Q&A with Ari Picker

Tuesday marks the release date of “A Church That Fits Our Needs,” the latest record from local orchestral indie-pop act Lost in the Trees. The album, the band’s third, features swelling string sections among other acoustic instruments to form a rich, dreamlike sound.

The band’s main vocalist, songwriter and frontman Ari Picker recently talked to Assistant Diversions Editor Allison Hussey about the new album and the challenges and triumphs that have come along with it.

Diversions: What are the biggest differences between A Church That Fits Our Needs and your earlier material?

Ari Picker: The last record was a little bit more folk-centric maybe, a little more like a voice with an acoustic guitar with little arrangements kind of floating around it and then leaving, so it was fairly sparse in that sense. This record, the songs and the arrangements are a little bit more congealed. And my influences for this one were very different.

I was listening to a lot more folk music and kind of studying early classical music with the last record, so that kind of shines through on that one. This one, I was listening to a lot more modern pop music and more modern classical music. So those I think certainly affected the sound of the record.

Dive: How do you plan on taking the bigger string arrangements from the record on the road?

AP: We have to kind of slim down the arrangements, and we’ve been supplementing the strings with keyboards and synthesizers. And it’s a lot more bass and drum heavy as well. To be honest, I think the adaptation of this record for the live show works better than the last record. At least in my opinion, as it stands right now.

A lot of the music we’ve been listening to and I’ve been listening to has been, like I said, more modern. And we’ve also been circuiting the club scene for the past year and learning how to adapt our kind of music to a club setting, and I think we’ve gotten better at that.

Dive: What are the biggest challenges when it comes to playing clubs that aren’t necessarily suited to your style of music?

AP: We deal with a lot of acoustic instruments. The beautiful thing about an acoustic instrument is the acoustics — it’s pushing air away from it, interacting with the air around it — and in a club you just have to put a direct interface in the violin. It pretty much kills all the natural beautiful qualities of the instrument.

So figuring out a way to kind of synthetically, artificially bring back the pleasant sound of a violin, even though it’s been (altered) and is going through club speakers is certainly something we’ve had to deal with and are trying to perfect. We’re not there yet, but it’s been really hard.

The music on the record is played by a big string orchestra, and on the road it’s played by a few string players that are going through the club speakers. That’s been the biggest challenge.

Dive: What would you say are you most proud of on the record?

RW: That I got it done at all, probably. It was a very daunting project to take on, and I really pushed myself in every aspect of the writing. The music — trying to write in that more modern classical style. Pushing myself on the lyrics, trying to push myself on the kind of vibe of the record — which I guess that’s kind of a difference from the last record.

This record has a little bit more atmosphere to it, more of a specific vibe — or at least something I was intentionally going for. It was a very painful — you push yourself really hard, and it can be painful at times. So I guess I’m proud to have finished it.

Dive: You recently put out a pretty complex video for the song “Red.” What was it like making that?

AP: That was the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Our record label gave us two weeks to come up with that and shoot that and finish it, which was pretty daunting. So I just sat and drank a lot of coffee and thought of a whole bunch of images that represented the different aspects of the record.

Some of them are abstract and some of them are more concrete, and it just kind of develops from there.

I like directing, and I like coming up with little magical scenarios and little homemade special effects and stuff like that. It’s really fun, it’s the most fun I’ve had in a long time, actually.

Dive: What do you like most about the Triangle music scene?

AP: I think the common thread in the music scene is, one, there’s a whole bunch of different bands really pushing themselves to be the best that they can be. I think that really shows, just being really creative. And two, I think the scene really supports each other. It’s just kind of a really strong community.

I don’t know if Chapel Hill or the Triangle necessarily has a singular sound. You can’t say it’s, like, the age of grunge rock or whatever, garage pop or whatever, but I think the common thread is just admiration and support and friendship. You don’t really need more than that.