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dimanche 3 décembre 2017

Album de la Semaine

His Electro Blue Voice
Mental Hoop



Interview de His Electro Blue Voice, par Psychedelic Baby Mag


What’s the current lineup of His Electro Blue voice?  Has this always been the lineup or have there been any changes since the inception of the band?

Frances:  Right now the band is focused on live shows and yes, the line-up has changed for different reasons.  His Electro Blue Voice is Francesco Mariani: guitar, vocals and Andrea Cantaluppi: drums while the bass player is constantly changing.

Andrea:  I used to play drums in His Electro Blue Voice.  I was the drummer from the very early days until 2013, when we put out our first album.  After that I suggested Francesco get another guy to play the drums ‘cause I couldn’t be there for the band like I was supposed to be, and I didn’t want to be an issue for live shows.

Where are you originally from?

Francesco:  We’re all from Como, Italy.


How would you describe the local music scene where you grew up at?  Did that scene have a large or lasting effect on you, and or, your music?

Francesco:  We started the band because no one around us was playing what we wanted to listen to back then.  So, we picked up our instruments.  There’s plenty of punk rock bands where we’re from, which is good to see, loud guitars and banging drums in the classic spirit of the thing, although often without the noisy, psych part of it.  If we’d been born ten years earlier things would have probably been different, with other creative needs to satisfy.

Andrea:  Most of the bands have a pretty classical approach to whatever they do.  We’ve always tried to push things a little farther.

Was your house very musical growing up?  Where either your parents or any of your relatives musicians or extremely involved/interested in music?

Francesco:  Not particularly, at least in a music-freak way, no.  The fact that my mom used to have some vinyl at home surely brought me closer to music.  Throughout the years I’ve checked out almost all of those records.  When I was ten I listened to Queen, The Beatles, Elton John, Simply Red and Cat Stevens and my father used to have this Greatest Hits tape cassette by Rod Stewart, which I still listen to to this day as it reminds me of him driving me around back in 80’s.

Andrea:  My parents used to have a lot of vinyl records, mostly Italian folk singers and rock bands from the 60’s and the 70’s.  Obviously, that marked the first point of interest for me growing up in that house. No wonder I got into heavy-metal when I was eleven.

What was your first real exposure to music?

Francesco:  Along with classic aternative music on MTV, I’d say brit pop and euro dance.  Hip hop was the very first subculture I found myself involved in.  From there I started picking up spray cans and drawing letters.  It’s the reason I met Andrea Napoli and Mattia Sfondrini a few years later.  Both of those were the original His Electro Blue Voice lineup back in the early 2000’s.

Andrea:  As I just said, my first exposure to music was heavy-metal as an eleven year old boy.  A coupla years later I found out about punk rock and hip hop.

If you had to pick one defining moment of music in your life; a moment that changed everything, the way you looked at the world, heard music and opened possibilities to you, what would it be?

Francesco:  The late 90’s.  We got bored of rap music and we wanted something musically closer to who we truly were.  Sonic Youth, The Smiths, Nirvana, Joy Division and many more opened our minds and we started writing small quotes from their songs aside our graffiti instead of classic tags like on the NYC subway in the 70’s & 80’s.

Andrea:  My high school years were probably the period where I got the most info and inspiration, everything was new and there was a lot to be discovered.

Where is the band currently located at these days?

Francesco:  In Como, where we still go and pay for the same practice room as ten years ago.

How would you describe the local music scene where you all are at now?

Francesco:  There are new bands going on of course, punk rock’s still big, there are a lot of young rappers, some DJs and some indie bands.  We’ll see who’s left in a few years.

Do you feel like the local music scene has played a large role in the history of His Electro Blue Voice or do you think that you could have done what you did anywhere?  Do you feel like it played a role to any extent in the evolution of your sound or the evolution of His Electro Blue Voice?

Francesco:  I dont feel like I belong to any scene, either local or national.  Here in Como we all know each other and everything’s cool.  Everyone does what he thinks it’s best with their own band, like he’s supposed to.  We hope to expand our contact network in the near future, maybe with live shows.

Are you very involved with the local music scene?  Do you book/attend a lot of local shows or help record or release music locally at all?

Francesco:  We dont have many venues with good music to offer here.  A lot of clubs just open and shut down in the blink of an eye.  You might find the big party with electronic music and DJs, which brings a lot of different people together or you have the small, intimate night with selected audience who’re hopefully into that.  To find concerts we have to go to Milan, almost a hour by car from here.

What led to the formation of His Electro Blue Voice and when exactly was that?

Francesco:  It was my idea in the early 2000’s in Como.  We used to hang out and do graffiti together but when things got bad with the law we thought of a plan B which eventually turned out to be His Electro Blue Voice.  Not one of us could play a real instrument.  Andrea Napoli used played bass during the very first sessions and Mattia Sfondrini was on keys.  We found all the equipment at the youth center where we practice.  I still have the vast majority of those jams from that period recorded on tape.  We recorded everything and then listened to it over and over again.

It’s extremely interesting, and for a reason I’m unable to quite put my finger on, your name is really intriguing as well.  What does the name His Electro Blue Voice mean in the context of the band?  Who came up with the name and how did you go about choosing it?

Francesco:  Yeah I get it, you’re not the only one skeptic about it and some people will probably never check us out because of our name.  Here in Italy this shouldn’t be a problem though, you just have to accept it.  Anyway, “electro” and “blue” and their opposites: sadness and revenge, melancholy and fresh energy.

Andrea:  Francesco came up with it one night, probably after too much pot and booze, which we shared so we all agreed.  That was it, it was done.

While we are talking so much about the band’s history let’s take a moment and discuss some of your musical influences.  There’s some pretty obvious stuff knocking around in your music but the deeper beneath the surface that you dig, the more you find so I’m very curious to hear who you would cite as your major musical influences?  What about major musical influences on the band as a whole rather than just individually?

Francesco:  I think it’s all about knowing how to mix your influcences without having your music sounding like a total rip-off.  Sometimes you do it right, sometimes you don’t.  Those who just crank out pale copies won’t last, at least if you ask me.  By the way, here’s a list of classic shit: Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Joy Division, Christian Death, Flipper, Husker Du, The Wipers, Pink Floyd, The Velvet Underground, The Gun Club, Neu!, Can, Faust, Red Crayola, The Smiths, Big Black.  They all released great LPs.  But we also have influences I don’t even know where they come from.  Stuff from soul, garage, house, gangsta rap, jazz, funk, jungle, latin, 8-bit and African records.  We like to listen to almost everything.

And what’s His Electro Blue Voice’s songwriting process like?  Is there a lot of jamming and exchange of riffs and ideas, sounds and rhythms or is it more of a situation where someone will come to practice or to the rest of the band, with a riff or mostly finished idea to work out and compose with the rest of the band?  Or more a combination of both?

Francesco:  In the very early days before the first 7” came out, we used to jam and work together.  After that Mattia left the band and it all went in one constant, obsessive direction between myself and Andrea Napoli.  I bring the ideas to the table and then he has his say.  We arrang the songs and see if they’re material for His Electro Blue Voice.  Doing it all by myself obviously creates a more one sided style, but it’s always good to re-shape it according to other people’s opinion.  Only when you trust them though of course, when you do their opinion really matters.

Andrea:  We spent years working by e-mail, Francesco sending me his latest demo cut and me checking that out to let him know what was working and what wasn’t.  I’ve been living in another town for years now, so that’s really been the only way we could keep the band alive, and it’s also the reason I can’t play drums at this point.



Do you all enjoy recording?  I think that most musicians can appreciate the end result, there’s not a lot that beats holding an album in your hands knowing that you made it and it’s yours.  Getting the music actually recorded though, getting into the studio or recording at home either one, can be a little stressful to say the least.  How is recording with you all?

Francesco:  One thing we never do is to re-record a song once it’s done.  After the song is recorded and paid for there’s no turning back.

Andrea:  Another thing I’ve always done is support Francesco while we’re in the studio, especially with vocals.  You can’t always find a studio guy who knows the band and how to deal with stuff, so it’s really important to have a constant back-up to stay focused.

Do you record in studios or is it more of a DIY on your own turf and time deal?  Is there a lot of preparation that goes into recording sessions?  Do you all spend a lot of time working out fine details, hammering out changes and compositions before you record or is it more of an organic thing when you get into the studio where things have room to evolve and change during the recording process?

Francesco:  Right now, with live shows I like to reshape the songs but I don’t ever want to record them again in any better way.  That would be disrespectful to me and to the song.  It would mean killing the song.  We chocked some of our songs and now they stay choked, it’s what they are now.  I take responsibility if I did it wrong but when I play live I can give new life to it.

Andrea:  Everything, and I mean everything, is ready to be recorded when we enter the studio.  Some parts are already recorded and we just need to transfer them onto the studio computer to get the best sound and mix it with all the other tracks.  The bigger part is before that.

Speaking of recordings, let’s take some time and talk about your back catalog a little bit.  Your first recording that I know of is the 7” split release on AVANT! Records with Nuit Noire from 2007.  What are your memories of recording that first album?  Was that a fun, pleasant experience for you?  Where and when was it recorded?  Who recorded it?  What kind of equipment was used?

Andrea:  The split release with Nuit Noire was the first release by my label Avant! but it wasn’t actually His Electro Blue Voice’s first release.  That was the Fog 7” on S.S. Records, the only recording with Mattia on bass.  We were really inexperienced, we just left our ideas lead us which was hard for the studio guy to get sometimes.  We showed up with broken violins, cans, even a bucket of walnuts and stones to record noises.  If we don’t do that anymore, it’s just because Francesco records everything at home now, so that we don’t have to carry around the noisy stuff we need anymore.

Francesco:  I still feel very inexperienced.  When I enter the studio the only thing I can do is to adapt to the machines there, to bring in my home recordings to give them a better sound.  Basically, we pay to save some time.  It took me thirty days to record stuff properly with my two hundred euro recorder, some of them sound just as good as if they were recorded in a two hundred euro a day studio.  That’s what you need to do when you reach for your own sound.  So, I’d say I’m half-satisfied.  It’s also our fault if we’re not understood, it’s because we don’t wanna spend too much money on the studio and we’ve learned to live with that.

You followed up the Nuit Noire split single with the Fog 7” on S-S Records the same year.  Were “Fog” and “Das” written and recorded for this single or were they from the same session(s) that produced “Call” for the Nuit Noire split?  If they were from a different session can you tell us about the recording of that material?

Francesco:  As Andrea just said, the very first recorded material was the “Fog” b/w “Das” single back in 2005, three-piece live recordings plus vocals.  That was the easiest thing for us back then.  I had my Fender amplifier and my SG Epiphone which is still my one and only guitar.  The drums were the ones that were at the studio.  Mattia has this ultra-cheap bass guitar which blew the amp out while recording the final part of “Das” and that was the end of us recording that song with the studio guy pretty pissed off about the damage!  It was perfect.  We actually managed to record some shit over the takes like tambourine, flute, violin, a trash can we banged on, broken glasses and a carillon all in one afternoon.  “Call” was recorder by me and Andrea Napoli alone, later on in the spring of 2007 for fifty euro, and you can tell!  The owner of the studio used to record a lot of local bands and kept his prices low to gather folks around the studio, that was just what we needed.  Some might say they sound like a lo-fi demo recording, but I think there’s plenty of professionally recorded stuff that sounds so bad it doesn’t even make sense.

Andrea:  Yeah back in the day we were pretty wild, mostly because we were really just improvising and we wouldn’t take no for an answer.  Now I guess we’ve learned how to deal with people who have a totally different mentality or musical background, we just don’t drive them crazy anymore.  Sort of.

You started off 2008 strong with the release of the Duuug 7” on Sacred Bones Records.  Were those tracks written and or recorded specifically for that single?  When and where was that material recorded?  Who recorded it?  What kind of equipment was used?

Francesco:  We pretty much used the same equipment as the previous recordings.  I wrote the songs, Claudia played bass here for the first time.  We just got a message on our Myspace page by Caleb from Sacred Bones who asked us for a 7”.  Obviously, we went for it.  We didn’t have any other offers and we wanted to release some new material.  That single was going to be catalog number 011 and at the time I didn’t even know what Sacred Bones from New York was.  Five months after that we delivered the master recordings for the release.  Speaking of those two songs, we didn’t want to push it too hard, we just let some room for the band to grown up in.  This was surely a crucial release for us and seeing what Sacred Bones is doing today makes us proud to be a part of what has become a very strong force in independent music, even if it’s just in our own minor way.

Then in 2009 you released the “Worm” b/w “Seed” cassette tape single on Ammagar Records.  Was the recording of that material very different than your earlier recordings?  Can you tell us about the recording of that material? 

Francesco:  The Ammagar label gave us twenty-two minutes on tape; A-side, B-side.  It was the perfect way to experiment with some ideas we had in our heads.  One month earlier we’d recorded “Dead Mice” and “Zum” which eventually got released on the Dead Sons EP two year later.  We were already exploring new perspectives, tired of the classic three to four minute songs and were eager to go back to the crazy sounds of “Das”; long jams, dilated by krautrock-like tricks.  Nicola Ferloni joined us on the noisiest part of “Worm” playing synth.

I know Ammagar is based in Naples and mostly puts out cassettes, but they’ve also released a documentary and at least one 7”.  Was that release limited, if so to how many copies?  Is that release still in print?

Francesco:  There were only fifty copies, not sure if you’d be able to find one around these days.

A year later in 2010 there was the Bat Shit Records 7”, “Animal Verses” b/w “Black Veils” limited to 500 copies and out of print at this point I believe.  Can you talk a little bit about the recording of the material for that single?  Where and when was it recorded?  Who recorded it and what kind of equipment was used?

Francesco:  Francesco:  For this we went to EDAC Studio with Emil; very in-the-red recordings, noise-driven, harsh shoegaze, still in the vein of “Worm”.  The songs play out with verses and tail end, like we’ve always enjoyed, plus there was flute, synth and insane home-recorded vocals.  “Black Veils” is about me being a little boy at this Catholic school, one of the worst periods of my life which led me to make friend with solitude and social alienation.  It was in that school I realized I was going to be always a prisoner, a watcher of my self.  But I hope I’m wrong, I swear I’m not such a pessismist all the time.

Andrea:  These two songs, along with the “Wolf” b/w “Worm” 12” are our most extreme and savage recordings, no doubt, the master mixes are pretty rough.

I absolutely love Bat Shit Records.  They put out the second Sunflare album last year which happens to be one of my favorite bands of all time!  How did you get hooked up with them originally?

Francesco:  Francesco:  Just like with every other label, we’ve got an email from them.  “Do you wanna put out a 7-inch?”, “Sure thing!”  We’re always open to any new offer.  To us it’s very pleasant to be appreciated and to see what we can achieve each time.  All we care about is writing new songs and I think “Animal Verses” and “Black Veils” are two of our most inspired  and genuine tracks we’ve ever created.  If we weren’t so into short-running releases we would already have released our first LP and filled it with songs like “Dead Mice”, “Zum”, “Animal Verses”, Black Veils”, “Wolf” and “Worm”.

Later in 2010 you were back at it with your 12” “Wolf” b/w “Worm” EP on Holidays Records again limited to only 500 copies.  Were those songs written or recorded specifically for the EP?  Why a 12” two-track EP?  Where and when were those tracks recorded?  Who recorded them?  What kinf of equipment was used? 

Francesco:  When Stefano from Holidays Records approached us we thought “Worm” deserved to appear on vinyl as well after the Ammagar tape cassette.  He was down for that.  We hit the studio with our friend Freddy  and we recorded “Wolf”, another eight minute cut with African/Eastern-Europe-like flute, cans and drums, there’s even a toy accordion I used to play with when I was a kid.  We added one soft outro to each side; melancholic feelings recorded with bass, lot of samples and one Bontempi air organ which some friends of mine gave me as a present after a ride in a landfill.  Only after ten years did I find myself using that gift!

Andrea:  It’s always been fun to see how studio people react when we come in with cans, toy-instruments, flutes and shit.  They really enter a new territory where their know-how matches the band’s delirious aspirations and anything can happen.

2011 brought about your second 12” EP Dead Sons, this time on Brave Mysteries Records and limited to only 250 copies.  Were these tracks from an earlier session or sessions looking for a home?  If not can you tell us about the recording of “Dead Mice”, “Eat Sons” and “Zum” the three tracks features on that EP?

Francesco:  As we said, we’d already recorded “Dead Mice” and “Zum” in Milan with Davide.  Those songs where originally supposed to be released by another label.  Same bad luck for “Eat Sons”.  So when Brave Mysteries got in touch we put this all together and we had our longest record to date.  At some point we even thought of releasing a double-vinyl record with “Dead Mice”, “Zum”, “Wolf” and “Worm”, but that never happened either.

Andrea:  I have the feeling, if not the certainty, that this has been our most overlooked release, and I think it’is one of our finest.  People should check it out.

2012 saw the first year without a His Electro Blue Voice release since you started putting stuff out in 2007 and almost two years later Bat Shit Records released a second single for you “White Walls” b/w “Abuser” this time limited to 300 copies.  Were “White Walls” and “Abuser” new tracks that you had been working on or were they from either the Ruthless Sperm or sessions leading up to Ruthless Sperm?

Francesco:  Originally the single was supposed to be “White Wall” b/w “Red Earth” but due to constant delays we changed the B-side to “Abuser”, which was recorded during the Ruthless Sperm recording sessions.

You also contributed the track “Kidult” to the Sub Pop 1000 Record Store Day double-12” release limited to 5,000 copies earlier this year.  What about that track?

Francesco:  “Kidult” was written and performed entirely  by me at home, I just went in to the woods to record the vocals so I could yell as much as I wanted without bothering anyone.

This August you put out your first full-length Ruthless Sperm album and on none other than the legendary Sub Pop Records!  What can our listeners expect from the new album?  Did you try anything new or radically different when it came to the songwriting or recording of Ruthless Sperm?  Has writing and recording changed much since your first release back in 2007?  If so how?

Francesco:  Ruthless Sperm is a pure continuation of what His Electro Blue Voice has always been doing.  Each song’s got its own identity, there’s we don’t tend to do one thing over again and again.  We always try to evolve, and also not kill the fun of being creative.  What might be different from the past is the quantity of overdubs.  You’ll often find guitar and key lines that I easily recorded at home, stuff it would be hard to get done in a studio.

Andrea:  I think Ruthless Sperm is just one more complete, albeit extended, work by His Electro Blue Voice.  It’s like the main  ourse after a ton of appetizers.  You’ve been introduced to it by previous EPs so you know the taste of what’s coming your way.  It’s just a bigger picture.

Can you tell us about the recording of Ruthless Sperm?  Were the session(s) much different than those for your earlier singles and EPs?  When was this material recorded?  Who recorded it and where was that?  What kind of equipment was used?

Francesco:  We recorded Ruthless Sperm in seven days and after that I came back to the studio to adjust this and that.  It took two months before it was completed.  We recorded at New Mood studio, in our own town.  The production is totally by us.  The songs had been ready for a few months already.  I spent the entire winter recording demos and checking them out with Andrea Napoli.  We worked on something like thirty songs before we got the seven that eventually ended up on Ruthless Sperm.

Andrea:  Yeah, we worked a lot on demos.  I spent so much time checking out what Francesco was recording at home, like a new one everyday for weeks.  That was the only way we could make it.

Does His Electro Blue Voice have any music that we haven’t talked about yet?

Francesco:  No, we’ve covered it all.

With the release of Ruthless Sperm not long ago in August, are there any other releases planned or in the works at this point?

Francesco:  Right now there’s nothing new planned, I’ll have to fix my new ideas first.  I’m more into the live thing right now.  After years of only recording I can’t neglect it.

Where’s the best place for our US readers to pick up copies of your albums at?

Francesco:  I’m really not familiar with America so I couldn’t tell you.  I just hope people can reach our records in as many places as possible.

Andrea:  I’m pretty sure it won’t be hard for people to find our album.  Sub Pop is very well distributed.  For previous EPs the related label should be contacted.  I’m not sure who’s distributing the “Wolf” b/w “Worm” 12” though.  Avant! has got all the His Electro Blue Voice records for sale by the way.

What about our poor international and overseas readers?  With these insane postage rate hikes this last year I try to provide people with as many possibilities as I can for buying physical music.

Francesco:  Yeah that’s harsh.

Andrea:  Again, since most of His Electro Blue Voice’s releases have been put out by American labes I’m kinda confident US kids will have no big trouble in finding them.  In Europe people can buy from the band at gigs or via Avant!’s e-shop.

And where’s the best place for fans to keep up with the latest news, like upcoming shows and album releases at?

Francesco:  We run our Facebook Page and you can also find all the info you might need at Sub Pop’s site.

Does His Electro Blue Voice have any major goals that you are looking to accomplish in 2014?

Francesco:  I’d love to play live in some cool venues and write some new songs.


What, if anything, do you have planned as far as touring goes for the rest of the year?  With 2014 right around the corner, what about the New Year?

Francesco:  We take it one step at the time.  We’re glad we’re getting out of Italy in early 2014 when we’ll be in France, Holland and Germany.  The rest will come by its self if you deserve it.

In your dreams, who are you on tour with?

Francesco:  Even if it’s not going to happen, I’d love to tour with Big Black, The Wipers and Flipper.  I like to think of an audience really ready for our sound, maybe forty to fifty year old guys talking about the good old days.

Do you have any funny or interesting stories from live shows or performances that you’d like to share here with our readers?

Francesco:  Not so far.  But I like play live.

With all of the various mediums available to musicians today I’m always curious why they choose and prefer the particular methods that they do.  Do you have a preferred medium of release for your own music?  What about when you are listening to and or purchasing music?

Francesco:  We obviously prefer vinyl.  We as His Electro Blue Voice were of the opinion we wouldn’t need anything else except for the online stuff.  After all these years, the only CD we’ve ever released has been Sup Pop’s Ruthless Sperm.  A lot of friends have asked for CDs, they took it for granted and wanted to know when it was going to be available.  That’s one perspective but I’ve never cared about people wanting the CD.  I always thought that if someone cares they can go online and maybe buy stuff on Bandcamp.  In the end I ended up doing a favour for my friends and burned them some CDRs with all of our previous songs…  Some of them even bought the vinyl records despite the fact they don’t have a turntable.

Do you have a music collection at all?  If so can you tell us about it?

Francesco:  in the 90’s and 2000’s I used to buy a lot of CDs.  I discovered the internet quite late.  I started downloading stuff in 2007 and I’ve gotten a lot of stuff since then.  I’ve been able to find stuff I couldn’t find otherwise such as soul, funk, northern soul, old school hip hop.  I’m telling you, if people download His Electro Blue Voice stuff I can live with that.  It means they care about our stuff, even if I don’t earn a thing out of it.  There are bands I love I that I don’t own any of their releases too.

Andrea:  I do have a record collection and running a record label I do have a specific point of view about it. That said, I download stuff for free everytime I can.  My rule is simple but often not so popular: I wanna listen first, if I like it I’ll buy it.  Otherwise I’ll just live with my mp3s.

I grew up around a fairly substantial collection of music and over the years I’ve grown addicted to physical music.  There was something magical about being able to just walk over to the shelf and pull of something random, or at least random to me, that I’d never heard and put it on while I read the liner notes on the CDs and stared at the cover artwork.  Over the years I’ve grown accustomed to having the luxury of physical music around the house, there’s something indispensable almost magical about physical music products to me.  It offers a rare glimpse inside the mind of the artists that made it and makes for a more complete listening experience, at least for me.  Do you have any such connection with physical music?

Francesco:  While I do download music for free, I’d love it if we could go back to those times where music could only be bought or home-dubbed to tape.  Back then you wouldn’t dub a tape for everybody and not just anyone dubbed a tape for you, it took some kind of trust.  If someone asked you to dub a tape for him you knew he really wanted it.  It was like, “This time I’ll dub this for you, next time you’ll buy the CD or the LP and you’ll dub it for me.”  It was a way to make friends too, and you still have to buy records from time to time.  I’d like to go back to that kind of thing.  That way you wouldn’t hear people talking trash, myself included sometimes.  People into this kind of stuff would be the same.

Andrea:  I do have this physical connection with music media.  It doesn’t matter if most of the time I listen to mp3s of burnt CDRs in my car.  I still need to have the vinyl record when I feel an album has become part of my life, even if it’s just as a back-up, instead of the actual source which they’re supposed to be.

As much as I love my collection there’s always been a portability issue with every format.  I just couldn’t ever seem to take what I wanted to listen to with me on the go.  I’d always end up wanting “that one album” over the course of the day ha-ha!  Digital music has remedied that problem, but as with everything the good comes with the bad.  When teamed with the internet digital music has revolutionized the way people experience music and exposed them to a whole universe of music that they otherwise would never have been exposed to, while on the flipside illegal downloading runs rampant these days, undermining decades of work and infrastructure and rapidly changing the face of the music industry to say the least.  As artists during the reign of the digital era, what’s your opinion on digital music and distribution?

Francesco:  I get it.  Since the first day I had my car, my main concern was to have tons of cassettes to choose from, and hundreds of CDs now.  Before I even turn the car on I have to pick out the right sound.  I have a lot of records but I never know which one to go with, so you’ll see me looking through my CDs at the traffic light, and then changing them again and again until I find the one the works for that moment.  Right now my car player is really messed-up, so I’m planning about buying a new one with one USB flash drive.  Having the band names and the record titles showing up on the display won’t be the same as browsing through my collection but…  It’ll also be cool for the people who might be with me in my car to be able to check out my collection…

Andrea:  Digital music is not something you can stop, it’s hardly something you can ignore either.  I mean yeah, you could rely on the few printed zines that are left to find out about new music, but what’s the point of knowing about a record when it might already be sold-out?  I think one should learn how to manage the medium.  I really need the whole digital thing, running a label, and I try and use it as a source, sometimes an overwhelming source, I’ll give you that, but it’s up to you to cut the crap and find what you care about.  The bad thing is that most people just adapt to this fragmented way of thinking, and they don’t end up knowing anything anymore.  Working in bits and pieces like the Internet does it’s good to have a preview, but after that it’s up to you to reach out for the entire thing.  If you don’t, you’re choosing the easy, hollow way.

I try to keep up on as much good music as is humanly possible.  I spend more hours than I would like every week trying to dig something new and interesting out of the bins at the local shop, talking to the employees there and god knows how many hours a week messing around online listening to everything under the sun.  It’s ridiculous how many of the best tips that I get come from musicians though!  Is there anyone from your local scene or area that I might not have heard of that I should be listening to?

Andrea:  Depends on who you’ve been listening to already and I’m not actually the biggest fan of Italian music, but if I had to drop a couple of names I could say Area for the 70’s prog/psych thing, Indigesti for the early 80’s hardcore-punk, Disciplinatha for the late 80’s/early 90’s industrial-rock stuff and Sangue Misto for the golden era 90’s hip-hop.  Recently we’ve had this circle of bands somehow gathered around the moniker of Italian Occult Psychedelia like Father Murphy, Heroin In Tahiti, Cannibal Movie, Mai Mai Mai and more you should really check out.

What about nationally and internationally?

Francesco:  There’s way too much stuff going on to give advice here.  We’ll talk if we ever meet in real life.

Andrea:  There’re actually way too many bands, but I can give you a few names of labels I do like and support: Boring Machines in Italy, Järtecknet up in Sweden and Blind Prophet in NYC.

Thanks so much for taking the time to make it through this behemoth of an interview, I know it can’t have been easy but I hope it was at least a little fun for you.  Is there anything that I missed or that you’d just like to take this opportunity to talk about?

Francesco:  I loved doing this interview, it gave me a chance to think back on the good things that have happened in the past, so thank you!

Andrea:  First of all, hell yes thank you!  And then one message to whom this might concern: please spend your valuable time getting to know things better and in a deeper sense, don’t just accumulate scattered bits of random information.  In the end, just buy some good records.


Line Up :
Francesco Mariani
Andrea Napoli

Label :
Maple Death Records

Tracklist :
Side A
Pool Cleaner
Ice Skull
Scum Rat
Jaws
Crystal Mind
Side B
Pool Painter
Earthworm
The Wizz
Onieut


dimanche 26 novembre 2017

Album de la Semaine

The Agnes Circle
Modern Idea



Interview de The Agnes Circle, par Post-Punk.com

"We connected immediately—Rachael and I met through sharing mutual interests in art, film, literature and music. We had been in touch via email before I arrived in London.”

What are your influences?
We draw on influences from many different places. We are heavily influenced by personal experiences. Songwriting for us is a very cathartic and personal way of expressing ourselves, which is absolutely vital for us to move forward and grow as people and as a band. As far as outside influences go, we are inspired artistically by the likes of El Lissitzky, Kate Bush, Manfred Mohr, Adrian Borland, John Berger, 23 Envelope, Rikk Agnew, Simone de Beauvoir, Daniel Miller. Just to name a few.

What is the scene like in London these days?
The scene in London is a bit sparse at the moment. There are a handful of long-standing club nights that cater to our sound. When it comes to live gigs, London is really lacking. I’ve lost count of how many times touring bands skip over the UK. At the moment, we’re very isolated when it comes to touring bands stopping here. Local bands within this scene are also absent. There are bands within the UK that we do enjoy quite a bit – Transfigure in Newcastle, Fehm in Leeds, Soft Riot in Sheffield, Nothing Existed in Colchester. There doesn’t seem to be a unified scene in London, everything is a bit scattered.

What can you tell us about the music video for Sister Flux?
Rachael and I shot and edited the music video ourselves in a couple of days shortly after we recorded our first song ‘Sister Flux’. We’re huge fans of architecture and the Brutalist movement. London has had a huge influence on our music. We tried to capture the mood of the city’s influence through our point of view. The first song and the video were both finished in about a week.

Sister Flux was the first song we had written together for this project. It was the seed for the entire project to grow from. After Sister Flux was written, we began working on our debut EP, ‘Modern Idea’.


Line Up :
Florian Voytek
Rachael Redfern

Label :
Avant!

Tracklist :
Ceramics
Venetian Boy
Sister Flux
Yan'an Memory




dimanche 12 novembre 2017

Album de la Semaine

Street Sects
Rat Jacket



Interview de Street Sects, par Carter Moon de xfdr Magazine

Street Sects make nihilistic, abrasive experimental music filled with the pain and rage of attempting to walk away from decades of addiction. It can be frightening music at times, but it turns out that Leo Ashline and Shaun Ringsmuth are thoughtful and considerate artists. Carter Moon talked addiction and their musical process. 
CM: I’m really curious how you write your songs. The lyrics are so confessional and the music is so unconventional, do you start from Leo’s lyrics or from Shaun’s compositions?
Shaun: I think for the longest time it started with the music, and for the most part we still do. It could only be a snippet, often it’ll be 30 seconds, maybe a minute… Often he doesn’t really get going on the lyrics until something is really in place, I know he’ll work on melodies… Drive around in the van, sing along, really get something going, give direction to me as to where the song should go. And then the only way it works from there is maybe conceptual artwork, if something was already put out in advance and then we get it back from AJ, maybe we’ll work from some concepts based on that, get some music ideas, but for the most part, it’s music first.
Leo: Yeah, with the full-length I think we actually started with the artwork and the title and some song titles, and that’ll either start first or around the same time that Shaun is working on song ideas… But I definitely don’t start on lyrics until we have the final song structure.
CM: Sure, that actually makes sense when I think about it. Your lyrics are so personal and confessional, I guess the thing I’m most curious about when I listen to music like yours is if there’s limits to what you will and will not talk about, or if anything that fits the emotions of the songs is fair game?
Leo: I mean it’s definitely fair game, the hardest thing is to follow through on a thought and to see it through until the end of a song and have it still be honest. Because, I mean, you could come up with lines all day and half could be bullshit, the trick is to actually make something meaningful.
CM: Because your music deals a lot with the pain of sobriety, do you get a lot of emails and questions from fans about the process of getting sober? What’s that like for you?
Leo: There’s been a few, not as many as actually may need help, but both of us know what that’s like, Shaun’s actually going through a lot of that stuff himself right now. I would say there’s been about half a dozen people who have reached out to me or maybe mentioned something at a show—you know, quickly, but as far as people actually asking about that process, not as many as you’d think. It’s a pretty personal thing, and I think it’s pretty hard for people to talk about.
CM: Did you find in your own process of trying to get sober that making this music made it easier, or was it almost more difficult to dwell on these things?
Leo: Well, I don’t know if it made it easier or harder. If I had to pick one of the two, it made it easier. I mean, it gives you something to focus on, if you’re reminding yourself of the reasons why you got to that place, then it’s hammering home your decision.
CM: I apologize if this is too intrusive or too personal to ask, but were you a part of a group like NA, and did they ever hear your music? 
Leo: I mean when I got sober I went to rehab… at that point in time we hadn’t started Street Sects, I was working on some music by myself, Shaun was working on some music at that time. By the time we got Street Sects going into full swing, for me I had stopped going to meetings, for the most part. Shaun, do you want to add anything?
Shaun: I don’t know that I should, honestly, it’s not really something that the fellowship really encourages. But we’re definitely open to people speaking with us in person and reaching out. I second that from Leo, I’ve replied to a couple people online who’ve reached out to us. I’m totally amazed, actually, that people are looking into these things. You know, I start to wonder as a consumer of music, art, and culture if people are reading lyrics and listening to music or only getting blips of sound or only streaming half an album or whatever. But that they look deeply into our music at all, that they connect lyrics, imagery, and then the feel of the music, just to combine it all, and then they reach out to us based on personal hurt and suffering is incredible. It’s moving, it really is.
CM: When you guys tour, does it get exhausting to perform the way you do? Because it’s such extreme music that it seems like it would take a lot out of you at a certain point.
Shaun: I will say first that the music doesn’t exhaust me, I enjoy hearing it live… But our live show that we’ve done up until recently has been heavy fog and strobes, and that was taxing in certain places, to get it in basements and certain DIY spaces… Sometimes it was hard to load, and unload, and then just breathing it in, that was my experience of it… But Leo also had a whole experience too, there’s also a lot of stuff that he got to do in that environment that was really compelling, and also people would speak of it in ways where they were kind of taken to another place while watching.
Leo: Our shows at this point in time are still relatively short, because we try to go 180 miles per hour for pretty much the entire run. We’re kinda more worried about exhausting the audience with that kind of thing, with the lights and the fog and everything. We figure that too much of that can make people walk away from a show being like, “Alright, that was cool, but then they just kept going.” Right now it’s to the point where they leave still excited.
CM: Based on your lyrics and your decisions to get sober, I wonder how much you guys really believe in free will, individual choice, and how much they actually matter?
Leo: I sort of think some of the artwork we’ve devised, certain things we’ve drawn, have been indicative of certain kinds of free will. The characters in the lyrics, what you’ll see on the T-shirts, they’re boxed in by certain things that can’t be controlled, and there are other elements that you can. It gets to a point where you can choose at least to live or die. With those basic circumstances, you can look at what you have and try to work with that, in the meantime. For us, it turned into the project it has been to work on Street Sects and try to make the most that we can.
CM: Your lyrics seem to contradict a lot of the language around sobriety. Rather than being about hope and uplifting change, you guys seem to dwell on the darker thoughts that come along with the process of getting sober. Do you think those lyrics serve a purpose in acknowledging that darkness rather than ignoring it?
Leo: I’m not sure. I’m not sure if I’m doing myself any good by dwelling on that stuff, to be honest.  I’ll say from personal experience that getting sober saved my life, and it certainly allowed me to have a life and to be able to things and accomplish things that I certainly would never have been able to do, but I feel like where I’m at still, you know, almost six years being sober, is that I still haven’t done a lot of the work that I probably need to do. I have a lot of problems with pessimism and trying to shoot myself in the foot, negative thought patterns, and I think a lot of that is reflected in the lyrics. I think if there was a way for me to get past that by writing more hopeful lyrics, I certainly would enjoy doing that.
CM: So in that case do you see Street Sects evolving the longer you stay sober? 
Leo: I hope so. I mean, definitely the stuff on this next EP is a little more outward thinking lyrically, as opposed to dwelling in my own problems, which is what a lot of END POSITION was.
Shaun: I hope that it evolves as well. Musically, there’s still a lot that could be said, and our music is still going to be intense, no matter which way it starts to move as an emotion and mood, but it wouldn’t be interesting if we still continued on that same tone, unless there really is a new way to arrange things. I mean, we’re all getting older, and it has to be as compelling and entertaining to us as it is to someone else.
Leo: We could write all day long about how much we hate our fucking lives, but after awhile it’s just as dull as the last thing, and I’m sure for the listener too.
CM: To wrap things up, tell me about what people can look forward to on RAT JACKET.
Leo: I would describe that as sort of a transitional piece. The songs Shaun wrote pretty quickly after END POSITION, but it was kind of like ideas we were still coming up with, like he wanted to include more melody and there’s a lot guitar work. There’s a lot more traditional song structures—but they’re not like pop songs, by any means, but they’re not as challenging for the listener.
CM: Well this has been an enlightening conversation, thank you so much!


Line Up :
Leo Ashline
Shaun Ringsmuth

Label :
The Flenser

Tracklist :
1. Blacken the Other Eye
2. Total Immunity
3. Early Release
4. In Prison, At Least I Had You



dimanche 5 novembre 2017

Album de la Semaine

Pencey Sloe
Pencey Sloe


Pencey Sloe est un projet français qui semble un peu mystérieux, mais qui associe en réalité quelques beaux noms de la scène parisienne : Clément Baptiste et Valentin Beaucourt de MINAB (anciennement Man Is Not a Bird), Mathias Court de Paerish et pour mener la barque, Diane Pellotieri au chant. La belle petite surprise de cette rentrée qui se dévoile via un premier EP.
Dès les premières notes de The Deepest Ride, Pencey Sloe nous fait pénétrer dans un brouillard musical totalement magnétique. Le rythme coule doucement, les airs de guitare raisonnent tels des sirènes appelant sensuellement l’auditeur à plonger dans les limbes oniriques de ses mélodies. Tantôt plaintive, tantôt mélancolique, elle se marie à merveille avec la voix lascive de Diane. Empreinte d’une langueur latente, ses accents graves enrobent l’oreille d’une sombre rêverie (Nothingless) dont il est difficile de se démêler. Le refrain de Bright Water reste ainsi particulièrement en tête, un pur produit slowcore qui ravira les fans de Low.
Alors que le temps semble s’être arrêté pendant vingt petites minutes, on a du mal à ne pas réappuyer sur le bouton “repeat” tant cette parenthèse fut envoutante. On croise fort les doigts pour qu’il ne s’agisse pas que d’un simple one shot entre potes !


Line Up :
Diane Pellotieri
Clément Baptiste
Valentin Beaucourt
Mathias Court

Label :
None

Tracklist :
The Deepest Ride
Bright Water
Salvage
Nothingness
Devil Back




dimanche 29 octobre 2017

Album de la Semaine

Get Your Gun
Doubt Is My Rope Back to You


Interview de Get Your Gun, par Andrzej Bong de Suru

Rock’n’roll and rock music in general is about fast pace of living and playing. Yet, you play slow atmospheric music. Why did you choose this way of self-expression?I’m not sure it’s something you consciously choose – we’ve just always leaned that way. The fast and flashy side of rock music never spoke to us at all. Especially with this new album I feel more related to classical music in some way, but you know – we play rock instruments and we’re in a rock band.
Also, I’m not sure if it would sound any good if we played fast.
What’s the idea behind your new album and its title Doubt Is My Rope Back to You?When I start writing music I don’t have an idea. My brain doesn’t work like that – I work, play and experiment and then the idea or the path shows it’s face. I have a few things I want to try, going into the process of writing new music, but for me it’s about letting go of the inner control freak. When I think too much about it, I ruin it. When I’ve worked out some kind of frame for the songs, we fill out the canvas together.
The title was just something that occurred in my notebook very early in the process and it was one of those things where it kind of showed the direction the album should go in, lyrically. I tend to favor things that are open for interpretation – you know, is it a good or a bad thing that Doubt Is My Rope Back To You? – but still takes some kind of a stand. I feel it has that balance – and I just think it’s beautiful. But you know, I might be biased.
I guess every artist would tell you that his latest albums is the best. What are the lessons learned and improvements made that you think you achieved with Doubt… compared with The Worrying Kind?First of all, I think it sounds a lot better than the first one. Secondly, we wanted to fill out the space between the “from 0 to 100%”-dynamics we had on the first album – to figure out how Get Your Gun does that. Holding on to the tension instead of letting go. I feel that every album should expand the world you’re trying to create and I think we did that with this album. I personally wanted it to be more conciliatory and welcoming, instead of the more “I’m fucking angry at you and the world”-vibe of the first album. I wanted to reach out instead of bashing out. In a way the new album feels like the natural answer to the first album.
A thing I also learned, was how I want to write my lyrics. I feel I’m closer to something I can call my own.
Also – a debut album tends to be some kind of a “greatest hits” of a bands first years and that was also the case with The Worrying Kind. The new one is more coherent, a whole album.
What’s your most memorable GYG moment?Well, there are some others, but the most memorable “GYG in Vilnius”-moment was at an almost filled New York Club in 2014. That night was amazing.
You had a few very well attended gigs in Lithuania. What is the secret of your success in our county, in your opinion?Coincidental good timing, the fact that we played some super good shows in Lithuania and last but not least, some enthusiastic Lithuanians who work their asses off with promoting our concerts and who feels very strongly about our music.
It’s difficult to say why some music resonates more with some countries than others – I would like to hear from a Lithuanian why he/her think our music clicks with Lithuanians.
But we really felt the connection this summer, at our secret gig at Devilstone. That could’ve easily been a flop if no one found out about it, but it was a great success. The heartfelt reactions, from us and the audience, were so pure – everyone were just genuinely happy to see each other.
You agreed to play a secret gig at Devilstone 2017, which is a very bold move in terms of bravery and maybe not a very smart move in terms of band promotion. Why did you agree for this adventure?Because we trust the people running the festival. We shared that moment with the people who were there and I don’t think anyone involved will forget that day – that’s very special and it makes it a big success in our book. The people attending can say “I was at the secret Get Your Gun show at Devilstone 2017”. I know the festival got some frustrated responses afterwards from people who found about it afterwards – but I respect the festival for taking a chance like that, instead of only trying to make “mainstream moments for the masses”.
The stoner and post-rock/metal trend seems to be fading away. What’s your backup plan in case those styles become obsolete in a few years?First of all, we’ve never felt like we’ve really fit into any scene and we’ve never felt the need to categorize our music – it just isn’t very interesting. My biggest concern is to create and expand our own world. The tags you’re mentioning are something other people have put on us and that’s fine.
Second of all, if you’re a musician and you’re trying to make music that is “hip” or “trendy”, just stop. You’ve already lost. The waves of music trends seems to change so fast, that if you’re trying to follow it, you’re already behind. Just play what you can, what you want and what flows from you – the listener can hear if it’s not the case.
So we don’t have any backup plan – that would be a cowardly thing to have, don’t you think?
Any less known Danish bands you could recommend?We always recommend our good friends in Narcosatanicos – they’re a great band! We have an improv project with them called Døde Blomster (Dead Flowers).
If you had a chance to save only one person form two – who would that be: Nick Cave or Tom Waits?I really don’t want that kind of responsibility.
Your recipe for not being a douchebag:Simple – don’t be one.


Line up :
Andreas Westmark
Simon Westmark

Label :
Empty Tape

Tracklist :
01 – Love Like Feathers
02 – Stray
03 – Haywire
04 – Joy of Recognition
05 – You’re Nothing
06 – Open Arms
07 – Enough For Everyone




dimanche 15 octobre 2017

Album de la Semaine

Zola Jesus
Okovi


Interview de Zola Jesus, par Pitchfork

Pitchfork: You’ve said Okovi was fed by a return to your roots, as well as several very personal traumas. What were your past few years like?
Nika Roza Danilova: When I was living in Seattle a couple of years ago, I was really depressed and I couldn’t write. I couldn’t really do anything. I was on tour, and how I interacted with my music became very masochistic to the point where everything felt destructive in my life. I just wasn’t feeling balanced. Intuitively, I felt like I needed to move home, to find stability and actually physically find roots, because I was feeling like I didn’t have that for so long.
So I came to Wisconsin and everything started coming together. I started feeling more whole and working through the things that I was going through the past few years. But while I moved back home and was becoming healthier, I noticed that so many people who are very close to me were struggling in their own ways. It just felt like this mirror: Everybody around me was going through a shared existential trauma. So for the first time in a long time, I used music to work through all of that—as a means to let go, rather than a means to regain control.
Everything feels very new, but at the same time, it feels kind of like an ouroboros; it’s new, but it’s also very old. As you grow up, you go through life feeling like you don’t have the answers, so you’re trying all these different things to find them—and you end up feeling very lost and derailed. In the end, you realize that you knew the answer all along. You were just refusing to acknowledge the fact that it was within you since birth.

What answers have you found?
I guess “answer” is the wrong word because I don’t think I have the answers for anything, actually. But in a sense, there is a realization that in life, you don’t become anything, you just are. I grew up with such a strong work ethic—feeling like you can always be better and achieve more. My parents pushed me to be driven and determined. I’m from the Midwest, and that’s our MO here. There was always this feeling of evolution: You’re not something now, but you'll evolve to the thing you want to be in the end. But that was unhealthy for me, because it made me feel like I’ll never be able to achieve that. In a way, I am coming to terms with the fact that there is no fully-realized self. You are who you are, and that power is always within you.

Your music always feels kind of life-or-death. Did the stakes feel higher this time around?
The opposite. I feel like I have nothing to lose. What I went through with this record—I felt like everything finally opened up, having that empowerment by not caring at all [what people think]. So much of how I work as a musician is masochistic because I do feel like I need to prove something to myself, and I need to prove something to the world. I feel like I am born to fail, because I constantly feel like everything I do is failing. At this point, I’d rather fail than do nothing.
I saw you play in Brooklyn this spring, and before you played the new song “Witness,” you said, “This song is about suicide.” What did it take to write these songs?
Someone very close to me attempted suicide last summer, and I was away. I was actually stranded because I was doing these writing retreats where I would have someone drop me off at a cabin and I couldn’t leave for a week. I got a call saying that this had happened and I felt powerless. I really connected with this person and I wanted to be there. That’s when I wrote “Witness” and “Half Life.” Then they attempted again, and that’s when I wrote “Siphon.” It was my way to speak to this person, because it was one of the few ways I could communicate to them. It was very hard. Thankfully they’re still here.

Did you play the songs for this person?
Yeah, they heard them last year. I wanted them to hear them. But to have the songs on the record is a different thing, because it’s so public. That person has heard the record, and they’re OK with it. They really loved the songs, but it feels very vulnerable to me. But it’s something that needs to be talked about. I don’t just want to say those words to this one person, I want to say them to everyone that’s going through this.

The title of the record is the Slavic word for shackles. What moved you towards that?
I was thinking a lot about how the person close to me who attempted suicide several times last year felt like they were stuck here—like they were a prisoner on earth, and circumstances wouldn’t let them leave. On the flip side, someone else very close to me has terminal cancer, and that person feels like they’re a prisoner to the inevitability of potentially dying very soon. They feel like they’re trying everything they can to stay here. And personally, I felt in my own way like I was chained to my mind, like I couldn’t reconcile so many things within myself, and that’s what was making me so sick inside. “Okovi” means shackles in almost every Slavic language, and I liked that because it brought so many people, and a lot of parts of me, together. My family is from Ukraine—my mother’s side is Slovenian—but it’s something that Russia and Ukraine have in common.

To me, Okovi sounds like all of these styles you’ve worked in have coalesced: noise, pop, orchestral, goth. Did you sense that happening when you were working on it?
Yeah, in a sense. So much about my past records has been trying to nail something specific. With Taiga, it was about nailing production and songwriting and making everything really slick, and knowing that I have what it takes. It was so much more about a crash course for me. I feel like I’ve never been able to fully make a statement because I’m always using my records as an opportunity to try and get better in certain areas. But now I feel like I’m getting to the point where I am fluent in all of these things, and I can finally use music as a means to communicate what I want to communicate. I produce everything—I don’t have that much help—so it takes a long time to figure it out.

Your new single “Soak” was written from the perspective of a serial killer’s victim—she knows she is going to die, so she flips the situation in her mind, and chooses to die. The context made me think of your interests in horror movies and philosophy. Where did that song come from?
Since moving back to Wisconsin, I got really into true crime. We’ve got Dahmer and Ed Gein [serial killer and body snatcher from Wisconsin] and I felt interested in their stories. I started reading about a lot of serial killers, and it insidiously made its way into me and my music. It fed my anxiety—pretty masochistically. Like, “Do you have extreme anxiety? How about you read about serial killers nonstop?”
But in reading these stories, I started thinking a lot about the victim and what it must feel like—those moments when you know you’re not going to come out of a situation alive, and that someone has just blindly decided to take your life without even having a valid reason. I just started putting myself in the mind of those—I’m going to say women, because they mostly are women—and thinking about what you would have to do psychologically to allow yourself to have peace in that moment.
In the verses, it goes, “Born into debt, line and no request/I pay what I can, but the rest I have no chance/So I pay nothing instead.” It’s like: I have an opportunity to do something, but I can’t fulfill it, so I might as well do nothing. And there’s that biting resentment and bitterness that I’m sure someone would be going through. I was feeling those same things, but towards my life—trying to find peace before I realize there’s nothing left. That’s been the turning point in my life: really trying to train myself to go, “I don’t need to have a purpose. Nothing needs to matter.” That’s what I’m working through.

Do you feel like the natural environment out in the woods has taught you anything lately?
Oh, fuck yeah. It’s so cool because you watch the forest transform. Every day I’ll go out to the same part of the woods and it’ll look different. There’ll be a new plant that comes up, or another plant will die, because everything is very seasonal. It feels like this living, breathing organism and ecosystem. At the same time, it reminds you that things die, but they come back again. And maybe they die in one way, but they’ll come back in another way. That taught me a lot about not taking things for granted, but also letting things go, because they’ll come back in different ways.



Label :
Sacred Bones

Tracklist :
01 – Doma
02 – Exhumed
03 – Soak
04 – Ash to Bone
05 – Witness
06 – Siphon
07 – Veka
08 – Wiseblood
09 – NMO
10 – Remains
11 – Half Life