The Wake

Vitesse. French for “speed”. Who remembers Vitesse? The Chicago duo comprised of Joshua Klein and Hewson Chen? After taking a music composition course together at the University of Chicago, Klein and Chen released four wondrous indie synth-pop albums and then seemingly disappeared. The collaboration between the two became difficult; Klein (an editor for satirical magazine, The Onion) would visit Chen (a law student at Vanderbilt University) over weekends to collaborate and record music together. The process, despite its successes, couldn’t sustain itself as the two found their musical aspirations and relative geography diverging. It has been several years since Vitesse’s last release so I sought to find what the two artists are working on today.

Chen started a project with his girlfriend and Vitesse-contributor Celeste Alexander called “Fiber Study”. The duo found it difficult to produce their sound live so with the help of friends around NYC, Chen and Alexander (now married) formed “The New Lines”. The sound is, not surprisingly, quite Vitesse-esque; it’s a full-band effort of Vitesse complimented with the complexity and disarray of NYC.

The New Lines play a limited number shows and semi-frequently update their Myspace with what sounds like basement compilations of a group playing at its own leisure. This exclusivity is explained by the world of day jobs; Hewson Chen is now an Associate at Powley & Gibson, P.C. law firm. Hewson’s attorney bio at Powley & Gibson’s website states that he has “handled trademark and copyright matters concerning the publishing and music industry” but mentions nothing of his previous success in the indie-synthpop band Vitesse. Regardless, The New Lines aspire to a release something outside of their 96kbps Myspace-streamed songs. Until then, I’m going to continuing collecting via file2hd.com.

As Hewson Chen is experimenting with unconventional time signatures and other ostentatious efforts in Brooklyn, Joshua Klein is remaining elusive. In a desperate Google search of the Facebook website I found a Josh Klein who claimed to have graduated from the University of Chicago. I created a Facebook account and sent a message. Two weeks later I received a reply validating my guess (I use the term validate loosely here — it’s the internet). I was told that he was not currently working on any musical projects but that he was open to the possibility of one in the future. Hope.

But what does this say about the free time of a New York Intellecutal Property Attorney and a Midwestern newspaper Editor? Or is it about efficient use of time? Individual drive? Too many variables.

myspace.com/thenewlines
myspace.com/fiberstudy

Tags: 5/4 time management, french band names with non-french members, hewson chen, joshua klein, the new lines, vitesse