a decade.

?I can't,? he says. ?I can't listen to it at all. I accidentally heard a track the other day and
realized there was a backing vocal missing. I was like, ?No. I've got to let it go.'?

Now based out of Austin, Jeffares is preparing for No One In Control's long awaited release
by solidifying Snowden's intricate live presentation, the present line-up comprised of players
assembled during his last stay in New York City. But for the most part, he has spent the past
year recharging his creative batteries, ?trying to live a life not centered around music.?

That said Jeffares recently set up a studio, determined to begin the next Snowden album before
hitting the road hard in 2013. Ever eager to push his music's own far-flung boundaries, he
suggests future efforts will be more beat heavy and electronic in nature. One thing is certain,
however: the arrival of the astonishingly affective No One In Control represents the culmination
of a difficult and risky chapter for Snowden as well as the proverbial new beginning for Jordan
Jeffares himself.

October 2012