Lyle-based experimental rock duo Susurrus Station (Sara Dyberg and Jason Breeden) debuted their sixth full-length album "Mythomania" at Wines on 2nd in downtown The Dalles May 15. Sean Avery photos.
Lyle-based experimental rock duo Susurrus Station (Sara Dyberg and Jason Breeden) debuted their sixth full-length album "Mythomania" at Wines on 2nd in downtown The Dalles May 15. Sean Avery photos.
Breeden on guitar.
Dyberg performs a song from "Mythomania."
Dyberg, left, and Breeden, right make up Lyle-based experimental rock duo Susurrus Station.
THE DALLES — On their sixth album, “Mythomania,” Susurrus Station confronts our compulsion to tell stories, how it fuels our tendency to fabricate or sensitize known realities, blurring the lines between myth and memory.
The experimental rock outfit, composed of Lyle-based Sara Dyberg and Jason Breeden, debuted the 8-song project at Wines on 2nd May 15, accompanied by contributing beatmaker and visual artist Paul Burnum.
Breeden was born in San Francisco and grew up in Missouri, later returning to the Bay Area to study film, photography, and painting at the San Francisco Art Institute. His affection for music is intrinsic, upheld early by his father’s influence. “Isn’t everyone interested in music?” he said. “My dad tortured me with classic rock on the way to school every day; it took me years to get over that; I’m still getting through that.”
Breeden strums on a track from "Mythomania."
Dyberg grew up outside of Stockholm, Sweden, where her music-teacher father granted her access to, and guidance on, any instrument she desired to play. After graduating from Malungsfolkhögskola performing arts school in Dalarna County, she emerged into Stockholm’s vibrant jazz scene.
Shortly after crossing paths in San Francisco, the singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist duo sparked a quick musical bond. Their niche, complementary tastes and knack for experimentation yielded strong compatibility.
Dyberg on keys.
“Sara was always singing stuff, so it was easy to manifest,” Breeden said. “Jason was singing stuff too … I remember [him] making things up all the time,” Dyberg added.
Later, Breeden joined Dyberg in Stockholm, where Susurrus Station officially began as an acoustic project, featuring stand-up bass, clarinet, and a couple of guitars. The duo played with jazz musicians, initially sporting a fluid, revolving-door membership system, as opposed to its more defined structure in the States.
Its rather unconventional name is meant to induce a mind state of constant noise, inspired by the ubiquity of the term “station” in Sweden, paired with the onomatopoeia term “Susurrus,” borrowed from Latin, which describes whispering or rustling.
The duo’s story crept closer to the Gorge after it relocated to Portland. Breeden had bounced around San Francisco, New York, and Scandinavia — “sort of homeless,” he explained — before a friend with a big house offered a room and a space to practice.
Though they hadn’t planned to move to the Pacific Northwest, the opportunity presented convenience. For the next seven years, Susurrus Station operated in the Rose City, playing with friends and other groups, where its sound naturally drifted towards indie rock, adding drums to the mix.
Now in Lyle, the duo continues to switch things up, consistently motivated to tackle styles and concepts they’ve yet to explore. As such, combining influences and genres, Susurrus Station’s sound requires case-by-case description, especially as the oversaturation and hyperspecification of genre categories renders most attempts null.
“When describing our sound, it really depends on the person,” Breeden said. “We try to make allowances for their exposure to music, so we usually say some sort of experimental rock.”
“A lot of times, we just describe what we play,” Dyberg added.
On “Mythomania,” Susurrus Station takes its ever-evolving sound into more accessible territory, offering a dreamlike, synthy, instrument-dense soundscape full of classical counterpoint melodies, wrapped in a poppy, optimistic bow — a sonic adventure that might challenge some listeners with its themes, but ultimately desires to connect with a broad audience.
“We’ve made some far-out stuff, and we get excited by that,” Breeden said. “But this time, we were trying to make it a little more accessible for more people. We’re having fun doing that.”
In the making for around three years, “Mythomania” wasn’t born with an overarching theme in mind, but slowly cohered into an exploration of mythology and storytelling — the idea that our civilization is full of compulsive liars, that lying is another form of storytelling, and that there is a gray zone between the two, deeply human impulses. We turn to story and myth, even when interpreting history, to find meaning.
“Nobody wants the truth about most things,” Breeden explained. “They say they do, but that’s not what they’re compelled to chase or accept. Fiction is more free.”
“Mythomania” calls on the Argonauts, for example, a band of heroes in Greek mythology, as well as the Swedish folklore figure Maran, a malicious cat-like woman that sits on your chest when you’re sleeping, conjuring terrifying nightmares and a feeling of suffocation.
Dyberg and Breeden perform "Mythomania" in front of a visual collage from Susurrus Station contributing beatmaker Paul Burnum.
With Dyberg on keys, Breeden on guitar, and both sharing vocal duties, Susurrus Station delivered a slightly stripped-back performance of the recorded album at Wines on 2nd. Burnum, meanwhile, projected an atmospheric visual collage behind them, featuring snippets from their music video for “Meshes of the Afterlife” — the record’s sole single and opening track.
After performing in Portland on May 22, the band hopes to play a few more shows to showcase the album. Due to the steep costs of producing a record, Susurrus Station will temporarily shift gears to releasing singles before diving into their next feature-length project.
For now, fans and new listeners can — and should — stream “Mythomania” on all major platforms. For merch, socials, and more, visitsusurrusstation.com.
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