Jones Candler Kolbinsky, Carter Holland release 'Distant Cousins' LP
Hear the story behind the record as told by Jones Kolbinsky about his late friend and seventh cousin once removed, Carter Holland
Howdy folks! Neil here. Jones Kolbinsky is an exceptionally kind local musician and comic, whom I had the pleasure of meeting a few months ago. Today marks the day of the ‘Distant Cousins’ release, a posthumous album of Carter Holland, which you can hear here. (Why don’t you listen as you read? Could be tight??) Though we never met, to celebrate and remember Carter, we asked Jones to share a few words about the record, which you can read below:
Funerals host an abundance of platitudes and barren words. It’s fully understandable, and far from intentional insincerity. I’m not saying post-mortem linguistic banalities are an inauthentic expression of empathy, or a negative exploit. I simply believe that there is a limit on how many times a soul can stomach sentences such as “I’m so sorry for your loss”, or “he was such a kind person”, while a loved one is lowered into the ground. Judging by the genuinely compassionate gestures of every mourning procession in history, everyone who has ever lived was a saintly being and all of our loved ones are always in a much better place now... And what else are we supposed to say? We apply speech to express our sorrow despite the fact that mere words fall so short of the emotional depth that death reminds us is always absolute. I’ve seen too many of my friends die much too young from too many different circumstances. When I use language to express my condolences, it never feels like enough. Grasping at overwhelming straws, I can never find the right words to say.
It’s been almost three years since my friend Carter Holland unexpectedly passed away in his sleep. I doubt that many of you who will read this even knew him personally, so you’ll have to trust me when I say that Carter was the outright best of us. I’m confident that anyone who was fortunate enough to know him during his time on earth would fully agree. If you knew Carter Holland, you loved him and he loved you back more genuinely than you could fathom. Carter and I met at summer camp when we were both nine years old. He was an awkward ginger boy from Virginia with a comically large nose and a seriously large intellect. He played the hell out of the mandolin and the guitar. He was always exceedingly emotionally intelligent for his age. He listened before he spoke. Most importantly, he and I had a similar sense of juvenile humor. Tremendously, Carter also had perfect six-pack abs since he was eleven years old and maintained them his entire life which I’m still extremely jealous of to this very day. From the first moment we met he and I were, seemingly, inseparably tethered. At some point in high school, he discovered that we shared an ancient relative and that we were actually seventh cousins, once removed. Since childhood, we had always planned on writing music together. Distant Cousins was a divine and perfect band name delivered to our laps straight from heaven
His obituary states, “With music as his first love, Carter’s talent was only surpassed by his kindness, unconditional love for his wide circle of friends, wry wit and calm dignity as the embodiment of a true Southern gentleman”. Music was certainly his greatest love, bordering on a radical degree. He was meticulous in his recording process, and was repulsed by most digital gear. Carter exclusively recorded to tape through a maze of analog preamps, compressors, and EQs with no click track. There was NEVER a click track. Always enigmatic, Carter wrote and recorded demos for well over seventy songs in his lifetime, but never considered them quality enough to release. For years, cassette after cassette of his demos collected dust in his room. Not long after his funeral, his lovely mother Lucie found the majority of his Basement Tapes-esque recordings, and generously reached out with a proposition. She asked me to piece together a full-on professionally sounding big boy album from her son’s countless recordings, with the emphasis on his newest and most raw demos. Who the hell could say no to that? I was given an opportunity to transcend my barren words, my brittle speech, my frail condolences, and provide a genuine gesture for my fallen friend and his grieving family.
Finally, after loads of assistance from some amazing friends in Nashville, the Distant Cousins album is tangible, and I am so astoundingly grateful. Some songs had to be completely re-recorded, some songs are hodgepodge’d together between Carter’s demos and my playing, and some songs only needed a simple master. All of them embody Carter’s spirit, as I tried to use as many of his original takes as possible during the reconstruction. No click tracks allowed. Furthermore, I don’t know how to say this, but this record is quite literally haunted by his spirit. It’s even hard for me to believe, but I’ve now had four distinct experiences with what I can only describe as a ghostly entity during this recording process… Hell, there’s even a song called “Ghost in My Room” on the album which was rather fitting and it still gives me the heebie-jeebies. It’s quite the tale, but now is not the time to tell it... Find me at a bar and I’ll tell it to ya! All that is just to say, I am so appreciative of this album, and I hope some people will enjoy the endearing and heartfelt songs of Carter Holland, my dearest and closest distant cousin.
