i26connector started because of a school project. Eli Whitlow needed an original song to finish his senior portfolio at UNC Asheville, so he called upon his friend & housemate Caelan Burris. On a break from their main project Tombstone Poetry, Burris had a song in their backpocket, written while crashing at their parents’ house due to Hurricane Helene. The two quickly recorded the song, titled “Bethel”, in the basement studio below the house they shared, with Whitlow on drums and Burris on guitar & vocals. Soon after, they realized they had something and brought their housemates Lawson Alderson and Hana Parpan in on these sessions, with Alderson joining on guitar & production and Parpan on bass, rounded out by their friend (and eventual housemate) Will Elliott on pedal steel. Spurred on by their transit-obsessed friend, the group took on the name i26connector.
But don’t take their name as an endorsement of the long-delayed Asheville I-26 Connector, as the (almost) title track “I-26 Connector” makes clear in its opening lines: “They tore down my buddies house / To build the I-26 Connector.” The N.C. Department of Transportation breaking ground on the I-26 Connector is just one of a number of events that have left the city of Asheville crestfallen in recent years, but don’t mistake that feeling for dejectedness. On i26connector, they confront these feelings head-on and turn them into pure catharsis, from the monstrous wall of noise heard at the end of “Spirit Manger” to Burris’ full-throated howls that round out “Talked To Moses.”
But even under the near-apocalyptic circumstances that inspired i26connector, friendship is the key to understanding what makes the group tick. There was no burden of expectations that fueled the album’s making, just friends allowing each other to express themselves however they see fit, as who else would approve of the low-pitched producer tag “this is i26connector, bitch” heard on “Old Beater” but your best friends in the world? And it’s because of this friendship that allows i26connector to pull at the heartstrings as much as it does, as the trust each member has for one another brings out the best in them all.
