Interview with the Locrian

Locrian are an incredible new band that emerged in Chicago in 2005 that comprise of Andre Foisy and Terence Hannum. Balancing comfortably between genres such as noise, doom metal, black metal, dark ambient and power electronics, their sound is highly refreshing and unique. Their output has been considerable, consisting of many limited CDs, CDrs, cassettes and 7”. Their latest record, Drenched Lands, was released earlier this year on Small-Doses/At War With False Noise (in the next couple of weeks I will post a review of it here). More recently, Locrian have released a limited run (38 copies) VHS + 3” CD  which you can find out more about here.

I’m extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to conduct an interview with Andre and Terrence and thank them for giving up their time to put this together.

Adrian: With so many drone-based bands out there that sound like Sunn O))) rip-offs, it’s incredibly refreshing to come across Drenched Lands, which sounds very unique. Who would you say are your biggest musical influences, and what were you listening to at the time of making this record?

T:  Thank you.  I would say that my biggest influences are very broad.  Overall the groups that I still listen to from my formative years are like Black Sabbath, Yes, Joy Division, Throbbing Gristle, Negative Approach, Earth and Obituary.  Though I was listening to the first Kluster & Eno record pretty much non-stop during recording “Drenched Lands” along with Tangerine Dream’s “Zeit” on cassette.

A: Yeah, my influences are all across the board so that I don’t even know them a lot of the time. I’m really into all the stuff that Terence mentioned. When we recorded that album, I was listening to the Mouthus “Saw a Halo” album a lot. That’s one of my favorite records as of late. I’m not sure it directly influenced us, but that’s definitely one of the big things I was digging at the time. More broadly, I grew up listening to a mix of prog-rock, punk, and metal.

I guess I’d rather talk about some of the stuff that I’m digging lately. I just got some great stuff from Burnt Hills, Century Plants, Andreas Brandal, Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words, and Persistence in Mourning. I’ve been way into this stuff lately.

Adrian: The artwork and some elements of the sound on this record seem to be referencing a black metal aesthetic. Was that intentional?

A: The artwork on the cover is shaped like a pentagon so there’s a pretty direct pentagram reference there. Some of our stuff has a black metal influence, so that’s no surprise to me that you picked up the black metal audio-aesthetic. I don’t think that we were striving to sound black metal on the recording, it just came out that way.

T:  We began Locrian to rethink the type of metal we wanted to hear.  I am a huge fan of black metal so it definitely bled in.  I just want it to never be this straight thing, we are not a black metal band.  So it was totally intentional, to give the nod, but we always try and decipher how to do something new.

Adrian:  What equipment and or software do you use on record and performing live?

T:  We use no software in generating our sounds.  I use a lot of analog tapes and players, a Moog Satellite synthesizer and a Korg Micro, I run my vocals through a bunch of delay and reverb.  When you get it all going through one amp it gets pretty thick.  On “DL” though I used a wonderful Hammond they had in the studio for the organ sound and a nice Fender Mustang through my Roland Jazz-Chorus for my guitar part on “Epicedium”.  We’re fairly frugal in what we use.

A: I use a Peavey 5150 amplifier with a 4×12 cabinet and a barrage of pedals. I usually use a delay, a distortion pedal, a Fuzz Factory, a loop pedal and sometimes a wah pedal. On “Drenched Lands” I used a semi-hollow body guitar into my setup. It allowed me to get some nice feedback on certain parts. Typically, I use my 7 string guitar, my bass, and sometimes an Ovation acoustic. I have plans to start incorporating my violin at some point.

Adrian: Is there an avant garde metal or experimental music scene in Chicago? I know that there are bands like Pelican an Lair of the Minotaur (both on Southern Lord Records) who are from that area. If there is one, what is it like, and if not how do you think your music relates to your personal environment?

T:  There is a great underground music scene in Chicago, mainly around metal, noise and experimental music.  Pelican and LoM are just the surface of a very deep and creative community.  The scene is very eclectic for example the power electronics scene with Bloodyminded or Koufar, the avant metal types such as Yakuza or Minsk, the black metallers like Velnias and Nachtmystium, to the straight up noise people like Kevin Drumm or Jason Soliday and a great scene just around drone with White/Light or the Golden Sores.  There are also complete enigmas such as Oakeater.  I think the thing is the sense of community once you get out of the realm of putrid indie-rock.

A: Chicago has a great spread of music. We’re often confused about what scene we fit into. I’m sure that our music relates to our personal environment, but I think that if anything we kind of take the varied sounds that we’re into and incorporate them into our own aesthetic.  Also, we get so many great musicians coming through Chicago so we feel really lucky.  If anything our music reflects some of the diversity of the stuff that we listen to.

T: Most of our music plays to me like a soundtrack of obsolescent architecture.  In Chicago you’re surrounded by the failure of Monderism, with the dilapidated housing projects turning into gentrified ghettos.  You see the utopic vision decay into a new type of waste.  Also once you get into the outskirts of the major areas the blocks of homes decrease and the brownfields increase.

Adrian: According to Wikipedia, the Locrians were an Ancient Greek tribe in Greece. Is this where you got your name from?

T:  Not really but it mainly came from the mode in music but that is a nice meaning too.

A: My wife suggested our name because she heard me talk about the Locrian mode before and it’s meaning, that is that it is a dissonant mode of the major scale and that it used to be associated with evil because of the dissonant notes.  Dissonance is a major aspect of our audio-aesthetic, so Locrian is an appropriate name.

Adrian: What are your views on drone as a genre? Do you consider drone a genre or a musical trait? Do you find the term limiting?

T:  I don’t really consider us drone in the sense of the genre, but we use a lot of drones.  Certainly Andre plays a lot of notes.  I play repetitive riffs.  I think that as a genre it can be incredibly stifling but as a trait in music it is as good a place to start as any and build, layer and transform.  It is in most sacred music from all over the world, so the drone itself is fairly ubiquitous.

A: I think that drone can be a genre and a musical trait actually. I think that there are some artists that I would categorize as drone, like a lot of Tony Conrad’s stuff I would categorize as drone because of his use of sustained sounds, whereas other types of music like old time American music might have drone-like traits, like a hammer dulcimer, but I wouldn’t categorize those types of music as drone. I don’t think of our music as drone, but I do think that drone might be a major aspect of our music.

I think the beauty of drone notes is that they kind of put you in a trance and I think that’s something that happens to us when we’re playing. I do think that there’s a lot of movement between notes when we’re playing so I think that it might be imprecise to label us as drone.

Adrian: And despite my previous question, who would you say are your top five favorite drone records?

T: 1) Earth “2″

2) Robert Fripp & Brian Eno “No Pussyfooting”

3) Jean Francois-LaPorte “Mantra”

4) Rhys Chatham “An Angel Moves to Fast to See”

5) Growing “The Soul Of The Rainbow And The Harmony Of Light”

A: I’m not sure if everyone would categorize these as drone, but I do:

1) Robert Fripp & Brian Eno “No Pussyfooting”

2) Number None: Urmerica

3) Tony Conrad w/ Faust “Outside the Dream Syndicate”

4) White Light: Black Acts

5) Neil Young: Dead Man Soundtrack

Adrian: You’ve been getting some really positive reception lately, from the likes of Brian Coley from The Wire and Scott McKeating from Rock-A-Rolla. How does it all feel?

T:   It is very nice, we really appreciate the positive recognition from people we respect and read.

A: Yeah, we’re happy about that. Byron and Scott are both really great writers and I generally like similar stuff to what they write about.

Adrian: What records are you looking forward to being released this year?

T:  The new records from Sunn O))) and Nachtmystium, Wolf Eyes “Always Wrong”.  Always interested in what is going on with Hospital and labels like Razors and Medicine & Arbor.

A: I’m looking forward to the new Bloodyminded album “Within The Walls;” the new Sonic Youth album. I’m generally looking forward to hearing what interesting small labels are putting out. I’m always looking to hear what Small Doses, At War With False Noise and Bloodlust! are going to put out next.

Adrian: What’s next for the Locrian?

T:  We’ve been part of planning the Matchitehew Assembly here in Chicago, a black metal and noise festival on June 5th and 6th with Bone Awl, Krieg, Rusted Shut, Marblebog, Ashdautas, Burial Hex, Bloodyminded, Oakeater, Velnias, Volahn and many more.  Plus a tour this July to the Northeast.  As far as releases BloodLust! will release “Drenched Lands” on LP w/ an extra 3″ CD and we’re self-releasing a VHS + 3″ CD called “Land of Decay”.

A: We’ve been on hiatus for a few months so we’re looking forward to playing again. In June, we’re going to record with Jeremy Lemos at Semaphore Studios. We essentially have a collaborative album finished that still needs to be mixed and released. We collaborated with Mark Solotroff from Bloodyminded, Black Judd from Nachtmystium, and Bruce Lamont from Yakuza.  After we finish the vinyl version of “Drenched Lands” we’re going to have to figure out what to do with that recording.

I think that our July tour is as far in advance as we can think at this point.

Selected Links:

MySpace

Last.FM

Small Doses

At War With False Noise

Filed under: Interviews, Special Features

Interview With Grant Hunter of Crab Smasher

Crab Smasher are one of the most interesting new bands from Australia that I’ve come accross recently. Based in Newcastle, NSW, Crab Smasher are described as a experimental noise/pop band by Last.FM and lean towards a wide range of styles including post-rock, noise, drone, psychadelic rock and experimental rock (although these aren’t conscious or intentional influences). Playing recently at La Campana, supporting Euguene Chadbourne, was Crab Smasher’s first show in Sydney for about two years, and they certainly put on an excellent show. I caught up recently with Grant Hunter from the band to interview him about things such as Crab Smasher’s history, tour and release schedule, as well as his views on the Newcastle experimental music scene.

I recently saw your set at La Campana supporting Eugene Chadbourne who came out here recently for the NOW now Festival in the Blue Mountains. Not having heard your stuff before I didn’t know what to expect, but you all came across as strong, confident live performers nestling nicely between a Velvet Underground “too cool to care” proto-punk attitude and a totally enjoyable and fun freak-out jam session, with elements of 1960s psychedelic and or progressive rock (stomping on the tambourine by the bassist really gave it that feel and reminded me specifically of Can, Frank Zappa and Pink Floyd), post rock, post-punk, noise, drone and ambience. I found the instrumentation intriguing – electric bass guitar, electric guitar, vocals (in the broad sense of the term), electronics and two drum kits. How did it develop to this point? What’s the story behind Crab Smasher?

In 2002 I started a band called Crab Smasher with my best friends Nicholas French and Chloe Russell. We were living on the Central Coast of NSW and all of the bands were emulating One Dollar Short etc and we wanted to try to shake things up a little so we used Windows Sound Recorder to record about 3 albums worth of really annoying 2 minute novelty song/experiments with lots of pitch shifted vocals and bad poetry and downloaded techno samples and really complicated multi-tracking on a constantly crashing PC. We put all this stuff on the internet and in 2004 with basically zero musical skill we were asked to play live and accidentally became an improv noise band. We added and subtracted members here and there, moved to Newcastle and were most active as a mostly ambient/drone duo with pop aspirations around 2006-7. Last year we added the amazing rhythm section of Nathan Martin, Jeffrey Brown, and Marnie Vaughn, and it all feels brand new again. We’re still trying to shake things up to some extent, but now we sound a bit more like a band, I suppose we want to try and fit in too.

That show with Eugene Chadbourne was really good fun. It was exciting to play in Sydney again, we’d neglected to do so for two years.

Who would you say are your primary influences?

I am influenced by Nicholas French, Nathan Martin, Marnie Vaughn, and Jeffrey Brown.  I try not to be too influenced directly by other bands, even if it is unavoidable sometimes. We’re always going to have bits and pieces of ideas that we’ve picked up from other places, I’m like a big sponge. I don’t know that it is something that I can easily narrow down, and even if I were to try, it would be contradicted by some other influence. You mentioned post rock, punk, noise, drone etc above, so obviously all of that, but I don’t know where it comes from because that’s not necessarily the music that primarily interests me, and the rest of the band have really varied tastes too. I appreciate that you detected such a varied range of styles though. I like being unpredictable, the clash of sensibilities keeps things exciting. We just play what comes out of us, and that’s always going to evolve in unexpected ways.  At shows people often compare us to these obscure bands I’ve never heard of, so it’s always fun to eventually track them down to see who we’re supposed to be ripping off.

Is your music improvised, composed or a bit of both?

Our live performances are 100% improvised. Some of our recorded releases, particularly Impossible Monsters, involved a considerable amount of post-production, processing and manipulation of recorded elements, but I see the studio as a tool to be used as any other instrument. Some of our peers seem to think the more compositional stuff is a bit of a cop-out compared to our live improvisations, whereas other people really prefer the fluffy pop songs. We’ve often toyed with the idea of introducing more structure to our live sets, but improvisation is just so radical when it works. I don’t think we’d ever abandon it, no matter how much we want to be super rich pop stars. With our recent live sets we’ve made a conscious effort to try and keep our ideas short and sweet, more song-like structures. We’re still improvising, but trying to think outside the box of the long-form noise and drone pieces.  I just want to perform quality work, whether it’s playing live or putting out a song. I think we’ll always be willing to explore new ideas, regardless of good taste or what the hipsters might be doing.

Do you think your sound is uniquely Australian?

By virtue of the fact that we’re Australians making it I suppose I would have to say yes. I don’t know if i can pick anything uniquely Australian about the music that we make, but I’d agree that there could be such a thing as an “Australian sound” when talking about noise music or whatever. Surely there is something identifiable that makes us stand out from our international counterparts. Our environment contributes considerably to our music and I’d assume it would be similar for other Australian artists. Maybe it’s just the attitudes and aesthetics of the artists here. We’ve never been spoiled. There is a really healthy underground community of people who are making new music, putting on shows in their houses, burning CDs to trade with some other band from interstate. So maybe I am lumping all of these bands together when I think of an Australian sound, because they’re all my mates. We all play together, and help each other out with shows and gear and beds, and I identify them as being part of a big noisy family. Australia has some of the most interesting bands in the world, and there are definitely people overseas that recognize that.

How many releases to date have you released as Crab Smasher?

Our first three albums Crocodile Box and The Johnny Mars, David Intolerant and The Seventeen Screaming Kids, and Dr. Snake and 200 Bearded Skinnys, are so far removed from what we’re doing now that I hesitate to mention them. However, there’s some really weird stuff to be found if you look. Todd McFarlane Crushes The Tyranny Of Corporate America is really dense noise, abrasive yet melodic, to have ants.. was the first improv jam we put on a CD, Serie Una Di Collaborazione is a CD of seven improvs with various special guests, it’s a bit hit-and-miss. We wanted to do another one of these but still haven’t recorded anything, or secured anybody to play on it. ORCA is a subtle whale song jam with Nick Senger from Castings, it’s one of my favourite live recordings, Impossible Monsters is us trying really hard to be a pop band, it’s really all over the place and scattered, but it is a pretty solid representation of what we were capable of at the time. It’s also a good precursor to what we’re doing now. We recorded some live stuff with the new lineup and released it as an internet download called The Picky Eater. It wasn’t really meant to be an official thing, but people seem to be responding to it nicely. Recordings of most of our live shows are online for free, eliminating the temptation to release hundreds of hard-to-find live albums a year like every other noise band in the universe.

Is there any material in the works?

We are slowly starting work on a new full length “studio” album, and we’ll hopefully have a cassette or something out this year too. We are also contributing a track to a compilation of Nancy Vandal covers to coincide with their reunion tour in March/April.

What about your live performances, what is Crab Smasher up to this year? I know you’re doing some shows in Melbourne this February with Scissor Lock.
We just take things as they come. We’re all involved in a number of different bands, jobs, art projects, so finding the time to play shows is a bit of a juggling act. We made a conscious effort to try and get to Melbourne again this year, and I’m glad it’s come together so soon. Touring with Scissor Lock should be really interesting as Marcus Whale is a genuinely sweet human being. We’re going to be launching the Scissor Lock/Mousetrapreplica collaboration A Tin Teardrop, which I’m putting out on my bedroom record label Monstera Deliciosa. I think the plan is to try and line up a collaborative set with him while we’re there. After that we have a small trip planned to Lismore in April, and anything could happen after that.

What is the experimental music scene in Newcastle like, is there a force there and if so what do you make of it?

We have a few great bands and not enough venues, not enough people coming out to see bands. The usual complaints. It’s starting to seem like some people have this perception of Newcastle as having a bit of a strong emerging experimental music scene, because of the bands that are based here, but it’s not the case. Newcastle is a big scary ghost town. It’s really only generic jock metal and hardcore shows that seem to be sustaining themselves. We tried to run a warehouse performance space for two years here and despite a number of really great shows, it was a real shame to see international acts show up to play to 10-15 people. It’s not like in Brisbane or Sydney where there seems to be more of a culture for going out to see bands in basements and lounge rooms every week. Every now and then something positive will start up, There was a sometimes great weekly night at the Croatian Sports Club, but that’s over now. The Hamilton Station Hotel is sometimes receptive to weirdo music, but the place is seeming increasingly violent lately. Other than that, not much. For the town that is home to the This Is Not Art festival, the support really isn’t here for the other 360 days a year.

What current bands, musicians and/or artists are doing stuff that interest you?

Go Genre Everything, Taste Of Teeth, McClane, Young Lions, Francis Plagne, Sarah Humphreys, Mart Brennan, Kitchens Floor, Grannyfist, Sam Buckingham, Polyfox and The Union Of The Most Ghosts, The (temperamental) Pocket.

And lastly why the name “Crab Smasher”?

We wanted to be an awesome-dumb band like Bolt Thrower but couldn’t play death metal with computers.

Upcoming shows:

Place: Old Bar – Melbourne, Victoria
Date: Thursday 19^th February 2009
Time: 8 PM

Place: TBA – Melbourne, Victoria
Date: Friday 20^th February 2009
Time: 8 PM

Place: TBA – Melbourne, Victoria
Date: Saturday 21^st February 2009
Time: 8 PM

Place: The Italo Club – Lismore, New South Wales
Date: Friday 3^rd April 2009
Time: 8 PM

Place: TBA – Mullumbimby, New South Wales
Date: Saturday 4^th April 2009
Time: 8 PM

Links:

http://www.myspace.com/crabsmasher
http://www.last.fm/music/Crab+Smasher
http://www.myspace.com/monsteradeliciosa
http://skyhut.blogspot.com

Filed under: Crab Smasher, Interviews, Special Features

Antony Milton

For our second series of interviews with musicians for Rollaroll, I spoke with New Zealand’s Antony Milton, who recently performed a series of shows in Australia, including a show at Newcastle’s This Is Not Art festival. Read the interview below:

For readers of Rollaroll who aren’t aware of what you do, would you like to give a brief overview/description of your work?

I started out as a kid who was obsessed with tape recorders- recording weird noises. I particularly liked radio static (because it sounded like rivers and I was equally obsessed with wilderness and nature). Later on I got into writing (stories/poems), and when I was about 15 or 16 my Dad taught me to play the guitar. Inevitably enough this lead to me writing songs. But right from day one of learning my first guitar chord I was recording everything I did. It wasn’t long before I was mixing weird noises with my songs and I spent much of my 20s (the 1990s) making hybrid song/noise albums that I released on my cassette label Wire Bridge (The ‘Sirens’ CD on Last Visible Dog is a collection of some of the best of this stuff). It was also during this period that I discovered that I wasn’t the only person in the world who was doing this stuff. NZ labels like Metonymic and Xpressway became big influences. Around 2000 I had something of a ‘post structuralist’ crisis. I lost faith in ‘the word’. Haha. This lead to me focussing far more on instrumental and drone and noise based works than previously. Basically I no longer felt comfortable employing words in my art.. It was also around this time that I started playing live on a regular basis. I had been very shy and insecure about putting myself ‘out there’ previous to this. It was strange really, one day I simply woke up and that insecurity was gone and it never came back. (Recently I’ve started writing the odd song again (albeit with as spare a use of words as possible..)). Anyway since 2000 I have been doing music semi-professionally. Touring, doing sound installations, making records and running my new label (PseudoArcana). I have several different on-going solo projects, as well as many collaborative ones. The common threads linking these projects- for me-are an interest in ecstatic states and musics; a reverence for ‘place’ (trying to draw out or represent the feeling of being in a specific environment); a fascination with textures (I like the rough rumble of tape); and the aspiration to play hands-on instruments in a sort of calligraphic gestural manner..

I saw you twice recently; once with Campbell Kneale for Birchville Cat Motel at This Is Not Art Festival in Newcastle, and once at Serial Space in Sydney performing a live set of your solo material. Both were exceptional performances. How different do you find it to collaborate with another musician than it is to perform your own music?

Thanks! I think in Campbells interview for you he might have pointed out that the Newcastle show was actually meant to be billed as With Throats As Fine As Needles? That’s our ongoing duo where in we basically set up a single one note drone and sing over the top. For records we traipse out to bunkers and caves etc with battery operated gear and make use of the natural reverberant acoustics of those spaces. When playing live we make our own caves and bunkers from electronics! In answer to your question I find playing with other people a lot more ‘fun’. Playing layered electric music solo can sometimes be a bit like juggling – trying to keep all the balls in the air without the dynamic crashing to the floor.. In a duo it is at least twice as easy to keep the dynamic up where you want it. Playing solo is a lot more intense. That’s not necessarily a bad thing of course. I get a great deal of satisfaction from the intimacy of solo performance. When playing with others the energy interchange is primarily with the person/people you are playing with. When playing solo it is necessarily between yourself and the audience.

On both occasions, but particularly at Serial Space, you seem to have quite an intricate set-up. Would you like to talk about what equipment and instruments you use during your performances?

My set up for doing sets like that live has evolved so gradually over the years that it still seems fairly rudimentary to me… But yes, there are a lot of gadgets employed. My father-in-law actually came along to one of the shows on the tour. Hes 79 and I’m not sure that he actually listens to ANY music for pleasure. Ha. I had something of an insight into how bewildering my set up must look to others when I was trying to explain to him what all the different bits did. The Serial Space show was mainly guitar and effects. Wah, reverbs etc. Having a hands on expressive instrument is really important for me when I play. I used vary-speed cassette walkmans to play tapes of field recordings. I layered rubbed and e-bowed guitar strings using a loop pedal. (This looping pedal also has ‘beats’ on it. Over the years I have had some disasters in shows when I would accidentally turn the beats on. Recently though I have decided to embrace them.) I had an sk1 sampling keyboard that I was using to drop in synth like pulses of sound, and for further drones. I had a contact mic’d caster wheel that I was running through a distortion pedal. This caster wheel is the new addition to the set up. I’m not sure that I’ve got it working right yet.. The idea is that I will spin it and it will make this huge grrrrggghhhrrrrrrrr sound- kind of like as a noise interjection. But despite it working really well at home it didn’t really do its thing at any of the shows. So instead of using it for that I discovered that I can fit it in my mouth and sing through it. Haha. (I find that singing- or howling perhaps..- is actually one of the best ways of getting ‘into the zone’ when one plays.) Everything runs through a small cheap 12 channel mixer that also has cheesy built in effects that I can play about with.

And what about what equipment and instruments you use to record with? Is it different from what you use to perform live with or is it pretty similar?

Different projects have radically different set ups… Mostly when recording I play only one instrument at a time and build up layers through careful crafting. My live shows are far more chaotic than my records. They are truly improvised and tend to range across different feelings and modes of playing. As a result I actually release a lot of live things because that is like a recording project in its own right. In my recordings I’m kind of on two diverging paths at the current moment. On the one side I’ve been trying to make the loudest heaviest and most intense psychedelic guitar noise records that I can. Layers and layers of feedback and guitar riffs with pseudo-techno beats.. So its almost like ‘pop’ noise or something. That’s really fun. On the other hand I’ve also been doing a series of records where I go camping somewhere for a week or so and try to make a record about the place where I am. For example I recently spent a week in a small village at Arthurs Pass in the mountains of the South Island where I made a banjo record. (Admittedly it only sounds like banjo some of the time..) Anyway these records tend to be a lot more nuanced and subtle and more aligned with say haiku than spectacular bombast.

How did you find the shows in Australia, were they enjoyable?

I think this last tour in Australia was maybe the best tour yet. It was really very fun. I found myself laughing a lot and I was happy with the shows and got to see some killer performances from other folk as well.

What do you have planned for the future?

Well…. Theres some big changes happening actually. My girlfriend and I are flying off to Sth America in March where we are planning on travelling together for one year. I’m taking some basic recording gear and have been talking about a few possible shows in Argentina but ostensibly 2009 is a year off music. Certainly off the label at any rate. So before then I am busy trying to finish off the various records I’m working on and packing up my NZ life. I’m already excited though about getting back into playing and touring in 2010. I also have ideas for some big installation projects that I would like to work on.

The following short clip is from a solo show of Antony’s at Sydney’s Serial Space. The night also featured Inappropriate Tough Guy Behaviour, Seaworthy, Brassskulls and Birchville Cat Motel:

Links: Antony Milton, PseudoArcana, Our Love Will Destroy the World, Sound&Fury, CPSIP

Related articles: Interview with Campbell Kneale of Birchville Cat Motel

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Filed under: Antony Milton, Birchville Cat Motel, Campbell Kneale, PseudoArcana, Serial Space, Special Features, This is Not Art, With Throats As Fine As Needles

Rollaroll Interview With Campbell Kneale

Campbell Kneale has been performing under the name Birchville Cat Motel for over a decade. Earlier this month, Kneale performed his last shows throughout Australia and New Zealand as Birchville Cat Motel before he moves on to his next project called Our Love Will Destroy the Earth (incidentally, the title of one of his Birchville Cat Motel Records). In the first of a series of interviews with musicians for ROLLAROLL, I spoke with Kneale about things like his last shows, performing live, influences and the recording industry. Read the interview below:

You recently just performed your last shows under the moniker Birchville Cat Motel, how did that feel?

FanFUCKINGtastic. Im so glad that its over and that I can start afresh. I really feel like its going to be so much more productive for me. I seemed to bump into so many people on tour who were so comiseratory about the whole ‘end of Birchville’ thing… like they expected me to be really bummed about the whole deal or something. I’m not. Im delighted. Fuck Birchville.

I saw two of your last Birchville Cat Motel performances; one with Antony Milton at This Is Not Art Festival in Newcastle, and your solo stint at Serial Space in Sydney. Both were amazing performances, but there were quite notable differences between them. I saw Domenico Sciajno give a talk after his show for This Is Not Art, and he stated that he had to adjust his sound to the noisy environment in which he performed. Are you subject to changing or adapting your sound to the environment in which you perform in?

Not really. My solo performances are loud. If the room is noisy… i play louder. Easy. I tried my best to specify a large PA for BCM shows and tried my best to get promoters to put me on in places that were going to be appropriate for maximum volume shows. However, every now and then you turn up in a venue and the PA is about the size of a couple of laptop speakers and rather than smoke the poor sad little thing I’ll would try and bend to accommodate its meagre output.

However, when me and Antony play together its a totally different thing with a very defined agenda. Strangely, we were supposed to be performing together under our duo name, With Throats As Fine As Needles. When we turned up to Electrofringe we found we were billed as Birchville so I guess a whole bunch of people went away with a rather twisted impression of what constitutues Birchville Cat Motel. Its wasnt a very ‘Birchville’ performance at all. The Serial Space show WAS Birchville… sand-blasted dronerawk and shamanic lung-shread. With Throats As Fine As Needles gives no thought to ideas like ‘continuity’ or ‘style’ other than instrumentation (which in our case is primarily our voices) so each space holds the criteria for an entirely new performance. Yes, we respond… but only because we give no real thought to performing, we simply play with the resources we have available.

What equipment do you use to perform live with?

Oh dear oh dear… You are merely a novice in the ways of this dark magic and as such are not yet privvy to such powerful, galaxy-ripping secrets. Even Antony Milton only knows a secret handshake or two. Yet verily I say unto thee, gear maketh not the rockstar.

On your MySpace account, you list Black Metal as one of the genres your music participates in. The influence of Black Metal seems to me most apparent on a record of yours like Bird Sister Blasphemy, but how do you account for the influence on records like Gunpowder Temple of Heaven?

I dont account for the influence. I like all sorts of music and count them all as influences. The Wedding Present, Cheap Trick, Striborg, Angus MacLise, Brian Eno, Neu!, Ethiopian psyche, The Carter Family, The Stone Roses, Albert Ayler, Van Halen, Henri Gorecki… i can hear it all in the music. I find it curious how easily people latch on to labels… even ‘underground music types’ who you think would not be so eager to do such a thing. Metal is the new Wolf Eyes. Everybodys doing it. Everybodys waffling on about doom and death and black… people are so boring. I find black metal attractive as it is probably the most ‘experimental’ kind of metal… its raw and utterly unforgiving yet more about atmosphere than technique. It manages to transcend its own metal-ness and become something else entirely.

Gunpowder Temple of Heaven has nothing to do with black metal… its more like ‘Loveless’ meets ‘Rime of The Ancient Mariner’.

Our Love Will Destroy the World is the name of one of your Birchville Cat Motel records. What was it that drew you to this title, and why have you chosen it as your new moniker?

Titles float in and out of my head in a constant and random fashion… sometimes I manage to retain them for long enough to write them down. That was one that didnt get away. As per usual it holds all the ingredients of my own definition a good title… resonance, mystery, power, fuckedupness.

I felt like it was a good idea to reference my past work, after all, Our Love Will Destroy The World while being something different for me is not THAT different on a surface level to BCM. In fact you’d have to be some kinda autistic mathematical genius to be able to hear the difference at all. The new project is a transformation of ATTITUDE rather than anything to do with music… a new work ethic, a new ‘point’ and a new chapter for me rather than a whole new book. Our Love Will Destroy The World was the title that seemed most appropriate. Like so much of what I do ‘I just like it’. Its not that deep really. Sorry. Ha.

In a recent post of yours, you’ve told us that you intend to release the majority of your work in the future on analogue mediums (vinyl and cassette) only. What are your views on the recording industry at the moment?

Well, I have very little to do with the recording industry personally. Like many of the ‘cdr brigade’ I really only work via ‘gentlemens agreements’ with small labels, run by individuals who, almost without exception, are very kind, honest people. Friends in fact.

For what its worth though by means of observation, the ‘recording industry’ has never really been less relevant. Certainly to me, but i sense perhaps also for the entire ‘record buying public’… which less face it is dwindling to almost nothing… who BUYS records released by labels who could be considered ‘industry’ anymore? I feel like we are reaching another 1977… a bloated, geriatric record industry that has been feeding off the whole compact disc farce for 20-plus years (sorry, when did you say CDs were going to become cheaper?) and now they are getting the big ‘fuck you’ that they deserve. The global monoculturalism and predominance of hip-hop says it all… there has never been a form of music MORE popular that has had LESS to say. The industry deserves everything they get.

Lastly, when will we hear the first Our Love Will Destroy the World release?

Soon.

Links: Antony Milton, CPSIP, Electrofringe, Our Love Will Destroy the Earth, This is Not Art

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Filed under: Birchville Cat Motel, Black Metal, Interviews, Special Features