When all three members of Menomena join me over Zoom from their respective homes—keyboardist-guitarist Brent Knopf and bassist-saxophonist Justin Harris in Portland, Oregon, drummer Danny Seim in, as fate would have it, Portland, Kentucky—everyone is all smiles, cracking jokes and oozing warmth. It’d be an understatement to call the sight uplifting. After Menomena released four inspired, unpredictable art-rock albums in the 2000s, Knopf left the band in January 2011 to pursue other projects. Something was a little off, a working friendship soured, but the two-piece Menomena still released another album, 2012’s Moms, and ended the ensuing tour with a hometown show in 2014. Then things went quiet.
Now, suddenly, here they are, together again and clearly very happy about it. “Taking this break from music and then getting back into it now with my two favorite musicians on Earth has been really awesome to see that this whole thing still exists,” says Seim. Still, they’re reluctant to call it a reunion, as Menomena never technically called it quits.
Seim relocated to Kentucky in 2015 after his wife got a residency position, they welcomed their first kid, and he focused on other work: his solo project Lackthereof, the collaborative band Pfarmers with Dave Nelson and the National’s Bryan Devendorf, and a job as director of the Louisville children’s museum Adventure House of You, where Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s Will Oldham and My Morning Jacket’s Jim James also lend a helping hand.
Knopf stayed busy under his solo moniker Ramona Falls and teamed up with the National’s Matt Berninger to form El Vy. Harris, meanwhile, joined Bloc Party on bass for the majority of the past decade.
While these outlets provided new creative paths, everyone in Menomena agrees that nothing has brought a comparable spark to playing together. “Menomena ruined me for anything after,” laughs Harris. “It wasn’t as musically fulfilling for me to just play bass anymore, because, in Menomena, what the three of us are doing is a juggling act.”
When The Insulation EP appeared on Menomena’s Bandcamp last month, fans were treated to three Mines B-sides. The title track and “Copious” were released previously, but the last song, “Caravan,” was only recently unearthed from the band’s archives. There’s something magical about hearing all three of them singing back-to-back on the EP and ending with Knopf, his higher voice always graceful yet illusive; a missing ingredient finally returned.