Music, musings and miscellanea

This interview originally appeared as an online Conversation at Exclaim.ca. Polaroid by Eldorado Bandung.

Four years after having a trio of their tracks chosen for Sophia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette soundtrack, and over a year and a half after initial rumblings of its existence, Sweden’s the Radio Dept. have finally released their third studio album Clinging to a Scheme. With the new record, the band continue to experiment with the shimmering pop sound laid out on 2006′s Pet Grief, honing their songwriting while incorporating a wide range of influences into the music. But while they’ve spent plenty of time hunkered down in their home studio, according to Johan Duncanson they’re not the reclusive perfectionists many might take them for.

So what took you so long to put out this record?
I got tired really quickly with the songs we were recording so I kept writing and recording new ones all the time. If we don’t finish a song really fast after starting to record it, we never finish it. So we haven’t been polishing sounds for three or four years. We’ve just been writing new material. In August we had 120 or 130 songs; some were just basic sketches and some were nearly finished. But none of them were completely done. We could have kept on working forever because we do everything at home. There’s no one who can tell us, “Guys you should finish this.” We took the 12 or 15 songs that were on the list at the moment and decided we have to finish these songs and wouldn’t allow ourselves to write any new ones until they were done. Then we wrote one new song.

Which was the new song?
The last song to be added to the album was “Never Follow Suit.”

In the past you’ve released a lot of EPs in between your full-lengths. Why didn’t you do that this time around?
We love singles and EPs, or anything short. But we like albums as well and people care about albums much more than they care about singles for some reason. We had been working on it for so long that instead of just continuously releasing singles, we wanted to get an album out there. That’s what counts in a way. Most people aren’t that impressed with a new single. But as soon as you release an album they start caring. I don’t know why.

Once again you’ve self-produced this record. What is it about producers you don’t like?
I have a hard time compromising and it took me years just to be able to compromise with Martin [Larsson]. So letting someone else make decisions… I think about the band all the time and I don’t think I could give away that control to someone else. I would just be really hard to work with. It wouldn’t be good.

So you don’t have anything against other bands who use producers?
No. I mean, I’ve said that sometimes, but no. Of course not. It’s just me and my sick mind.

You’ve also said that your influences are very fluid. Which records inspired Clinging to a Scheme?
There’s so many. I should email you a list of 150 bands and artist to give you a correct list of influences on this album. At the beginning when we released the first album we mentioned My Bloody Valentine and the Jesus and Mary Chain. Since then every review, even if we released a single that sounds like Prefab Sprout, we’d read My Bloody Valentine and the Jesus and Mary Chain in most magazines. If I can’t name like 70 bands I try not to mention any. We’ve been listening to a lot of ’60s soul, even if you can ‘t hear it and a lot of lover’s rock from the ’80s and old-school hip-hop that you can hear in some tracks where we’ve used drum loops, the late ’80s, early ’90s stuff. And of course a lot of anti-Thatcher pop from the UK like Style Council, they’re a huge influence. And even cheesy commercial music from the early ’90s like Ace of Base and I love Midi Maxi & Efti.

You mentioned 80s lover’s rock and you just covered a Sade track for the “Heaven’s On Fire” B-side.
Yeah, I love Sade.

Since they put out their new album I feel like all these closeted Sade fans have come out of the woodwork.
Yeah. She must be almost 50 now, or 45 at least.

You’ve incorporated spoken word samples in both “Never Follow Suit” and “Heaven’s On Fire.”
A lot of my favourite records have weird voice samples like that. Like the early Saint Etienne albums Foxbase Alpha and So Tough. When we started out we used a lot of field recordings, birds, traffic, parties… so it’s kind of the same idea in a way, just to place the music somewhere in a real situation. I don’t know, I’m just thinking out loud here. But I like the way it sounds. We can really identify with what Thurston Moore is saying in “Heaven on Fire.” And also the sample we used in “Never Follow Suit,” which is from this graffiti artist called Skeme, whose one of the graffiti pioneers in this film Style Wars, just talking about why he’s doing what he’s doing. It was really easy to relate to his approach to art.

Where did the Thurston Moore sample come from?
It’s from a film called 1991: The Year Punk Broke that we used to watch a lot when we grew up.

The Dave Markey one with Nirvana and Dinosaur Jr?
Yeah. One day I was just thinking about that quote. I don’t know where the idea to use it came from, but it just popped up. I guess it was one of those just before going to sleep moments.

The Radio Dept. – Heaven’s On Fire

Previously on If the Musics Loud Enough:

Record Review: The Radio Dept. -  “Clinging to a Scheme”

Back in 2005, I spent a year working as the assistant for a musician’s manager in Vancouver. His main client, Carey Ott, put out a fantastic record called Lucid Dream the following year that was staggeringly overlooked. Carey’s currently trying to raise funds to record his new double album Human Heart.

He’s got demos posted over here. If you like what you hear, you can pledge $$ to the project. In return Carey’s got a sliding scale of gifts that range from the finished disc all the way up to a house party with Carey providing the entertainment.

Obviously I have a connection to this project, but I do think Carey’s quite great, so you can take that into consideration. Just thought I’d let y’all know it’s like, a thing.

“Daylight”

“I Wouldn’t Do That to You”

This review and interview originally appeared at Exclaim.ca

It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years since the New Pornographers burst onto the scene. It’s even harder to believe that Carl Newman and company are able to change things up with each record, given the narrow box they created for themselves back with 2000′s Mass Romantic. Fifth album Together mixes thoughtful power pop riffing with a whole lot of cellos. On “A Bite Out of My Bed,” the instrument shreds like a guitar, propelling the track while a beautiful violin line cuts in-between Newman’s verses. Of course, the group’s trademark harmonies are all over the record, peppered in-between vocal turns from Dan Bejar (“Silver Jenny Dollar,” “If You Can’t See My Mirrors”), Kathryn Calder (“Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk”) and Neko Case (“My Shepherd”). Together is a more muscular album than 2007′s Challengers, blending the visceral punch of the band’s debut and the musical ambition of Twin Cinemas. Members of the Dap Kings, Okkervil River’s Will Sheff and St. Vincent’s Annie Clark all offer musical contributions, but none of these indie impresarios overshadow the core group; unsung heroes Kurt Dahle, John Collins and Todd Fancey play like one giant, united instrument. Combined with the group’s all-star vocalists, the band sound as fresh and hungry as they did a decade ago.

New Pornographers – You’re Hands (Together)

There are strings all over the record. What inspired this?
Carl Newman: It’s mainly cello. A lot of it comes from the Move and ELO. I’ve always loved the cello as a rock instrument. Sometimes in the past when we’ve thought, “let’s bring in a string quartet,” I always want to turn everything down. I’m thinking, “too much violin, too much viola, crank up that cello. Too much double bass, get rid of that.” This time, we cut to the chase. Our friends play violin and cello, so let’s get them to be our string section. And it seemed to work very well for us. We’re more of a rock band. It’s interesting to try and use strings in a rock context. I always think Roy Wood’s cello playing in the Move is the most classic rock cello. I even love whoever played guitar in the Creation ― that crazy sound he would get when he would bow his guitar. I always thought, “‘Makin’ Time,’ that’s the most screeching rock sound.”

Have you thought about how you’re going to recreate this live?
We’re bringing them along live. I just started listening to it and thought, “We have to have a cello player.” When you’re a big band like us, you don’t want to keep expanding, but we couldn’t really fire another person. At the minimum we need to have a cello player. I think we’re going to have a few people play with us.

You also brought in quite a few guest musicians: Annie Clark from St. Vincent, Will Sheff from Okkervil River and Ted Leo.
The Ted Leo thing; we were mixing and he had just finished his record with Phil [Palazzolo], who produced our record. He was making last minute changes to his record. I think it was me, Dan and Kathryn in the studio, in the room where Ted was working on ProTools. That was how Ted Leo got on the record and was later cut because that song got knocked off the record.

Will it see life as a B-side?
I was thinking of making it a B-side, but then I decided I wanted to rework it slightly, which happens sometimes. It’s actually a song I really like. Maybe it will be on an EP or maybe it will be on the next album.

Does that happen a lot for you, where songs get held over and end up on the subsequent record?
They don’t really. Occasionally it does. Usually if they get hung over there was something about it I didn’t like and I’ll just rewrite it. Like the song “These are the Fables,” which ended up being one of my favourite songs from Twin Cinemas. Half of that song was from Electric Version. It was a song from Electric Version that I cut because I thought it was unfocused. I just took it apart and thought, “What’s great about this song?” A funny thing about Twin Cinema, even though a lot of people consider it our best record, when I look back on it there’s about four songs on it that were built from scraps of Electric Version songs that didn’t work. I think that was “These are the Fables,” “Falling Through Your Clothes” and, I think, even some of “The Jessica Numbers.”

Why did you feel the need to bring in other people when you’ve already got such a large band?
It was near the end when were thinking these songs need something else. Like the song “My Shepherd,” we were working on it and thought, “This needs a really cool solo.” It was one of those songs where there was a solo section, but we hadn’t figured out the solo yet. Phil had just worked with Annie [Clark from St. Vincent] on something, so he sent her that song and she came in the next day. It was the same thing with Zach [Condon] from Beirut. We’d had the Dap Kings come in and do all these horns, but there was one song near the end that I still wanted to get trumpet on. So I called him up and then he came in the next day and he did it. That’s the cool thing about recording in New York; it’s a collecting place for so many people.

Was this the first time you’d had this kind of experience, bringing in a lot of outside musicians?
Yeah, I guess it was. It was the first time where the other people we brought in happened to be people from popular bands.

With such a large group, do you feel pressure to give everyone a chance to shine on a record?
To a certain degree. I’ve always wanted it to be seamless, like it seems like more of a group. Kathryn will be singing, but then three of us will be singing and then maybe Neko will come in. I’ve always wanted it to be more like that, as opposed to “This is a Neko song, this is a Dan song, this is a Carl song.” And maybe sometimes people listen to it and it sounds like that. But it gets strange when you’ve got four or five singers and only 12 songs on an album. And that’s something that will keep us from achieving Coldplay levels of popularity, because unless you’re the Beatles, I think people like there to be one singer in the band. Or maybe two is acceptable.

Why do you think that is?
I think a really casual listener just wants to listen to one person singing. I don’t think they want it to change very much stylistically. I think the average listener is content to go, “I paid ten bucks for this record and I want one thing.” I think it’s only when you get into music obsessives that you get into “Has there style evolved enough?”

Via the Vancouver Sun

Devon Clifford, drummer for Abbotsford, BC’s You Say Party! We Say Die! passed away this morning after collapsing onstage during a show at the Rickshaw Theatre in Vancouver Friday night. Spinner is reporting he suffered a brain hemorrhage. Our thoughts are with his friends and family.

“There is XXXX Within My Heart”

This story originally appeared at Chartattack.com

Growing might just have the most apropos name in music.

Over the course of a decade, the Brooklyn, N.Y. band have evolved from a doom-metal-esque duo to their current incarnation as a noise-rock trio.

“We evolve based on our interests,” says group co-founder Joe DeNardo. “That’s how everything goes with us.”

Their latest album, Pumps, out last week on Vice Records, showcases the group’s latest sonic shift, incorporating a newfound interest in heavy rhythms.

“A lot of that is that Kevin [Doria] has just gotten really good at programming his drum machine,” DeNardo says.

“[In the studio] we try to be as free as possible because we end up finding new processes and ways to shape a song. The more we practice and play the songs they change and evolve. Then we hit the studio and they change again. It’s almost like they’re never perfectly finished.”

Although the record was tracked in a matter of days, conflicting schedules created a six-month gap between the initial sessions and a finished product. This gave the band time to rethink several songs on the album.

“There were songs that we weren’t sure if they were going to make the record,” he says. “The gap gave us a lot of time to listen and go back and make changes that we probably wouldn’t have otherwise.”

The song “Challenger” is a prime example. The trio stripped away all of its elements except for the basic drum track then rebuilt the entire song from there.

“We were a lot more excited about it once it was redone,” DeNardo says.

The extra time also gave DeNardo and Doria a chance to figure out where new member Sadie Laska fit in.

Laska, best known for her work in I.U.D. with Gang Gang Dance’s Lizzi Bougatsos, was a friend of the band’s prior to joining. DeNardo explains that he and Doria weren’t looking to expand the line-up, but, “We could tell from what she was doing with I.U.D. that she was on the same wavelength that we were and that she could add more raw, crazier stuff.”

That raw and crazy stuff, coupled with a heavier emphasis on rhythm moves the trio’s sound in the direction of similar noise purveyors like HEALTH and Fuck Buttons, both bands who have experienced significant ascents in popularity.

But DeNardo says he can’t tell if there’s a general shift in popular interest towards experimental bands.

“I don’t have a great grip on it,” he says. “We’ve been a band for so long and I feel like we have a fairly steady crowd. It doesn’t seem to fluctuate up or down that much.

“It does seem like there are more popular bands that employ crazier sounds. But I can’t really tell why or how or who. Mostly I just respond to what my friends and peers say and they’ve been pretty stable throughout the years.”

“Challenger”