Sui Zhen is the moniker of the Melbourne-based artist Becky Sui Zhen. Before Secretly Susan, Sui Zhen had released two EPs on Tokyo Labels in 2014, Female Basic and Body Reset. Secretly Susan is a watery submersion, a wading through shallow rock pools, a soaking in sea salt and foam, all in pastels. Basically, Sui Zhen manages to synthesise a sound that is the auditory equivalent of a stream and its cobalt fabric and nacreous whirls. It is, however, not any kind of stream. It is the online stream, the digital ocean, in which we all hopelessly swim, or drown. As a personification of our pixellated water-world, Sui Zhen figures Susan into existence a “vision of digital anxieties people have of the world, like a culmination of visual data and all of this stuff that exists on Instagram and Facebook.” The LP is full of surreal but soft soundscapes that will have you flung to some far off, extraterrestrial paradise.
Hangin’ On is an awesome song. It begins with this pop-inflected coo, and then bright synths (which must have been sampled from a bleating pedestrian signal on Shibuya intersection) rise and gently flap their technicolour wings. For some reason, the song evokes images of a iridescent hummingbird darting in its frenetic but calculated way. Sui Zhen is a very clever experimenter, she builds this minimal down-tempo groove by scattering wooden beats and controlled-clatter, and layers it with nectar-sweet, but never too present digital chiming. This adds an 80s electro-bossanova dimension, which is leavened by Sui Zhen’s sparse, but carefully located vocals. It all works in this disjointed and ghostly way that feels pillowy and nectarous, rather than alien.
Infinity Street is a masterful post-pop piece. Eerie reverb and obscure synths follow Susan’s walk down infinity street, a world licked by the pastel greens of nuclear fallout (at least that is what I imagine). The bent pentatonic missteps of Japanese-lounge sit comfortably in stripped down samba soundscapes. Sui Zhen’s voice carefully slides in the gaps and lilts in its minimal yet powerful way, “It’s killing me”. The following song, Safari, is wide and yawning. Long-stretched synths are danced upon by distorted whistles and bleeps as she her layered voice huffs and puffs and whispers. It honestly feels like the type of song that would be performed at a martian funeral. I can see balloon-headed ghosts hovering above their space-rock tombstones.
The final track, Alter-ego, has this dark mystique. It starts with the star-light glitter of an off-centre guitar melody. Susan’s FX-disfigured voice proclaims, “I felt the sand, I heard the sea.” Sui Zhen croons like a lost siren as echoing samples of bird-song quaver in the background. Susan (Sui Zhen’s constructed persona for this project) gradually dissipates, her voice inaudible and muted amongst the rising diegesis. The ending song is the quietus, the coup de grace, of an incredibly conceptual and genre-bending sonic-tableau of pop and Susan. SO do yourself a favour, and give this LP a serious and careful listen. It will have you dreaming.
The idea behind Silicon’s new album, Personal Computer, seemed a bit passe to me. Producing a piece of art centred on the tech-addicted automatons of the 21st century was obvious to say the least. Tropes about being alone in a vast digital fortress of faceless avatars, or losing one’s identity in the monster of online self-representation, have been strummed by some rather uncouth hands. I was struck with a sense that my assumptions were to be confirmed when I pressed play on Personal Computer. The title track begins with the voice of a broken, out-of-battery Bender (I miss you so Futurama) stating, “Never be lonely. Personal Computer. Someone that is listening. Personal Computer.” But, Nielson’s mostly pessimistic critique of the faux reality of pixels, is given via the textured, beat-flecked medium of soul and funk. Nielson’s future-soul-funk and his honeyed voice serve as the perfect vessels for us Apple-poisoned technophiles.
Personal Computer just sounds so good. Silicon is a master of retooling all the best that the 70s and 80s has to offer. He employs synths like voices; they move up and down, harmonise, and break into solo runs. The bass line always bounces in this oblique, off-centre way that gives the album’s general sleepiness an awakened flexibility. It is funny because, at some points, it feels like the sonic circus that Nielson has rallied will collectively collapse into a deep drowse. But, he always manages to flick just enough retro-funk, or jazz into the mix to enliven the beat. Something has to be said for Nielson’s voice, which warbles in this dark D’angelo-esque way, especially when he lifts it into falsetto and crackles and shakes with control.
I am really digging the saccharine sound of Personal Computer, not only because it is nice to listen to, but also because it evinces a clever irony. By carefully engineering the sonic resurrection of soul and funk in savvy silicon form, Nielson suggests that the technocracy has slipped its fingers into the production process. It is the splicing of genres; the glitzy, almost-pixellated post-pop; the manufactured soul of future soul. Nielson uses it all to not only make beautiful music, but also to imitate and, by so doing, parody the internet’s non-life, its flaccid and false copying of ‘the real’. Whilst this might be seen by some as a high-minded, disconnected experiment, I would argue that the record captures both sonically and lyrically the ubiquitous immersion of the 21st century in technology. Nielson declares this in Submarine where a disfigured voice beckons, “Follow me/To the sea,” or in Cellphone’s proclamation, “My body’s in the water, it’s colder than we think.”
It was not too long ago that Kody Nielson could be seen alongside his brother Ruben (now frontman of Unknown Mortal Orchestra) vomiting out rage, whilst manhandling their audience with their signature schizo-pop volcanism. When a member of The Mint Chicks, Nielson had channeled the indignation of his contemporaries in punk noise-experimentation. Now, Nielson has exchanged his pointed barbarism for the smooth gossamer-net of funk-soul. Rather than beat us, and all proximate instruments, with the reality of our disempowerment, Silicon has chosen to wrap us with silky synths, fat funk and multi-instrumental musings. Whilst it is a dramatic evolution – from knockabout screamer and noisemaker to weaver of digital age-critiquing sex music – Nielson has produced a memorable, and perspicacious record.
The Hiatus Kaiyote concert was bountiful with support acts, sweet crowd-vibes and, of course, Hiatus Kaiyote. Sampa the Great, Jaala, and Sex on Toast all graced the stage with soul-fire energy and enthusiasm. Special mention goes to Cosima Jaala whose ‘experimental bedroom punk’ and Gwen Stefani meets Courtney Love aesthetic had me near drooling with fan-seizures. I also have to give it to Sex on Toast, who remained staggeringly stoic as they punched our faces in with a high-octane melange of funk and soul. And Sampa the Great. Sampa the Great is, well, great.
After the parade of supports, Nai Palm and her collection of aficionados stepped on stage to an eager and raucous audience. It was clear that all of us had witnessed Hiatus Kaiyote’s rise to deserved success, following the release of their 2013 debut album Tawk Tomahawk. We had all fallen for what the band had called their “multi-dimensional, polyrhythmic gangster shit”. Now, we just waited to be mesmerised. And that is exactly what happened, from the beginning song, Choose Your Weapon all the way to the set’s final song, Fingerprints.
Before Laputa began a cursory, but respectful nod was given to Hayao Miyazaki’s classic Castle In The Sky. And then the distorted keyboard backing shook the air in the space above our heads. With the top of my crown tingling, I watched as complicated poly-rhythmic constructions materialised. Never too taxed, Nai Palm’s voice ricocheted like a liquid bullet through the spinning musical apparatus that had been raised before us. She never slips off centre; her keen razor-voice cuts with ease. She shows the same lean-lustre in Shaolin Monk Motherfunk, where she rides the bouncing bass line and beat, with a voice that falls and rises carefree. When the song reaches its rich-with-grit-and-grime crescendo, her eyes widen, her face sharpens and her voice is suddenly imputed with this fuck-off-I’m-a-goddess quality. It’s true though… she is a future-funk queen that has been sent from some far-off planet ruled by Badu, Bjork and Wonder.
Witnessing the long but elastic Breathing Underwater pushed me out of my skin. The band, in an almost Bruegel-esque union, begin with the song’s soft-toned soul-haze and then swerve between complex and varying time signatures. As excepted, Nai chases the tumbling rhythm, catches it with her teeth, and then sends it whirring in another outlandish direction. It is amazing to hear this vast sonic canvas splashed colourful with the whole sound-spectrum. At the end of every song, I felt like I had been shot at the speed of light through a Pollock painting. Despite the kaleidoscopic scatter of samba, Jazz, R&B and African influences, everything still feels accessible and safe. The single proof of this is in the way that my body is converted into a violent vortex of dancing atoms. Hiatus Kaiyote’s music and performance reaches into you and plucks you like a guitar string, until you are shaking your soul for them.
Cosmo’s Midnight have been making fat ripples on the Australian electronic music scene. Going to one of their sets is an experience: Your feet are nudged by this disco-driven beat, your head floats with the buoyant-with-electric-buzz synths, and there is always an accompanying vocal sample that was most probably found by Jason and the Argonauts on some tragic, god-defying journey. After my chat with Cosmo’s Midnight’s Pat, I realised that the boys are all about pinching glittering gems from the funkadelic past, and recasting them in their future-facing crown. Rather than merely appreciating their influences, they seek to revive them. Do not get me wrong, Cosmo’s Midnight is not a merely referential project; all of its musical retrospectivity is coupled with a carefully produced, forward thinking style. It’s the kind of style that ignites your spine, sets it aflame, with a galactic-groove. I can imagine their songs being played in space-bars across the cosmos; I see three-armed reptilians and pink-feathered star-beings jiving just as we do, in a semiconscious, orgasmic fit of face and body.
Lucky for us, they will continue to enchant the universe and its denizens with their tunes. Read our interview to learn more about Cosmo’s Midnight’s varied influences, work ethic, collaboration style and, most importantly, a new EP.
It wasn’t too long ago that your prog-house moniker, Cosmo&Paat, was being thrown around. I remember that time. I think I still have some of those tracks. How did you guys get started? And what has it been like travelling from your artistic origin point?
I started in year 11 at high school. My older brother got Ableton, because he liked DJing and heard that Ableton was this new thing that was good for it. So he got it, stuck with it for a little bit, and then gave up. I got interested in it and started using it a whole bunch. I was like, ‘I want to try and make some music’. But, I had never done music before. I was making shitty mashups and stuff, like building a funk bass-line and throwing some Eminem acapella over the top. Then I started making electro, because that was what I was into in high school. It then progressed into trance and prog-house. Seriously though, I am glad that I was into that, because it taught me a lot about production. Those styles of music were really production heavy, and were thus a really good base. Basically, it set a good standard for the new stuff that I was moving on to. But I’m glad I don’t do all those different styles anymore. It was good but I had to move on.
Both of you have very eclectic influences. For example on The Dofflin there is an Aaliyah sample. I know that Cosmo’s Midnight have been influenced by Flylo’s Cosmogramma, some old R&B and then there is the house influence. But from your perspective, what have been your biggest influences, in the past and now?
Back then before anything happened, I think I was really fascinated by DeadMau5‘s production, because it was incredibly clean and quite musical for EDM. Now, my inspirations are very wide. Disco has been a really big one for me, with the likes of Boney M., Chic and Silver Convention. Their chord progressions and sense of rhythm, you know, after translating that into a half-time template it works really well. I have also been listening to this guy from Russia called 813, Flylo and a bit of Breakbot. Justice and Daft Punk are also really big influences for me. I know they are on everyone’s lists of inspirations.
These guys are all pioneers but also revivalists. They are bringing back older sounds and genres, you know, finding ways to resurrect them.
Yeah, that is why Justice, Daft Punk and Breakbot are so fascinating. They were reviving 70s and 80s disco, and making it fresh again. I am not claiming to do that as well. But, I think that we are sort of finding a old sound and putting a new spin on it. Our stuff is quite R&B and soul inspired, especially the stuff I have been writing lately like Walk With Me.
Yeah. Walk With Me (feat. KUČKA) reminds me of UK garage R&B, the kind being released by Nao on her EP February 15 or even Aluna George. What has it been like synthesisng this high-production, clean sound for songs like Walk With Me?
Walk With Me has been a real project. I think that it has been almost two years in the making. Not 2 years of consistent writing, it’s just been in the background, and I never wanted to let it go because I liked it so much. So I wrote the chord progression about two years ago, and then never touched again until sometime last year. I was like, ‘Wow, I really like this’, so I started writing the drums and the bass, and putting new chord patches under it. Originally, I had an acapella sample of Jill Scott on Cross My Mind. But clearing the track, you know, for copyright purposes, was not cheap. Luckily, I stumbled across KUČKA online, who has a very unique voice. So then we linked up in Sydney, and recorded the vocal across a couple of sessions. Man, she is amazing, so I was super stoked. I really wanted to get the track right, so I just spent a lot of time on it.
Well, it has obviously paid off, because it is doing quite well. You said in a previous interview that you “want to make music that is more timeless, than timely”. What does that mean and how are you doing it?
I feel like the way you achieve that is instead of trying to be ‘trending’, and hop onto bandwagon sounds, you just try to exist as you are. Exist in all the genres, without claiming one for yourself, or locking it up with your sonic identity. Like the reason Walk with Me works is because it has elements of the past whilst being a bit futurist. Its varied in its inspiration. It is just not one thing. So, I think if you focus on good song-writing, you know, writing a good, enjoyable song, it ends up being timeless. I think good song-writing is the most important thing in any kind of music. Technical ability comes after that. It seems kind of arrogant to say our music is timeless, but that is just what we are aiming for.
I totally get what you are saying. It is about doing music for music’s sake, and not being attached to a trend or a certain way of writing, because people are into it. In terms of yourself and Cosmo working together – you are clearly a technical perfectionist who likes to talk about all the details – what is the shared process for putting a song together, like Walk With Me or Snare?
I am a details-oriented producer. I spend ages mixing down tracks and getting each sound in its right space. Cos is more of an ideas person. He comes up with a lot of core ideas. We bounce tracks back and forth between each other. Sometimes I’ll start a track, and then send it to him; he will write for a bit and them I will write for a bit. He always offers new, kind of obscure stuff, which is great because having a second person makes songwriting so much more interesting. You can only come up with so many ideas yourself. Even though we make music under Cosmo’s Midnight, we have different styles. Specifically, he really likes sample-driven, rhythmic, percussion stuff, and does really weird processing on sounds. He is not as good at mixing and sound design as myself but he is very left-field, and brings in lots of outlandish samples and production techniques. He definitely has a bit more of a curve ball approach to production, which is cool.
So you smooth out the bumps, you know, create the sonic architecture, and he brings all the weird, abstract stuff.
Yeah. I just slot it in. We just do a bit of everything. But he certainly tends to be more left-field and I do more precise engineering.
The next big thing coming up for Cosmo’s Midnight is OutsideIn festival. You are obviously looking forward to it. Will you be working with a new live set?
Yeah, we are debuting a new live set, which is going to be super cool. We did a trial run of our live performance at the Porter Robinson show at Enmore Theatre. I am using an SPDSX sampling pad. It’s one that quite a few people are using right now, and for good reason, because it is just so sick. Its a 9 pad drum machine sampler, and you can do so much more with it, like trigger stems, loop stuff or just use it as a straight drum machine. I have just been slicing up tracks and putting parts to it, so I can play them on the SPD with drumsticks. So we played Walk with Me and I was just doing some of the drums on the SPD, and we took out the vocal stem so that KUČKA could sing it live. It was amazing. I enjoyed it so much more than just playing a song.
So you are elevating your live set to a more performance-focused level.
Yeah. I really just do it because I enjoy it more. There is only so much two people can do in a DJ set. I want to have fun. I really want to push myself. I can play the keys to write songs, but I have only done it a few times. Its pretty nerve-racking. But I want to lift our music on the performance level.
Cosmo’s Midnight have been tempting us with new material since late march. A sophomore EP or something new is apparently coming out. Have you been in the studio writing? If so, what have you put together?
I have been writing so much lately. I have been working on this EP for a long time. I want to make sure that I get it right. If you get an idea for how long Walk With Me took to make, the whole EP involved a lot of work, a lot of sound curating. You are trying to curate sounds and samples in a way that faithfully represents your personal sound. I have gone and finished tracks and then thrown them off the EP, and then put them back on. I am just trying to make sure that I choose all the right tracks. But, at the moment, I have got like 6 songs that my brother and I wrote. We are just in the stages of finishing now. I reckon that we will finish this month. It has just been really labour intensive. Some of the tracks include collaborations with other artists, and none of them work with Ableton. So we had to work with stem files, which are baked wav samples. They were a nightmare to mix. Some of the songs are so layered and intense that mixing them down has been an absolute chore. Apart from that I have been working on remixes in the background. We have two remixes that we have finished as well. So we have the whole EP and two remixes. I cannot wait to drop it all.
You can catch Cosmo’s Midnight at this year’s OutsideIn Festival on September 26. See here for more details.
Lowtide are pretty awesome. Whenever I listen to the Lowtide LP, I enter this sleepy trance, a stupor filled with multi-coloured dreamscapes. The static register of their roogazey sound has got me hypnotised. The band has carefully layered broad, metallic chord progressions with the slinky pop and slide of the bass with amazing results. Vocally, each song is a beautiful entwining of two smooth-soothing voices. Nowhere is this made clearer than in Julia/Spring, and its accompanying short-film (directed by Jamieson Moore). After perusing through their body of work, it becomes clear that Lowtide are an important element in the revival of the shoegaze scene in Australia.
We talk to Lowtide’s drummer Anton Jakovljevic, and voalist/bassist Lucy Buckeridge about their most recent release 7″, the accompanying short-film, the shoegaze genre and their plans for 2015.
I understand that Julia was originally written and recorded by French band Asylum Party in 1988. I really appreciate Lowtide‘s shoe-gazey, almost-somniferous interpretation of the song. How did you go about putting your own touch on the song?
Anton: Friend and local legend Alan Solly brought the song to our attention last year. On a road trip to Adelaide as part of the Album Launch tour, it was on high rotation. We decided to give it a go at our next rehearsal to see how the song would sound with the guitars playing the synth parts, a bass playing the guitar parts and with live drums over a drum machine. We really enjoyed playing it and felt our take on it brought enough of a point of difference to the original that it quickly became part of our live set.
The short-film, follows a somnambulating young man, who gazes, heavy-lidded, at the blinking fluorescence of the city. Mannequins watch on in nonchalant regard, their plastic bodies stuck in a timeless vogue. How does the film relate specifically to the two songs on the single?
Lucy: We decided to pair ‘Julia’ and ‘Spring’ together on the 7” as they share a lot of similarities in the way they are structured and how each song moves around. So when it came time to making the clip, the idea was there from the start to tie the songs together in the one video. There is no literal relationship between the songs and the clip, it’s about the mood, feeling and interpretation. I feel like our music is best heard on the move, walking around, driving.. Jamieson shares that same instinct which is great, because the visuals she creates always seem to work so well.
The short was filmed on location in Iran as well as your hometown of Melbourne. Why was part of the filming done in such a distant and seemingly isolated (at least from ‘The West’) country like Iran?
Lucy: Jamieson was already travelling to Iran, so we thought it would be interesting for her to shoot some footage there and see if there was anything we could use. As soon as she came across the mannequins, we really fell in love with them and the whole visual component for the 7” was based around them. Their hands, our hands, their eyes, our eyes, all tied together by our wandering protagonist.
Jamieson Moore directed Blue Movie for you. Since then she has worked with the likes of Dan Sultan and Pearls. What was it like this time around working on Julia/Spring with her?
Lucy: Well Jamieson is a close friend, so working with her is always a dream. She’s calm, considered and a complete genius, so we got lucky.
What were her artistic contributions from both a directorial and a conceptual perspective?
Lucy: Very very significant! We all really trust her aesthetic and ideas so once we decided on the mannequins and the general timeline for the clip, we really left it up to her. She also taught me to enunciate my words better when singing in double time – she really does think of everything.
The psych-dream-pop, shoe-gaze community is located mostly overseas in UK and Europe. What has it been like being forerunners of the still-growing, nascent shoe-gaze scene in Melbourne?
Anton: There’s a history of these kinds of sounds in Australia that go back to the late eighties. It may not have got the attention that the overseas bands did at the time, but it did exist. We just see ourselves as an extension of that but it has unquestionably swell up again over the last few years. The internet has changed the way people find music. It’s easier to find yourself featured on a Brazilian or Swiss blog than ever before!
Lowtide had a hand in gathering the bill for Roogaze 2015 which included yourselves, Day Ravies, Miniatures, Blush Response and Hideous Towns to name a few. What was it like having a constitutive role in this festival?
Anton: Our guitarist Gabe and Jack Crook of Contrast were the ones to put it together. The feeling was that there were quite a few bands coming up at the same time that were different but with common threads running through it all that it would be great to pull it all off on the one day. It was just a big party really that ended up being really well received. In the end, we couldn’t fit all the bands that should have been on the bill on one day so don’t be surprised if Roogaze pops up again next year.
I understand that to produce higher attendance local shows tend to be genre-blended. Along with Roogaze 2015, how else has the shoe-gaze scene, and Lowtide, helped create a more narrowed field of focus (so that all the talent is given its deserved attention)?
Anton: Not quite sure to be honest. I think genre-blending at gigs is a good thing and as a punter, I get a bit tired if I’m seeing a third band that pretty much sounds the same. Even with something like Roogaze, there is a big difference between bands like Kigo, Day Ravies and ourselves. Maybe it comes done to the fact that there is a feel of a community about it which is very supportive which extends well beyond Melbourne too.
So you guys are starting a short east-coast tour on 29 August at the Northcote Social Club in Melbourne. With the release of Julia/Spring 7 and your continued maturation as a band, how is your live set feeling, from a performance viewpoint?
Anton: We’ve had a little bit of a break as Giles has been overseas so we’re feeling fresh and excited to play. Now if only Gabe can shake off the flu he has…
Do you guys have any other big plans for 2015?
Lucy: The main plan is to write, write, write. We’re also working on a film score at the moment, more news on that soon..
Tour Dates:
Saturday 29 August – Northcote Social Club, Melbourne (Supported by Parading and The Shifters)
Sunday 30 August – Newtown Social Club, Sydney (Supported by Terza Madre and Raindrop)
Saturday 5 September – Trainspotters, Brisbane (Supported by BARGE with an antenna on it and Forevr)
Head to Lowtide’s socials for more info!
Last Dinosaurs‘ synth-heavy tropicana will have you skirting the sandy rim of some isolated island-oasis; it will fling you onto the crest of a warm-with-sun wave. The Brissie boys really have a knack for capturing the sun-kissed laxity of their home. They understand that music can give people permission to loosen and dismantle their armour. That is what makes Last Dinosaurs powerful, they make us ride atop their wide yawning synths and beckon us to the rich-with-summer halls of the chillwave palace. Basically, they get you feeling all warm and free.
Luckily for all of us, they are releasing their second album, Wellness, on the 28 August, via Dew Process/UMA and following it up with a substantial national tour. We talk to the lead singer and guitarist, Sean Caskey, about the band’s videography, writing process and live performance.
Last Dinosaurs recently released the video for Apollo. You said about the song that it is representative of the scene in The Matrix where Neo has to choose between the red and the blue pill. What exactly do you mean by that?
S: Just having that chance to completely change your life from something that you don’t necessarily hate, but just that you don’t want. But you don’t know what’s happening on the other side, so you have to just take that dive. It is just something that I felt a little bit, just being so uncertain about a possible alternative in the future. The dialogue in that scene is just really, really awesome. I mean, the movie is awesome in the first place, but the dialogue in that particular scene is just genius.
It’s interesting that you say that. The music video that was shot by your bassist, Michael Sloane, features a security guard gesticulating in a white-with-light shopping centre. How does the video relate to this notion of uncertainty, of not knowing about the future?
Well that was about desiring an alternative life. That was Sloane’s interpretation any way. The security guard is sort of living this separate reality in his workplace. Initially, it was supposed to be about a relatively dero tradie that would party and dance all night and then walk to the job site straight afterwards, you know, just be completely delusional. But it ended up being the security guard.
Michael has been doing a bit of directorial work with this video and also Evie. What is it like as a band to in-house produce/direct, in a sense, the videos and the visual aesthetic?
I reckon it’s the best, because we were really scarred ages ago with another video. It was the first video we ever did, and it was so shit. It was insanely shit.
Hahaha, in what way?
Aww man, you have no idea. Like literally, I was wearing a big puffy coat and gardening gloves walking down the streets of Melbourne with people lying on the ground with paint on their hands and faces and shit. I arm-wrestled a girl in the middle of a dead-end street in midair with paint on our hands. We also danced on the driveway of someone’s house. It was all a proper thing. It cost like seven thousand dollars to make. We got the edit and it was just the most embarrassing thing I have ever seen in my life. It was so bad, that they had to apologise and do another one for us. That ended being the one where that guy is running, which is also extremely random. Sloane is a film guy and has always been very good at that kind of stuff. We all know what each other wants. So, I think he does it best, because he knows the song just as well as we do. It’s good to have a creative director who knows the songs on an intimate level.
I can totally imagine. Just to get on to Wellness, which is coming out on the 28th. Last Dinosaurs have been on the road touring and travelling. It has probably been a testing time that has forced you to evolve personally and artistically. How do you think that has affected the album, as a body of work?
Getting older and stuff, you generally get a better idea of what you think is cool; you narrow down your ideas. You get more focused ideas, sonically as well. I think for this one, I just went everywhere with it. For instance, Wellness, the actual song, started out as…do you know the genre ‘Noise’, like Boris…it started out like that. Once we were in the UK, and the sound guy was playing this awesome music, and I asked him what it was, but his accent was so thick that I couldn’t understand him. But I pretended that I did understand him. I came home and I really wanted to listen to it again, but I couldn’t find it, it was just impossible, because I had no name to use. So I started to make the song; it started with really heavy guitars and vocals. I kept the vocals, changed everything else and it ended up being this dreamy synth song. For this album, I just did whatever. If it was fitting into the shape and form of the album, I just went with it. Others songs, like Stream, Sloane and I wrote before he joined the band. It wasn’t a contender at all until the rest of the song sort of filled in the puzzle and we could see that there was an album there.
The album is really interesting, well at least the preview that I have listened to. Sonically it is slick, clean and sugary; it has that kind of chill-wavey sound. But then lyrically it is full of scatterings of inconsequential musings and broken contemplation. There is this interesting dichotomy. It sounds light and happy, but it is actually quite deep and melancholic. Was that the plan?
It was never the plan, that is just the way it goes. If I wrote a happy song with happy words, I would seriously start vomiting. I would rather write a happy sounding song with sad lyrics, than a sad sounding song with happy lyrics. Its just the way it goes, because melancholy suits me. I guess, I have grown up liking melancholic music. I think that one of the things was watching lots of Studio Ghibli films, the Japanese animation films. The music in that is deeply melancholic and that really stuck with me as a kid. So I think that’s one of reasons why I like melancholia now. I have always thought that the best songs give you the most potent feeling of melancholy.
Yeah. I remember this piano piece from Spirited Away by Joe Hisashi. It really affected me, you know, filled me with feeling.
Yeah, he is just crazy good. His sense of melody and his chord progressions are so novel but familiar at the same time. You have never heard them before, but it just makes so much emotional sense.
You guys went to Grove Studio down in the Central Coast and had a two month reprieve. What was it like to have a break, and just work together in a safe and beautiful place?
Man, it was crazy. It was so nice. I remember watching a documentary about The Grove ages ago, and just thinking that it was the best thing ever. I never thought that I would get to record there. Also, I have always wanted to write and record with Scott Horscroft. So having both things at once was just the best thing ever. The place is beautiful and the gear is insane. It was just a dream. We all just smoked heaps of weed and ate lots of chocolate. You have got to indulge every now and then, and we were there for a total of six weeks, so we indulged a lot.
Haha, so how much time did you spend actually writing? Was it like half a day in the studio and then you would do whatever else?
We were there, you know, in the studio the entire time. But when you record, you are probably only doing something like five to ten percent of the day. There is so much setting up and preparation and all that kind of stuff. A lot of the songs had already been written, but I did have to go off a lot and do some more writing. A few of the songs weren’t quite finished, because I have massive issue with trying to finish songs. I just can’t finish them. Starting them is equally hard. So we recorded the first time and then we went away to Japan for a couple of weeks on a small tour. Then we went back to writing and mixing. But, whilst I was in Japan I wrote the second version of Evie, which was actually the ninth version. I just couldn’t deal with the first version; I couldn’t deal with it, I hated it. So, I went back and recorded it again. So it was the first song to be written after the first album we did, but it was the last song to be finished. Even up to the final days in the studio, I was still doing vocals and stuff. It just drove me up the wall.
How about working with Scott Horscroft, who you personally described as ‘the perfect blend of scientist and artist’, what was it like being with that musical magician?
Man, I don’t know. I love that guy. He’s a classic character. He is a real vibe guy. I love his honesty and passion. He has worked really hard and he knows he is good at something. He also only does what he wants to do, so it was a privilege to work with him. I have always wanted to work with him, since the days that I figured out that he had worked on Starky, Mercy Arms and The Protectors, you know, all the stuff that he doesn’t actually write on his resume.
What for you was his main contribution? Was he the man that made everything work?
What I thought was awesome was that he didn’t try to grab your song, pull it to pieces and then reassemble it. He was just like, ‘This is your song. It’s pretty cool. But you don’t need that and that. We are gonna make it sound cooler’. That was one thing that I found awesome and that I respect a lot in a producer, being able to step back and say, ‘that is yours, but I am just going to contribute to make it better’. His time to shine always came when we got to mixing. It was so awesome, seeing the way he mixes. Just hearing it over one hour, you know, hearing everything change and take shape, it is just crazy what he can do. He is just a genius when it comes to doing that sort of stuff. I really respect and admire him for that aspect. That’s the scientist aspect in him.
It’s certainly not without result. Your singles and the stuff that you have been releasing have been popular. Also, the Melbourne and Sydney legs of your ‘Evie’ tour sold out in seventy-two hours. What has your reaction been to all of this recognition?
I was just like, ‘Woah’. Its good though, because it was the first tour in ages. It was important that it sold well. We smashed it so it was fine. But we were really worried about what was going to happen to us, because it had been so long since doing anything substantial. We were on the edge of taking too long I think. So it was good. I was really relieved.
Obviously for the show, you guys have been rehearsing your new music and playing around with it. What’s the live performance of Wellness looking and feeling like?
Things are different. We have a new keyboard player, who is actually a very well-respected electronic musician. His name is Charles Murdoch. He is awesome, and really good at what he does. I have always wanted for him to play for us, but there had never been enough for him to do. Also, the new songs have a bit more synth, so there is that extra layer that I have always felt we lacked in our live performance. We have guitars and stuff, but now, at least the way I picture it, we have this whole middle section that is wide. The synths are huge and can just fill up all this sonic space that was previously unoccupied. So sonically it is a little bit different. We are also focusing more on putting on a better performance, you know, a more streamlined set with songs blending into other songs. Back in the day, we would just play a song and then turn around to each other and ask, ‘What do you wanna play next?’ It was pretty stupid. I just want to be more professional. The tickets are more expensive, so I feel a kind of duty to step it up. We want to make a bit of a statement. We have always been a decent band live, but we just want to elevate it to the next level if we can.
Just finally, I was reading an old story where an inebriated fan, who was staying with you, chased Lach and he smashed his head on the fire exit door. Do you have any other good, crazy tour/performance stories that have happened since then?
We have had plenty of crazy fans. I think now, the weirdest things are all these strange cartoons and shit that are popping up. The other day we found this cartoon which is a portrait of me with this other girl sitting on a park bench. Some of the cartoons look so funny. One of the weirdest things: two months after my birthday, there was this compilation of five YouTube videos by these South-east Asian girls, who were wishing me happy birthday. There were pictures of my face hovering around and it was all directly addressed to me.
Last Dinosaurs tour dates:
Szymon is a caster of spells; he weaves sound into this vivid, rich-with-colour tapestry. He catches sonic threads tousled wantonly by the wind and plaits them into the braid of his artistry. He does this with soft-handedness and gentility, and as such sound rallies to him on its own accord to rest in the warmth of his genius. There is no doubt that Szymon is otherworldly talented, that his relationship to music was more than sublunary. All of his soundscapes are an unforced gathering of keys, brass and strings, everything reposes and croons from its set place. It really is a bewitching experience to listen to; all the elements gyre and turn together like unison-flying flocks of birds tracking through cream cumuli. The point is that it feels profoundly organic, prime and vital, in a way that one rarely experiences.
Szymon cannot be placed in any single genre – his songs can be pure sonic narratives (Katyusha, Saigon, Zoo Story), or lush, from-the-forest folk anthems (Golden, Locks, Trojan Stalks, Floods) or even sugar-sweet 60s/70s pop revival tunes (Medusa). I am sure, however, that many will try to pigeonhole him as another iteration of the indie-folk zeitgeist. But Szymon is not stale, nor trivial, nor conformist. He proves on his posthumous album, Tigersapp, that he is profoundly human and connected. This body of work cannot be made secondary to the concerns of genre obsessors. It cannot be reduced to an auditory blimp, an atom, when it is fact star-like in its proportions. Tigersapp is the distilled voice of a sufferer, and it will speak to us for longer than Szymon could have imagined.
I could write without end about the songs on this album. But just as a foretaste, I will share my thoughts and feelings on two songs. Katyusha is a revelation. There are so many things: the way the clutter-clap of the drums lends its texture to the sirening vocal sample, the way the trumpet’s metallic voice slips into the lush bundles of instrumentation, the way the guitar glides with a sensuous Che Guevara-esque wanderlust. It is an incredibly well-crafted sound-piece that would be better described as high-art. It flung me onto some far-off landscape burnt orange by the sun’s fire, fragrant with fruit-festooned forests and played upon by dry-with-cool winds. It transported me.
Zoo Story did the same thing. Different to Katyusha, it has this deep groove that makes your bones rattle with rhythm. Szymon builds the song’s percussive architecture, by intersecting and layering wooden, glassy and metallic beats. He holds the teeming mass of clicks and clacks in order by means of a guitar melody, found I imagine in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s magical South America. I don’t know why, but so much of Szymon’s music evokes images of the mist swept Andes, and the green infinity of the Amazon. Perhaps, it was a world that he longed for – a world of life, living life.
It is incredibly sad that Szymon took his life in December 2012. Debilitated and shrunken by his battle with depression, Szymon could not bear to continue. But he has left us with a powerful body of work that affirms life in all its complicated expressions. Szymon might not have been able to save himself, but I have not doubt that he will be saving others.
So, Peaches’ forthcoming album Rub will be out September 25. It will undoubtedly be everything that it is touted to be. It will be an album for a post-gender world rife with sex positivity and body love. It will be an exemplar of anti-heteronormative transgression. It will also be a gritty fuck-fest, an irruption of filth and smut. You see, Peaches knows the real you – a knotted ball of libidinous energy; a hungry, lip-smacking cannibal – she knows you need to Fuck The Pain Away (brilliant song).
To do just that Peaches has shared a NSFW wrestling video for her new track, Close Up. Kim Gordon, who lends her voice to the hook, performs as Peaches’ nonchalant wrestling maestro. Gordon puffs her vape, and lackadaisically shuffles around the ring rolling her eyes as Peaches battles numerous spandex-wearing, fluid-spurting opponents. It is all rather intense, at one point one of the opponents heaves out her breast and fills Peaches’ open mouth with an effusion of lukewarm milk. It all ends with Peaches making-out with her final opponent. Basically, the video is a hypnotic whir of fluorescent body-benders with a dash of defecation. Nice.
Donald Trump is a frightening figure. His french fry-golden toupee, the Uluru rock-hue of his fake tan, the unsightly manner that his razor-thin lips curl, the seediness born from his bug eyes, it is all enough to make me shrivel up in deep disgust. I have not even begun to recount his spoken slips. If it is haranguing Heidi Klum by saying that “She is no longer a 10″, or a more benign tweet like “I have never seen a thin person drinking Diet Coke”, Donald Trump has proven that he is the off-kilter, neo-conservative child of Ronald McDonald and George W. Bush (basically, the Republican Party’s greatest poster-boy). Read his Twitter feed for yourself, you can’t make this stuff up.
Josh Groban gave a special performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live; it was an operatic recasting of Trump’s twitter-gems. It is worth witnessing Trump’s Solomon-like wisdom crooned with a backing symphony orchestra. Thank you…Thank you Sir Josh Groban for so beautifully transfiguring the words of Fuckkface Von Clownstick with your angelic voice.
Banoffee is an intriguing songstress. Some of you might assume that she is merely one of those who has branded themselves with the typical multi-genre yo-yoing (really just apprehensive pandering) of most alt R&B/pop musicians. But, Banoffee is seriously more than that worrisome sonic brand to which she is so regularly attached. Rather than the gawky missteps of cultural and genre misappropriation, we get clean, spacious soundscapes, lyrical sharpness and the warmest warble to come out of Melbourne (seriously, listen to her cover of Frank Ocean’s Miss You). The self-titled debut EP she released last year garnered much critical acclaim, with many of her songs (Ninja, Reign Down, and Let’s Go To The Beach) landing on ‘Best Of’ lists.
Today, she released With Her, the first material from her upcoming EP. Oscar Key Sung, a master in his own right, lent his musical acumen by overseeing its production. The song’s production is this careful imbrication of heart-wrung piano melodies, clipped-clean beats, and buzzing-with-beauty synths. The sonic architecture is just frugal enough to allow for one of those mid afternoon sun-room dances; it complements, not overpowers, the tip-tap of your bare feet. Something also has to be said for Banoffee’s astral vocals – they bubble up in this timid, unassuming way, and then flick open their enfolded wings to soar, celestial and free.
Make sure you listen to everything that Banoffee has to offer and wait in eager anticipation for her EP.