Pile

Pile built a devoted regional audience alongside esteem from fellow musicians by blending relentless independent effort with an ever-shifting musical approach. Fronted by vocalist and guitarist Rick Maguire, the group advanced through a series of increasingly intricate full-lengths issued across the 2010s, incorporating diverse instrumentation into its frequently abrasive style on releases such as A Hairshirt of Purpose in 2017 and Green and Gray in 2019. For the 2021 album Songs Known Together, Alone the band pursued an alternate path, with Maguire recasting earlier material as a collection of individual performances. In 2023 Pile resurfaced with a revised roster and a further change in sonic direction on the densely layered All Fiction.

Originally a solo endeavor by Boston-based singer and guitarist Rick Maguire, the project yielded two raw yet compelling lo-fi efforts—Demonstration in 2007 and Jerk Routine in 2009—that moved among experimental folk, abrasive indie rock, and post-rock touches. In 2010 Maguire converted Pile into a group by forming the core lineup of guitarist Matt Becker, bassist Matt Connery, and drummer Kris Kuss, then issued Magic Isn't Real, which set the dark, noisy aesthetic that would define much of the band's identity. After the 2011 EP Big Web, Pile joined Exploding in Sound and delivered its label debut with the widely praised Dripping in 2012. The 7-inch Special Snowflakes/Mama's Lipstick appeared ahead of You're Better Than This in 2015 while the musicians maintained an intensive touring regimen across North America and Europe. Each subsequent release expanded the palette, introducing piano, banjo, and strings on A Hairshirt of Purpose in 2017, whose range spanned meticulously arranged slow pieces to forceful walls of noise. Third Man Records, Jack White's imprint, released the first live document, Live at Third Man Records, in late 2017. Between studio albums the band gathered stray singles and assorted tracks on the 2018 compilation Odds and Ends, then unveiled its seventh full-length, Green and Gray, in spring 2019. By then Maguire had relocated from Boston to Nashville and brought in new members Chappy Hull on guitar and Alex Molini on bass.

Following the experimental sketches of Second Other Tape in 2020, Maguire began reexamining the group's prior catalog from a fresh perspective. Cut entirely alone during a three-day session, Songs Known Together, Alone in 2021 contained sixteen reworked pieces stretching back to Demonstration from 2007. Later that year came the wholly improvised In the Corners of a Sphere-Filled Room, also issued independently. All Fiction in 2023 represented Pile's return to Exploding in Sound and functioned as a direct successor to Green and Gray. Kuss, still based in Boston, participated in those sessions, which yielded a richer, more intricate texture.