Interview: These New Puritans

These New Puritans

These New Puritans are a bit of a quasi-enigma. They have no particular form or shape, and often find themselves lost within different spheres of space and time. Creating a storm with an angular, trancey and mathematical pop formula, they’re proving to be one of the most exciting and promising bands in a short while. I caught up with singer Jack for a more insightful approach to the music, especially when it comes from someone who ‘really likes My Bloody Valentine, The Walker Brothers, Danny Weed, and Vybz Kartel’ and is currently listening to the likes of ‘Balinese chant. I'm also listening to Rolf Harris, he's very underrated’ admits Jack. Hmmmm........

There’s a fair few towns in this country with a youth scene; a small, close knit group of musical appreciators who stay focused on their love, while not much else around them happens. How does Jack feel about the music spawned in his hometown, Southend? ‘The Southend Scene almost existed. It definitely doesn't exist anymore’ he says. ‘I suppose we really should have exploited it as a media tag type-thing, but I think that would have been destructive and all destruction is evil. So we didn't and will not. Southend is just a vacuum. That is what is good about it; Southend is nothing really.’
And to have gone from playing the local haunts of Southend’s relaxed musical scene, to writing a soundtrack piece for a ‘Dior Homme’ fashion show must have been a surreal experience. ‘It was a great furious piece of creative energy.’ reminisces Jack, ‘lots of amazing studios, staying in a top-floor flat in a Paris side-street, trying to communicate with French engineers, nineteen hour days.’

It must have seemed a world apart from the usual milieu that bands find themselves wading through in search of a leading edge. Not least because it was an international fashion show, but because the whopping 17 minute soundtrack was a far cry from 3 minute simplicity and hasty art punk.
‘That was the whole point - to lose our sound!’ assures Jack authoritatively. ‘We'd never done a song longer than 3 minutes, now we had to do a 17 minute one. It's good to sound different to yourself - the music I'm writing at the moment is for mallet instruments and a choir and will be recorded live in the countryside. So that's different to the album and the album is different to the EP. All we want to do is be something else, and then something else, and then something else. All we want to do is forget ourselves.’ The Puritans are purely more than just style over substance.

Bands with such an immense intensity are bound to change and progress, especially when you take into account the punishing and prolific work schedule ahead. ‘We're touring in Europe and the uk in February and March, to support our album which is out in January’ states Jack. We’re also re-releasing 'Elvis' in January as well.
TNP are leaders in their field. Far from being content with three minute shoe gaze perfection, Jack explains how the band are striving forward to meet new goals, un-chartered and undiscovered; they’re achieving this in anything but a linear fashion and, as Jack explains, the album reflects countless new adventures in their sound.
‘Our EP was recorded by candle-light in 24 hours and was fuzzy and our album was recorded in harsh light over more than 24 hours and is pristine and electric’ muses Jack, ‘It's still harsh and compressed though. The whole time we were making it I had two phrases in my mind: "HYPER-FAVELA" and "WAVE".’The album has, I've been told, a bit of an electronica / dancehall / shoegaze / pop feel. I've managed to get over my obsession with distortion - distortion is easy.’
The new single, ‘Numbers and Colours’ has just been released; a hyperkinetic, enigmatic fusion of electronica, jerky, piercing riffs and hollow space like bass, show that the band crave something that most haven’t even thought of. They take the mundane and average observations of life, and forge an existential, parallel meaning from it.
‘Numerology is meaningless but it's good to take something meaningless and make it meaningful rather than take something meaningful like love or life and make it meaningless.’ quips Jack, who’s obviously spent many an hour pondering the worth of aesthetic gains. ‘Most bands try to make their music seem meaningful by referencing stuff but we've invented our own form of numerology that you can hear about in the song numbers.’

And this remains to be the spirit of the band; an entity of their own, lead by the often dictatorial and commanding Jack, who shouts and leads his band on stage, they shift between form and structure, normality and abstraction, linear and arbretary motion. Described as cryptic by some, I wonder if this symbolizes a longing to be whisked away to another world, without rules and constraints. Has the bands own experiences influenced their decision to not follow the beaten path?
Well, we had to re-map Southend into something meaningful, rather than something empty. These New Puritans is a mystery and I'm looking for the answer myself. I feel that we have something in common with dubstep but not in an obvious way.
We don't want to just re-create this world; we just want to make our own. In the words of Freddie Mercury: "are you ready for a brand new beat?’

http://www.myspace.com/thesenewpuritans

www.thesenewpuritans.com

Thanks to Beth at Toast fo the solid effort

:::::::::: Dirty Projectors ::::::::::::::::::::::::
















Neve too fond of the media, David Longstreth, the mad professor behind collective, multi instrumentalist group DP, talks elusively about motives, recollections and obstacles generated by the hadcore elite fratenity of NYC, when he decided bizzarely, to cover Black Flags seminal album 'Damaged', entierly from memory.

And it certainly takes balls to go against the once familiar grain. To take a classic slice of the niche ridden, often stagnating US hardcore scene and change the context of it is brave at minimum.
David Longstreth, the main creative force behind Dirty Projectors, has done exactly this with album number 6. A songwriter and busily prolific man, who cuts no corners and responds evasively to media perception: ‘I’m Gemini, brown eyes, brown hair, about six feet three inches. My music is loud and kind of unruly. Detail-oriented, but also reflects how I enjoy thinking about the bigger picture, like long walks in the woods’
Taking ‘Damaged’, Black Flag’s seminal 1981 album, and covering it for today’s more expansive and open minded music fans attention, I probe as to why he attempted such a great mission. ‘I didn't cover damaged. I rewrote the album from what I remembered of it in my head’ states David. ‘I have no idea why I did it -- maybe because it was there!’ he waves off.
Although these details are coincidental, it seems like a great feat; to take an album that you haven’t listened to in 10 years or so and completely rework it from memory is a huge task. In reality, he probably caned the album to the maximum, although he’s apparently not into Hardcore music: ‘I did cane it -- I really caned it, you got it!’ replies David sarcastically, ‘I’m not really a fan of hardcore music much, I do like the bad brains though’ he tells.
The angry, pounding riffage is converted to a more emotive, rhythmic song structure, but a constant juxtaposition remains throughout; the lyrics are sung softly, still containing the cagey, irritated and politically charged lyrics. From classic 'Police story', toned down and soft with its abrasive vocals in tact, or the deconstructed drone of once punchy 'Thirsty and miserable', Longstreth seems to dig opposites. He surely came up against the purists for daring to change the rulebook. ‘Indifference isn’t the word for it brother’ he confirms.

The album itself is like a mixture of West African Rhythms, tortured folk and aggressive math rock; sing along ‘gimmie gimmie gimmie’ has been bent into a more longing and dreamy context, one of melancholy compared to the angry, spiteful original. Does he aim to take the DIY aesthetic, and apply it less franticly? Carefully, David replies: ‘It’s not so much the aesthetic as the phylogeny, I’d suppose’, hinting towards the evolution of culture, rather than being stuck in history, forever trying to recreate a moment.
Recorded with Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor, Longstreth’s deep, intense music is transposed onto the live stage, fragrantly sombre and absorbing, with the help of Amber Deradoorian, Brian McComber and Amber Coffman to bring sounds to life. Unconcerned with meaning, message and representation, Longstreth is the ultimate mad professor, concocting his own version of musical dialogues and creating by his own terms. ‘Culinary Piping, indeed’ he cryptically replies when quizzed about the next release, not wanting to give too much away. Rest assured though, brothers, that it’ll probably be another busy year for the dirty projectors, and it won’t be long before we hear from David again.

www.myspace.com/dirtyprojectors

The Blow Up:: Friendly Fires

Feverent St albans genre mashers are funking their way to a system near you.....


I’m safely tucked up on a cold, grey winter’s night, excitedly anticipating a go-ahead txt. I’m waiting to call Ed McFarlane, bassist of funky and unwillingly cool Friendly Fires. It’s not even been six months since we last chatted, but Friendly Fires have been exhaustingly busy. I wanted to catch up with Ed, to find out what’s old and new, what’s borrowed and what makes him blue.

After pleasantries are exchanged, we muse upon the bands beginnings in the ever burgeoning hot bed of music that is St Albans, fast growing for its churning out of hardcore superstars such as Enter Shikari and Gallows. When asked if they were ever involved, Ed simply replies:
‘Well, we weren’t part of a scene; in fact I don’t think we’re part of any scene to be honest.’
That’s the pure spirit of Friendly Fires; a band uninterested by trends, fashions and cool record labels. They’re natural ability to transcend genre and seek original ambitions is executed effortlessly, probably without giving it a second thought.

‘Well, yeah we’re writing it for ourselves’ agrees Ed, ‘we don’t care about what else is going on! We don’t really, well, I don’t listen to a lot of indie music.’

We then start to scorn the way that bastardized and diluted electro has seeped into every pore of the musical plateau, grinding up all into a digestible paste; the modern day easy listening. Yes, Friendly Fires are a forward thinking band. Ed moves onto the unique, daring mix of different sounds. ‘Our sound is really compact, lots of lush melodies, with some tracks made using pads, others contain really deep funky disco elements. And to be honest, I don’t know a lot of the bands doing that. I really like the shocking pinks though!’

what’s changed for them in the last six months?
We’ve just been doing a lot of writing, lots of experimenting. We’ve just been travelling round touring. We did transmission on television as well!’

Aside from T Mobile sponsored shows, they manage to avoid the trappings of bands who do anything but write good, original melodies. But they’ve been lumped into the Nu-Rave bracket, no doubt because they display a fondness for synth driven eclectica; how does Ed feel about this?
‘I prefer labels that are about the band, not the image of the label itself. There must have been a phase where no-one mentioned new rave. Everyone asks us what its like to be included in it, it’s abit of a focal point, but I can’t really do anything about’ he shrugs casually. ‘It’s not like us to be dressed up and in part of a scene. There is a trance type element in our music that we’re trying to recreate. It’s just bubbly. Rave music to me is people playing piano.’

So, are friendly fires making a statement? Do they feel he media latches on too much to bands using electronics?
‘Yeah, I get abit annoyed about it but at the just talk about it because they need a hook’, Ed Chuckles, “Time Out’ called us ‘Nu-Rave rockers’ in the listings. Id rather people said ‘pop-indie band that use electronics’ if you were to categorize us!’ he chuckles wryly.

Of the pieces of kit and toys available, what is the weapon of choice?
‘I love using soft synths that I use live with a drum machine. We record on the most basic equipment the limitations help you make the music.’ Ed explains, ‘We’re used to it, and when we go to recording studio, we won’t bring our own speakers and mics and start messing about with it. We won’t lose any of the energy and authenticity, and what gives us the drive.

After success with the Cross The Line EP, the band will imminently drop they’re new 7inch ‘Paris’ on ‘Moshi Moshi’ records, another twisting turn in the echelons of the bands tastes. ‘ felt good when we put that EP out.’ And do they really want to live in Paris? ‘Actually’ laughs Ed, ‘the lyrics are quite coincidental and really have no link to the music…basically, it’s just a song I wrote for a friend. I don’t really wanna live there!’ (Laughter)
The trance element has the same feeling as stadium rock does.’ Says Ed. ‘Really big, healthy and epic, Paris is really stripped down, so we keep that real energy rush there……it sounds abit My Bloody Valentine, Brian Eno like, with loads of distortion, that kind of shoe gazing haze on it too. We don’t want to stick to one sound, we like to swap around; we’ve got lush ballad like tunes, really stripped down, no electronics punk-funk, then we got our straight up, 4-4 house sound. It
Without wanting to sound too contradictory, I take a big gulp of Dutch courage and probe further about electronic input. In the current issue of Artrocker they feature the ‘Year of the Indie Synth’ article, but I’m interested to see how much its influence hangs over these free spirits
‘Our sound would still be danceable, and have that punk funk edge to it’ muses Ed, ‘It would still be influenced by dance music, just minus all the layers of pads and rolling pitches. If it works it works; there’s no need to add too much to the track if it really isn’t needed’ states Ed. ‘Sometimes we just don’t want to use the synths and we just jam. We don’t really follow a set formula. I think it’s really healthy to do that, to experiment.’

Finally, when will an album be released? ‘We’re recording it in January; we’ll literally lock ourselves away!’ assures Ed. And I believe him too.

http://www.friendlyfires.com/
www.myspace.com/friendlyfires

Ten Bloody Questions

This month: Hatebeak.
Hardcore/ death metallers with waldo, the parrot, as lead singer


Introduce yourselves please
I am Mark, also known as Matterhorn to some people. Blake is the other human component of Hatebeak, he drives a bus for a living. Waldo is an African Gray parrot, somewhere around 15 years old, and an incorrigible prima-donna.

That really is a bad bwoy scream.....why use a parrot? did you teach him?
I think he learned it by imitating death metal singers. We would often play music in the background way before we ever thought of doing a parrot-fronted band. I think the music struck a chord with Waldo, or at least the vocal delivery.

Does he have the best scream in the band?
Unquestionably. Blake & I sound like wounded guppies in comparison. He must have learned to shriek in the jungle.


How much training does Waldo put in? Is he easy to work with?
His training essentially consists of complaining for food and then complaining about the food. He does his best work on his own terms. Sometimes we have to leave the mic and recorder running for hours next to his cage to get a good take. I think he's got a lot of pent-up emotion to get out.


With the band, are you voicing your opinions the way you want?
We get a lot of freedom with the music, I think Waldo's pretty content just handling vocals. There are times that he's reacted negatively to some of the stuff we played back for him. Actually, Blake and Waldo didn't speak for almost a month over one particularly hotly contested guitar fill.


Are you making a massive stand against 'fashioncore'?
Absolutely. If hipsters were more inclined to stick feathers to their naked bodies and jump off of rooftops attempting to be more parrot-like, we might be more forgiving.


What bands inspired you?
We're into old Earache death metal bands like Carcass, Morbid Angel, At The Gates, etc, old Relapse bands like Suffocation & Incantation. The list could go on indefinitely. We basically like anything that is brutal and true to the ethics of metal. These kinds of bands are a rarity nowadays. We also like some weird traditional folk music from Western Maryland, but that's more of a nostalgic family thing. Blake is working on a jug-band side project right now. I'm listening to the Twisted Sister Christmas album right now.


With tunes like 'god of empty nest' and 'unlisted', do you see avian creatures to be the alpha survivors of our putrid earth?
I think of birds as the link between the thunder lizards and the hairless apes. Evolution should have stopped with archaeopteryx.


Whats the next release? anything more in the pipeline on relapse records? or are you sticking with reptilian? We've actually had a CD in the can for over a year now. Reptilian will put it out as soon as the artwork is finished. As far as future releases, we'll work with almost anybody that wants to work with us. That is, as long as they subscribe to the philosophy of true worldwide avian supremacy. Thanks from the three of us for the interview, infernal squawks go out from the Mighty Diabolical Flock of the Beak to Seun and Don't Panic too!

Right on, Brother.

Thank to seun at dont panic for setting me up!

www.myspace.com/beak666