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Discover Feature

30 Songs That Blew My Mind (that you probably haven’t heard of) – Part 2

Five more tracks that stopped me in my… tracks.

6. Chromium – The Church: I didn’t meet The Church through ‘Under The Milky Way’ like most of the world. I met them when I was 17 and Pandora (which was in India at the time) played me a track called ‘Chromium’ which, I would later find out was not the original recording from After Everything Now This, but the acoustic version that appeared on El Momento Descuidado. I struggle to tell you what it was about this track that made me stop and listen and, once it was finished, rejig my radio station genres so it would play again. I could be as simple as the stripped down opening. It could also be the meaningfully meaningless lyrics (‘neo maniac in the cul-de-sac’ was my forum signature back in my Songfacts days). Maybe it was just the name of the song? Whatever it was, no other track by The Church – and I love every song they ever made – came close to doing for me what ‘Chromium’ still does.

7. Soul One/Mouthful of Cavities – Blind Melon: I still don’t know of a voice as emotive as Shannon Hoon’s. Blind Melon may be seen as one-hit wonders for ‘No Rain’, which is beautiful in its paradoxical pairing of uplifting melodies with lonely verses, but ‘Mouthful of Cavities’ and ‘Soul One’ (and St. Andrew’s Fall/Walk) are more than just the best of Blind Melon. They’re among the best things to have ever happened to us.

I’ve never seen Shannon Hoon’s face on a t-shirt but I wept for him, for Nico and for the songs I would never get to hear, when I heard ‘Soul One.’ I cried for his bitter little heart (Inside – pain in my heart often made her cry. Outside, I cursed the birds and the sugar skies‘) for his childlike joy (‘you know it felt like she was the only one’) and for his unresolved grief (‘but I never – no I never got a chance to say goodbye.‘).

Like ‘Soul One’, it’s the devastation in lines like ‘see I haven’t seen him smile in a little while,‘ on ‘Mouthful of Cavities’ that breaks my heart. Hoon says the line twice, first with desolation (it’s almost a question with the lilt at the end of the sentence), and then with frustration. And when he says, sadly but matter-of-factly, ‘One of these days this will die – so will me and so will you,‘ you know it turned out of to be true.

The more I listen to Blind Melon, the more I fall in love with them – for their words, their music and their raw emotion. But today, I live in a world without Shannon Hoon and there’s no one to warble ‘Life Ain’t So Shitty’ into a tape recorder kept by the window of a hotel room and make it sound like a masterpiece.

8. You Look Fine – Pia Fraus: Let everything I say about ‘You Look Fine’ be as beautifully simple as it is. If I had ever done music theory, I would have used this track as a study on the significance of composition, of silence and of chaos, and propounded a corollary on the irrelevance of complexity. Pia Fraus don’t tell me anything beyond ‘you look fine’, but I believe them. Their musicianship isn’t masterful, but it’s exactly what I need to hear. And they throw in a wall of chaotic noise – why? I don’t know, but it was meant to be there. Walk down a busy street with this song in your headphones and let Pia Fraus be the voice in your head, your armour against interaction, and your boost of self-confidence.

9. Do You Feel Loved – U2: One day I will write a 12 page paper on how Pop is U2‘s best and most underrated album. Maybe it’s the natural successor to their experiments with Zooropa and Achtung Baby, but Pop is more innovative than both – nothing like its name suggests. I still wish they could have taken the maturity they showed on that album further. Instead they followed up with the palatable All That You Can’t Leave Behind, and got more and more formulaic with every successive release.

It took me a decade of listening to Pop to realise that ‘Do You Feel Loved’ was the standout track on the album because I would keep coming back to it. For the first and only time in my life I wished more people knew about this obscurity because it was made to be danced to with wild hair and wild arms and not an inch of space between two bodies (‘stick together man and woman‘*). ‘Do You Feel Loved’ is orgasmic, but it remains one of the many dog whistles on Pop, an album that most know for its most mediocre track – ‘Discotheque.’ Make love to ‘Do You Feel Loved’ or just dance to it with someone, or by yourself, or in your mind. You’ll find yourself transported out of this world.

*please ignore the heteronormativity this is 1999

10. Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in my Hand – Primitive Radio Gods: I’m almost willing to go as far as to say that this song is meant to be listened to with someone else though, personally, I would never do such a thing. ‘Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in my Hand’ is a quiet companion – reassuring in nothing but its presence. It’s rare I meet a song that paints such vivid images with nothing more than a few words and fewer sounds. You can see how ‘Moonlight spills on comic books and superstars in magazines.’ You can hear the plane take off from Baltimore and touch down on Bourbon Street. I think I hear coins dropping in a phonebooth when the song opens, but is that just a jukebox scratching a BB King record? Friends or more-than-friends talk about god and conspiracy theories into the night. ‘Phone Booth’ is the soundtrack to our solitary evening reflections. It’s profound, cynical and possibly meaningless – like most of us.

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Discover Feature

30 Songs That Blew My Mind (that you probably haven’t heard of) – Part 1

Celebrating 30 (and a half) years on the planet with a six-part series on the 30 songs that changed my life and blew my mind. Here we go:

1. El Topo – HANDLINGNOISE

Two. That’s how many times I’ve listened to ‘El Topo’ in my lifetime.

I don’t recall how I found HANDLINGNOISE or where I was when I first heard this album, but I recall my heart coming to an abrupt halt at the clap that falls at the start of the track. I remember it staying that way for the next few seconds before picking up and racing ‘El Topo’ all the way to the end.

I listen to ‘El Topo’ sparingly. I wait for stars to align, darkness to fall, and for people to leave. Doors are locked and devices silenced. There is likely no other track that I am as selfish about. I’m an overzealous parent, forbidding it from reaching the ears of those unworthy of its magnificence.

Perhaps I should learn to share.

Is the rest of this album as good as the first track? I have no idea. I’ve usually ceased to be a sentient being by the time it ends.

2. Zoë Machete Control – [The] Slowest Runner [in all the world]

Another album opener that had me at first listen. I don’t remember my first [The] Slowest Runner [in all the world] experience either, but I do remember the smug satisfaction with which I killed a party when I played this track. Drinks paused, phones drooped, eyes glazed over. Someone tried to be cool and I heard them attempt to croak their approval but their voice was puny and insignificant, whipped into oblivion by the tornado in the room. If there’s another group that carries the label ‘neo-classical’ as gloriously and as genuinely as this one, I am yet to meet it.

3. Prodigal Summer – Snow in Mexico

‘Never gets old’ is the new ‘awesome’ – a phrase reduced to flippancy through overuse. But use and overuse it all you like when you’re talking about this track, and tell me – how is listening to ‘Prodigal Summer’ every time like listening to ‘Prodigal Summer’ for the first time? How does it compress every ASMR-trigger the world has ever known into just four and a half minutes? How is it so flawlessly composed of a thousand analogue childhoods when it was released in 2012? How is this song so new and, simultaneously, so, so old?

Here’s another overused word in shoegaze circles – ethereal. Again, use it all you want here. ‘Prodigal Summer’ doesn’t give you anything to grasp. There’s nothing by which you can pin it to your memory, no catchy hooks or sticky riffs. So you listen to it again, and again, and again, hoping that this time – maybe this time – it stays.

4. Fake Lights in the Sky – Last Leaf Down

I remember this vividly. It’s 10 am in the office. Under stark white lights I decide to listen to a track a friend of mine has assured me I will love. A minute and a half in and I can see the world around me slowing to a crawl. By 2.30, the earth has stopped spinning, time has stopped (naturally), and the outside world is frozen in place. Two minutes later, it’s all over. I’m looking at the post-its on my pinboard and I could swear I had only just blinked.

See also: Discover: Last Leaf Down

5. Symphony No. 3 – Gorecki

Pet peeve – people talking during concerts. I don’t go to many gigs in Delhi, but I remember timing a trip to Paris so I could see Ulrich Schnauss perform. As I stood in the audience, I stood out as the lone foreigner, watching as the young’ns around me raised their voices so they could carry on their conversation uninterrupted over the din of Schanuss’s set.

Fortunately, I didn’t see much in the way of such interruptions in Melbourne, except one time – the gig was Mono and it was at the Forum Theatre. Seating was unconventional with the audience in intimate booths looking out at the stage. In these booths, groups and couples chatted merrily all through the opening act and would have carried on through the filler music ahead of Mono’s performance if it wasn’t for what Mono (I presume) had chosen to play between acts.

Flashback to when I was 9 years old and playing video games with my grandfather in our den in the basement. He plays classical music while we play Battle City, and I suddenly stop, transfixed, by what I hear. My eyes tear up, my skin breaks out in goosebumps and my heart feels like it’s breaking. That was the first time I heard Gorecki’s ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’.

A roomful of chatty concert-goers went through the same life-changing experience before my eyes. Undeterred through most of the first movement, one by one, they fell silent to the second. Mono, and I will forever be grateful to them for this, played the composition in its entirety – the entire 56 minutes. When the third movement ended the room was noiseless, and Mono stepped out. No one spoke again.

See also: Gig Guide 2011 #3: Mono

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Feature

The war is over, they won

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Lester Bangs was as eerily prophetic as his IRL counterpart when he said these words.

Let’s recap. The line crops up twice in the film. The first when Bangs is cautioning young William from becoming a rock writer, warning him that he’s made it just in time to witness the death of rock and roll (aka the commercialisation of subculture aka the creation of ‘the industry of cool’), just before commissioning him (William) to write him (Bangs) a thousand words on Black Sabbath. Given how the kid is so romantically oblivious to the possibility that there is anything else worth doing with one’s short life apart from writing about music, it’s easy for us to get sucked into our protagonist’s dream and to write off Bangs’ words as excessive and reactionary.

Which is why he needs to say them again later in the film for you to really hear him. William is on tour with Stillwater who are in the middle of a reluctant talk with a very convincing potential new band manager, while their existing manager looks on apathetically. This is in the wake of a series of tour-related mishaps all which could, according to New Manager, have been turned into a profit had they been better… managed. ‘We’re in it for the music!’ Russell’s attempt at staying authentic cannot stand up to the promise of profit and so, this time, when Bangs is on the phone with William and he says ‘The war is over, they won’ you feel him. In those five words you see sponsorship deals, record labels and ads in glossies. The Hit Machine materialises before your eyes and suddenly everyone’s recording in sleek wood-panelled studios instead of garages, basements, attics and bedrooms.

I think that the best records are made on garbage equipment and played on garbage equipment […] The Dolby’s, the studios and the whole surreality of the thing, it just takes all the mud and the guts out of it. I mean the music is supposed to be distorted in the first place, and the clearer you make it, the more you rob it.

That’s the REAL Lester Bangs predicting the demise of authenticity in music back in 1980. While we could still smell the sweat and taste the grit of rock and roll at least in the early 90s, we also saw ‘CORPORATE MAGAZINES STILL SUCK’ on Kurt Cobain’s t-shirt when Nirvana appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone just two or so decades after Stillwater did, all while assembly lines stamped his eyelinered face on mass-produced black t-shirts. The war was over, they’d won.

Maybe the days of grit and dirty glamour are definitively behind us. You’ll still find dirt in the backs of dingy indie venues, where the beer is cheap and rent not so much. But perhaps the closest we’ll get to glamour is Zachary Cole Smith’s admission that DIIV’s last album is the story of his own struggle with heroin.

Maybe it’s because, as the music video fades, and as bandcamp finds itself saturated with audio, we’re listening more and watching less.And maybe bombastic egoism and self-destructiveness are meaningless in the absence of an audience. What good are sexual escapades if there aren’t any hushed voices whispering stories of the depths of your debauchery? Why drop a tab if you haven’t an awed spectator to narrate your trip to after the comedown? We throw the words glamour, grit and guts at our stars, but we don’t have the time to label anything beyond the music we listen anymore. Maybe it’s not as romantic, but perhaps it’s the best we’ll ever have. Maybe this is the purest music has ever been.

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Album Feature Rediscover

Find Your Way Home: Looking back at K with Crispian Mills

This year, Kula Shaker release K 2.0 – a companion to their seminal debut, K, released in September 1996. At the time of this interview, I’m huddled in a quiet corner of a restaurant in New Delhi and I’m asking the Kula Shaker frontman to walk me through the story of K with 7000 kilometres between us.

I start by asking him to tell me about what it was like to release K twenty years ago. He makes an unconventional Blake reference, referring to Songs Of Innocence And Experience – a book he describes as “one of the great classics of literature.” In it, Blake walks the reader through the joys and perils of youthful naïveté.

“What does that have to do with K?” I ask.

“Innocence. We thought we were smarter than we were. We were speaking to these veterans of the music business and getting ripped off. You tell yourself: ‘It won’t happen to me.’ You’re young. But we were walking right into the lion’s den. A nest of snakes. That was the innocence of our youth ploughing into the adult world.”

He continues, his memory of the spirit of the album as vivid as if it was released yesterday. “And it’s an innocent album. It’s an album that’s asking questions, struggling with identity. It’s an album that’s looking for answers.”

K was – and still is – a landmark album. It reached me through Indian cable television the year it was released, but it wasn’t until many years after that I learned that its reception in its home country was… mixed. I ask Mills what he feels the reason behind its criticism was.

“The musical styles on K are mainstream now. People didn’t know how to understand it or where to place it when it was released, so all that was left to do was deride it. Before K, ‘Indian music’ was the music that played in the background when you were in an Indian restaurant. Before K, Krishna was an image on kitschy poster. It really changed us. More than acid, it was hearing about Krishna and going to India that changed us. Krishna is the unavoidable, inevitable karmic destiny. The crooked, unpredictable, divine lover. It’s very personal. And K is based on very personal beliefs.”

Indian influences aside, K was born in the belly of Britpop and, while that could have worked against it, the album managed to turn the era to its advantage.

“Britpop was very much about being British. Bands really embraced and got off on that ‘We’re British!’ sensibility. We weren’t saying we were Indian or that we were British; there’s a more universal identity on K. Theresa May said something like ‘A citizen of the world is a citizen of nowhere’. People are sceptical that there’s a world out there without flags. We said that and people wanted to kill us. People are afraid of the concept of no flags.”

“When I was in private schools, they called me ‘common’, and when I was in state schools they called me ‘posh’. It’s made me very cynical about all these labels. Kula Shaker was born cynical, idealistic, and true. It’s born in ancient traditions, the universality of sanatana dharma, jivan dharma, the identity of the soul. We have a lot of people against us who don’t understand what we’re about. I call it an ‘Accident of Chronology’; it was a moment that suited us. Its 60s obsessed, golden age of pop and rock aesthetic fitted quite well with our own.”

Regardless of how neatly it fitted the Britpop mould, K was something else. A band of four Brits turning Hindu mantras into 60s infused pop melodies was bound to stand out.

“We didn’t make an effort to be different. We were different. We were learning music – I was learning sarod – and we were working with Himagsu Goswami, who was living in London, and his niece, Gouri, who sang on all the albums. A lot of our sound developed from playing unconventional gigs; we played squats, we played festivals – it wasn’t just pubs and clubs. We weren’t listening to the radio and saying: ‘Let’s sound like them.’ We felt this was our destiny.”

The innocence and positivity on K lies in stark contrast to its cynical successor Peasants, Pigs And Astronauts – an album whose dystopian lyrics are just as applicable today as they were in 1999. I can’t resist pointing out the dichotomy.

“Peasants, Pigs And Astronauts is the apocalypse and the aftermath. It’s us having fun with the idea of the millennium,” he tells me. “There was angst in K. But it bore fruit in Peasants, Pigs And Astronauts.”

Kula Shaker never really revisited their sound on K. Their style changed across each successive album, seemingly moving away from the band’s original aesthetic. I ask if there’s any chance we can expect a return to their roots in the future. The closest we’ll get, I learned, is the release of their first live album.

“It’s something we’ve struggled with in the past. We’ve struggled to bottle the magic and excitement of a live show in a recording. So we booked a studio in East London and played a show to a few hundred people. This was in May this year. The sound and the atmosphere were great. The album’s going to be called Live In The East (End).”

I ask, and he lets me in on a secret around K’s recording. “We weren’t crazy about how the album was sounding, originally. We originally recorded it with John Leckie. We were huge fans of his work, but we weren’t huge fans of the outcome when we first heard K; we were disappointed. Our manager told us to stop being such perfectionists. We’d recorded a version of ‘Shower Your Love’ that they wanted to release. No one’s heard it yet.”

“We had to record the B-sides in a small studio. ‘Drop In The Sea’, ‘Dance In Your Shadow’ – that’s where we recorded them. Stephen Harris was at the recording session and we ended up taking a lot of the Leckie tracks off the record.”

A lot has changed in twenty years, and if the music industry was a lions’ den/snake pit then, would K have survived today?

“The music business, and the way it works, used to be much more focused. Not only was it signing bands but it was also simpler to navigate in terms of the ways you could promote a band. But now you have this ocean of content – the Internet – that everyone is drowning in. It’s difficult for music to get through. And whatever does get through has a vanilla taste to it. So I think K would struggle, but you never know. K didn’t fit with Britpop either.”

“As for downloading music – it works, it’s easy. But just because something is easy doesn’t mean it’s right. It’s just as difficult for a band today to make it and there’s so much less support from record companies. Musicians have to be part-time, and there’s a huge sacrifice to be made if you have to live that life. Not many people can tour like that. You have to be a bit mad and very clever to make it.”

I’ve caught Mills just ahead of Kula Shaker’s tour of Japan and the UK. “K is an album that was designed to be heard in one go,” he tells me. “When we’re on tour in Japan and the UK, we’re going to be playing it in its entirety.” He doesn’t see me nod and plan my trip to London. I ask him how the shows are doing, and to tell me about the people who come see them play.

“Our fans are pretty devoted, and I’m always amazed. We did a concert in LA – we hadn’t played there in 15 years, so we didn’t know if anyone would remember us. But they were such exciting shows – we’re so grateful to have those fans. We’re very grateful for the people who’ve stuck with us – the kids, now maybe their kids. The band certainly means something to the fans.”

At 9 years old, when I first heard K, I thought it was beautiful. At 29, it’s still beautiful. I’m not yet tired of the chaotically spiralling guitars on ‘Tattva’, and ‘Govinda’ still manages to soothe me at my most savage. The strings that open ‘Hollow Man (Part 2)’ are exquisite enough to have generously ‘inspired’ Radiohead (cough ‘Faust Arp’ cough), while ‘Start All Over’ is as sweetly romantic today as it was then. And then there’s ‘303’, whose whirlwind cityscapes and unrestrained recklessness can still melt my cold, dead heart.

Originally published on Drowned in Sound.

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Feature

Broken tools and bent nails: why Nothing matters

Maybe the reason we’re so drawn to Nothing is that, like us, they don’t preach happy endings.

Maybe it’s because, like us, they don’t encourage a life of success driven by misattributed quotations.

Maybe it’s because they make it OK to be average.
And to give up.
To live a life of quiet mediocrity.
To fail and to stay failed.
To let go.

I’m built to bleed
Plan my ruin guiltlessly
Another John who’s lost his head
I’m a bent nail
You’ve got no use for me
A monster for eternity

 

Maybe it’s because they confirm what you’ve always suspected.
That it’s not going to get better.

And I hate
Everything you’re saying.
Watch out for those
Who dare to say
That everything
Will be OK.

 

They validate our solitude.
And the outliers among us.
Our obligation to exist.
To wait.
And to vanish.

Outside the door the world’s alive.
I’ll stay and hide on the other side.

 

See also: Built to Bleed

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Discover Feature

serve cold: bloody knives

bloody knives are a band after my own heart.

There’s never been a group more suited to soundtracking the cold-blooded crime I will one day commit.

Not since ‘To Fix The Gash In Your Head‘ has a group succeeded in capturing the serenity that accompanies a perfectly planned and executed retribution.

In fact, Preston Maddox‘s languid vocals only serve to enhance the careless loathing a typical bloody knives track spits out.

Similar to how Oliver Ackermann’s vocals on ‘To Fix the Gash…’ are less furious and more disconcertingly calm when he declares ‘I’ll just wait for you to turn around/and kick your head in‘.

And not unlike Archive‘s disaffected chant ‘there’s a place in hell with your name on the seat/with a spike through the chair just to make it complete‘.

So does Maddox ever so serenely dare you to ‘tell me I’m wrong‘ on Burn it all Down

Or politely inform you that there’s ‘blood in your mouth‘ on blood.

Or sweetly croon that he’s ‘waiting for you to die‘ on DEATH.

The fulfilment that comes with the manufacture and execution of pre-meditated violence is a recurrent theme throughout the bloody knives discography.

[Pre-order I Will Cut Your Heart Out For This]

bloody knives do not make music for the hot-headed – those who might not hesitate to throw themselves headfirst into a shouting match or a street fight.

They do make music for the sort of person who, on seeing you looking a bit high strung, offers you comfort and a coupon for a relaxing spa session and then bakes you alive in the sauna.

Because isn’t the glee on ‘Buried Alive’ not just the smug contentment that comes with suffocating someone to death while simultaneously disposing of their body?

You only attain this clean efficiency with time and reflection. Not through impulsive action.

There’s a lesson to be learned from all of this.

Guard your fury.
Plan its release.
Let its consequences stretch across weeks, months or years.
And let your parting note read:

‘This will be your last mistake‘


 

Buy albums.

Pre-order I Will Cut Your Heart Out For This.

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Feature

Which LSD and the Search for God album is right for you? An interactive guide

It’s been 9 long years since LSD and the Search for God blessed us with their distortion soaked self-titled EP and a lot has changed in the interim. Heaven is a Place with its steady walls of psychedelia in lieu of fluid curtains of reverb is the mark of a band that has truly evolved. Adapted. Matured. Grown up. it is the mark of a band that has recently recruited a Brian Jonestown Massacre member (hello, Ricky Maymi!).

Between the shoegaze-by-numbers self-titled and the swirl-heavy Heaven is a Place, we have two wildly disparate EPs before us. How do we know which one is best-suited to each of our unique, inimitable personalities?

I daresay we have found ourselves in the midst of a most egregious dilemma.

Fortunately, I have dedicated the last two weeks to intimately acquainting myself with both these records by playing them at very high volumes very late into the night and I believe I am now qualified to create and share an interactive guide that will solve all of our problems and assuage all of our fears.

Here’s the official guide to figuring out which LSD and the Search for God album is right for you:

LSD Guide

YOUR RESULTS!

Mostly column 1: You’re a cynical bastard (that’s Diogenes in the picture) who smokes up to cool down, prefers listening to bands that make a lot of noise before anyone knows who they are but drops them the moment they go mainstream, i.e. someone apart from you knows them.

LSD and the Search for God’s self-titled EP is the album for you.

Your life in a lyric: Be careful what you wish for/Because it might come true (Starting Over)

Mostly column 2: You’re one of those irritating existential types who relies on psychedelics to distract you from your own impending mortality. You listen to a band’s later albums first, but assure everyone you knew who they were before they became who they are.

Heaven is a Place is the album for you.

Your life in a lyric: One thing I know/I’m gonna die (Without You)

—

Do the options in both columns look equally tempting? Dear god, you must be insufferable in person. Let’s be BFFs! Get your LSD and the Search for God goods here and we can be pricks – with unmatchable taste in music – together for all eternity.

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Feature

Video Premiere: We Meet in Dreams – The Microdance

cheryltmd

It’s no secret that New Waves of Hope has been the album I’ve been looking forward to the most this year. Not least because I’ve known it to be in the making for about two years, and living off snippets, and whatever sneaky crumbs Alex threw my way.

New Waves of Hope released earlier this year, and while I was too busy earning a living (down with capitalism) to write a full blown article about it, I have still managed to land the chance to premiere the video for ‘We Meet In Dreams.’

‘Inspired’ by Mario 64 if Mario 64 had drug dealers and shots of Mario staring pensively at the user on a Shoreditch sidewalk, the video’s making full use of the cool-factor brought in by TMD’s skateboarding bassist, Cheryl, and the unshakeable Gavin (not even clomping through a metre-deep lake fazes him).

Where and why Alex/Mario got those overalls will remain a mystery forever.

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Discover Feature

Ce fut quand même notre histoire: Une entrevue avec Milanku

Milanku, groupe Québécois, marqué par un son qui juxtapose les mélodies les plus douces contre des voix enragées, viennent de sortir leur premier album après 4 ans. De Fragments, comme son prédécesseur, n’a rien à voir avec les débuts du groupe. Lorsque Demo et Convalescence étaient presque ‘punk’ ayant donné la brutalité de leurs sons, ici, maintenant, on voit – on écoute – les compositions beaucoup plus structurées. De Fragments possède la même complexité que Prise A La Gorge. Cependant, ce dernier est peut-être moins lourd.

Ce mélange n’est pas très diffèrent que celui d’Alcest – groupe français enraciné dans le black métal – où on écoute clairement l’influence de leur ascendance même quand les chansons restent assez éthérées.

Bien que, au niveau de leur esprit, les deux groupes sont presque pareils, musicalement, ils ne se ressemblent pas du tout. En fait, comme Alcest, je trouve qu’il n’y a aucun groupe comparable à Milanku.

Ça fait deux mois que je leur ai envoyé quelques questions à propos à leur histoire, leur son atypique, et leurs pensées au sujet des téléchargements gratuits. Voilà – tout que vous vouliez savoir de Milanku mais n’aviez jamais demandé.

 

1. Pouvez-vous me parler de l’histoire de la formation du groupe? Y avait-il quelque chose en particulier qui a réuni le groupe ? Et comment avez-vous trouvé votre son ?

L’année 2016 marquera les 10 années de Milanku. Ayant tous évolués au sein de différentes formations dans le passé, à cette époque, nous avons fondé le groupe avec le désir de sortir des sentiers battus en comparaison des groupes plus hardcore, voir punk, qui dominaient alors la scène. Nous voulions un son plus mélancolique et évocateur, mais tout en gardant un son lourd et pesant.

2. Votre son a beaucoup changé depuis vos débuts. Demo et Convalescence étaient plus bruts que Prise A La Gorge. Ce dernier est plus lourd, mais, quand même plus raffiné que ses prédécesseurs. Pouvez-vous me raconter l’histoire autour de cette transformation ?

Je dirais que simplement l’évolution normale du groupe. Nous n’avons pas produit beaucoup d’album depuis notre formation et avons toujours voulu garder l’indépendance dans notre son. Nous avons voulu prendre notre temps pour créer. Nous avons aussi beaucoup de matériel qui a été crée et qui n’a pas été sorti sur album. Peut-être qu’un jour nous produirons un album avec seulement des bootlegs ou des idées de local! En fait, nous avons toujours voulu garder le son de Milanku aussi près possible de la base de la musique rock, sans trop d’arrangements. Guitares, bass, voix et drums, what you see is what you get. Nous misons plus sur les mélodies et les harmonies entre les guitares que sur des arrangements liés au matériel ou aux équipements.

3. Personnellement, au niveau du son, je n’ai jamais rien entendu qui ressemble à Pris à la Gorge. Quels sont les groupes qui vous ont le plus influencés?

C’est difficile à dire…Je dirais que nos mélodies viennent comme idées au début et on garde ce qu’on aime, on fait des compromis, et s’ajuste en fonction du « vibe » général. L’ambiance et les textures sont ce qui nous importent. Il faut que les sentiments véhiculés nous rejoignent et je dirais qu’on n’a pas d’influence particulière….. Chacun dans le groupe écoute des trucs différents et je crois que c’est ce qui apporte le son et la particularité de Milanku.

Nous allons sortir notre nouvel album, De Fragments, l’automne prochain. Le lancement à Montréal est prévu pour novembre 2015. Le son de cet album est différent de ce qu’on a fait jusqu’à maintenant et on le voit un peu comme un renouveau.

4. Il y a une pause de 4 ans entre Convalescence et Prise A La Gorge – qu’est-ce qui s’est passé pendant ce temps ?

Des soirées au local à lancer des idées, à créer et essayer des choses. Il faut dire que Guillaume (drummer) est aussi parti à l’étranger pour un an. Nous avons alors jouer avec un autre drummer à cette époque. Nous avons fait plusieurs concerts.

5. Des nouvelles à propos de votre prochaine sortie… ?

Comme je l’ai mentionné précédemment, notre album, De Fragments, sortira en novembre 2015. Cet album est le fruit du groupe avec un nouveau guitariste. Les chansons sont plus courtes et je dirais plus dynamiques. L’ambiance et le « vibe » Milanku est toujours là, mais je crois que nous avons amener le groupe vers d’autres horizons.

L’album sortira sur plusieurs étiquettes, notamment Moments of Collapse (Germany), Tokyo Jupiter Records (Japan), Grain of Sand (Russia), L’Oeil du Tigre (Montréal, Canada), Replenish Records (US) et D7I (Quebec, Canada).

6. Votre avis au sujet de la musique en streaming et des sites où on peut télécharger les albums, les discographies, etc. sans payer ? Selon vous, est-ce que ces sites aident ou sont néfastes aux groupes – surtout les groupes indépendants ? De même, que pensez-vous des sites Bandcamp et Soundcloud?

De façon générale, comme Milanku est un projet lié à une passion, celle de la musique, nous considérons que le plus de gens qui écoute et apprécie notre musique vaut beaucoup plus que quelques dollars que pourraient générer la totalité des albums ou chansons achetées. Ce qui est plus importants, ce que les gens viennent aux concerts et achètent nos t-shirts, nos albums, etc. C’est ce qui est le mieux pour nous.

De même, je crois que si les gens veulent aider les groupes indépendants, il est aussi pertinent de « donner ce que vous voulez » lors du download des albums ou des pièces en-ligne.

7. Quelle est l’ambiance idéale dans laquelle vous souhaitez que les gens écoutent Milanku ?

Dans toutes les ambiances! Chaque moment est englobé dans une ambiance et si les gens sont heureux et léger et écoute Milanku, c’est ce qu’on veut. À l’inverse, si quelqu’un marche seul le soir et est dans ses idées, et écoute Milanku, c’est aussi ce qu’on veut.

8. Un groupe que chacun des membres de Milanku écoute et que les gens seront étonnés de savoir que vous aimez ?

Haha, bonne question. De mon côté, j’aime beaucoup la musique électronique et tout ce qui s’y rapporte. Je pourrais te citer plusieurs artistes, mais j’aime beaucoup Kiasmos et Olafur Arnarlds (Iceland), mais aussi des trucs avec plus de bpm, ça dépend des jours! Mon groupe favori depuis maintenant près de 20 ans est Leatherface…J’aime aussi beaucoup tout ce qui est plus « crasse » comme des bands punks comme Nausea et des projets vraiment lourds comme Amenra et tout ce qui s’y rattache.

Frank (guitariste) écoute beaucoup Esa-Pekka Salonnen, plus précisément sont concerto “Out of Nowhere – Violin Concerto. Mais il a une grosse fascination pour l’époque où Brian Wilson a perdu la tête avec les Beach Boys (Pet Sounds, Smile & Smiley Smile). Godspeed You! Black Emperor et leurs projets parallèles, autant que l’époque psychédélique des ’60.

Guillaume (drummer) aime autant Future Islands que Cursed en ce moment il écoute beaucoup de Beatles et de Loud Lary Ajust

Guillaume (chanteur) est plus dans la musique lourde, comme Amenra, Sumac, Old Man Gloom, etc.

 

Milanku vient de sortir son nouvel album, De Fragments. Vous pouvez l’acheter sur Bandcamp  ou iTunes.

Si vous voulez l’écouter avant de l’acheter, je vous présente: ‘L’ineptie de nos soucis’:

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Feature

Outtakes: AE meets Blueneck (Part 2)

On (unlikely) Influences:

I don’t know how we skipped the usual suspects, but when talking about Blueneck’s influences, Rich throws a name at me that has me caught completely off-guard.

‘Phil Collins.‘

Pardon?

‘Phil Collins! You know Phil Collins?’

Yes, I know Phil Collins. Why are we talking about Phil Collins?

‘You’ve heard ‘In The Air Tonight’?’

Yes, I’ve heard ‘In The Air Tonight’. Why are we talking about Phil Collins?

‘Listen to the start of it again, and then listen to ‘Sirens’.’

I play ‘In The Air Tonight’ in my mind.

Dear god, it’s true.

—

The scourge of the One Song:

Rich calls on me to remember that dreadful ‘Rollercoaster’ track by Ronan Keating from a decade or two ago.

‘Do you remember how it went?’ he asks.

‘Yes, but I’d rather not.’

‘That’s OK. Do you know the New Radicals?’

‘Sure – that group with the one song.’

‘Yeah that’s them. Do you remember how that went?’

‘Sure,’ I’m about to start humming ‘You Get What You Give’ and it hits me.

‘It’s written by the same guy,’ he tells me.

‘They really only have the one song.’

—

The before-they-were-famous moment

‘I met Chris Martin’s parents,’ Rich tells me. I’ve been railing against Coldplay for about five minutes now. For a moment I feel like we’re two schoolteachers discussing a problem student. ‘I was at one of their early shows – there couldn’t have been more than 200 people there. There was this older couple sitting in the corner, and I got to talking with them. They told me their son was in the band. It was Chris Martin.’

—

Settling debates with Google:

‘My childhood dream was to be in a Right Said Fred video,’ I reveal.

‘Aren’t Right Said Fred gay?’

‘What? Surely not!’ I quote their lyrics to make my point.

Deeply dippy about those Spanish eyes,
Sierra smile,
Legs that go on for miles, and m…

‘Ah yes, one of them’s bisexual.’

—

On their name:

I’m so convinced about my own interpretation of Blueneck’s name, Rich doesn’t even get the chance to speak before I’ve launched into my exhaustive explanation the story behind their name. He hears me out patiently and after what must be a quarter of an hour tells me that I’m free to go with that as the story due to its overpowering glam factor. It’s not the real reason though. The Real Reason is so superbly unglamorous that I decide to keep my own illusions, and leave the truth shrouded in mystery.

Sorry, not sorry, but you’ll never know.

—