Minneapolis-based chamber folk sextet Dark Dark Dark constructs intricate worlds with their songs. The haunting composition of instruments along with lead vocalist Nora Marie Invie’s towering voice forms an air of whimsy and magic. Within Dark Dark Dark’s songwriting, intense and emotive yarns are spun. In speaking with the group’s accordionist, pianist, trumpeter and chorister, Walt McClements, I was able to grasp the heartbeat of the band and from what sort of space its members create.

Can you tell me a bit about your background in music?

I took piano lessons as a child, I played saxophone, and I had a little bit of jazz study training. It was really when I moved to New Orleans when I started playing a lot of folk music. I moved here about seven years ago from North Carolina and had been traveling a lot before that…but I settled in here, and found it a really nurturing place to be. I joined the Panorama Jazz Band, which, I feel, has made me become a much better musician.

At this point, I don’t really have the time to keep listening to new music. I listen to what’s around me.  There is a lot of stuff I want to sit down with, but I’m on tour a lot.

Sometimes it’s better to draw influence from what’s around you rather than actively seek it out.

True. We’re lucky to live in a place like new Orleans where it is around us all the time. Besides music, I read a lot, but it’s hard for me to consciously say: “I want to create music like that.” I’m always nervous about cross-media analogies because I can’t quite confidently say that I’d like to be creating music that feels like a Cormac McCarthy novel or something. I feel like it has to be more complicated than that.

I mean more as a point of reference rather than a copy…

I appreciate the craft and what you can learn from what goes into creating different forms of art and how it’s perceived as being different from how different forms of art are created. When I write songs I really pay attention to the importance of crafting the world I hope to create through the songwriting and performance. It takes a mixed amount of work and perseverance, and I like to draw inspiration from that sort of work ethic.

What about aesthetic influence?

Walt McClements at the Open Ears Series. Photo by Jeff Albert.

I certainly read a lot of different styles and see different things, but I would say, perhaps with both visual and literary works, I definitely do identify with magical realism, a world that you can still relate to but has elements of where you are transported into a slightly different reality, you know? The groups that I play with are sort of doing the same thing. It should be something that people can connect with but not so abstract that you can’t understand it.

It’s been said about Dark Dark Dark that an air of magic or whimsy is created during live performances. What role does performance play into your life as a musician and as a part of Dark Dark Dark?

With Dark Dark Dark, I feel like we spend a lot of time focusing on trying to create an atmosphere. With all music, what you’re trying to do is conjure up your own world for those moments that you’re performing. I think that’s something that we think about a lot, and we certainly try to connect with the audience in that manner.

Dark Dark Dark will be at All-Ways Lounge Sunday with Hawk in a Hacksaw and Pillars and Tongues. For more information go to the All-Ways Lounge’s website.

McClements will also be a part of a performance on October 22 at 1027 Piety Street for the opening of The Music Box, a musical instrument in the form of a house made in collaboration with area musicians and the artist Swoon.