The River Empires

**JKL2000** · 03-18-2016

Anyone remember the album Epilogue by The River Empires?

https://theriverempires.bandcamp.com/

It's from 2010, and was supposed to be the first of 7 albums that told a continuing story, but I don't think they ever released the next part. Also, they were supposed to be working on a movie of it.

Sometimes, you can tell someone has put the cart before the horse, like when I was in college and a friend was writing his first song. He claimed he was writing a rock opera, but I don't think he ever got further than about 10 notes.

Of course, these folks did do a double album, and it's not bad. Maybe they did release more of it under a different name as the Bandcamp page says they perhaps would.

**BrianG** · 03-21-2016

They had Casey Crescenzo guesting with them, didn't they? Maybe Casey got too busy with The Dear Hunter to help them forward.

**canadianghetto** · 03-23-2016

The main guy (Jesse Ribordy) got busy doing 4 albums with Falling Up since then. Falling Up is now finished and I am sure he will move onto other projects. No word if it will be TRE, but we can hope. All of the 2009-2015 Falling Up albums are good and he also did a couple records under The Gloomcatcher name that are on the folky side. They don't have the symphonic movie score elements of TRE though.

**mnprogger** · 03-24-2016

The River Empires may never do more music. But Jessy likely will, along with the other Falling Up members. Nick Lambert has a great project called Northern Abbey which has some similar elements to TRE or The Gloomcatcher.
https://northernabbey.bandcamp.com/

Jessy has a new band, which may or may not involve Casey Crescenzo.

here's a new interview with Jessy and Nick from Falling Up:
http://www.jesusfreakhideout.com/int...lingUp2016.asp

JFH (Wayne Reimer): Let's get the burning question out of the way first. What made Falling Up decide to disband?
Jessy Ribordy: Falling Up has been kind of a side thing for a while now. I felt like it was going to start becoming one of those things that dragged on. I just felt at peace with ending it and moving on. It felt like it was finally the right time to do so. Also, another main reason was I've always been the type of person who likes to put 100% into one thing. I really wanted to work on another project, but I couldn't feel like I could give it 100% of my time without ending Falling Up first.

JFH (Wayne): If you don't mind sharing, may I ask what the members of Falling Up are moving on to? Where will your lives be taking you next?

Jessy: I've got a lot of projects I'm working on right now. Finishing up a few scripts that I've only been able to ebb away at for the past five years. I'm looking forward to being able to put more time into those. A couple music projects are on the way. And then I'm going to school for a degree.
Nick Lambert: I'll still try to play in whatever Jessy is working on. haha. Other than music though, I'll be doing work with Mountain Machine as well as start-up community work in Portland.

JFH (Wayne): It would be a great tragedy for such talented musicians to fade away from the scene entirely. Will we be hearing any future music from anyone, post-Falling Up? For example, from Jessy's multiple side-projects?
Jessy: The whole idea of starting up a Twitter, Instagram, Facebook page with a new band and going though all these weird vices that bands do - photo shoots, kickstarters, EP's - that stuff just doesn't interest me anymore. I'm not above it by any means, just not interested in it. If anything, I just want to play local shows on the weekends. I want to write and record an album in my garage - that type of thing. I want to play music in a band, but I don't want to be in a "band," if that makes sense. And that's what the new music project is going to be. Just a couple albums that I'm going to make in the garage and then play at some cafes and pubs around town.
Nick: I'm sure there will be more Northern Abbey in the future.

JFH (Wayne): What were your favourite albums to create?
Nick: This one, hands down. Hours was fun, too.
Jessy: All of the albums from Fangs until now.

Fangs!: I loved so many things about recording in Rhode Island. I'm a huge American history nerd, and that place is just full of it. So many of the musical influences in Fangs!stemmed out of that old world feeling that I was surrounded by (new world in an old world sense, ha!) And then Casey is just someone who I love working with so much. He's so awesome.

Your Sparkling Death Cometh: It was just awesome, I can't really explain it. We basically never left the studio at Casey's place. I made a French press coffee every morning for everyone and we went to work. It was just so great to take the skills that we thought we had with tracking and producing an album and put it to the test. It was truly the most liberating recording experience, apart from The River Empires. Because although Fangs!was awesome, we still had expectations to meet from the label.