Music

Folk Song Catharsis

Len Voy starts healing on debut 10-track record

Eric Christenson |

VOY BOYS. (left to right) Nick Lanser, Jake Brunquell, and Max Laughner make somber folk tunes as Len Voy.
VOY BOYS. (left to right) Nick Lanser, Jake Brunquell, and Max Laughner make somber folk tunes as Len Voy.

You’re not supposed to write sad songs if you’ve never really had anything too sad happen to you. That’s rule No. 1. It’s just as true – if not even more so – in folk music as it is in any other genre. There’s just something about real life feelings of confusion, pain, and longing that makes a person want to pick up a guitar and start writing.

Achingly beautiful songs have come from places of sadness and lost hope, and they can mean healing and catharsis for the songwriter.

That’s how Nick Lanser describes the songs he writes for Eau Claire band Len Voy: cathartic indie folk.

“The songs are more about trying to express more of an overwhelming feeling,” Lanser said. “You’re telling a story that’s you can’t really use words to describe.”

A UWEC student now, Lanser hails from Cedarburg, Wis., a small-ish “kinda touristy” town just north of Milwaukee with a rich history, a cool downtown, and only 20 miles between it and Lake Michigan. Lanser and his family lived in what was called the Hilgen House, named after one of the town’s founders.

In the midst of Lanser moving to Eau Claire for college, his parents divorced. A challenging family situation paired with the natural stress of transitioning into college life was emotionally taxing.

“It was a pretty big break-up and I was a bit homesick, too. It was enough to make me go a little bit crazy,” he said. “It was a big explosion, and the songs came out of that experience.”

Lanser funneled this creative burst of energy into Len Voy’s debut 10-track record, aptly named Hilgen House. Many of the songs on the record start with strumming and vocals from Lanser, then layer in lush, ambient instrumentation (banjo, keys, pedal steel, and more) from Max Laughner and Jake Brunquell, the other two founding members of the band. At live shows they’ve added drummer Ian Wetzel (Reverii, Waldemar) to the roster, but Hilgen House is a mostly drumless effort, which works to give the record a mellow, somber feel.

Taking dashes from the likes of folksters William Fitzsimmons, Nathaniel Rateliff, and Gregory Alan Isakov, Len Voy lets these often painful songs breathe and build, aiming for musical and emotional resonance rather than short-and-sweet cuts. Many of the tracks crest five minutes and the final acoustic epic “Faster than the Wind” is more than eight minutes long.

Though it’s their first recorded effort, Lanser is a natural folk writer. He grew up around music, he’s self-taught on guitar, and he and his band are already picking up skills translating the raw, intimate nature of the songs into a fortuitous record that makes good art out of a rough experience.

“One of my first memories is my grandpa playing the accordion. He played in a polka band,” Lanser said. “But this is the first venture into writing my own stuff. The songs just kinda needed to happen.”

Len Voy is polishing up its live show and hopes to play more shows for more people in the wake of the new record. Playing such personal tunes for an audience can make a fella self-conscious, for sure, but Lanser said he’s trying to forego any of those feelings and let the songs speak for themselves.

“I’m not great with just talking and telling people exactly what I mean, but I know what I’m trying to get across, and I think with music it’s easier for me to do that,” he said. “It’s better to make myself more vulnerable about it and not hang up on it and pretend like it’s something I need to hide.”

Len Voy is releasing Hilgen House at 7pm on Friday, March 11, at the Volume One Gallery with a $5 suggested donation and opener Joe Hunt. You can pre-order the record and stream a couple of tracks at lenvoy.bandcamp.com.