Chapter II: New Ground's Acquired

NEW GROUND’S ACQUIRED!!

Documenting a dramatic and inspiring new episode in underground and avant-garde music, driven by an eclectic community of artists.

INTERVIEWS, ILLUSTRATIONS AND PROPAGANDA WITH:

Matt Loveridge – E B U – The Naturals – Scalping – Wenonoah SLONK – Timedance – Kayla Painter – Yama Warashi – John Bence and more..

COLLAGE (ROUGH AT BASE)

II

CHAPTER II NEW GROUND’S ACQUIRED!!

DRAW CLOSE, dear friends…

LISTEN (Amazed and Inspired) To the PREVIOUSLY-UNTOLD STORY of a Vibrant, Eclectic group of ARTISTIC GENIUSES,

Bound together as a COMMUNITY of

Friends and Equals in the city of BRISTOL.

THIS ILLUSTRATED MUSIC MAGAZINE Documents and Promotes this exciting new moment in underground and avant-garde music, driven by a community of artists creating worldbeating records and shows, united by a fierce DIY ethic.

This document is comprised of

THE STORY SO FAR…

IN-DEPTH INTERVIEWS with the

(ALASTAIR SHUTTLEWORTH: CREATOR & EDITOR)

Cast of Characters driving this epoch,

…is (once again) complicated, being comprised of many different projects and voices over the course of seven-or-so years. As it evades a clear ‘narrative’, this story will be told through a series of everintertwining interviews with the characters involved. Chapter I: The Noble Crusade Begins!! introduced two catalyzing influences which emerged at the start of the decade: The Young Echo Collective (who ushered in a new wave of avant-garde electronic music) and Howling Owl Records (whose DIY maverick-heroics saw them turn from local pariahs into a lynchpin for the city’s new guitar music). These events helped nurture an eclectic new community of artists, many of whom were introduced in Chapter I: IDLES, Giant Swan, Spectres, The Iceman Furniss Quintet, Jesuits etc.

However, these were merely strands in the wider story, and Chapter II presents many more:

ORIGINAL ARTWORK by the city’s best illustrators and FOUR MANIFESTOS outlining iniquities

While this ‘moment’ can be most appositely traced to the start of the decade, some of its defining artists began making music much earlier. In 2002 Matt Loveridge began releasing music as Team Brick; as his identity gradually split into a collection of experimental projects (MXLX, Fairhorns, Gnar Hest etc.), he became a crucial influence on emerging projects such as Jesuits and Oliver Wilde.

Around this time, four local twelve-year-olds also formed The Naturals, developing by the turn of the decade into a remarkable experimental band (later spawning the side-project Giant Swan). Howling Owl were also by no means the only important label to emerge early in the decade, with Stolen Body Records also rising to prominence. With its reputation as a cultural hub growing, many new projects were drawn to the city from further afield. DJ Batu moved to Bristol and came under the wing of veteran producers Pinch and Peveralist, eventually creating leftfield dance-music label Timedance.

Experimental producer Kayla Painter moved to the city from Newport and quickly rose to acclaim; after seeing one of her stunning AV productions, James Rushforth asked her visual collaborator Jason Baker to also work with his new live-techno band, SCALPING. Bristol’s new music was also shaped by new artists from other countries, including Yoshino Shigihara (first of Zun Zun Egui, then of Yama Warashi) and EP/64’s Dali De Saint Paul. The local universities churned out new bands including Iyabe, LICE and Van Zeller, while the city also welcomed daring new experimental projects such as ‘flesh pop’ artist Wenonoah, confrontational noise duo Bad Tracking and classical composer John Bence. With the arrival of new faces, many of the early-2010s ‘old guard’ also began to embark on new projects. Oliver Wilde formed ORO Swimming Hour with Nicholas Stevenson; Skeleton Frames’ Emily Isherwood and Taos Humm’s Edward Penfold pursued solo projects, as did Let’s Kill Janice’s Joe Sherrin and Joe Groves (named, respectively, SLONK and The Ornsteins). As these artists pursued various forms of folk-based guitar music, folk artist E B U began to move towards a dark, electronic project employing elements of performance art. This was all increasingly documented by photographers such as Simon Holliday, with local DIY radio station NOODS providing a platform for the community to play and share new music.

I made this magazine out of a genuine belief that if this remarkable moment in music were properly promoted, it could transform this country’s cultural landscape irreversibly. I am the only ‘writer’, but almost every interview was done by email, so that the interviewees’ crucially different voices remained as unmediated by my own as possible. There are no page numbers, to discourage readers from flipping to/over specific interviews; they are all connected, and must all be read. Artists are included if I think the public should know about them, regardless of whether they care about the publicity.

As I write, copies Chapter I sit in homes across the planet (Tokyo, New York, Berlin etc.) and the Germ is about to hold its first showcase in London. However, Chapter II is interested in the acquisition of more than mere geographical ‘ground’. I hope that this document and these shows will help establish a fruitful place for this community in the fabric of popular culture. I hope that this tome finds itself prized in the hands of strangers. I hope that YOU, the reader, will be infuriated by what has been hitherto hidden from you by the mainstream music press, but find this despair defeated by the hopefulness which fills the art, stories and insights of these magical people. I hope that you will demand more, seek more, and do your bit to share and spread this music. I hope you enjoy reading.

which influenced this magazine.

ENJOY, ABSORB, BE ENLIGHTENED.

LIST OF IMMORTALS The Naturals Scalping EBU Yama Warashi (Manifesto 5: Enlightenment) Bad Tracking Timedance SLONK John Bence (Manifesto 6: Hostile Press) Oro Swimming Hour Emily Isherwood Stolen Body LICE EP/64 (Manifesto 7: London) Kayla Painter Wenonoah Edward Penfold NOODS Radio Simon Holliday (Manifesto 8: Ground) Van Zeller Iyabe The Ornsteins Matt Loveridge

(INDEX)

THE NATURALS EXPERIMENTAL ART-ROCK Members: Robin Stewart, Harry Wright, Felix Drake, Ky Witney Illustrations: Harry Wright

I have frequently called your debut album Hive one of the first true masterpieces of the 21 century, and when people ask me to recommend music from Bristol, The Naturals are the first band I tell them to listen to.

However, I always struggle to actually describe your music to them beyond ‘experimental artrock’, and end up asking them to imagine a mix of Blood Sport, TIE-fighters and Optimus Prime beating the shit out of a whale.

How would you describe your sound, and how important is experimentation to the project? st

Ky Witney: I have no idea really... I don’t like describing our music, it would take less time to go listen to it.

Harry Wright: Our sound has developed through experimentation, and it’s as a result of that that our sound is formed, pooling influence from all different kinds of music.

Felix Drake: Hive in particular came from experimenting and improvising, trying to play around with what we had.

HW: A lot of that is maybe a result of us being together for so long, so the sounds are quite diverse and all over the place because it’s pretty much factoring all that we’ve listened to over 12/13 years of being in a band together.

KW: I don’t think it feels like we’re trying to be deliberately experimental while we’re writing. For me, it’s a cliché, but we’re just writing what we want to write. It’s just that things that haven’t been done to death already… sound better.

FD: Everyone does it individually- we’re not consciously experimenting but we will spend 20-30 minutes not talking and just going “blep blep blep” Robin Stewart: And I guess that’s experimenting for us. We still write songs, and the songs on Hive are very song-y in comparison to our tunes now which take a lot more from nominally experimental music.

I’ve always been quite wary of the term experimental, in the same way as I am of the term ‘alternative’ - what are we the alternative to? Coming out of writing Hive, and looking at experimentation being key to the process, I mean… it’s just our process. It’s not capital E experimentation.

A crucial element of The Naturals is that you don’t use synths or electronics. With a very simple guitar-band setup, using a set of very rudimentary effects pedals, you create these very robotic, electronic sounds. Why do you deliberately not use synthesisers?

RS: It just sounds better- it doesn’t sound like what you’ve heard before. There was that tropical thing where everyone was just using those little delays and stuff, and that was the homogenised pop version that everyone was into, it’s just a massively dislocated version of that really.

FD: At that point we weren’t in the position to buy synths anyway. That came from only being able to slowly accrue gear - we were still in school and didn’t have any money.

HW: A lot of it comes down to the fact that we started as a rock band; essentially that hasn’t changed, but what has is the form that it takes. With the tools we had to make music, relatively speaking, in a rock band were only going to go so far. Experimenting came from limitations and the fact that we all know each other so well. The synth thing maybe came down to an aesthetic thing at the time, but we weren’t trying to be a synth band, otherwise we’d buy synths. We’re influenced by music using synthesisers and weird sounds, but we never wanted to directly use them.

FD: Part of the fun is trying to find these sounds in the instruments we have, and using individual elements to build up a sound between us.

RS: With Hive we were really into MBV, wall of sound, ultravolume and this huge physical sound-world. And we’re still interested in that as a concept but now it’s about being more forensic with the sounds that we use. Now it’s more similar to techno and more austere music because there’s less going on, but the sounds are a lot more focused and you hear the unorthodox element as being the focus now.

KW: What I really like is that it does enable us to be more integrated into a diverse scene. I’d like to think we’re not just a guitar band that can only sit with guitar bands, we can do shows with a lot of different people.

What kind of affinity do you see The Naturals as having with electronic acts from Bristol?

HW: We operate in similar circles, play many of the same gigs, and draw from similar pools of influence. A lot of it comes down to a community thing, helping each other out with various projects.

FD: Everyone all likes the same music. Not being closeminded, thinking of it as an elitist group scene or something, everyone wants to hear what you’ve got to play, and everyone’s down with every style.

RS: We were, I’d say, instrumental for our age group at the time, bringing together groups who wouldn’t hang out. We’ve been friends with Joe and Ade since after they started HO, and we were already hanging out with the Young Echo people, and it was just going to happen. It’s to everyone’s credit to enrich their experience of the scene, it’d be boring if nobody knew what was going on.

HW: It’s nice to try to break the wall between the ‘rock’ and ‘dance’ music scenes, and there’s actually so much similarity in the approach to the music.

FD: And everyone’s supportive, there’s no rivalry. It’s more of a social and geographical split in terms of where the gigs are and who people know.

HW: Sometimes you need a gig with a bit of a weird line-up to emphasise that, it’s important to keep that dialog going, rather than ‘one camp does this and the other does that’.

RS: Going back to when we were first joining up with HO, and before, that was the first time we were hearing a lot of music that’s going places now, and that’s been really exciting. We were privileged enough to have Vessel mix our album, and he was really instrumental to that process, as hard as it was for him having to put up with us.

You formed the band when you were all about twelve years old, playing indie-rock in the style of artists like Bloc Party; you once told me you all queued up to have them sign your copies of Silent Alarm. As you grew up together, what particular records/bands guided you from that to the incredibly unique sound you have today?

RS: That was So Here We Are , before the album came out!

KW: That’s true! Know your knowledge Alastair.

HW: This interview is over.

RS: ‘I Love to Love’ by Tina Charles. That was our tour jam for several years.

KW: Tina Charles pretty much covers it. Everyone generally listens to quite different music.

RS: I suppose MBV would be one of those bands that everyone thought was really important, and we can learn… not learn but…

FD: Copy RS: Basically yeah! In the same way that bands like Bloc Party were important to us – we used to cover ‘Helicopter’ back when it came out – and we all really loved that sound. I think MBV is the only one that stands out to me in quite the same way.

HW: It was less that MBV had a sound we wanted to rip off, but it’s what they represented in that they did something in a way that nobody else was doing really.

FD: However many years it’s been, it’s too long to pinpoint certain bands, but we went through many genres that we wanted to emulate in some way… I suppose it was indie first, post-rock, math-rock, then shoegaze.

HW: We’ve also all always been into – broadly – ‘metal’, so that’s been pretty consistent.

FD: Let’s just leave it at Tina Charles.

What sort of music were you exposed to in Bristol when you were growing up here, and did it have any significant influence on your own music?

FD: I suppose Clumsy were our first major influence locally, they were sort of our mentors when we were first starting out.

RS: There wasn’t really a scene that we were exposed to when we started, bands at school I guess.

KW: Yeah I’m sure there was a scene but we were just too young for it back then.

RS: For me it wasn’t until we had a bit of rep for being the band that didn’t split up in Bristol, that I started thinking that, you know… we’re not enough to be the scene- we need something to be a part of. And when HO first came about, that was the first time that we fitted in to something, and it was because we were allowed to be different.

FD: There was often that influx of various styles you’d encounter doing gigs with other bands, but HO was the first thing which really caught on.

RS: There was BSM back in the day, and when they were putting out Secondsmile, Meet Me In St. Louis etc., that had everyone’s attention but again we were too young to be able to tour like that and so on.

HW: From the HO scene, those were the first bands we really played with which drove us to better ourselves. That’s not to say that all the bands we played with beforehand weren’t as good or anything, but bands like Towns & Spectres blew us away.

RS: We finally felt like we were on the same wavelength as other bands.

HW: Just playing with bands who were constantly outdoing us, drove us to do better.

It’s my understanding that Hive was a very difficult spending about three years in birth, production/hibernation before finally being released on Howling Owl in November 2015; fans can find an (excellent) early version of ‘Its Teeth’ on Youtube which dates all the way back to April 2013. Just how long ago did you write these songs, and how was that album originally conceived?

KW: I guess 2011 would be when we first started talking seriously about it. We had this bunch of songs and I remember thinking “are we going to run with these songs we’ve had for a few years already, or should we scrap them and start fresh”, and thankfully we scrapped them. Except Cold People.

HW: Cold People probably goes back to around 2008.

RS: Cold People & Planet Potential I remember as being the first “album” tunes, they would be the first album demos really, which we did with Mark Gardener in Oxford. We had a few demos before that but I don’t think we considered them as “album” material.

FD: From start to finish, starting writing to mastering the record, would probably be about 5 or 6 years. The mixing process in itself was about 9 months long.

KW: It is a long time, but it’s not that we couldn’t agree on what we wanted to do during that time, it’s more that we all agreed that it wasn’t ready.

RS: It was also that the whole design and concept for the album was being pieced together at the same time, I mean, we didn’t know how to write a fucking album.

We had the worst writer’s block when we first started on it, it took a long time to settle on what we wanted.

KW: The part of the writing process that took the longest, I think, was that once we had all the songs written in a general sense, we spent months going over them all. Tweaking, editing and manipulating each one, and considering it in terms of its relevance to the album as a whole. Over the time that it took us to put everything together, we’d all been listening to different music and gaining new influences, and a part of that whole editing stage was doing our best not to impose those new influences or ideas onto the songs too much, but rather to save them for new music.

Two years on, how do you feel about that album?

Is there a track of which you’re especially proud?

HW: We’re still learning from it, and our reactions to it still change all the time.

FD: It’s still something we’re very proud of- there are select songs which have stuck on to the live shows, but we balance it with the new songs we have which are more important to us now.

HW: In the context of the record there might be favourites, but it’s different to the songs we take with us live. Some of our favourites aren’t necessarily the ones we want to play live.

FD: We still use some of the same sounds, and write from a similar headspace, so it’s not left behind with the new songs.

RS: Something we stopped doing for the next album is putting so much pressure on ourselves.

With tunes like ‘Sum’ I remember thinking ‘we can really push ourselves here’.

KW: It feels like something we needed to get out of our system. Just in terms of it taking so long from starting the writing process to actually releasing it. So much time and effort went into that album, not just on our behalf but from people like Seb & Dom too and I think the album reflects that, but as a result it does feel… done. In as much as I’m very proud of it, but we’re refocusing on new music.

The album’s opening track, ‘2HGS’, sees Robin focus on delaying and pitch-shifting his voice through a set of effects pedals. While vocal manipulation is used across the album (and is a cornerstone of Robin and Harry’s side-project Giant Swan), on that opening track it essentially becomes the lead instrument. How did vocal manipulation become a part of The Naturals?

RS: ‘2HGS’ was a tune born out of that fabled experimentation - at the time I was influenced (I still am, I think but maybe less explicitly?) by groups like Black Dice, GGD et al. The use of the voice in that manner was a nice departure from how we'd been using vocals before. From that point it sort of became implied that the vocals were going to have some sort of manipulation added to them. Another massive influence on my parts in Naturals/GS is dub and the use of effects, particularly delay, to animate the voice of the singer on any given track. I was a pig in shit being able to develop a style for my own voice that reflected these influences and pooling them into a new sound that we were able to build together.

Immediately after launching Hive, The Naturals took a hiatus lasting over a year. You’ve returned with new material, and your headline set at the launch of The Bristol Germ in November was almost entirely comprised of new songs. How have you attempted to develop your sound?

FD: There was a period of being really excited about the record, finishing it, doing a couple of shows, spending a while listening to it and really enjoying it, but then just not listening to it at all and focusing only on what we wanted to do next.

KW: During that time, we were all working on different things musically, which certainly feeds in to The Naturals. There’s a track which will be on the next album that came out of some stuff that Felix & I had been working on, for example.

And of course Harry & Rob have been very busy with Giant Swan and solo work, but it all feeds back.

HW: 90% of the new songs are down to what you guys have done.

KW: Essentially, everyone needed space to do their own mad shit for a while.

FD: And during that time we’re all constantly putting aside little ideas for The Naturals.

RS: The tunes we’re writing now are less indulgent I think. I’ve sensed more of an open disdain, almost, for the listener. At the Germ show, the new songs got a strong reaction, and that’s really humbling because I think they’re our best songs.

Writing music for that long together, when it means everything, does put pressure on your relationships but we’re probably closer now than we’ve ever been, and that’s saying something. It’s very gratifying.

I am a huge fan of Robin’s lyrics. In our interview for UBTV’s The Howling Owl Family we spoke about the line which opens and closes Hive: ‘when the time comes, take as many of them with you as you can’. You claimed that this line came from a conversation with a friend about car-bombs, and that in the context of the album it was meant to take the ultimatative rhetoric that usually surrounds destructive things like that, and use it to make a positive, constructive charge: take in as many people with your art, and this record, as you can.

These lyrics on Hive were, as you say, largely about ‘the experience of writing the album’. Now that the album’s released and you’ve moved on, how has that affected your new lyrics?

RS: I just thought it was an interesting thing to write about, turning a phrase on its head like that. The new record is lyrically more turning towards surrealism I suppose – like what you’d see on a trip, but not about drugs. A dissociative experience.

One refrain, repeated ad-nauseum. It’s more about that for me now, loaded phrases. Using simplified phrases which encompass a feeling and repeating them. In the same way that the music has taken this more mechanical, crushing tone, the lyrics are skirting around the surreality of something extreme happening to you. Whether it’s someone calling you out on your shit, or you getting in an accident, breaking up with someone, someone close to you going through something terrible, all these things which dissociate you from the mundanity in life.

You can get completely consumed by something but you’re still in the continuum of… plodding along, and I’ve found that interesting to write about.

FD: There’s still one backing vocal that I do, where I don’t know what the line is. I think I sung it right on Hive, but we didn’t play it for a while and it’s one of those background ones where you can get away with just going “aaaah”. I think it’s ‘Infinite Eyeball’.

RS: I was always under the impression that the lyrics on Hive were a little bit too cryptic, even though they were really personal at times. There’s no lyrics on that album about a woman, or a relationship that I’ve had, whereas with the new record the lyrics are becoming more about that sort of thing, which is a lot more freeing. And also my vocal delivery is changing a lot. There are less effects, I’m shouting more. It’s more influenced by David Yowl & Steve Albini, very conversational but also snide and uncomfortable. I’m into that shit now. I was always into Michael Gira and stuff but I never wanted to sing like him. I never felt like I had a way of singing, it was just about the lyrics and the effects, now I feel like I have a lot more agency as a singer.

Howling Owl put a lot of stock in you when they first moved here, and your single ‘Finishing Moves/Concrete Sea’ was the first 7” they ever released. How did you first meet them, and how would you describe that time in Bristol’s music?

KW: I found it incredibly encouraging when we first came under their wing, just because we’d been in a band for some time and whether or not there was a scene there wasn’t one which we were directly a part of. It was the first time I really felt like the Naturals was part of something… important, it felt purposeful and I really enjoyed that.

FD: You’d see everyone at gigs, and when you weren’t doing that you’d be hanging out listening to music. It felt like a good scene.

But before we were involved with that, we were familiar with a couple of the bands involved with HO, but hadn’t ever had a conversation about doing anything together, and for them to then contact us was something that we had considered doing ourselves beforehand.

RS: I remember seeing that Holy Stain had a tape out, and I remember thinking “I want a fucking tape.” That Slug Life film really encapsulates what HO became through Spectres: this is a dumb idea, let’s do it. Its fucking awesome.

FD: It’s a great platform to show what you’ve been working on.

And the epitome of that is when we did the Great Escape. We all went to Brighton, 4 bands totalling around 18 people, and it felt like a great round up. It legitimised it, it wasn’t just us standing outside the Mother’s Ruin drunk at 2am talking about how good our friends bands were, we were all out together in other cities, and people were into it.

RS: Or the first time we went to Old Blue Last. I’m sure someone still has the video of George falling down the escalator in the service station with all that crockery.

FD: Yeah and not being there, then hearing about that kind of thing, made you still more invested in it all.

RS: That being your crowd was incredibly empowering. And I don’t think, at the time at least, that anyone came close to the enthusiasm we all had for this thing that was completely ours.

For me, Hive reconciles a lot of very disparate things that were happening in Bristol’s music at the time, and which are still happening today. The gritty, deep knells of Harry’s guitar on ‘Its Teeth’, or that slow, steamroller outro on ‘Cold People’ recall some of the city’s more confrontational offerings: IDLES, Spectres… even some bits of MXLX. The ‘dance-music’ rhythmicity heard on ‘Sum’ and the ending of ‘Axe’ now feels well-represented in Scalping and some of Jesuits’ new material.

Robin’s literate and sonically-manipulated vocals have a ghost of Oliver Wilde about them, especially in the whispered opening verse to ‘Cauldron’. How would you describe your relationship with Bristol’s music ‘scene’ as a source of inspiration, and something you want to give back to?

HW: It goes back to being around people who drive us to be better, and a diversity of influences across the bands that were involved coupled with the open-minded environment and us all being friends outside of just doing shows together. Everyone appreciates the diversity in each other’s music. So we appreciate subtle elements of Ollie’s music and he appreciates the obnoxious elements in our music.

FD: For me it’s more being able to talk to someone about what they’re making, understanding their process and feeling like you’re understood. You learn a lot from getting other people’s perspectives.

RS: I don’t think that any of those bands really sound like the Naturals, nor do I think they’re trying to. But I suppose we’ve had a degree of influence over our peers in the same way they’ve had that influence on us.

Now that The Naturals are back to gigging and writing new material, what aspirations do you have?

FD: Same thing we do every night Pinky…

RS: We’re a really tight unit, and we have a lot still to learn, but the aspiration is to…. be the best fucking band on the bill, you know?

FD: Now I feel like we’re not writing towards an end goal now, the second record is the second record and that’ll happen, but I don’t feel like that pressure is mounting in the same way. We’ve had that pressure and dropped it enough times to just carry on going.

HW: I think we feel freer after Hive. We’re not forgetting it, or consciously reinventing ourselves, we’re just comfortable with the fact that we put a fuck of a lot of work into that album, and we’re still learning from it.

RS: We have no problem with reinventing ourselves but there wasn’t a watershed moment after Hive where we decided ‘we’re going to be this band now’.

KW: Yeah there was no point where we explicitly said we’re going to do x differently to Hive, because there was no need to have that conversation… we’re just onto the next thing now. What I’m really enjoying about the new songs we have so far is that it feels like we’re thinking about it less - in a good way.

RS: The pressure’s off, I feel like it’s ours for the taking.

SCALPING

GUITAR-BASED LIVE TECHNO Illustration: Jason Baker

1.

a guitar-based

Scalping is live band creating an intense breed of Daniel Avery-esque techno; you explained when I briefly spoke to you in Chapter I: The Noble Crusade Begins!! that the aim of the project is to ‘reverse-engineer ideas and sounds to perform as a semi-traditional rock band’. In this, you’re a pretty unique proposition in the city, but- in the same way as local projects like Giant Swan- your live set straddles the two usuallydisparate ‘worlds’ of ‘guitar band gig’ and ‘electronic clubnight’.

What was the inspiration behind this project?

We all come from a ‘rock band’ background and have been playing in various bands for years. Since living in Bristol we’ve been exposed to so much new and exciting music, attended unusual, unorthodox gigs and learnt more about working with live music technologies. The idea for this project was just a combination of everything we’ve seen and learnt during our respective musical experiences.

The band’s fifth member is visual artist Jason Baker, who creates live visuals projected on a screen placed over, behind, or in front of the band; with Scalping, these visuals revolve around 3dimensional models of the human body. How/why did you start working together, and what inspires these visuals?

James had been to a show where Jason was performing with Kayla Painter and was pretty blown away by the projections and lighting. Once the first few Scalping demos were completed James asked Jason if he’d want to get involved and to our amazement he was into it. He’s now an essential part of the live show and aesthetic of the band.

I have been working in visuals a while and I have become a bit bored with what I call ‘wallpaper visuals’. So with Scalping I try to create something that elicits more of a reaction, be it disgust or laughs. If it causes a reaction with the band then it goes in the live set.

Is the importance of the visuals to your band the reason that you haven’t put your tracks ‘Conduit’ and ‘Tunnelvision’ on any audio-streaming services? You can only listen to those tracks if you watch live performances of them on YouTube.

That wasn’t actually a conscious decision, although obviously the visuals are an integral part of the bands output. We thought that introducing the project with a live video was a good way to sum up and present the whole package. The videos were filmed by local eccentric genius and bean lover, James Hankins, who did a fantastic job of capturing the energy and disorientating nature of the live set.

We’re waiting a while before we do any kind of more formal release as it’s such a young project and our ideas about how the music should be recorded are constantly changing. In the live set we mix our songs in to one another, like a DJ, to create a continuous fluid piece of music. By recording a track we remove it from the context of both the visuals and the live set, so we’re currently considering how best to capture the sound and feeling of the band.

I understand that you used to perform with the aid of a laptop, but now play with more basic gear. It sounds like losing the computer took a lot of work, and it reflects a great deal of determination to make Scalping as much of a ‘live band’ as possible. What appeals to you so much about performing dance music as a band, rather than in a traditional DJ setup?

Goes back to our background and our love for the energy of a live band, particularly live drums. The question was never ‘how are we going to perform this music?’ it was always ‘what music is our band going to play?’, the idea of a band was first.

Initially, the songs were all written and produced on a laptop and so it made sense to use Ableton in the performance, but when we actually starting playing live it just didn’t feel like the right tool. We wanted the electronics to be more tactile and to sit as part of the band line up, rather than simply be a triggered backing track type thing. Now we use a looper, drum machine, synth and guitar pedals and so much more of it is live and is much more hands on. It also means it can go wrong more easily, adding an element of fear & excitement which is what playing live is all about. We’ve also started writing in the room now which has produced some interesting results.

Alex and Jamie are also members of psychedelic grunge-rock outfit The Karma Repair Kit, which is a far cry from the kind of music you are making as Scalping; what attracted you two to working on this project?

We both listen to a massive range of music and most of it is not psych/grunge/rock. Jamie’s really into his doom, black metal and ambient and Alex listens to a lot of experimental electronic stuff and so we’d been thinking about working on more left field music for a while when Scalping came to fruition. Also we all live together so it just makes sense.

As your band works in the context of both clubs and live gigs, you’ve voiced some uncertainty about what kind of shows you actually want to play; you’ve claimed you want to stay open to traditional gigs and not be pigeon-holed, though you have a preference for club-nights as they’re darker, louder and ‘people stay for longer and get more fucked up’. Apart from (at a push) the recently-departed Blood Sport, I can’t really think of any other guitar bands that could play a ‘dance night’ in the same way you can. Would you like to see more live bands like yours at clubnights?

We’ve been fortunate enough to play some amazing shows in our short existence as a band but we have had to be selective as we’re conscious that this is not a ‘normal’ band and not necessarily appropriate for every gig. We’d absolutely like to see more bands playing clubnights; I’d love to stumble into a room at a club and see a band playing.

Are there any artists you’d particularly love to share a bill with at some point?

In Bristol there are so many people we’d love to play with; Giant Swan, Spectres, Silver Waves, IDLES, Batu, the Young Echo guys etc, to name a few. Bristol is incredibly special in the way that line-ups are put together, the amazing New Year/New Noise events (RIP) are a perfect example. A lot of acts that may play together don’t necessarily sound the same but come from the same place and have the same ethos.

Outside of Bristol it can be trickier to find promoters and audiences that are so open to the idea of mixing bands with DJ’s in that way.

Scalping exists within a wealth of electronic acts and leftfield guitar bands in this city; how far do you feel as though you are part of a community here, and have any particular local projects influenced your music?

It feels like we’re part of a community for sure, even just due to the fact that we’ve been regularly going to gigs in Bristol for about 5 years. The current incarnation of the band has only been together about 6 months, so we feel like we’re pretty new to everything. Having that time to soak everything in and listen and learn rather than jumping into anything too quickly has been really good for us.

Where do you envisage Scalping going from here?

We’re not planning on rushing anything, we have a very specific idea of where we want the band to sit but we’re not sure if it exists yet. Gigs outside of Bristol & festivals is the main focus for this year, as well as working on an hour long, heavily improvised set. Hopefully we’ll also get the chance to play to a sweaty club at 2am somewhere, maybe a Room 237 night or something.

EBU

DARK AND THEATRICAL EXPERIMENTAL POP

I first heard you through the 2015 Stolen Body Records compilation Vegetarian Meat: Vol 2, which features your songs ‘Keep Hold The Ocean Sound’ and ‘Tara’: two dark, woozy folk songs played principally on acoustic guitar. Perhaps it is largely because this record also introduced me to Edward Penfold, because I heard ‘Tara’ takes its name from your friend and past-collaborator Tara Clerkin, or because I knew you were affiliated with the ‘Belvoir House Band’ collective with both of these artists, but in my head you were always catalogued in the same ‘off-kilter folk’ world that Edward and Tara occupy.

When I first saw you live last November then, it was a remarkable surprise. Leaving the acoustic guitar behind, your new material is rich with dark, chiming electronics and manipulated vocal sounds. In this incarnation, you are an utterly singular force in Bristol’s new avant-garde music.

How did you start making music as E B U, and what inspired you to pursue your current sound?

E B U (Ella Paine): It’s true. When I first started making music I was very much on the wonky folk pathway- largely because this was the kind of music I listened to at the time, and also because I only started playing the guitar in my early twenties, so this was all I had available to make music on. My sound gradually became more layered and textured with each new track I recorded; the more distorted, dark or atmospheric it became, the more it excited me. I think that buying my Casiotone 501 keyboard (a birthday present to myself) had a huge impact on my music and the possibilities of my sound.

A big part of your live set is a kind of performance art; dressed extravagantly, you strut around the stage and act out your lyrics in these captivating, theatrical performances. How did that become part of the project? Are there any particular performers that inspired this aspect of your set?

E B U: The performance aspect is a relatively new thing for me, as is performing solo. I used to get my friends (members of the Belvoir collective) to form a band with me whenever I played a gig. It was a very different sound and still had a folky element to it, mostly because of the setup being guitar, bass, drums, keyboard and sometimes violin and flute. The recordings I had made, on the other hand, were increasingly becoming more electronic-sounding; you may not have recognized them if you had heard the live versions. At the time I enjoyed this aspect and saw the live versions as a different vehicle for my music, but gradually as my sound developed, the gap grew bigger between the live and the recorded songs. Finally, I decided to make the leap to play by myself with the help of a new pedal and an invitation to play at the next ‘Thorny’. With this new pedal I was no longer tied to the keyboard. It was incredibly freeing, allowing me to move about the stage and provide a visual aspect to my performance. I wanted to transport the audience into a world of my own making. I have experienced this kind of transcendence in different ways from shows that play with lighting, visuals, performance or atmosphere. I enjoy it when an artist invites you into an alternate space.

Whether it is the nebulous presence of Dean Blunt, the raw tension of Wenonoah or the dynamic gesturing of Mun Sing, this stimulation of more than one sense has a powerful ability to transport you to another state. If you can lose yourself at a show, that never leaves you.

Members: Ella ‘E B U’ Paine Illustration: Matt Dickson

In performing this way, are you adopting a character, or presenting an extension/version of yourself?

E B U: A bit of both I would say. It’s a visual representation of the world I have created through my music and so it is intrinsically me, but heightened and distorted to reflect the theatrics within the music.

You also sing with your vocals pitched down, giving your voice a very deep, booming, metallic quality; what influenced this decision, and what do you see it as bringing to your performances?

E B U: I wanted to create something that was unfamiliar, something ‘other’. Making sweet songs with a sweet voice didn’t interest me; there is only so much scope for this. I wanted something that made you feel weird or confused about what you felt. This is what excites me in music. Something alien and new that you don’t know what you’re listening to. It’s refreshing to surprise people, turning their expectations on their head and catching them off guard. It provokes a very raw and honest response. It certainly does for me.

How would you like to imagine people reacting to your music (and your live sets)?

E B U: I realise my music will not be to everyone’s taste. There aren’t any simple melodies with catchy hooks that you can sing along to. I think you’ll either get it or you won’t. I can’t imagine many people sitting on the fence but I think that’s a good thing. Better to have a strong reaction than no reaction at all.

Whatever your opinion of my music is, I hope that you feel moved in some way, whether that is to hate it or love it. I want to leave people with a strange sensation after.

As such a unique live presence in the city, I cannot think of a local act alongside which you would be an obvious fit on a lineup. Much like The Iceman Furniss Quartet, your singularity means there isn’t a context in which I imagine you having less power to mesmerize and bewilder audiences; I have now seen you in the context of a guitar-band lineup and an experimental music festival (Howling Owl Records’ ‘New Year: New Noise’), and both performances made as much sense as each other. What kind of gigs do you like to play, or think people would get the most out of seeing you at? Are there any performances so far of which you are particularly proud?

E B U: I have only done a few gigs so far with this solo performative setup. I’ve enjoyed the different settings and lineups of each of them. I think maybe because my music doesn’t slot nicely in one genre, it sits in this ambiguous sphere where it can work in a band environment as well as in electronic based situations or maybe even in an art space. I think its ambiguity is its strength, as it is neither tied to nor exiled from any of these arenas. I am open to playing in any of these domains. I think my set last summer at ‘Thorny’ was a highlight for me as it was the first time I’d shared this new incarnation and been able to deliver a true representation of my sound live. Also my last show at ‘New Year New Noise’ was a big one. The room felt electric.

How do you go about creating these songs? Are there any lyrical themes you are particularly interested in?

E B U: The songs I write are all very personal to me, whether it is recounting experiences or sensations I have felt, or being witness to events. It’s a commentary on human behaviour and the strangeness of life, its beauty and darkness.

How important is experimentation to your project, and how far do you align yourself with the wealth of leftfield, electronic-based projects currently existing in Bristol (MXLX, Giant Swan etc.)?

E B U: I feel very lucky to be surrounded by such acts and their strong progressive approach to music. There is an innovative underground music scene here that has definitely inspired my own practice and I enjoy the community it initiates. Everyone’s doing their own thing, marking their own path, yet each can appreciate what the other is doing. The diversity here seems to self-perpetuate.

I think experimentation is key in my music. That’s the fun part, being playful with your tools.

You have collaborated with a number of local artists, including Agatha (later reincarnated as Mun Sing) Edward Penfold and Oliver Wilde, with whom you recorded the beautiful Christmas song 'Yuletide'. How far do you feel as though you're part of a community in Bristol?

E B U: The community here is very present. It has been invaluable for myself to be involved in other people’s projects and I am grateful that I have been able to do so. They are all close friends of mine so these experiences have been very positive. It is interesting to see how different artists use your contributions in their own music, as it is inevitably different to your own outcome. I think it is useful to be present in someone else’s process, you can learn a lot.

Within Bristol’s wider music community, I understand you have also been a member of The Belvoir House Band, a collective of artists based around a shared house, including Edward Penfold, Tara Clerkin, members of Taos Humm etc. Could you tell us a bit about that? How has being a part of that coterie influenced you as a musician?

E B U: Being part of the Belvoir collective has had the biggest impact on me. Without them I doubt I would be playing shows today.

Originally I made tracks on Garageband with no intention of ever performing them. I would share them between friends but it would never go further than that. It was when I moved to Paris for a few months that I really delved into recording. I began to put these tracks up on Soundcloud as it was an easier way to share music with friends that were interested. The Belvoir House Band (in its embryonic stage) were very supportive and encouraged me to play live, offering to form a band with me when I was ready. When I returned to Bristol this is exactly what happened and from there I developed my sound nurtured by the Belvoir collective.

What do you have planned next for this project?

E B U: I am hoping to release my first album which I have been recording, producing and mixing by myself for the past year and half or so. It has been a labour of love and learning, but finally I am ready to share it. I also aim to play some shows outside of Bristol and I have plans to do a collaboration with someone but I won’t say more than that. I am keen to start making new material again.

YAMA WARASHI

PSYCHADELIC JAPANESE FOLK MUSIC, EMPLOYING ELEMENTS OF SPIRITUAL JAZZ AND AFROBEAT.

Members: Yoshino Shigihara, Lorenzo Pratti, Graeme Smith, Lewis Graham Fitzjohn, Conrad Vijay Singh, Daniel Benjamin Truen, Agathe Max. Illustration: Yoshino Shigihara

Many people will recognise Yoshino from the popular and critically-celebrated Bristol band Zun Zun Egui, which split in 2015. A year later, Yama Warashi released your stunning debut EP Moon Zero. What inspired you to pursue this solo project, and how would you describe your music to newcomers?

Yoshino Shigihara: I actually started writing songs back in 2013, I was asked to make lullabies for the fundraising for the Cube cinema in Bristol. The Cube is amazing volunteer-run place and they needed to buy the premise and my friend Kale organized fundraising CDs to sell. It was a lullaby CD for babies. So I made ‘Mycelium Roost’ for the first time myself. And that was the beginning of Yama Warashi. I had only done one gig for the cube with made up band and it wasn’t even called Yama Warashi. After Zun Zun Egui split up, I wanted to write more tunes and started a band. These old songs are inspired by mushrooms, which I am really into picking and knowing them. It hard to describe the music but I guess there is definite influence of Japanese and African music, also psychedelic rock and spiritual jazz.

I’ve read that you want to keep ‘the nature of your home’ in your songs, but I’m afraid I don’t know much Japanese music, or much about Japan at all! How do you think your country’s culture finds its place in your music?

YS: I am totally influenced by Japanese folk dance music called ‘Bon Odori’. It’s really nice with a slow tempo, but accented by Japanese Taiko drums. It has got lovely melody which is often in a pentatonic scale. There are many festivals to welcome the spirit of the dead in the middle of August everywhere in Japan. It’s a special time call ‘Obon’ and we believe that all our ancestors are coming back to stay with us for a week. I used to go to a river to pick up ancestors with my family and give them a piggy back to our home. People will dance around a high stage with Taiko drums and other instruments. I used to go to the festival wearing summer kimono and dance for ages.

Yama Warashi shares members with The Evil Usses and Dubi Dolkzeck; how did they join, and what do you see the relationship as being between Yama Warashi and those other bands musically? What do they bring to this project from their other bands?

YS: They joined because they were friends originally.

When I first performed ‘Mycelium Roost’ in 2013, Leon Boydon and Dan Truen from The Evil Usses also Graeme Smith a.k.a Dubi Dolkzek kindly joined me. It was just because they were good friends. I’ve been always fan of The Evil Usses, and what Graeme does. So when I started playing as Yama Warashi, I just asked to join these friends I love and respect as musicians. Extremely lucky to have them in the band, they are amazing musicians but also really lovely and fun people to be with. Dan writes amazing drum parts for all my songs, Conrad has got his own project Cloudshoes. His songs are beautiful and he adds such unique guitar noise and riffs, Graeme sings beautiful harmony with me and does crazy stuff on the sax, Lewis plays such solid bass lines. As a guest Agathe Max plays Violin and she makes amazing improvised pieces and Lorenzo Prati plays sax and keys in a totally unique style.

There are more people who join me sometimes and they are all really amazing musicians and play in many bands.

Moon Zero was a brilliantly original, beautifully-realised debut, which sees Yoshino sing some songs in her original Japanese. How do you hope the language-barrier will affect non-Japanesespeaking listeners? Are they meant to just enjoy the sounds of the words, or are those lyrics simply more directed towards Japanese audiences?

YS: There is a message in Japanese lyrics but even when people doesn’t know the language, I believe that each words has an energy of the meaning, and I think it can convey in different way to the audience. I didn’t think about particular audience, singing in Japanese is much more easier and natural to me, but it is a good challenge to write English lyrics and sing in English for me too.

My favourite song from that record is ‘No Face’- what inspired this song?

YS: People in Japan often work too much. Sometime people start working at 8am and finish work way after the midnight. Some people sleep in the office. There is no more holiday than 2 weeks in a year. If it was something that they like, it’s their choice but there are people just work long hours because they were obliged to. Then people can lose their mind. It is about that. It would be wonderful if everyone can put energy into something they are passionate about.

About six months later, you released your debut album Moon Egg on Stolen Body Records; how would you describe the experience of creating that album, and are there any songs of which you are particularly proud?

YS: I’ve always been into Moon, but I got more into moon phases at that time.

Many songs are about moon but also I had strong inspiration from a strange and wonderful relationship I had at that time.

This album is all about delusion and hope.

Moon Egg features the spoken-word track ‘Tsukino Tamago’, on which Yoshino speaks about the ‘moon egg’ being kept warm, and ready to hatch; could you tell me about the creation of that spoken-word piece, and explain what the ‘moon egg’ is designed to mean or represent?

YS: Similar to the previous answer, it is about my delusion and hope I had that time. Moon Egg is a symbol of hope and we don't know what’s inside of the Moon Egg, until it opens.

Of the excellent music videos which have accompanied your songs, my favourite is the video for ‘Moon Egg’, directed by Sam Wisternoff (SJ Esau). This video sees you dance in unusual costumes, recreated by Yoshino through drawings that appear at the edges of the frame; Yoshino also illustrated the cover for Moon Zero, and a magazine accompanying the release of Moon Egg. Where do you get your ideas for the visual side of this project?

YS: When I made album, I wanted to make a comic book to go with it.

So to make the comic book, I needed some nice characters. So I made all my band mates into some kind of masterly character and made some stories with them to describe each tunes. In the video, I am in Yama Warashi (mountain spirit) costume, Conrad is three eyed goat dragon and Graeme is Tribal llama guru. It was fun making costumes for them. Sam Wisternoff is a good friend of mine and we used to have a band call Hesomagari, we respect each other as artists and it was great to collaborate with him.

How far would you say your music is influenced by other Bristol projects, and how far would you describe yourselves as part of a community here?

YS: I am definitely influenced by Bristol music scene from even 80’s till now. So many interesting bands were/are here. I love all kinds of music from dub to loud noise to jazz. So much eclectic stuff been happening here and it will be impossible to name all the projects I have seen here. I’ve been in Bristol for 16 years this year!

I understand that you are working on a new record; what can we expect from it?

YS: Luckily we had funding from PRS foundation last year so we had some fund to record with amazing producer Ali Chant with his new studio Playpen in Bristol. I am very happy with the result. I think it is bit different from ‘MOON EGG’ but the title will have ‘MOON’ again.

There are some songs about ancient terracotta human figure, song about parallelogram, and of course song about Moon (again).

EXCHANGE

CHOSEN BIRTHPLACE OF THIS ISSUE 24/03/2018 w/ Oliver Wilde, MXLX and Kayla Painter

5 DEMAND Genuine and Unadulterated

ENLIGHTENMENT From Those to Whom Art’s Mass - Dissemination is Entrusted

O Friends, WOE is Our People, when our industries are dominated by the UNSKILLED, VISIONLESS AND COMPLACENT! The MAINSTREAM MUSIC PRESS is thus corrupted: In our time, the discovery of new music is simulated; features are ‘arranged’ between labels and publications, in a casual and pervasive process of SPONSORED CONTENT, While THE OLD GUARD retain dominance through the poison of NOSTALGIA.

CONSIDER

THE

PROPORTION of British Music Writers who are UNSKILLED (poor researchers, poor writers, poor interviewers),

and Misunderstand / Shirk their professional DUTIES… APPLY THIS PROPORTION

TO

AGRICULTURE, food-riots and starvation would abound; THE POLICE, society would descend into anarchy; THE NHS, countless vulnerable people would die; TRANSPORT, industry would grind to a halt; TECHNOLOGY, we would reverse decades.

Be Assured, Friends…

We DAILY SUFFER this SAME DESTRUCTIONTHIS HINDERING OF OUR HUMAN POTENTIAL!!

BAD TRACKING PSYCHOSEXUAL INDUSTRIAL CASSETTE - SLINGERS

Members: Max Kelan, Gordon Apps Illustration: Ian Moore

I first saw you perform at Cosies last

September, supporting Container. The two of you were hunched over cassette machines blasting out this ear-perforating industrial noise, and Max was stripped to the boxers, save for a ball gag and nipple-clips. Halfway through the set the boxers went too; staggering into the crowd with his dick out, Max pulled out the ball gag and demanded the front row spit all over him.

Bad Tracking is probably the most genuinely confrontational, discomforting live act (visually and sonically) that I’ve seen come out of the city; with no social media presence, you have until recently been a well-kept underground secret. How did this project start?

Max Kelan: We met years ago, when we were both asked to DJ in Moles in Bath for a friend’s night; think it was Bizzy B and MRK 1 headlining haha. I think at the time I would have been slowing down dubstep records into techno - it was at a point where I had no idea what I wanted to do as a DJ. Gordon’s set was as his other project Relapse, where he was playing pretty hefty Tearout Amen Jungle. I remember being amazed that this bloke had such an authentic Jungle sound, it really reminded me of something from the golden era of Jungle like Metalheadz etc. when I would have been like 4 years old haha. After that I think we had a zoot and a chat outside and realised we shared lots of similar interests such as grindhouse horror films and extreme metal.

About 3 years later, we met up properly and decided to make some music together.

Gordon Apps: That was a funny night. I seem to remember having to keep several drunk people away from the decks, who seemed to think that they were DJing. We kept in touch after that night, met up periodically, and kept talking about making music together. It's just sometimes these things take time to gestate, and it all actually got going as I was making less and less jungle, wanting to explore sound more without having relatively rigid genre-boundaries as an imposition. I seem to remember we just sat down and had a jam one day, which then turned into XP1, and everything just started rolling from there.

In December 2016, Max released a music video for APE’s very excellent track C. Giles Showed Me Some Shit, in which he makes a brief cameo appearance in his Bad Tracking gimp outfit, doing some ironing. How/why did the ‘live gimp’ thing become part of the project?

What was it inspired by, and how do you hope people will react to that aspect of your sets?

MK: We knew from the start that there had to be an element of performance involved.

Originally we had this kind of idea that we wanted to draw the similarities of addiction to technology and sexual frustration and that what I wear is a me displaying myself as a slave to the technological, upgrade- obsessed world.

However, I also suffer quite badly with social anxiety and I really feel quite soothed and comfortable when I perform naked, it really makes me feel untouchable and gives me a sense of freedom and liberation that I had never previously experienced.

GA: There's no expectation of a reaction from me, I'm more than happy for Max to keep exploring this side of himself, as it seems genuinely cathartic, and seems to do him a lot of good. I've not felt the need to perform as much, and I think that provides a good contrast when we work live. I'm not ruling out more physical performance in future, just right now us doing our own things together is feeling right.

Why do you perform your music using cassette machines? Aside from being an unusual choice, it seems like an incredibly temperamental medium.

MK: We like the way it saturates and degrades over time, also I think the fact that you can quite quickly run into problems makes you think on your toes a bit which adds to the sporadic nature of the performance.

GA: Tapes are, as Max said, an inherently unstable medium - as soon as you play it once, it's never going to sound quite the same again. There's something about the intangible nature of that that speaks to me, making you make decisions in the moment that you usually wouldn't have to factor in, and that keeps things exciting, for me at least. We've run into problems at least once where the tape has either destroyed itself in the machine whilst playing, or the tape itself has degraded to the point where the bass has dropped out, and it sounds like a ghost of itself. It's partly about a sound, and having to work with machines that don't necessarily always do what you ask.

In November you released your exceptional debut record XP1/XP3 on Mechanical Reproductions. Drenched in tape-hiss and audibly punctuated by start and stop button punches, it all feel very much like the live show. How important was that in committing these songs to record?

GA: The starts/stops weren't put in there deliberately as a nod to the shows, it's just something that happened. XP1 was the very first track we made together; I believe the starts/stops were from a jam that we'd done that evening, and it felt right to put them in. Portentous?

Maybe, seeing as tape decks became quite a mainstay of our shows. XP1 + 3 fitting together felt right, they feel like flips of a coin. XP3 was actually made after we'd been making music for about a year together, so that's quite important too - the very first thing, and a definite milestone, together on one record alongside a remix from Ossia (who has championed us from the very beginning). Whether we're a studio project that does live shows, or a live project that does studio work, it doesn't really matter to either of us- as long as we can continue to express ourselves within this medium, then it'll carry on.

I’ve definitely heard people mention Throbbing Gristle in relation to your band somewhere, and there are sounds from your set that certainly remind me of parts of The Thirty-Second Annual Report (though with some pounding bass drums behind it obviously). Who would you cite as your major sources of inspiration?

MK: I mean I would be lying if I said I wasn’t inspired by Throbbing Gristle or Coum transmissions visually and in terms of production.

However, I definitely think it is important that we are not just labelled as “performance art”; I think sometimes when you label something as that it takes away that aspect of danger. One of my heroes, for example, is Iggy Pop- if you saw him bleeding all over the stage, you had absolutely no time to conceptualise what you were seeing, it just put you in that state of shock and that’s what really gets you thinking about how what you are seeing affects you. Visually I’m also obsessed with John Waters and that pure display of trash and finding the beauty in the grotesque; I think that is an ongoing theme within our music and live shows. The other things I’m still hugely in love with are Jackass and Dirty Sanchez, I love the idea of these blokes putting themselves in such vulnerable positions and disgusting, taboo situations purely to create slapstick entertainment- pretty much as good as TV got in my opinion. Musically I’m inspired by loads of old industrial stuff that I think comes through in our sound: Test Dept., Cabaret Voltaire, DAF, early Ministry. I could list all day haha…

GA: Agreed on all that. Music-wise I try to keep as open an ear as possible: everything from extreme metal (Anaal Nathrakh, The Berzerker, Mayhem etc.) to noise (Merzbow, Prurient, Wolf Eyes etc.), right through to wafty ambient, weird folk (Nick Drake, Joanna Newsom), etc. etc. etc. Like Max said, I could go on all day. But relevant to our output, I feel we both bring something slightly different to the table. We both work from similar books, but both approach things from a slightly different angle. That's what I really love about our relationship.

The record also features a remix of ‘XP1’ by Ossia; how did this come about? As a local leftfield electronic act, have Ossia, Young Echo and other local projects had an influence on your music?

MK: It came about because at the time I lived with Ossia and have worked with him for years. I like him because he’s a risk taker and like us he doesn’t really care what people think of him or his creative outlets. Young Echo for me was important because you could get away with more or less anything there- having noise or punk acts rubbing shoulders with DJ’s playing Rave and Hardcore is just exactly what I’ve always wanted in a club night. People needed that kick up the arse to be taken out of their comfort zone. There are a lot of other crews in Bristol now who share the same ethos but with a different twist, with crews like Schwet and Satsumas (who were staples at the Surrey Vaults) always keeping me on my toes by playing such a broad mixture of mad shit.

I understand that Max also co-runs Slack Alice, a series of electronic nights which have featured guest performances from many local projects including Kahn and Giant Swan. How do the two of you see your band as existing within the context of Bristol’s music; do you feel like you are part of a community?

MK: I think at the moment there seems to be a kind of scene growing of people trying to display their roots in punk, industrial, metal and new wave in a way that works in a club, but it doesn’t seem to be happening in a boring and contrived way that’s just digging up old bones, I definitely see a sound shaping and growing at the moment which is really exciting. Issues such as venues closing, sound restrictions and dirty, evil, wretched Tory landlords are also all things that we share in common and I think the entire musical community are getting pretty angry about that, which is also only going to inspire us all and make us vent through our music.

GA: It's about pushing forwards, not letting wretched landlords stop progress. I think a lot of people are doing very interesting things with music at the moment, and this shared umbrella of having to fight to put shows on, to keep venues alive, to make ourselves heard, is bringing a different set of tools to the table.

TIMEDANCE

LEFTFIELD DANCE MUSIC LABEL Members: Omar ‘Batu’ McCutcheon Illustration: Guillaume de Ubéda

For the past few years, Timedance has dance been a bastion of forward-thinking music in Bristol, noted for releasing leftfield artists such as Giant Swan, Bruce and Lurka, as well as for its popular club nights at The Island. How did you originally form the label, and what were your original intentions with it?

Batu (Omar McCutcheon): Well, forming a label is easy. Sometimes there's a stigma that it’s this unattainable goal, a pipedream… I was luckily in a position where I knew that this isn't true, as I have friends who run labels. I was also in a lucky position where a lot of friends around me were making great musictiming was definitely key. My intentions when I originally started the whole thing weren’t really clear though- I had some material of my own I wanted to release, that was as far as it went at first.

Past interviews I’ve read with you suggest a deep disillusionment with the current state of dance music; you’ve described much of what’s currently out there as ‘unimaginative’, complacently relying on established forms without attempting to use them in new ways. In Timedance’s focus on unconventional styles, are you doing something which you’d like to see replicated around the country, or are you resigned to it catering to a niche crowd?

Your events have achieved a legendary status in the city, always selling out weeks in advance. What motivated you to begin putting on club nights, and in what ways do you think they relate to what Timedance does as a label?

Batu: As with the label, there weren’t many preconceptions. A few people said that maybe I could do a launch party, and it seemed like a fun idea. After it started, I quickly realised that there was actually a big space in the Bristol scene for what I would want to push- it completely made sense.

It relates to the label because it follows my tastes in just the same way. I guess it’s kind of picking from a bigger pool of DJs and live sets that I think are hitting on something exciting, it’s just as valid to me as the music released on the label.

Since your first night at The Cavern Club, which closed in 2015, all of your Bristol shows have taken place at The Island. This space, situated underneath the old Bridewell Police station, was formerly a set of prison cells; the cells, tiled floors and barred doors are all still there. What drew you to this venue, and what do you think Timedance’s events have gained from being there? Going forward, would you like to start putting on nights in other local spaces?

Batu: I would like to see more of that ethos, but at the moment I wouldn’t say I have any kind of deep disillusionment with dance music. Tried and tested formulas can be imaginative and I don’t think I’m reinventing the wheel with what I’m doing... but I think we (anyone involved in a creative pursuit) should be trying to push culture forward.

Batu: I think it's a space which really embodies what I want Timedance to be about. It’s dark with no fuss, you just face the soundsystem/DJ and get consumed by the music. I always loved going there, I asked them pretty speculatively at first but they have always been happy to support me.

I think about other spaces sometimes, but finding somewhere that worked as well wouldn't be easy. It’s not at the forefront of my mind for now.

If you are expressing yourself authentically then shouldn’t what you do be representative of the time and place you live in? I feel like maybe in the 21st century, with so much available to us, people have kind of forgot this expressing something with new forms gets lost in the giant sea of material you can find on the internet.

I understand that you were resistant to the idea of your nights selling out in advance, and always kept tickets on the door.

However, after having Ben UFO play a Timedance event last year, you had to change the format of your nights and now sell tickets solely in advance. In retrospect, are you glad this happened?

Most importantly for what I do, if you put a crowd in a dark room with a good sound system, people will dance to something slightly less conventional, as long as it is presented well! I don’t think what I do is particularly elitist, I’m not trying to alienate anyone. I’m just trying to carve a slightly new path through all of this.

Batu: Well it’s nice knowing before the night that you have sold out, it takes away certain pressures. I still feel like advanced tickets create a hierarchy in a way thoughyou get this quite unique level playing field nights. dynamic from on-the-door Pragmatically though, things had to change and I’m happy enough with things how they stand.

As an artist and label owner focusing your energies on experimental electronic music, the current landscape in Bristol must feel like an incredibly auspicious and healthy place for you to be working. In addition to a wealth of unconventional new electronic projects and producers (such as 11member experimental music coterie Young Echo), you share the city with labels like FuckPunk and Mechanical Reproductions. How far do you think your work with Timedance has been influenced by being in Bristol? Do you see yourself and this label as belonging (and contributing) to a community?

Batu: It’s massively influenced by Bristol for sure.

I love this city and the music that comes from it.

My DJing schedule means I’m out less on weekends, but I still love going out here and meeting people. Bristol has always felt welcoming to new blood; young DJs and producers get chances to showcase themselves and develop.

I don't think I could ever claim to be as ingrained in the Bristol community as crews like Young Echo. They are all from Bristol or close and have lived and breathed this city forever. I’m still a newcomer and ultimately I’m part of the new influx of people coming into the city, I think that's an important thing to recognise and be respectful of.

Your beginnings in the city were crucially influenced by veteran producers Pinch and Peveralist, who lent early support to your solo project Batu. Pinch is widely regarded as having brought dubstep to Bristol with his Subloaded nights (beginning in 2004), while Peveralist’s seminal 2006 label Punch Drunk Records provided the launchpad for now-internationallyacclaimed Bristol artists such as Kahn (who would later go on to co-found Young Echo).

I can’t help but imagine that being brought under the wing of these two people, who had already left an indelible mark on Bristol’s musical landscape, may have endowed you with similar aspirations for your own project. Do you like to imagine Timedance will one day leave an ‘impact’ on electronic music in Bristol (and further afield)? If so, what would you like that impact to be?

Batu: Haha - Well I’m not really thinking about becoming the next Pev or Pinch, obviously their influence is really important though; I look up to them both a lot to this day. I’m not sure how much impact Timedance will ever be able to achieve, I can’t control that really. What I can control is curating something interesting.

Getting too lost thinking about “legacy” isn’t good.

I do think about where all this is heading but you have to try to not get bogged down in it too much. what I do know for sure is that what I do is quite finite, and therefore change is important. standing still and trying to sustain anything for too long is pointless - and I think that’s a good thing!

SLONK

LO-FI BEDROOM POP Members: Joe Sherrin (and a revolving cast of collaborators) Illustration: Sam Bedford

To those who know you from Milo’s Planes, your music as SLONK may come as a surprise. However, hearing a song as staggeringly beautiful as ‘We’re Both Going To Be Fine’ from the same person who gave us ‘Stampede’ and ‘Fidget in Paralysis’ is perhaps less surprising than finding out Milo’s Planes was originally as much of a solo-project as this is. Did you ever intend to release this more emotional, contemplative music prior to this project? If not, why did you begin writing music as SLONK? Joe Sherrin: SLONK began around 2012, I had just gotten a portable 16 track and was having a lot of fun recording loop based guitar stuff – lots of mental tunings and thousands of overdubs. I hadn't planned on any of it being played live but did compile a chunk of those recordings and released them as the Crackle LP in 2015 (which is up on my Bandcamp page).

In the last few years the type of music I write as SLONK has developed, but the main premise of the project is still me just messing around with recording and writing songs in my room for my own enjoyment. I hadn't intentionally set out to make SLONK more emotional or contemplative, I guess I just started to enjoy making more miserable sounding music. Because I write, record and mix alone for SLONK, the very nature of the project lends itself to potentially sounding more self-indulgent. However, Milo's Planes lyrics are emotional and contemplative too, it's just more obvious in SLONK as the songs and instrumentation within them are more delicate.

I still use that same old 16 track to record everything, though it's less portable now as its over-usage restricts its whereabouts to my bedroom, where the power supply is balanced in place by the old 4 track I used to record on when Milo's Planes was my solo project. Maybe soon I'll get a better desk that has to be propped up by the 16 track and this Russian doll metaphor can keep building until I'm living inside a Jenga tower of musical equipment.

My favourite track from Songs About Tanks (and probably my favourite song of yours full-stop) is ‘How To Digest Shards’; what inspired that song?

JS: Thanks! I had that song written for ages before the other songs on that album actually, initially it was a sort of micro song – just a verse and a chorus – the bridge and ending weren't added until the very last minute. It's written as a letter to my former self. I was thinking a lot about what I was up to when I was 17/18 and how I sort of didn't take advantage of any of the many options available to me at the time with regards to further education/careers etc. and how I now wish I had perhaps tried a bit harder. It's kind of a sister song to Carousel (from my recent EP), which I wrote as a letter to a future self.

What do you get out of writing by yourself that you don’t get out of writing with a band?

JS: Well, for better or worse, no one else is there to tell me to stop. I've been working on an album for a while now and some of the songs have 90 tracks of audio on, 80% of which I'm sure are wholly unnecessary and not adding much to the song. I like my SLONK stuff to sound busy and chaotic; I'm a gannet for overdubs. Opposingly, Milo's Planes is much leaner because Harry (my brother) is very good at telling me to stop. In fact whilst I was recording the drums to Songs About Tanks I brought Harry along with me so someone was there to tell me to stop what I'm doing as they see me start to double track all the drums (except on Tin Foil where the double track drums worked out quite nicely) - If you listen to the album you can hear him laughing at me in between the songs; calling the songs "wetties". The main difference is that SLONK is my vessel for poppier songs.

A lot of these songs are incredibly moving, and sound like they came from a very intense time and place emotionally; is it taxing to perform them live?

JS: Yeah a lot of Songs About Tanks is pretty intense. I can't stand half of it, most of that album I don't play anymore at all and won't again, but not because it's necessarily emotionally taxing - I think emotionally taxing subject matter makes for a better live performance - but because those songs document a very particular time for me; the songs don't mean much to me anymore and it feels a bit backwards and tedious to still play them. I tend to try and fill the set-list with as much new stuff as possible anyway because I get bored of my songs very quickly. There are a few exceptions: ‘We're Both Going To Be Fine’ & ‘Tin Foil’ I still enjoy playing. I also like to try and change existing songs around as much as I can too, whether that be changing the key, the structure or simply adjusting the dynamics to suit the type of band I have for that particular performance, it all helps to keep the songs interesting to me.

On ‘China Skis’ you make a reference to a desired ‘change in job direction; maybe something that I don’t hate’. This seems to be picked up in the opener to your latest record, ‘I’m Pursuing a Career Outside of Conveyancing’. When I interviewed you in Chapter I, we talked about how much you utterly despise your job, and how Milos Planes has been a way for you to vent frustrations about places you’ve worked.

Do you also see Slonk as, to some degree, being an outlet for some of the same frustrations? How do you see Slonk as being artistically connected to Milos Planes, and your other projects?

JS: I think it's just coincidence; the subject matter of the songs isn't typical of a particular band, largely I just write about things that are bothering me and I seem to spend a lot of my time at monotonous office jobs. I tend to write all my songs on my own and then work out which band/project the particular song will work best in, with Milo's Planes it’s a little different as we tend to write more together but often we work from an initial riff I've come up with. This was more of a problem when I was writing for SLONK, Let's Kill Janice, Me You & Thomas and Fuzzy Plums all at the same time – now it's a bit more straightforward: the poppier/prettier stuff goes to SLONK and the horrible stuff goes to Milo's Planes (FYI the new Milo's Planes stuff we've been writing is absolutely disgusting).

My favourite song from Pots and Pans was ‘Walking Backwards’, so when you released a shiny new version of it on Songs About Tanks, complete with guest vocals, slide guitar and more, I was very excited.

Why did you decide to revisit that particular song from your debut?

JS: I had been working on a new, bigger version of a few of the songs from Pots & Pans anyway, before the idea of doing an album had materialised and ‘Walking Backwards’ was the only one that I felt worked better bigger; the other songs from that EP are kind of complimented by the lo finess of that EP's instrumentation and so bigger versions of them didn't sound as good. I was listening to (perhaps rather obviously) lots of country and folk stuff at the time and wanted to do something a bit like Exile on Main Street– really loose and anthemic, messy country. As Songs About Tanks started to develop, the songs sort of followed a similar ideal and I thought ‘Walking Backwards’ would fit nicely, it was one of my favourites from Pots & Pans too.

You write and release music in such abundance, and so incredibly quickly: Songs About Tanks and Losing My Mind On The Outside of Everything came out within sixor-so months of each other, and the CD version of Songs About Tanks had twelve bonus tracks on it (three more than are on the actual album). By contrast, The Naturals (who also feature in this magazine) took three years to release their debut album, and it only has eight songs on it.

Writing, recording and releasing music at the speed you do sounds full of its own advantages and disadvantages, but in particular it makes me wonder: have you ever released a track that you then wish you’d held back (perhaps a more vulnerable or personal one), or that you’ve wanted to change in retrospect?

JS: Yes, absolutely. Songs About Tanks I released very fast, I wish I had taken more time over it and perhaps only released an EPs worth of the best songs. Although I could argue that releasing it as I did was integral to the rawness of the songs... but that would be a very pretentious thing to say.

In April I recorded another album which follows on from SAT (‘Jane's Boots’ is taken from this album and was released in September by Art Is Hard) but is loads better.

I was waiting around for one thing or another and before long the personal connection I have with that album slipped away like SAT has also and before long I had the Losing My Mind On The Outside Of Everything EP ready and wanted to release that instead so this other album, which is probably my best work to date, has remained unreleased. So in this instance I should've maybe just released it back in April/May when it was ready rather than keep picking at it and waiting for the right time but then I'd probably be telling you now that I wish I hadn't released it back then haha.

Losing My Mind On The Outside Of Everything is, superficially at least, a much ‘happier’, more musically upbeat record than its predecessors. How do you see your music as Slonk developing with future releases?

JS: Yeah it is, that's why I decided to release it in December despite having the follow up album to Songs About Tanks ready to go – it's more fun and it's more what I wanted to be doing. I've got a lot in the future SLONK release pipeline – I'm going to release two new songs from this bastard album I keep banging on about in the form of a split EP with Flat Rufus, which is my brother’s solo project – he's just finished his own solo album and It's absolutely boomba. I've started work on a new album. It's going to follow on from the Losing My Mind… EP in being more guitar/live band driven but the songs are weirder and I want it to sound different - I'm going to record it with Sam from Cagework (whose artwork you can see just on the page there). Then I guess I'll release the rest of this album, maybe I'll drip feed it out in singles which seems to be a popular strategy these days but it seems very alien to me; I like to release stuff before I get bored of it then move on to the next album as soon as possible. Maybe I'll just never release this album and it'll become this big cult, the forgotten SLONK album...

JOHN BENCE

EXPERIMENTAL CLASSICAL COMPOSER Illustration: Sophia Jowett

Creating breath-taking classical compositions, intriguingly warped through a deliberate and imaginative process of electronic manipulation, you have established yourself as a remarkable and vital new force in Bristol’s avant-garde music. I understand that you grew up in a very musical household and produced your staggering, remarkably moving debut record Disquiet when you were just 19 years old. How did you begin composing?

Joe Bence: I did grow up in a very musical household, that’s correct. I began composing at the age of five, making little scores and recording my little songs on my ‘Tweenies’ themed tape recorder. My house was full of scores, CD’s and two pianos. My mum downstairs playing cello or piano and my dad upstairs making strange electronic music. I am the perfect amalgamation of my two parents. Disquiet seems like the record you would write if you grew up in such a household.

Disquiet is a composition in three movements for vocals and cello, subjected to a complex process of electronic production. As far as I understand, you record the cello and vocals live, then cut up the recordings, and layer them with new scores. What inspired you to alter these compositions in this way? Do you see this intersection between electronic production and classical composition as a defining quality in your music?

JB: It’s what I do- my music exists in the digital audio workstation, not the concert hall or day-long recording of tired session musicians or something. The generation of sound in my music must come from a natural source or, at a push, feedback from the room microphones. No generation of sound digitally and absolutely no synthesisers, just feedback and real acoustic sound. If a musician plays on my record they must be instructed by me via the score or some other means of communication what to do, no jamming or anything horrible like that. Absolute instruction. Yes, this intersection between classical and electronic is where I stand…alone and very comfortably. It is the future of interesting music.

Disquiet, as a noun, means ‘a feeling of worry or unease’; how far was this record a deliberate attempt to invoke feelings like that, and what inspired this choice of tone?

How far do you think the emotional themes of this record, which to my mind is an overwhelmingly sad piece of music, relate/spread to your other work?

JB: I don’t think I was deliberately attempting to evoke anything, writing music just feels like a diary entry for memy current mood comes out in the music, that’s why you must get it down really quickly. I am an extremely depressed person. It feels funny talking about Disquiet now it’s the first record I released to the world, it took a while to come out. I actually wrote it when I was 17 years old but it didn’t come out until a few months before I finished my Alevels. I had no friends in sixth form when I wrote Disquiet. I was a psychotic virgin who weighed about 20 stone and had never talked to a girl or even looked a girl in the eyes for more than a second or so. But when Disquiet started gaining success I lost about 6 stone, got a haircut, a new shirt and started playing loads of shows around Europe and having loads of girlfriends around me backstage for the first time ever. It’s coming up to three years after Disquiet was released now and my SECOND RECORD called KILL has finally found a suitable home on Yves Tumor’s new label called ‘Groomed Records’. As you could imagine it’s about my first relationship, losing my virginity, the afterlife and alcoholism. KILL still has that feeling of worry or unease but my work from Kill onwards has lost that virgin childlike innocence, and I will never get the innocence back that Disquiet had- sad really.

What inspires you to compose? Does knowing you’re going to distort and rebuild your compositions alter the way you write them in the first place?

JB: Yeah, you’re always thinking about what you can do with the digital audio workstation. For example, I am half way through writing my THIRD RECORD now, for cello, violin, percussion and computer- there are so many overdubs, mainly of the strings. The recordings are starting to sound like a small orchestra. It’s going to be an amazing live show. If I can get people dancing to live strings, it will be the first time people have danced to contemporary classical music since the 19th century. Elegant and punchy.

You were brought under the wing of Chilean composer Nicholas Jaar, who released Disquiet on his label Other People; how did you come into contact with him?

JB: I put some music on my Soundcloud page and he got in touch over email. I then spent a year or so sending him stuff until I made Disquiet and he said he would love to release it. Pretty simple really, no networking.

You sang in a choir for many years; I imagine that must have endowed you with a particular understanding of how vocalists work together (harmonies etc.) to composed pieces. How has that influenced your use of vocals in your work, and your own style as a vocalist?

JB: Yes, I have sung in my local church choir for the majority of my life with my mother. It has really helped me. Waking up all anxious and hungover from Saturday night not knowing what happened the night before. Or even after an all-nighter on some occasions. Then singing some Gibbons or Byrd to get some mental sanity back before continuing the drinking in The Bell on Sunday afternoon, that has been my routine for the past eight years. I love singing in polyphony with other choristers, singing beautiful music.

I am quite in the dark about contemporary classical composition; are you aware of any other young UK artists creating work similar to yours? Do you draw inspiration from any contemporary sources, or are your influences principally the artists you were exposed to as a classically trained musician?

JB: No, I feel alone. I take little bits of influence from everywhere. I’m classically trained and do get the majority of my inspirations from classical repertoire, but I don’t see a future in acoustic music. I want to play next to Giant Swan but delivering interesting and varied contemporary classical music via the sound system. I feel alone in my practice, which is great.

How do you find performing these songs live? I’ve spoken to ambient artists who find performing live very frustrating, having their music placed at the mercy of the venue’s acoustics and sound system. However, in your performances you are known for appearing completely lost in your music, even screaming as you play it. What do you hope people will take away from your performances?

JB: This music is great to perform live, I try to get it to sound as good as possible in sound check but as soon as I start performing I get lost in the music. I have a good sound engineer that helps me out a lot at my concerts which is a huge help. If you’re spending all your time worrying about getting the perfect sound, then your ambient music probably isn’t interesting enough.

While I don’t know anyone in the city making music like yours, the city is certainly full of artists employing electronic production in interesting ways, and artists who seem to share your interest in the relationship between harmony and disharmony/ cacophony; the first that springs to mind is the noise-band Spectres, who I saw you open for at Howling Owl’s New Year: New Noise festival in early 2016. How far do you feel as though you are part of a community in the city, and are there any local projects that have inspired/influenced you as an artist?

JB: Well, I’ve known these people since I was 15. I don’t even phone anyone before I go out for the night anymore, I just walk out my front door and bump into people in the dance. I have good conversations with people about electronic music tools in the smoking area and then have a think about if these techno tools could be useful in my unique artistic practice in any way. But yes these are my fwends for ever and ever: Giant Swan, Spectres, Young Echo, Silver Waves, Dr. Loveridge, Jesuits and Withdrawn to name a few.

What do you have planned next for the project? What impact would you like to imagine your music having on listeners?

JB: Well you’re always one step ahead: over the last few years I have been playing lots of Disquiet shows around Europe and it’s been amazing. When I wasn’t playing Disquiet concerts I was in my home studio, writing Kill. Now I have stopped playing Disquiet shows and am about to start playing Kill shows, when I’m not playing Kill shows I am at home writing my third piece. When I start touring my third piece I will simultaneously be writing my fourth piece and so it continues. My production line will continue this way until I die.

I’ve never thought about the audience really.

I crowd surfed the other day so the audience must like it. I think if the music affects other people the same way it affects me, I’ve done my job.

6 DISCOURAGE The oft-rewarded poison of

HOSTILE PRESS For the parameters of our culture should not be what we DESPISE, but what we LOVE. WHAT a tragic breed we are, friends, that we REWARD MEANNESS SO!!

That we are ENTERTAINED when a music journalist uses space to pour vitriol on bland music by new artists, eviscerating it in sledgehammer reviews for cheap laughs and a false sense of retributive justice.

The efforts of a person to make art should never be punished.

May these journalists simply leave poor work unpublicised, and COMPREHEND THE IMPORTANCE OF….

“NOT YET” The band who release a god-awful record TODAY MAY, a few years on, produce one of the Greatest Records of their Time.

WE HAVE SEEN THIS, friends… in our own city, and in our own time.

The contemporary artist is of a PUBESCENT CLASS: the industry seizes the young and beautiful before they’ve the chance to reach artistic ‘maturity’. No artist

has ever produced a work of genius on their first attempt, but if discouraged and destroyed, they never will.

“WHAT ELSE?” The duty of the journalist is to SEEK exciting new music, rather than passing comment on the conveyor belt of unfavourable material sent to them by labels and PR. Verily, ‘tis beyond shameful that being given music by teenagers and slaughtering it should earn credibility, let alone necessitate a paycheck.

ORO SWIMMING HOUR

WOOZY LO-FI POP

Members: Oliver Wilde, Nicholas Stevenson Illustration: Nicholas Stevenson

Since the project first emerged in mid 2016 with a performance at Brisfest, Oro Swimming Hour’s woozy, lo-fi pop has become a popular new fixture in the city, revolving around vocal harmonies, acoustic guitars and warm organ sounds; your debut record Penrose Winoa was amongst my favourite albums of last year. What inspired the project, and what were you listening to when you wrote Penrose Winoa?

Nicholas Stevenson: I was listening to a lot of Oliver’s music to be honest. We sent each other a big folder of demo tracks we were each working on, just for fun and to get some feedback. Some of them became Oli’s next album and some of them became Lucky Shivers tracks. There were a few rougher cuts and voice memos which were pointing in some different directions though. They reminded us of our really early processes of demoing and exchanging ideas over the internet. We both get really excited about the rougher, less finished records of some favourite groups. ‘Hype City Soundtrack’ by Neutral Milk Hotel, ‘Vampire on Titus’ by Guided by Voices, or Flake Music…

Oliver Wilde: Honestly, we were listening to each other more than anything. I’ve always been into Nich’s music and we’ve always wanted to start a ‘something’ like this, not really sure why now other than we we’re more than ready to.

We both connected those many moons ago over being in that phase of primitive recording and having the artistic capacity to go not much further than words, basic chords and a tune, it always had a sort of ill-conceived honesty about it that I loved. You kinda lose that a bit when you naturally evolve as an artist, or at least I did; it’s totally not a bad thing at all, in a way this project is just a celebration of that and a nostalgic indulgence into our primitive beginnings.

Nicholas is an award-winning illustrator, and designs all the wonderful artwork for Oro Swimming Hour. I’ve looked at a couple of your other commissions, including (brilliantly) a Bill Murray-themed colouring book, and a charming children’s book called ‘Diary of a Time Traveller’. Has illustrating children’s books and other texts (i.e. constantly engaging creatively with written stories) influenced your storytelling as a lyricist? As you two almost always double up on vocals in these recordings, I was also wondering if you wrote lyrics together?

NS: Yeah story telling is a big part of it all, most of the music I was making when Oli and I first met had a very obvious narrative to it, with beginnings, middles and ends. In both my illustration and my music now, I’m much more interested in absurdism, dream logic and a certain formlessness. I’ve become a bit protective of my personal universe, and that’s maybe one reasons that it’s a bit obscured now, but I’m not really interested in presenting anything you can read in a straightforward way.

There is storytelling, but it’s a bit more loose and broken than it used to be. My favourite Oro Swimming Hour tracks have lyrical contributions from both of us. We can labour over them for quite some time. What’s nice about Oro songs is they tend not to relate to personal experience for either of us. We get to explore people with fog fetishes, poisoned wallpaper, desperate actors, the tooth fairy… it’s pure wordplay at times, describing images which come in to focus and distort. We read a lot when we’re recording, and fire words at each other until we both agree. It kind of reminds me of using a ouija board, or a dadaist parlour game.

You both have excellent solo projects, and five years prior to the release of your first album you both appeared as soloists on the 2012 Hilldrop Records compilation An Upward Artful Scrap. Nicholas ends the record with a one-off release of the excellent track ‘Night Swimming’, while Oliver contributes ‘Pinch’: if I’m not mistaken, this constitutes the first airing of a song from A Brief Introduction To Unnatural Lightyears, the album which first placed Howling Owl Records (and yourself) in the Bristol history books. Did you know each other at the time? In any case, did you envisage yourselves forming a band after hearing each other’s music?

OW: Wow that’s a deep cut right there haha, you’ve done your homework. In a way that time period marked when Nich and I’s relationship began its arcing trajectory. I went on to form relationships with Howing Owl and make my first ‘proper’ record and Nich went off to become a world famous artist. I actually ran the label that put that comp out and we’d also put Nich’s first solo record out prior to that on the same label that I ended up producing, so yeah we knew each other well at that point- Nich had lived on my floor for a month beforehand.

Neither of your solo projects sound particularly similar (superficially at least) to Oro Swimming Hour; Nicholas’ records revolve around full guitar bands, while Oliver’s are full of glitchy electronics.

There are elements of Oro in each though; in Nicholas’ case this occurs when he relies on stripped back vocal & acoustic melodies (such as on the intro to ‘Here I Land’).

Equally, while Oliver’s ‘proper’ solo releases are very different, his demo album And This Is Where The Tragic Happens feels less different: ‘Afternoon Mesh 847’, in particular, feels as though it could just as well have been a demo for an Oro Swimming Hour song. What do you see the relationship as being between your solo projects and this band musically?

NS: Some of it just comes down to the production (or lack therof). Oro songs are stripped to the bare essentials, and have to stand up that way. On the other hand, there is a particular kind of feel and chord progression which I only really use for Oro, it’s definitely its own thing, and it’s risen out of a respect for each other’s music I think.

OW: Yeah exact1y, Oro Swimming Hour occupies it’s own space within us, it has its own 1anguage, its own sentiment and set of ru1es independent from our own individual projects; in a sense my music and Lucky Shivers is the reason Oro Swimming Hour exists- their relationship is that they feed into each other in opposition, our individual projects have more room to grow now that Oro Swimming Hour came about. ‘Afternoon Mesh 847’ is a good example of what I was saying earlier, that whole record (And This Is Where The Tragic Happens) is a mixtape of songs from that primitive period of making music which I guess is why it seems that way- that song was written before ‘Pinch’!

On the 2012 Alcopopular 5 compilation record, Nicholas contributes a track called ‘Overthrown’. Five years later, you would record this again with Oliver for Penrose Winoa. Why did you revisit this song?

NS: Amazing detective work! Yes that song has been around a while, and it’s one we used to play together back when Oliver was in my solo project. He had a particular harmony he did on the live version that was so great. After forming Oro we put it in the live set, with no real intention of putting it on the album. I was unsure if I wanted to revisit it right up until we recorded it, and then listening back to it, it worked a charm.

The average song length on Penrose Winoa sits at around two minutes; what do you see the value as being in keeping these songs short?

NS: That might be my instinct with everything I do, I tend to have an idea, say what I mean to say, then go on to the next one. I guess bands like Guided By Voices, The Minutemen and all that Hardcore Punk stuff set a bit of a precedent for that way of thinking about songs. Oliver is better at letting his songs breathe, they’re a space you can live inside, so we’ve balanced each-other out a bit if you can believe. In some ways I see the album as one big song, haha.

At the end of ‘Wilderness Walker’, there is a scrap of audio in which Oliver talks to someone about ‘the song Emily [Isherwood] is singing on’; this introduces ‘Martial Arts Washing Cars’. ‘Wildnerness Walker’ also gets a reprise halfway through the record, and the end of albumcloser ‘Spirit Realm’ features a clip of Oliver jubilantly crying ‘we finished the record!’. Through these touches and the album’s overall pace (being comprised of 17 very short songs), the album feels very much like it was created with the intention of being listened to from start to finish, as one cohesive piece of work. How important was that to you?

NS: Yeah this was something we wanted from the start. We recorded in a few different Kitchens in Bristol, and in each case we told people to come and go as they need to, do the dishes, chat, take a phone-call, whatever, so all that stuff wound up on the album. We wanted a sense of place for the listener. There’s a sort of meta aspect too. It’s a record that constantly reminds you it’s a recording.

I absolutely loved the video for ‘Paracetamol’, which is basically an illustrated time-lapse of you driving between your houses in the dark.

What was the inspiration for this wonderfully simple video, and why did you decide to pair it with this song in particular?

NS: I moved out of London a few months ago, and I find myself frequently driving country roads at night now, it’s this great world of big tall hedges which pop up out of the headlights. It’d been in my mind to capture that place for a while…

OW: Well I fe1t so gui1ty about Nich having to drive my ass home, it on1y seemed right to dress it up as a music video so it didn’t seem as bad ha, sorry Nich.

While the record features an organ very heavily, I’ve only seen you perform with acoustic guitars. Why is that the case?

NS: Part of the reason we both needed Oro Swimming Hour was to simplify and make something purely for the parts that were interesting to us. By not using any electronic equipment we’ve managed to avoid the regular drags like soundchecks, PA systems and even regular venues.

We can play pretty much anywhere that people want to listen. We launched the album in a launderette. The songs take on a different quality without the tape hiss and the organs, we tend to belt things out a bit live, there’s a nice relationship between the records and the live show I think.

OW: Yeah for sure, it just doesn’t seem necessary to make a simple record with simple tunes any more complicated when we do shows; it’s super easy to turn up somewhere, take one look at the PA and a poor tired sound engineer dealing with a 7 piece band and just go “lets make this whole experience way way easier for everyone involved”. Sound guys love us, it also means we can p1ay with the idea of how we decide to present our music to peop1e in a ‘live’ context. We are hoping to turn our live show into a fully interactive art/music installation with overhead projectors and who-knows-what-else, because why not? Oro Swimming Hour gives us the freedom to mess about with those traditions and let the project do its own thing- it keeps it fun and maybe people will be happy to get involved as we work it out, but yeah- keep your eyes peeled for all our weirdness to come.

OLIVER WILDE

NICHOLAS STEVENSON

It was Greenflash infinity orienteering for Revilo and Salohcin at dawn

&&&&&&&&&&& did you know our finger prints become less defined at this altitude?

Only a bakers dozen more turns before this low speed centrifuge glows it’s finest shade of seafoam I meant to tell you Revillo

Oh fuck! Where begonias lilt and more skin cells are needed?

yes Salohcin, and our sight less reliable, collect me if I’m long but shan’t we be the ultra pilot brights between Eros and Mathilde?

Means more… than their two fully functional contaminates powered by diet whelk cells should ever know.

Stepping over the bounds of respectability, Revilo and Salohcin made haste through the smokey pines, visible from some angles.

Looping rattles rake tall hedges and their boyish faces, the fussing pair passed through catching oil slick rainbows on their shirt.

With violent minds making sense of the dusk through a crummy lens well into shameful time.

Revilo and Salohcin duelled in likely dismay before matron Walsh and the boys.

Before long, perhaps eight thousand bats, leaving their roosts at once might sway this sunrise.

EMILY ISHERWOOD MELANCHOLIC, POETIC FOLK Illustration: Lisa Rose

As a lead vocalist for Skeleton Frames and Rink, as well as a collaborator with projects such as Oliver Wilde, SLONK and Oro Swimming Hour, you have established yourself as one of the most popular and stylistically distinctive new vocalists in the city. How did you start making music in Bristol? Is there a non-solo project or collaboration of which you are especially proud?

Emily Isherwood: It started in about six years ago when I was putting out music as Ema Sierra, and it eventually grew into a band. This was such a brilliant time as I had only just moved down from Manchester, and found a community so quickly.

I love all those guys, and it means a lot to me that I still get to perform with Kat and Arran. Some of the original Ema Sierra songs we still play now.

All the projects and bands I’ve contributed to I’ve loved, and each one helped me connect with new people. They helped me explore a new sense of voice, a new type of expression. For me, expression isn’t something I can do with much precision in everyday life, so I definitely appreciate having been a part of Skeleton Frames, Rink and Ema Sierra, as each one came at different times in my life, kind of when I needed them.

Last year, you embarked on a solo project under the name Nugget, releasing your debut EP through Breakfast Records. After all this time in bands, why did you decide it was time to embark on a solo project?

EI: I suppose it felt like I wasn’t communicating the right message, writing in a band, even though it was great in many other ways. It was hard to express what I wanted to say, and I was not very confident to share my compositional ideas, so I started Nugget as an online diary for all the songs I thought were too personal or simple for Rink.

It wasn’t something I thought would be performed, but after meeting Jo Kaspar and Joe Craven (Body Clocks, Dialogue), we worked out some arrangements and they provided this really rare sense of safety and encouragement with the songs.

This demo EP was a warm and intimate set of stripped-back acoustic recordings, focusing on your silvery, acrobatic vocal lines. However, you now perform with a full band including Kate Stapley and Mouse; how have you found fleshing these songs out to be performed by a full band?

EI: It’s always hard to predict how the live version will come out once we start arranging it from the initial recording, because everyone in the band imagines a different version of it. I’m very much driven by lyrics, and the worlds in each song are always so vivid to me, even before they are fleshed, but of course to the rest of the band, the room that the lyrics are sat in could be any room. It’s always exciting and surprising when the song takes form, because in my head it creates even more description, and the world becomes lush with detail.

Having previously only heard you fronting ‘rawk bands’, I was a bit surprised to see your first solo effort take the form of stripped-back, traditional folk. What inspired your choice of this sound? Have you been particularly influenced by your peers in other Bristol-based folk projects (SLONK, Tara Clerkin, Edward Penfold, Kate Stapley etc.)?

EI: I love all those guys, I remember seeing Tara play The Gallimaufry quite a few years ago, before I’d really met anyone from Bristol. I thought her sound was so original and her vocal style defied everything I’d been taught about singing, but she sounded great. I’ve always been into music that feels like someone is properly expressing themselves, as I love learning about people and understanding people. I more often prefer an artist to a band, as it I feel like I can learn more about the person when it’s solely their expression. So for me, the natural way for me to express musically is with chords and lyrics. It’s less of a stylistic, musical choice, but just that other means of writing wouldn’t feel genuine. I’d like to push myself more to start writing in new environments though.

In releasing these songs as ‘demos’, do you mean they will one day be released again in a different or more elaborate form?

EI: Some of them will be, yes. I didn’t really think about what the title should be, as it was intended to be more like a one off short run, as appose to an EP that would be available on other platforms. It was great working with Breakfast on that release.

When I first met you in late 2016, it was to interview you as a member of your exceptional band Rink, alongside Elli Cook, Owain Jones, Ben Saunders (who now performs with Kier) and George Garratt (of Velcro Hooks fame, who has recently reemerged as the drummer for Heavy Lungs).

Rink suddenly disbanded a few months later, and I remember being very upset that none of my favourite songs from your set would be released. I was very excited then, to see the excellent track ‘Arcade’ emerge on the Nugget demos as a stripped-back acoustic performance with Mouse. Why did you decide to return to this song for this EP, and why was it recorded as a live session?

EI: This song was one of the first that I wrote for Nugget, whilst I was still in Rink. But at the time I felt like it might work in that context. The Rink version took on a new life, and performing it was hard as I felt vulnerable in that harsher sound world. The calmness of the version recorded my garden with Mouse is more how the song sounded in my head.

My favourite song of yours is ‘A Point For Our Insanity’; could you tell me what inspired this song?

EI: Sometimes having an animated imagination can help with creativity and can be fun, but other times it makes you crazy.

This song is kind of like keeping a score board with your irrational mind, but being okay with it sometimes going a bit off track.

You recently stopped releasing music under the pseudonym Nugget, and made the decision to continue with your solo music under your real name. Why did you decide to take this step, and what do you see the implications of this name-change as being?

EI: I wanted to draw a line under all my previous characters and bands, and simplify it by just releasing music as my own name. I’d not really known exactly what sort of music I wanted to be making, or how to best arrange songs for live before, and I now feel more confident that what I’m sharing is representative of me.

You have performed many memorable collaborations with other Bristol projects, lending vocals to my favourite Oro Swimming Hour track: ‘Martial Arts Washing Cars’.

What makes you decide you want to collaborate with another project? How far do you feel as though you are part of a community in Bristol?

EI: For some collaborations I reached out, and on others, people had asked me to contribute. I find having a community to be really valuable and important, especially a creative community. My friends here in Bristol have encouraged and shaped my music for sure, and everyone is so openminded to explore different genres and support each other’s events. I’m pretty shy so I prefer sort of being on the outskirts of the community in some sense, but I love that I feel completely welcome and encouraged by it. My first ever Nugget show was supporting Fenne Lily at Lord Mayer’s Chapel, and Patti and Jo both asked to play on my music that night, and we’re still playing together now. I was so vulnerable at that show, so their support meant more than they probably knew.

What do you have planned next?

EI: At the moment, I’m hoping to continue working on the live show, and maybe play some different cities. This year I hope to release some singles for sure. We’ve recorded full band tracks before, but I haven’t wanted to release anything until I felt like it sounded right. So we’ve got more recording planned for early this year, and aim to share new music soon.

STOLEN BODY ADMIR’D DIY RECORD LABEL, AND CREATOR OF ‘BRISTOL PSYCH FEST’ Members: Alex Studer Illustration: Paul Jacobs

For many years, Stolen Body

Records has been a bastion of eclectic and exciting new music in the city, releasing beloved local acts such as Edward Penfold and Yama Warashi (who also appear in this issue). How did you start the label, and what were your original intentions with it?

Alex Studer: I had a crappy job and decided I should do something I want to do and also be my own boss.

I work hard and its annoying when some schmuck gets all the rewards. I also always used to read interviews when I was younger and the one question that always stood out to me was “if you weren’t playing music what would you do?”. The answer was always something music related.

The way I see it is I play in a band but it probably won’t ever get anywhere, so I’ll do something else to do with music. Lucky for me it means I get to release my own band and continue making music.

Intentions-wise its always been to release what I like, not what I think will make money. There’s no compromise there. I won’t release something unless I personally like it.

There’s enough people ruining music for money.

Whilst running the label, you have been a member of popular local bands such as Factotum, and one of the label's most recent releases is the debut album from your excellent current band YO NO SE. How do you find the experience of balancing the label with being in a local band, and do you think the experience of being in a band influences how you run the label?

AS: First of all thanks- ‘popular band Factotum’ is not a series of words I’ve ever heard. I love playing in a band and to me it’s more important than the label. That’s not to say I sacrifice anything on the label for the band. That’s where my other half Suz comes in, to cover when I’m away on tour or recording. I just need to have that outlet or I’ll go crazy. The label’s a lot of work and growing bigger, but the personnel are still the same so we’re working twice as hard. We have bred another member to join the team but he’s only 2 and half. Being in a band also does help me know how a band likes to be treated and how unreliable they can be, as well as understanding that they have certain ideas in mind that I want to try help fulfil.

How do you decide you want to release a particular act? Were there any you had in mind when you started the label?

AS: It doesn’t take long once I listen to a record or even a song to know whether I like the music. To be honest when I started the label I didn’t have any bands in mind. It wasn’t anything like ‘oh wow there’s loads of great Bristol music I want to release’. Not that there isn’t, but I’ve never wanted to be fully tied to the city. I like to release bands from wherever and whenever.

Bristol is home to a number of other exciting DIY labels including Breakfast Records and Howling Owl, with whom you have collaborated on a couple of releases including Taos Humm's staggering debut LP Flute of The Noodle Bender. How do you see this label as existing alongside these other labels, and how far do you feel as though you belong to, and contribute to, a community?

AS: I try not to see music as a competition, though sometimes as a label those lines are kind of blurred. The music is always the most important thing. If the music is sacrificed for some ego or money then something very wrong has happened. Working with Howling Owl was great for Stolen Body because to be honest because those guys have huge respect as a label and it was an honour to have the chance to collaborate. I don’t really feel like I belong to a community in Bristol. Mostly because I just want to do my own thing and most of the time I’m at home stuck behind the computer replying to emails or sorting out releases. The whole label is very virtual for me to a degree and then suddenly I remember I’ve organised a show I have to host. There’s so much help I get from people so I don’t want to come across as some lone wolf, but I just don’t feel like there’s some community around me. There’s more of an incestuous feel to Bristol to me and if you don’t know the right people then you’ll never get anywhere. I don’t want anything to do with that, I’m just too stubborn or maybe too cool.

One of the things Stolen Body is well-known for is releasing music on beautiful coloured vinyls; perhaps more so than any other Bristol label, you seem to really value the physical artefact of the LP, as in the blue and gold version of Yama Warashi's Moon Egg. Why do you find that so important?

AS: We started off only releasing only vinyl as that’s all we wanted to do. I love sitting down and sticking a record on. I love buying them, I love how they look, I love turning them over…

When I’m listening to stuff online I’ll skim through it or skip. With vinyl I can’t do that, so things can really grow on you in a way that they just can’t for me on other formats.

Stolen Body is well-known for its annual 'Bristol Psych Festival', which last year hosted a wealth of local talent including The Evil Usses and Spectres. How did the festival start, and what do you enjoy about doing it?

AS: The festival started pretty casually while having a conversation with Edu from my old band The Bad Joke That Ended Well. We thought that a psych fest of some kind was missing from the Bristol scene. After that I kind of just went for it. As for enjoyment, it’s just the task of putting it all together. I love and hate it equally. Last year’s festival was probably the hardest day in my life. I’m pretty sure I had a small melt down for a couple of months after. I thought about packing it in but somehow I’ve decided to make it even bigger this year. I can’t sit still and I like a challenge.

While Stolen Body is by no means exclusively a 'psych label', psych is an aesthetic recurring throughout the lion's share of your roster. Do you hold a particular affinity for this kind of music?

AS: Psych for me is anything that makes you lose yourself. It defines itself under such a huge umbrella for me that I get pissed off when people say something isn’t really psychedelic when for me it is. Who cares though? Genres are boring anyway. I like rock n’ roll most of all. To be more precise, heavy rock from 1971. That’s the soft spot for me. It might not reflect in my releases but hopefully it does in my music.

While most of your output is Bristol-based, you have also released acts from further afield; amongst these, my favourites by far are Dusty Mush and their side-project Druggy Pizza, both of which are based in France. How did you come into contact with them?

AS: I’ll have to correct you there. Most of our releases are not Bristol based. I meet a lot of bands going on tour with my band or when I put on a band in Bristol. I also get a lot of bands that email me that are just too good to pass on. One of the most notable ones being US band Heaters. I met most of the French bands after I met Nick from Os Noctambulos.

The French scene is amazing. There’s a band called SLIFT we played with on our last tour that are incredible. They’re also the nicest guys, which always is the icing on the cake for me. I’ve got no time for some “rock n roll” attitude.

What kind of impact would you like to view Stolen Body as having had on Bristol's music? Are there any achievements/ releases you are particularly proud of?

AS: I’m not to bothered about having an effect on Bristol music. I’d rather concentrate on having an effect. Period. As for achievements every release is a new milestone for the label. From Vinnum Sabbathi to Edward Penfold to Al Lover, they’ve all been a pleasure to work on and with. If I had to pick one release I honestly couldn’t. Just depends what I’m working on right now. For the moment it’s Paul Jacobs’ Pictures, Movies And Apartments cos I’ve been working on it so much recently.

What do you have planned next?

AS: A lot of releases from all over the world, a bigger psych fest and a new Yo No Se record. I also have to drop my son off at nursery soon and it’s my anniversary soon so I better think of a present.

LICE

SATIRICAL ART-PUNK Members: Silas Dilkes, Bruce Bardsley, Gareth Johnson, Alastair Shuttleworth Illustration: Adrian Dutt

Formed at Bristol University in 2016, LICE play a from influences including breed of art-punk drawing The Country Teasers, The Fall and The Birthday Party. In the wake of The Fat White Family’s break into the mainstream, and the consequent renewal of interest in abrasive ‘post-punk’ groups amongst young musicians (as well as satire, in their almost single-handed re-popularisation of The Rebel), it seems that the past two or three years have seen the country become saturated with bands drawing influence from this same small clutch of acts. These have included London’s Shame (with whom you supported The Fat White Family at an early show, and who gave you your first gigs at The Brixton Windmill), Goat Girl and Hotel Lux, but then also artists as far afield as Glasgow’s Sweaty Palms and Manchester’s DUDS. Are you happy that people are currently attentive to the kind of music you make, and that you have consequently had the benefit of having ‘peers’ in other cities like Shame support you?

Or, conversely, do you worry that you’re just one band in a growing trend, and may get lost in the sea of jagged satirical ‘punk’ bands that are seemingly all over the place at the moment?

Silas Dilkes: Am I happy that people are attentive to the music we’ve been making and that other similar bands have supported us? Yes. Do I worry that we’re one band in a growing trend and that we could get lost in that trend? No. This isn’t to say that I don’t think we will get lost in that crowd (I’m quite sure we will), but that I’m not concerned if we do. Our first releases and our first shows embody who we were when we first started: brash, hectic, and convinced that the Birthday Party were the greatest band of all time. Would this have received similar attention if the rise of the Fat Whites hadn’t repaved the way?

I’m unsure, but I hope yes. In private we have moved away from these first influences though. I’m not concerned if we get lost in that crowd because we’ve moved onto something new that we’re proud of with less widespread appeal, I would be concerned (regardless of success) if we remained churning out very similar music.

Bruce Bardsley: It’s great that we’ve had the support of this new post-punk community. While our sound is punky I don’t think we’re that similar musically to most punk bands, hopefully that sets us apart.

LICE’s first release was 2016’s NUTMILK: The Basement Demos, an EP released by Charlie Williams on Wintermute Tapes. How were the basement demos to record, and how do you feel about them in retrospect?

Gareth Johnson: It was a very makeshift process recording the demos but we had a lot of fun. My friend and previous bandmate Oscar Hesmondhalgh ventured to Bristol from London to help record as he was the only person we knew at the time with any recording experience, albeit mostly psytrance production. I think given the circumstances they sound really, really good. All the equipment was cheap stuff off gumtree or amazon and there was a litany of technical hitches but it did the job, and was masterfully produced by Oscar’s brothers, Billy and Max (also with psytrance background), I think it’s down to them really that the songs ended up sounding semiprofessional rather than mega lo-fi pieces of junk.

Praise be to the Hesmondhalghs.

BB: Listening back to them I notice how much most of our songs have changed, mainly sped up. Which has worked in some songs, but they’ve also lost some of their groove, so will need to find a balance eventually. Really pleased with how those recordings turned out considering our inexperience at the time.

Soon after this, Charlie Williams joined Goldenarm Management and created the in-house label Big Score Records, inviting you to be their first release with your single ‘The Human Parasite’/’The Pervert Endeavour’ in May 2017. How was this experience, and why did you decide to use that new song rather than a re-recording of tracks from the NUTMILK demos?

GJ: We wanted to release a new song. We got an opportunity. We didn’t want or need to re-record as the songs were essentially the same at the time as they were when we recorded them, rather than now, where they’ve evolved into something different enough to be worth re-recording.

BB: It was a great opportunity to get to record with Dom Mitchinson at the Malthouse which is always a treat, so very grateful to Charlie and Goldenarm for that. ‘The Pervert Endeavour’ and ‘The Human Parasite’ were our newest songs, so they were the best representation of what we wanted to sound like then.

The James Hankins-directed video for ‘The Human Parasite’ is a live comic book featuring appearances from many of your peers in Bristol, including Oliver Wilde, Spectres, Emily Isherwood, Jesuits, EBU, SCALPING, Van Zeller, Chuman and many others.

How far do you feel as though you are part of a community in Bristol, and how far do you think the music around you in Bristol has influenced your own?

BB: Being around so many like-minded people and seeing them perform gives me ideas to steal and put into LICE songs.

Big Score’s next release was ‘My Headache Likes to Speak’ by YOWL, with whom you went on a coheadline tour in October 2017. What was that like?

GJ: It was our first taste of a proper tour really. We hadn’t been out on the road for that long before and it was wicked to have the opportunity to do it, props to Yowl for putting it together. Highlight was winning a LICE versys YOWL burger eating competition in a Southhampton Wetherspoons.

LICE was emotionally rewarded very early on. You were given a support slot for The Fat White Family at your fifth gig, The Fall at your twelfth (in what would be their last ever Bristol show), and were quickly drawn into the community with sets at Howling Owl’s Fifth Birthday and Breakfast Records’ first compilation tape launch. How do you think getting that early gratification affected your priorities with the band?

BB: Things went very well for us thanks to Ali’s incessant work in somehow getting those gigs. It was just surprising and very cool to able to play larger venues so soon after joining the band, especially the Bierkeller before it passed away.

LICE began by putting on your own headline shows at The Crofters Rights and The Louisiana, after failing to convince local promoters or venues to have you on bills, and to date have organised all of your own shows save for your gig at Thekla with Yowl.

What do you enjoy/find challenging about putting on your own shows?

GJ: It’s rewarding to run a whole event yourself and I think we all learned a lot about promoting shows in the process of running our own, but it can be hard finding your feet- learning to budget a show properly and get people down without incessantly harassing all your friends to come even if they don’t like your band. But I think we’ve got the hang of it now, you just need to find ways to make the show stand out from the rest. Like when we put on a show in a 13th century crypt in the centre of Bristol for Halloween, we only just made it work financially by the skin of our teeth (as always) but it was great to play a show somewhere totally different to the usual pack of bands in Bristol.

With ‘It All Worked Out Great’ you are releasing the songs that have comprised your live set over the past two years, and are beginning to write your first new songs since ‘The Human Parasite’. With these, you’ve said you are exploring new sounds and aesthetics. What are you particularly interested in and how has your writing process changed for these songs?

BB: It seems we all agree that we want to push our sound further and be ambitious with our music. I’m looking forward to playing around with rhythmic ideas and seeing what comes out of it. Our song writing process is different now we aren’t all in Bristol, we can’t jam things out nearly as much as before which makes things harder. But It also allows us to go away separately and focus on our individual parts, hopefully making the end result better.

SD: Our new approach is much more careful, trying to take in a wider range of influences from all members and trying to sink into a more aligned vision. My input here has had an ‘industrial edge’, with music frequently dominated by a central rhythm: Wiseblood, Foetus, Einsturzende Neubauten, Ciccone Youth and Laddio Bolocko amongst others.

What are your aspirations with the band at this point?

BB: I want a Grammy.

EP/64

EXPERIMENTAL, IMPROVISED ‘EPHEMERAL PROJECT’ Members: Dali De Saint Paul (and an ever-shifting line-up of local musicians and visual artists) Illustration: Joe Watson-Price

Ephemeral Project 64 involves raw vocalist Dali De Saint Paul and a shifting lineup of instrumentalists, with current and past members including Florent Berthaut, Dan Johnson, Nick Janaway, Simon Mawson and Matthew Grigg; the project also includes visual collaborators, such as Laura Phillips and Still Jam’s Sarah James and Becca Lewis. Focusing on live improvisation, the premise is that the ‘band’ will play 64 shows and then finish forever. Where did this idea come from, and why the number 64?

Dali De Saint Paul: I had a dream about this name (five years ago or so) and woke up with this sentence: ‘your band Ep/64 is over because you've wanted it like that.

Now that you've played 64 times, it is over’.

Dali de Saint Paul is known for a raw vocal style revolving around sung/shouted words and sounds, using loop pedals to build them into the set’s improvised rhythms. What influenced your vocal style?

DDSP: Well, depends on what you mean by influence.

If we consider influence while we are performing, I feel my vocals are just like the other instruments so I am interacting with them using another medium.

Regarding the use of pedals, actually I am using them since July 2017 (the project has existed since July 2016) and before my voice was processed by the laptop, but I've felt like I needed more power and freedom to create with my vocals. So using pedals, it was just as recreating some kind of chorus around me to give me the strength of a chorus- like Greek antic chorus if you know what I mean - giving me ideas only created by words/sounds of voice. But regarding what is said, I think that it is important to know that I have no desire to make sense in this project.

Anyway, I don't have what people call a “golden throat” (a beautiful voice?), but I do feel that I am deeply engaged in the music as if I was an instrument and I am responding to my band mates. I do live what we are actually creating, I am in some kind of way completely drawn into sounds, maybe one could say, I am experiencing some kind of trance.

Now if we consider influences in terms of artists who I'd listened to- pfff, it'll be an endless long list from Punk goddesses like Patti Smith to queen of new opera, Meredith Monk, but there are not only women- I mean men like Alan Vega have deeply influenced my “style”.

The list is endless because people like Moor Mother are actually influencing my singing now, I am a sponge and I am really happy since I live in Bristol to be able to see so much live performances!

How would you like to imagine people reacting to your live performances?

DDSP: I don't know really, it is a tricky one! For sure they could obviously be more or less disturbed by the fact that the music we perform is not sounding perfectly. It's not nice or pretty (if I can say ) But I think as soon as they know that the music is improvised, they are keen to open other channels to receive it. I'd love people to feel it is alive. I'd love them to feel like we are inviting them to immerse in an experience (total -if we have the visuals) and just to let themselves go and be lifted by the energy of the music as we do while performing but I don't know...it's really personal.

You are over 20 shows deep at the moment, don’t you worry that- as you approach the 64th show, you won’t want to split the band up?

DDSP: Nope! Arriving to 64 is actually something we (Dan Johnson and I) like to talk about just to imagine what kind of party it'll be, because for sure, we'll have some kind of pagan celebration for the last: I reckon a 64-hour improvisation! Anyway this project is one amongst other musical projects I am involved in, I've decided to set up this one, I like the idea of ending it.

This doesn't mean that we can't play together again in other projects or with another idea in mind.

The lineup of the project changes from set to set, sometimes solely relying on drums, sometimes including electronic sounds; How do you decide which elements, and performers, will be part of each show?

DDSP: It is really simple, I do not plan! I usually ask friends if they want to improvise with me via music or visual art. Dan Johnson has been involved since number 1, but occasionally he's unavailable.

Regarding instruments, there is no rule as long as I have a good feeling with musicians involved. We rely on each other when playing improvised music, there is a dimension of trust and I struggle to improvise with someone I don't really get along with. But I should confess that I am crazy about rhythm...especially when they are bringing some tribal vibes like Dan plays them in this project.

As an improvised project concerned with ephemerality, why did you commit songs to record with your debut album XI-IX-MMXVI, and how did you find that process?

DDSP: Our debut album -released by our friends from Aphelion Editions- was a live performance on the 11/09/2016 (date which named the album). As usual it was completely improvised and actually it was gig number 2. So what you hear, was neither prepared nor discussed by the trio. We've played that gig at the Old England- a great live venue in Bristol – where our friend Thomas J. Bryan was recording. I didn't really understand at the time that this gig would be released, but I can tell we had a lot of fun doing it!

As we are an ephemeral project, I tend to have the recording of every performance in order to document the project. We were lucky to have Thomas for this one, we also had the chance to have another great recording from Jake Mascis, for a tape released by Pale Master, a very good label from Liverpool, where we played our 3rd gig in October 2016.

A few weeks ago I also saw Harrga, a project which also features Dali as a vocalist but accompanied by a producer playing heavy industrial electronics through a laptop. Could you tell me a bit about this project?

DDSP: Harrga is born from my friendship with Miguel Prado. We've met in a completely different context a year ago, but as soon as we were introduced, we've talked about music. I loved his music as Nzumbe, for me, it was some kind of "coup de foudre". After sharing a lot of time together, having food, listening to music, we discover that we shared a lot and we wanted to play music together.

One of the things that moved us the most is actually the situation regarding migrants in Europe. The way in which European authorities treat/disregard them.

Last summer, Miguel and I decided to start Harrga as an homage to these people who are actually just trying to survive. Most of us would try to do the same / most of us would die. These people are brave, we should pay tribute to their courage. Harrga means "a burn" in a Moroccan dialect, “harraga” is the name given to people crossing illegally borders. As soon as they are in Europe, they have to “burn” their papers, they cannot have ID anymore, if they keep one, authorities would deport them. The set you saw is actually all about that. Each piece of it is a moment in their fight to survive (if I can say so). Mixing languages in this set, I am speaking/shouting/"singing" in French, in Moroccan dialect and very few English, we want to pay tribute but also in some ways we want to assess audience's openness and tolerance toward the situation described and the music we are producing. There is a sonically lacerating nature that runs through everything we do, we established a sound world and developed certain tropes and atmospheres that we start to understand now. It is a new project, we only played a handful of gigs, but soon we will record some material.

At the moment, Bristol is rich in leftfield improvisational projects, such as the DSC collective and The Iceman Furniss Quartet. How far do you think this project has been influenced by being in Bristol, and how far do you feel they belong to a community here?

DDSP: I started playing music when I arrived in Bristol 7 years ago, so no Bristol, no music for me! As a lot of musicians arriving and not knowing musicians here, I went to the Cube Orchestra (thank you Marcus V. for keeping it alive) where people meet and play improvised music. This was my first step into this community. There, I met 3 of my future band mates in Domestic Sound Cupboard on the very first day: James MacPherson (founder of the band) Dave Finch (our sax player who sadly has passed away since) and Harry ‘Iceman’ Furniss.

But there, I've met plenty of people who are performing as improviser or not, people like Aonghus Reidy (aka Ocean Floor), Anthony Brown from Repo-Man or like Lorenzo Prati from the Evil Usses. This is Bristol's wealth.

To come back to DSC, James MacPherson and Alex Jones, the other DSC's founder, had the idea of putting a night of improvised/electronic/jazz/different music/performances and so “The Sound Cupboard” has started. First we organised it in the great back room of the Bristol Fringe (in Clifton Village), [I am not really sure of the date] I think it was Septembre or Octobre 2013 and since 2014, in the excellent Crofters Rights, we are usually on the last Wednesday of each month. To have this night organised by musicians playing weird improvised music was another step in the community.

DSC was at this time James, Alex, Harry, Dave Finch, Florent Berthaut, Terry Owen, Pete Bennett and me, so there were already a lot of people involved. At this time, we were a band, not a collective! We became a collective when some left Bristol or simply left the band, so just to be fair I must add the names of these musicians who joined DSC for a gig or more: Matthew Grigg, Nick Janaway, Dan Johnson, Celestino Telera, Anthony Flynn, Matt Webb, Chris Langton, Thom J. Bryan, Aonghus Reidy, Simon Mawson and John Scott.

Thanks to The Sound Cupboard, we invited a lot of different musicians, we had people coming to see the acts, being inspired by the music they've heard from the performers and sometimes being keen to improvise themselves, so asking to perform after.

This was the case for people like Nick Janaway, who came to see the night, then performed as Solarference (with Sarah Owen), then joined DSC and recently left. Or Dan Johnson, who performed with Andrew Neil Hayes in the Sound Cupboard for one of their first performances before they became Run Logan Run. Dan then came back to play with DSC when the original drummer Florent Berthaut left Bristol.

As well as, my band mates from Viridian (another project set up by Laura Phillips with film projections+ improvised music) Caitlin Alais Callahan and Liz Muir who were invited to perform in TSC and became friends.

That is how we build a community, I think, everybody bringing his own touch, ideas, friends...and so on...etc.

So Ep/64 is closely related to DSC because most of the musicians playing in this project played or are playing with me in DSC. Also because of the improvisation spirit but in Ep/64 the small format was for me essential to give more space to each instrument.

What do you have planned next for EP/64?

DDSP: I have no plan but I'd like to play our music in different venues just to see how we react to spaces. Also in different cities and countries to see how different audiences react to our music. In December Dan and I had the opportunity to perform with R&D (GNOD members) and Anthony Child (aka Surgeon). It was a great gig and (even if we were not officially Ep/64) it gives me the desire to try special format like “battles” with other improvising duos/trios which could be good fun. Finally maybe an LP at some point. But for sure playing, until the end!

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7 UPROOT The Mainstream Music Press’ exclusive focus on

LONDON Bound in Corrupt Practices and Intimate, Purchased Connections, It Decides Alone What The Whole Country Hears.

HERE, skill proliferates in THE BLACK MAGIC OF PR… Things SMALL and tick-like in nature (as the insipid mewls of the young, undeveloped artist) are GROWN to Monstrous Size, while things that are truly monumental are SHRUNK TO NEAR-INVISIBILITY!!

To what CHANGE can The SLUG-CRAWL OF CULTURE ASPIRE

When we endow a single city with such exquisite power? Such

MONEY? When mainstream coverage is a matter of WHO PAYS AND WHO DOES NOT, why should we expect that the only music people hear about is from the Capital?

Through the complacency and laziness of THE MAINSTREAM MUSIC PRESS, growing fat on the releases and pre-written features they’re FED, the TOOLS OF REGIONAL MUSIC DISCOVERY GO UNUSED; LONDON becomes a COURT OF INTRUIGUE, where the music press amounts to advertisement, purchased by managers and labels from a breed of false-prophets…

Consider the RADIO PLUGGER, REMARKABLE TALENT in our land’s OUTER-REACHES – far from the Expensive Sun of London – and dies while withers MEDIOCRITY is made ubiquitous. _ What an EXCESS OF POWER we afford these people, and what a WASTE they make of it, greedily shirking their responsibility of national coverage. It amounts to MORE THAN TREASON, for it is a crime made not to a person or a group, but to everyone in the world; everyone who will ever live and die without the knowledge of the transcendental music that these people have let go overlooked.

WE MUST RISE FROM THE OUTER REACHES, ACQUIRING A POWER OF OUR OWN!!

paid by a label to take their signee’s music and give it to BIG RADIO PRESENTERS (along with some pre-written words from the label about how exceptional the song is) and encourage them to play/read it on air.

What, then, does the London radio presenter amount to? Albeit with an extra step, is acquiring their promotion so different from purchasing a billboard advertisement?

YES, because they pretend to more than their function, and more than their work- painting themselves as cultural arbiters, and intrepid discoverers of new talent.

These false-prophets’ sublime reach affords them exquisite control over what the rest of the country hears, and what it does not hear; what artless blank is covered by daydreaming fourteen-year-olds in school band-practice rooms, and what courageous visionary is IGNORED FOREVER.

KAYLA PAINTER EXPERIMENTAL AMBIENT ELECTRONIC MUSIC Photograph: Ed Bidgood

For several years you have been a popular and critically-celebrated new force in Bristol’s experimental electronic music.

However, I understand that you originally grew up in Southampton, before moving to Newport where you played bass for a poprock band. What first drew you to Bristol, and inspired you to pursue a solo project in electronic music?

Kayla Painter: I was living in Newport where I was studying an experimental sound degree, called Creative Sound and Music. However, I found Newport didn’t have much to offer in terms of varied gigs and a vibrant music scene- it was a bit of a dead end for that sort of thing. I looked at Cardiff but something drew me to Bristol. I also had a lot of friends in the arts studying at UWE so that had an appeal for me. I then commuted to University, leaving Bristol behind in the morning to go and study and be immersed by the beautiful backdrop of the Caerleon Campus, which was surrounded by nothing but beautiful hills and the ruins of a Roman amphitheater, and returning back to Bristol’s colourful loud vibrant culture, gigs and exhibitions every night of the week.

I was always in and out of bands and collaborative projects as a teenager and in my early twenties, so I thought that’s what I wanted to do. However, the degree I did really opened my mind and when I began experimenting with audio manipulation via computers I found this venture to be solo, personal, and something I’ve always just done by myself. It was never intentional for me to create myself as a solo electronic musician, it just happened!

You are well known for your grand and immersive AV shows. These feature visuals projected on large translucent screens behind you and in front of you, designed by your live collaborator Jason Baker (who now takes a similar role in Scalping). Why did you decide to bring him on board, and what do you see the relationship as being between your music and these visuals?

KP: Jason and I began working together after we were on the same bill at a night at Start The Bus (now Hy-Brasil). He noticed me struggling with running visuals and audio from one machine, (it made my audio really laggy and hard to control), and I think from there really we just had a conversation and started meeting up to discuss visual ideas and what he might be up for doing on the project. I’ve always felt my music is very visual, when I write I often think visually- it’s hard to explain but my creative process is based more in abstract thinking, colours, shapes and textures, rather than what key something is in. So I like to keep strong visual elements to my performances, and with Jason on board that made that possible. The visuals I was using before he got involved were basic and sometimes stock footage, I’m so glad I now work with someone that has the time to create landscapes specifically for the sound from scratch, it’s fantastic.

Since your project is not (for the most part) conducive to ‘dancing’ or club-nights in the same way as many other electronic projects in the city, your shows are a pretty unique proposition here. I saw a stunning video of you performing to a seated crowd at All Hallows Church which- setting aside- had the air of a classical concert, with the audience sat still, silent and absorbed. How would you like to imagine people reacting to your music, if it is not supposed to do what traditional dance music does?

KP: I never really imagine people reacting to my music, or I haven’t until now. I suppose I’d like them to do whatever they want to do. You’re right, it doesn’t sit in the ‘club nights’ arena, nor does it sit in sticky pubs, really. I suppose its ideally suited to somewhere with a really decent sound system and ideally where people can sit or stand, as vague as that sounds. I know some people really enjoy moving to the wonky beats in my sets, but I also know others who will take the opportunity (especially if I’m gigging without Jason) to lie on the floor and close their eyes.

Last June you released Auriga, a brilliantly original and atmospheric EP relying on a limited instrumental palette and dreamy vocal textures. You’ve claimed that this record was intentionally recorded and released incredibly quickly, with the entire EP being written, recorded and produced in the first few months of 2017- why did you decide to release it this way?

KP: I decided to work on Auriga like that because I had been stuck unable to release any music for a while, due to several boring legal things I won’t go into. I wanted so desperately to re-ignite my passion for writing music, and I wanted to be present and give something to the people that support me; I wanted to connect with people musically, and a release seemed like the best way to do that. Instead of writing and agonising for months over tiny little decisions I thought it would be interesting to have a really short writing to release time, to really capture what was going on at that moment in time, not just for me personally but what was happening outside of my experiences that was seeping into my music.

This record was the first to feature your voice since your 2015 single ‘Revert’, and of all your releases Auriga seems to use your voice the most prominently; what do you enjoy about using your own voice in your music, and why is it so central to Auriga?

KP: I gave myself such a short time and a really small pallet of sounds to work with on Auriga, another conscious decision, so that it really had its own sound. I suppose I enjoy using my voice because I’ve never been able to properly sing, but actually as a resource in experimental music, that’s not important at all. I suppose the connection element is important too, having an EP that features my voice more heavily than usual was perhaps my way of trying to connect with the audience.

That record came on a run of 50 cassettes, individually wrapped in newspapers collected in the run up to the release; these newspapers included features on the snap general election and the terrorist attacks in Manchester and London. What motivated you to bring this political element to a record that dealt conceptually with space exploration?

KP: So the idea behind this was to again show Auriga as a piece of art that was relevant or current at a particular moment in time. I wanted Auriga to be a living time capsule, a preserved piece of thought from those months. I designed the packaging with this in mind, I used newspapers that were bought every day for 2 weeks up until the release. So then each tape was going out with a story or a moment of what was happening in wider news for people to also reflect on, notice, or completely disregard.

The space element of this EP links intrinsically with the time capsule idea as I was thinking about how events in the universe may have happened already, but can be captured within a snapshot of time.

You’ve spoken before about the relationship between your music and introversion or isolation, and claimed that the songwriting process is very personal for you. This was reflected visually in James Hankins’ video for your song ‘Revert’, which sees you walking around Bristol in a giant bubble, physically separated from the outside world. If this is the case, was it uncomfortable when you began performing these songs live?

KP: Yes, indeed it was. I still find performing very unusual and challenging at times. I suppose I am not a natural charismatic performer; I am an introverted, shy performer. I think there are both types out there and everything in between, but I am usually more comfortable once I get off stage. I sometimes think I enjoy performing more in retrospect than at the time it’s happening.

You have shared your experience by working as a course leader in song-writing at BIMM (British and Irish Modern Music Institute) in Bristol; what does that involve, and how has that experience been?

The Course Leader job at BIMM is great because I’m able to work with students and work within music with a reliable steady income. Hearing students’ ideas and working with them is one of the highlights of the job. A lot of what I have to do involves admin which is admittedly the duller part of the job, but I am grateful that the content of the admin is usually around music or teaching - so it’s not like what it was like when I worked in Clinical Trials in the hospital doing admin, a million miles away from anything I knew.

I understand that you have worked and spoken a great deal for the visibility of women in the music industry, appearing on panels and recently performing at The Future Is Female in Cardiff (a night focused on feminism, gender and identity). I also read your excellent ‘12 days of Christmas’ piece for Drunkenwerewolf at the end of 2016; after discovering Laurie Anderson for the first time on New Year’s Eve 2015, you endeavored each month for the next year to find an inspiring album by a female artist which you had never previously listened to. How well would you say female artists are represented in Bristol’s music? Are there any female artists here of which you are a particular fan?

KP: I think female artists are represented in Bristol’s scene, and with the people working on raising awareness and bringing those women forward- like Saffron Records and Bristol Women in Music- it’s definitely on the rise which is great. I feel like some old fashioned ideals are outdated in Bristol. Where I’m from, in Southampton, you’d probably be hard pushed to go out on a night and come across a female DJ. Whereas in Bristol I think that’s sort of neither here nor there, which is how it should be!

Wenonoah in Bristol and ACCU (Wales) are both amazing inspirations to me.

WENONOAH PURVEYOR OF FINE FLESH POP FOR ABSTRACTED HUMANS Members: Rosena Wenonoah Illustrations: Sophia Jowett

Since rising to acclaim with your 2015 debut album Insides: Something Funny I Ate , you have been a popular and frequently-cited force in Bristol’s left-field music despite releasing (as far as I’ve been able to find) nothing at all since then. Three years on, however, you have announced you are preparing to finally release your second record, Frankenpop. How did you begin writing music as Wenonoah, and how would you describe the music you make?

RW: I think it had been something that I’d been wanting to do for a really long time, but I went about it a really backwards way… I think from when I was very little I noticed that music that I liked really focused my attention and I would listen quite intently and find it really satisfying.

So the route to making music started with listening, at home, and from dancing in the kitchen. I think I would say I make kitchen music, quite domestic music, like being in a place where you feel at home and maybe you sit quietly, but also you’re not worrying about anyone watching you dancing around or singing at the top of your voice. It’s intimate, and unashamed, and really cathartic… But I do wonder why it took me such a long time to start making music for myself. I think I began writing music as Wenonoah by allowing myself to follow my curiosity. I think sometimes I was trying to have that creative satisfaction vicariously through others and then I realised that if it was an impulse that I had then… no one else could do it for me. I had to act. I think it also was a tipping-point, where it feels like you’re having the audacity to do something. Because some people would be really encouraging, but sometimes more experienced people, they’re carrying around more ‘shoulds’ in their head. Like “oh it should be like this, it should be like this” and that’s not always very useful. I dunno – people have these really restrictive ideas of what music has to be or what music that’s worth listening to has to be, and I’m sure I’ve got a bunch of ‘shoulds’ in my head, but I just try to tell them to fuck off sometimes so I can just get on with something. And I think that when I’m watching other people perform what I really appreciate the most is when I feel that the person performing is doing exactly what they’re drawn to do.

They’re doing what feels good or satisfying or interesting or risky, for them. And I think that’s empowering, it’s empowering to see people do it and its empowering to do it. Which I guess is the DIY thing cos then it’s not so much about skill, necessarily, not so much about skill in some kind of straightforward, linear, good/bad way. It’s more about agency. I think making music is also a way of wrestling with the structures and conditions we exist within.

Interrogating the values/prejudices/ideas of self we’re surrounded by. I’m interested in dissatisfaction with the world and trying to work out what are the things that you can change, and what are the things that you have to learn to live with. So I guess my music is a meeting of the personal and structural.

What themes did you set out to explore with Insides: Something Funny I Ate, and how do you feel about that record in retrospect? Is there a song of which you are particularly proud?

RW: I guess the overall theme is the way that making stuff can be a way of digesting the experiences you have of being a human in the world. And I’m aware I’m really slow – it takes me ages to digest. I find that music is like a figuringthings-out space; it’s like my head exploring ideas. I’m just trying to remember when I was listening to the album recently; which ones were they that I felt really happy about? I think I really liked Septic Union. Maybe because, I dunno, I can still really relate to it, but I think there’s still quite a lot of other songs where I was impressed at the vocal performance I captured, and I think at the time I didn’t really – I’d forgotten that I’d captured that with those recordings. Maybe I’d diminished them in my mind, because… I just did it in my bedroom, but actually it sounds great. And I like that fact: that it’s on my own terms. I think I like Septic Union because it’s about a relationship that’s changed, that has been close, and isn’t so close any more, and how that feels, and I can still really relate to that now.

A version of ‘The Easter Tree’, originally written by Dave Goulder and performed by June Tabor in 1977, appears halfway through the album as a half spoken-word, half acapella piece. This poem/song describes nature interacting in various ways with a dead body hanging from a tree after a public hanging, defamiliarising it, illustrating its decay and finally moving beyond it to meditate on the wider subject of public execution. Why did you choose to use it in this record, and how do you see it as relating to the rest of the songs on the album? Also, why do you count up to ten at the end?

RW: The record is just a reflection of the things I was interested in musically at the time, and that song, I’d been really fascinated by it, lyrically and melodically since my friend had first introduced me to it a couple of years before that, and I guess it was a record where I was like, I hadn’t done any of that before; I haven’t done an interpretation, a cover since. That was the first time I’d ever done that so it felt it fitted on the album just for that reason. It felt really natural to have it there. I think I’m really interested in physicality and the bodily experience of being human, and I found that song interesting, because the body moves between being a subject and an object, and it leaves the human world.

Around that time I’d also been thinking about public execution, I was thinking about voyeurism and I was thinking about the changing relationship to death, like what place does death have in our society? What are the rituals that we have, and how, in a relatively short space of time, it’s changed, where we used to have public hangings and we used to go and watch and death was closer. Life expectancy was shorter and death was closer, and maybe death was less scary because it was more tangible. And also, maybe, by going and seeing someone’s life end, maybe seeing death up close helps you understand the life you have. And that it is finite. There’s a song that finishes the album that’s about my Nana dying and her funeral. And I think I was thinking about the decay of her body. And maybe thinking about her living on in my mind, but there being this apprehension about the possibility of the decay of memory as well. And, with the Easter Tree, and the video I made for it, I’d been reading about different sites in Bristol that were used for public execution, and when I was visiting these places, I was thinking about how they would go unnoticed or unmarked, thinking about the layers of memory in a place, that all exist piled up one on top of the other. And thinking about the New Gaol on Spike Island, and I was just standing in a car park, where the public hanging would have taken place, something about the mundanity, just a car park, but it’s a place where people were killed, and people gathered to watch. Another thing that I was exploring at that time was to do with women and hair, this idea of a woman’s hair being her glory, but hair also, as a sign of femininity or womanhood, being something too powerful or almost disrespectful that might need to be covered. And I also read about hair being a woman’s ornament, and then I thought about a woman being an ornament, and being hung up by her hair, strung up, punished through or for that sign of her woman-ness. I thought about a woman hanging from a tree like a bauble, like a pretty bauble, in the way that maybe women are expected to be these decorative creatures without much substance, or that being one idea of what a woman is. There was a lot going on there, but those are some of the ideas.

But a starting point for me is always instinct, and that might be an image- an image in my mind, or it might be a melody, or words that come, and then often it’s then trying to decipher what they mean for me, or what they could mean.

I count up to ten because I ended up relating the song to Bristol’s history of public hanging, but more specifically to the last public execution in Bristol, which was of a young woman, and it was the simple thing of, she was hanged at 10 in the morning, and I imagined her staying up all night, and being visited by a priest, and I imagined her counting the church bell as it rang; counting the bells and realising that this is the time now, this is the end.

Is that interest in materiality/physicality connected at all to your treatment of the record’s physical release? I have read that you personally hand-cut and glued the white leatherette and card packaging for the CD ‘following the principles of imprecision engineering’, and bit the corner of each copy very hard with your teeth.

RW: Yeah I think this probably comes from a real sense of freedom that I felt, like I could do it however I wanted, and this was the way that I was drawn to do it. I think I’m quite a tactile person, so the idea of what it would feel like to touch… from really early on, it felt natural that I would consider that, and not just what it would be like to look at, which is why I went for the leatherette. And I definitely think that wanting to bite each one- and the handwritten numbers and making it myself- was because generally I was face-to-face with the person who was buying the album, and I think that was to do with going from being in this quite insular process of being on my own little island of making the album and then wanting to share the music and feel a material connection with the people that I was sharing it with. I didn’t think too much about it, I just wanted to feel that closeness again. And also I think it was quite important to me that it existed materially, not just as a digital download, and maybe I’ll change my mind about that but that seemed significant, that it should have a material existence before it should have a digital one. Yeah, and I feel like the songs come out of my body, and maybe there was part of me that was thinking about the inside, wanting it to feel somehow slightly more ‘animally’.

Several of the songs on the album (‘Hinges’, ‘Pleural’ etc.) are acapella performances; why did you decide to not these songs with accompany instrumentation? What do you think they gain from being solely comprised of and are there any vocals, vocalists/songwriters who particularly inspired your creation of those songs?

RW: Umm, again, maybe it’s not very helpful but I think I was just following instinct.

‘Hinges’ existed with instrumentation at one point, and then by experimentation I did a version where I wasn’t accompanied, that I listened to and really liked, so then did a final recording.

And with ‘Pleural’, that were these three different little fragments of something which I then realised seemed to belong together. I think that I liked it just being a voice because I like things being quite minimal, and I think that an unaccompanied voice can maybe change more, or move around more, but because it’s the only element it doesn’t feel too much. There’s a real freedom in it, and it means also that you can just really listen to the words I guess, and they bring a stillness when you listen, at least when I listen, I have a stillness, and in terms of any particular inspirations for that…I guess folk tradition has a lot of unaccompanied songs, it never felt like a really radical thing, it just felt pretty straightforward.

One of my favourite songs from the record is ‘Streetwalker’, which was also accompanied by a remarkable music video.

This song describes an affecting childhood encounter with a prostitute; is this a real recollection? If so, why did you decide to write about it? If not, what inspired it?

RW: Yeah, so, it might or it might not be, it’s based on a real recollection. Yeah, it’s based on a real encounter, maybe not exactly that kind of encounter (laughs) I think I like the ambiguity so I won’t say any more.

In 2015 you co-founded the small DIY cassette label Simula Records with experimental artist BURL; while you only released a handful of cassettes between 2015 and early 2016, these included real gems, such as BURL’s staggering EP Mona and the Mega Mix tape from lo-fi comedy-pop hero Chuman (featuring favourites such as ‘Fat Friday’ and ‘I Can’t Wait For The Summer’). What motivated you to start that label, and what did you enjoy about it? Were you ever tempted to selfrelease your music on it?

RW: The motivation for starting that label was that our friends Guy and Alice, with Jez helping perform, did this performance as Woden called Thomas Chatterton and me and Burl saw it in some Victorian toilets and I really appreciated the head space that it put me in, and so I think I just said “shall we release it?” Starting a little label followed on from that. So it was quite short lived but I think we learnt a lot by doing it, like that we weren’t really interested in PR stuff, and that if you’re making small scale DIY stuff that it’s best to make really short runs so that you sell a few to people that are already interested, and a few to people that stumble across it, and then move onto the next one, more as a documentation of something that people are doing, rather than as a money making exercise. I had thought about releasing my stuff on it, but I didn’t, but I’m thinking of setting up a label now to do self-release stuff. What was fun about doing Simula was that we could ask people whose music we liked to release it. I liked the independence of it, and the relative straightforwardness of it. To be able to be like, “can we release this?” and they’re like “yeah, that’d be great.”

Field-recordings are a constant presence in Insides: Something Funny I Ate; ‘Pleural’ begins with rainfall, ‘The Easter Tree’ begins with a baby crying, and ‘Song For Butcher Bessy’ features cow sounds. What inspired your use of these sounds, and why do they feature so prominently?

RW: Again this is following instinct; I think I really love listening and I think that if I got the idea in my head that a song might work well with a field recording then that was almost an excuse to go out recording things with my Zoom. I found it really meditative and exciting; it feels like going somewhere, moving through space with a heightened sense of hearing because you’re listening through a recorder. It’s a really rich experience, so I think that’s one reason I was using it. Another is the songs are – the whole process was – quite personal, and it added another layer for me, because I listened to the record all the way through a couple of months ago, probably for the first time since I released it, and when I was listening and hearing the field recordings I’m listening on all these different levels. I’m hearing the song and I’m remembering the technical stuff about how I recorded the song parts, what I was feeling or doing at the time, where I was, but then I’m also remembering where I was when I made the field recordings, who I was with, the landscape I was in. I guess it’s part of seeing the songs as being located in space/place; whether that place is ‘real’ or constructed. ‘Pleural’, it’s actually the sound of waves, but waves are notoriously difficult to record and make sound like what they are. But I love water, I love the sea, and that song was all about the sea. So it felt really straightforward, if in my mind when I’m singing that song I’m thinking about the sea.

To let when other people hear this song, this recording, that their mind might be taken to the sea as well, if there’s the sound of the waves. And the cows, the cows! Yeah, that’s – I dunno – just quite straightforward, I think it’s just weaving something together, and enjoying textures, just experimenting, like “I’ll try this” or “I’ll try that”.

Last September Thorny aired your song ‘I’m Not Dreaming About Anyone’ on Noods Radio, the first outing from your upcoming second album Frankenpop. You describe ‘feeling happy, feeling full, feeling peaceful, cosy and well’; how representative would you say this song is (as a more superficially ‘cheery’ effort than your previous work) of the moods and themes you are exploring on this next album?

RW: Umm, I didn’t think that the last one was miserable! Maybe that’s just me. I think I like things that are a mixture, you know? Some things that are maybe a bit sad, some things a bit unhinged, but yeah, I guess this is maybe a bit more upbeat, more lively. Still a mixture of meditative and friendly. I think it’s gonna be a mini album. And I really like the songs, got a bit more work to do on some of them. I want Frankenpop to be empowering to listen to, and yes, to have a cosy, intimate feeling. I think it’s mainly about friendship and living in bodies again.

Why have you waited so long to release this second album? How do you think your priorities and interests as a songwriter have changed in this time?

RW: I guess the main reason is having to earn a living and trying out different ways of doing that, which reduces the time and energy you can put into something. You know the story: creative satisfaction vs. material security, which I find hard. I think I tend towards being quite ‘all or nothing’. Second reason is it was a pretty steep learning curve doing a recording session for the first time with someone else (Annie Gardiner) doing the engineering and my friend Jez Stein on drums. I felt quite exposed – first time recording not alone at home in my bedroom but with witnesses! It took a lot more time and preparation than I thought. But I learnt a lot... With recording I have these ridiculously high standards, I want the recording to capture the soul of the song, and that’s really hard, and I feel generally with live performance there’s something about the audience and then performing with my friend Jez on drums: there’s this magic, an energy, a dynamic everything’s moving, and it really can bring a song to life. And you might do a rough recording of the live performance and you listen back and you’re like, “oh god that doesn’t sound like anything special”, but when you were there in the room the space was filled with a certain kind of focus, or intensity: a concentration. And when that happens it’s just… that’s the soul of the song. And so it can be this living thing, and in that way I think I’m more confident with the song being a living thing that exists from gig to gig, audience to audience, in a community, and I think I’m looser with that, but when it comes to making a recording… I think I put quite a lot of pressure on myself to get it as good as I can, like I owe it to the song to do a good job, yeah, and I think that comes down to wanting to share it with others, and that’s like, wanting to connect with others, and feeling like if I make recordings that I can connect with then probably other people will be able to connect with them too. (laughs) And thirdly I think I wanted to self-release again, which I did originally with my first album. I might set up another new little label and then start releasing a bunch of things under different names. I don’t really know yet, but I feel optimistic about it and, like I said before, I think that this making music is about feeling empowered by making space for things that feel quite instinctive, and I think that that’s what I wanna do, I want to try out different things. DIY gives me this feeling of independence. To feel like I’m bumbling along again, and to have that autonomy.

In discussing your interest in ‘The Easter Tree’ on your page back in 2013, you claim that ‘in stories and songs we can all become timetravellers’. Have you ever considered how your music may be revisited and regarded in the future, just as you revisited that 40-year old song? What are your main aspirations with this project?

RW: Music for me is a way of interacting with the world, a way of digesting my experience of being a human in relation to other humans and a way of exploring emotions. It’s this kind of alchemy. Creativity, in this case musical creativity, I think it can be a way of transforming any kind of experience or feeling, be it destructive or fearful or anything, into something life-giving and sustaining. I think my main aspirations are to facilitate my curiosity and keep exploring things that I find interesting, to keep wrestling. And also I think – yes, to validate and document my creative meanderings, almost as a diary, or way of making memory. And when I listen back to these things in however many years, it’ll be like being able to travel back to that time, to that moment, which will be cool! But I think my main thing is that I’m learning all the time, I want to be less afraid of making mistakes, of getting things wrong. I think that’s all I can think to say about that.

EDWARD PENFOLD WOOZY, OFF-KILTER ACID FOLK ‘Illustration’: Edward Penfold

appeared

When your solo music first on Stolen Body’s Vegetarian Meat II compilation, the project already seemed fully-realised. I could not, and still can’t, find any of the shaky demos or live recordings one might expect to have bridged this very substantial gap between your pre-existing band Taos Humm (psych/garage freakout) and the warm, woozy, off-kilter folk pop you create under your own name. What inspired you to pursue this sound? Particularly in light of the fact your Taos Humm bandmates now play and record with your solo project, I wondered how far your years in Taos Humm influenced your music as Edward Penfold?

Edward Penfold: Ha oh god, I’ll try my best to answer all of your questions. This reminds me of the first time I did a piece of homework on a computer. It was at that transitional point in time when computers were starting to take over, in a practical sense, not in a bleak dystopian way. The problem was it took a while to get to grips with it. I would only use the index finger on my right hand to pluck letters from the keyboard, completely fixated downwards, a bit like a heron. It required such a great deal of concentration that I would often go off on a tangent without realising. I hadn't answered the question at all.

You toured Denny Isle Drive in village halls around the country. Why did you choose to base a tour around these small community spaces?

EP: Good question. I don't know haha. I have little to no experience when it comes to booking a tour so it seemed like a nice alternative to emailing booking agents and venues, and most probably not getting anywhere. Village halls are great spaces, they are cheap to rent, have big natural reverb and they are everywhere. Also a lot of them have defibrillators so I felt safe in the knowledge that if I was going to have a heart attack I’d probably be ok.

I enjoyed the remote gigs more. Like in the Lizard.

The night I played, a big storm was going on outside.

It sounded great, reverberating through the building, and when it occasionally died down you could hear the chat of the snooker club in the back room. Belstone was a fun gig too. For those of you who don't know, Belstone is a small village on the edge of Dartmoor and you only get to it on purpose.

We were expecting no one to turn up so we went to the local pub for some food: lasagne and chips. I remember feeling relieved I had already ordered when a large family came through the door for a birthday party. It was the daughter’s 18th birthday and it looked like she was about to be baptised in something sweet and sparkling. When we finished the meal, Harriet, Len and I walked back to the hall, still with the intention of playing, but with it looking like we’d be playing to no-one. As it so happened, three people did turn up, and very nice people they were. A woman (she was dressed fantastically, a bit like Cruella De Vil, but more tasteful) and two men with her, brothers- one a man who made guitars, and the other from a punk band called ‘The Adverts’. The three of them sat down, at the front, which was also the back, and I played the gig.

Something that I remember being said a lot about Caulkhead at the time was its remarkable englishness. You sing with a very cut-glass, classically British accent, returning again and again in your delivery/lyrics to the traditional palette of English expression: cynical wit, poetic wistfulness and pure pathos.

We see this prominent, almost caricaturised notion of Englishness again on Denny Isle Drive, with ‘Northern Hemisphere’ featuring lines like “Sunday to the country, walk the dogs, eat the roast: / a quintessential way to boast”. Aside from your frequently cited influence Syd Barrett, what inspired this aesthetic, and what would you like to think you achieve with it?

EP: I don’t know, anything and everything. I try to take influence from whatever I can. I guess the most important thing is to keep your ear to the ground and don't think too much.

I love the instrumental tracks on both albums, with ‘Song for Joan’ actually being my standout favourite track from Caulkhead; were you not tempted to put lyrics to these songs?

EP: They were always down to be instrumentals. ‘Lawrence of Arabica’ too, but it was only half a song at the time. Matt wrote the second half. I guess that answers question 1 a bit more.

I’ve heard that you changed the song titles to Denny Isle Drive at the very last-minute, and guesses can certainly be made at the original titles. ‘Bungalow White’ for example, was at some point in its life quite clearly called ‘Yesterday’s Bread’. Why did you decide to change these titles?

EP: It would be nice to have a mysterious and elaborate story behind this. The reality is the tracks had working titles and I just didn't get around to naming them until late in the day. One was originally called ‘Finger Lingerer’, and another ‘Horizonal Rhumballs’ That particular expression, “yesterday’s bread”, is used again on album-closer ‘Garden Fresh’. It’s a phrase I’ve not heard before- what does it mean in the context of the record?

EP: I like idioms. I suppose “yesterday’s bread” is me trying to write my own.

I understand that you and your band travelled to your native Isle Of Wight to record your debut album Caulkhead, but for Denny Isle Drive you recorded at The Malthouse in Bristol, where band member Dom Mitchison is a producer. Why did you choose those two different locations for the two records, and what differences do you think were rendered from recording them where you did?

EP: A mix of opportunities and logistics. There was an opportunity to record in a house on the Isle of Wight at the time of Caulkhead, so we drove down and made it. Fairly simple. For the second record I wanted to be more ambitious, which meant spending more time and not using basic recording equipment. This meant sitting in a studio with my friend Dom (of Malthouse Recording Studios) for long periods of time and going slightly mad. They were very different processes record making but both challenging and gratifying in their own way.

Denny Isle Drive is a staggeringly beautiful record, and by far my favourite of the two.

However, it features a great deal more pathos, and sounds as though it came from a very different place emotionally to your debut; I’ve also been unable to find any interviews from you about the record. Could you tell me about how this record was created, and what inspired this change in tone (as well as its vastly improved production) after Caulkhead?

EP: I don’t think I can, I'm afraid. I have a head like a sieve and as soon as I've finished something I'm on to the next thing. I just hope people enjoy the record and its relatable. So I guess there’s no real need for me to talk about it in much depth.

What was the inspiration for the character in Denny Isle Drive’s opening track ‘Conker’?

Are he and other characters in these songs (such as Molly and David from ‘Northern Hemispheres’) based on real people?

EP: They are based on real people, but going back to the last question, my intention is for it to be relatable. So, I hope you could say they are based on a lots of real people Your backing band features other local artists, including members of Taos Humm, Velcro Hooks and Factotum. How far has your music been influenced by other music in Bristol, and how far would you regard yourself as being part of a community here?

EP: The people in these bands are my friends, they were my friends before we started playing music together and will be my friends when we stop playing music together. Calling it a community sounds a bit too thought out. They are my buds and sometimes we play music.

NOODS RADIO

INDEPENDENT RADIO STATION

radio Over the past couple of years, the NOODS station has become a beloved and respected pillar of Bristol’s DIY music community; as well as airing brilliant shows such as ‘Worm Disco Club’ and ‘Death Out Loud’, you have put on historic gigs and nights with local artists, and given a platform to new projects (such as Boys Club). What inspired you to start a radio station, and how did you first set it up?

When we started the station it was just something the two of us did together for fun. We both followed different music and had always shared it with each other and after watching ‘Breakfast With Ringo’, we thought it’d be funny to stream our couch-locked Sundays to our friends.

The two of us didn’t have any experience DJing or using any of the equipment, so we used to run off our two computers into a DAW and stream using CHEW (a site similar to Twitch but for DJS). We made do with what we had at the time and that’s something we continue to do till this day.

What were the first shows you had available? Did people ask to be involved from the start, or did you invite people to do shows?

So the first show’s we had were ‘The Noods On Sunday’ which was the two of us playing a very irregular slot every Sunday, ‘Looking for Astronauts’ every Tuesday from old band mate Gaz Evans and then every Thursday we would reach out to friends and artists we followed about doing a guest show.

We were lucky with who we knew in those early days as some of those guest shows gave a sense of legitimacy to what we were doing and the façade that we also knew what we were doing. Really, we were just running around with a laptop, bag full of beers and a few cables to hook up to other people’s gear (sorry everyone).

What value do you think internet radio stations like yours have? Do you listen to much radio outside of NOODS these days?

I think radio stations are a great opportunity to represent and showcase a community. They’re a source for people to discover music and a home for it to develop. Grime’s development from pirate radio is a great example.

They are a broadcast tower for the people's voice and most online stations are uncensored and not influenced by corporate desires. They provide a platform for those establishing themselves and a hub to make new friends, work together and help one another. We listen to other stations all the time.

When we’re not live we’ll normally be listening to LYL, NTS or Redlight Radio in the office.

Once the station was set up, you began putting on nights around the city; what motivated you to start putting on these nights, and how do they relate to what you do with the station?

The nights kind of came about just naturally. I can’t remember how it came to be, but we firstly did a Sunday session with EC & Amos at the old CHAMP studio the day after they had a party to raise some cash to get rid of all their rubbish. It was real loose with a lot of flesh, a sax solo played on a carrot and bacon pancakes for everyone.

Champ member Jack who also worked at The Surrey Vaults told us we should speak to the manager about putting stuff on and I guess things kind of went on from there.

Members: Leon Pattrick, Jack Machin Illustration: Jack Machin

At the heart of it, putting on the nights was always just about having fun - just like starting the station. In the early days they were always on a Sunday rolling through to the early hours of Monday and we were blessed with some pretty strong guests slamming it out in the upstairs of this old pub. Some of those old Sunday sessions were proper loose! For the ‘Sunday Funday Gnarwhals Fuck Fest!’ we had kickers in the road, a bbq by the bins and tattoos in the old conservatory. When things were a rockin’ people were being squashed into the ceiling and the microphones were swinging because the floorboards were flexing so much! We came by the next day to find the walls and ceiling covered in footprints and beer.

NOODS found its base in The Surrey Vaults, a beloved pub and small venue run by skaters. How did you come to adopt this space as your home, and what do you see its value as having been in the local community?

So a while before we did that Sunday session at CHAMP we had been to the pub for one of EC & AMOS’ Dance Party’s.

That was the first time we stepped through those doors and from then on we gave up drinking anywhere else.

I think the weirdest thing since the pub has been shut is this odd state of limbo so many of the promoters and regulars have found themselves in since. That place really did tie people together and was a home to so many. The Agent Of Change Principle that the government are meant to be pushing through is the first step in the right direction. But these places need more support or to have their significance within communities assessed before coming in and booting ‘em out. Having a night mayor or someone who can come in and help these spaces understand their rights and help support their struggle would do a world of good.

What would you like people to take away from what’s currently happening in Bristol’s music scene?

We stood on the side of the floor next to what looked like a picture of the family dog and the two of us were just screaming ‘This is the spot!’ It’s where we wanted to do nights and even joked about the station being based there. Ben Haizelden, the ‘original’ manager of The Surrey Vaults, really sculpted the ethos & vibe of the pub and welcomed us in along with a number of promoters who helped define it, Totality, Schwet & Slack Alice. Under his wing all the promoters and staff came together and helped build a community around the pub.

Through putting on events, the pubs residents becoming our own, and it being the place where all our friends and us drank at - the pub became the home of the station and in March 2017 that the dream of moving in came to be.

Many of your residents are active musicians in Bristol; NOODS airs shows presented/curated by Kayla Painter, Spectres’ Joe Hatt, Tara Clerkin, The Naturals’ Rob Stewart and Felix Drake, and many others. Why do you think the Bristol music community has embraced what you do so entirely? How far do you feel as though you belong to (and are contributing to) a community?

That pub was a huge asset for the community. So many people met there, so many cut their teeth there and so many amazing gigs were hosted there - ALWAYS FOR FREE. It was a place where you could walk in chat to anyone and discover new music without paying a penny and without the clique-ness or rudeness. As the guys from Wolf Eye’s described it, ‘It’s a pub for skaters and misfits’ and as Ben Haizelden put it: “NEVER FOR MONEY, ALWAYS FOR LOVE”. Without the pub, I’m really not sure where we would have gone with this whole thing to be honest.

Errmmm, I’m really not sure. A lot of the people who have become involved with Noods we met through other means. It’s certainly a privilege to have so many great artists involved with the station though. I guess our contribution to the community is giving a place for people to learn and share music, but also a source for those looking for new music and interesting artists related to Bristol. I hope it is anyway...

The Surrey Vaults was closed down in November, due to noise complaints made by the neighbouring apartment complex ‘Cabot24’. People purchasing flats next to music venues, and then submitting noise complaints to the council when they put on gigs, has contributed to an unprecedented recent spate of venue closures in the city: Start The Bus, The Stag and Hounds, Bierkeller and Roll for The Soul have also been culled, and The Jam Jar has been forced to crowdfund its way to safety. Even the most unsinkable venues now look as though they could fold at any minute: The Fleece, as well as having its business rates hiked up by a criminal 400%, has recently had new flats built 20 metres away from the stage. Even Thekla is now under threat, with a new housing development taking place next door to it.

How did you find out about The Surrey Vaults’ closure? How has it impacted you (beyond turfing you out of your home), and what would you like to see done to counteract this growing menace in the city?

With the closure of the Surrey Vaults, it feels like chapter two for the station. What do you hope to do next with NOODS? Do you have any particular ambitions?

As we were tightly involved with The Surrey we’d known about the noise complaints for over a year. I did the bookings so was always conscious about the complaints and how that affected the way we ran things. But everyone there knew. There was even a pot to raise money for extra insulation. The funny thing is: until those new builds were nearly built, the pub never really got noise complaints. Even when we were running those Sunday parties till the early morning! For so long we had been ‘emotionally’ preparing ourselves for it. Which I guess, is why a bunch of us were there every day. Still, after all that preparation - getting that call was like taking a bullet.

Don’t be disheartened – there’s plenty going on and it’s always adapting.

Haha, I feel like this is the 3rd chapter.

We’ve finally got the gear, we’re both in the same country and we have a sense of what we’re doing with things! At the moment the main focus is the programming and building it up to regular 12+ hours a day whilst not compromising on the quality and trying to make the new studio a comfortable hub for residents to meet each other and share ideas.

Alongside that, we really want to focus on using the station as a platform for people to gain skills and experience. We’ve already started to take on people to help out with the more internal parts of Noods but want to also look into workshops and talks for the residents and eventually the public. With the new space, we also want to welcome more bands aboard the station and make use of the extra room with live sessions and interviews!

SIMON HOLLIDAY PHOTOGRAPHER OF BRISTOL’S NEW MUSIC Photographs: Simon Holliday

For many years, you have been a crucial and

celebrated documenter of Bristol’s music scene, photographing a variety of local acts at era-defining live shows, and giving some of the best new artists in the city their first press shots. Along with photographers like Stephanie Elizabeth Third and Rowan Allen, you have helped build an extensive and beautiful visual portfolio of this remarkable moment in underground music. How did you first begin photographing live music?

Simon Holliday: Thank you for your kind words!

I’ve been going to gigs in Bristol and trying to photograph all kinds of things for many years, but it took a while before the two came together.

I realised that many of the wonderful events I was fortunate to be witnessing either weren’t being documented at all, or were being recorded in poor quality just for social media. When they were being photographed more professionally, it was often just close-up shots of the performers, excluding the atmosphere of the location and the audience, which I felt were really important to the experience of live music in small independent venues. So, I overcame my reluctance to risk the camera being showered with beer and started bringing it out with me. Prior to that I’d been doing a lot of street photography, so I started by photographing gigs in the same way - using a wide lens, framing the performers to include the context of their surroundings, trying to be unobtrusive and unnoticed and not affect or influence what I was photographing, and then attempting to capture an interesting moment.

Amongst your many photographs of local acts, do you have any personal favourites?

SH: It’s hard to pick favourites. I don’t photograph bands I don’t like, and if I shoot photos and I’m not happy with them I don’t publish them, so in a sense, my collection is already all favourites. But within those, there are pictures of people with whom I’ve connected through mutual creative respect, become friends, and gone on to collaborate further on other work, and those pictures have more of a personal connection. Sometimes a picture is more of a favourite because I know I overcame a particular technical challenge or took a risk that paid off to capture it.

Do you follow/seek out live music photography from elsewhere? Are there any live music photographers of which you are a big fan?

SH: Yes, I spend a lot of time looking at other people’s pictures, but I try to look selectively rather than just ingest the barrage of images thrown at me on social media. As well as looking online, I look at photography books and go to exhibitions. Looking at printed pictures you’ve chosen to see is a far more rewarding and appreciative experience than seeing the ones an algorithm has selected for you on a screen which is simultaneously trying to distract you with a targeted stream of ads, videos and notifications.

There is a wonderful meditative calmness that comes with looking at big photo prints without distraction.

Right now though, I’m really enjoying what Rowan Allen and Lindsay Melbourne are doing. I also think Richard Howarth deserves recognition for what he does in Bristol - he’s a ‘serial documenter’ of pretty much every gig he attends, just using his phone. He’s probably photographed more gigs than anyone else I know, and sometimes Richard’s pictures are the only evidence that an event ever happened.

One of the reasons this magazine was created is that there is a deficiency in this city of honest, representative work to document what’s happening in its new, leftfield music. As a result, this dramatic and inspiring cultural moment is going completely ignored by anyone with any power to show it to the wider public, and when it inevitably passes there will be precious little journalistic/historic trace of it. As a result, I see what you do as very, very important indeed.

Do you see what you are doing as important in the same way? In any case, what is it that you enjoy about it?

SH: I think my pictures have potential value in two distinct contexts. Firstly in an immediate sense, to illustrate and promote the artists, events and venues which exist right now, for the current and potential audience who still have a chance to experience them; secondly, to document a really exciting slice of time for a possible future audience who may have no connection to the performers or venues in the images.

I’d love to think that some of my pictures might be seen 10, 20 years or further in the future by people who are curious about what was going on.

A lot of documentary photography only finds its true value decades after the events portrayed.

I’m trying to work in a way that the photographs can stand up for themselves beyond the immediate artist/release promotion/review cycles, and aim for images which are interesting to look at in themselves, regardless of whether you know the people or places in them, and shot in sufficient technical quality to be viewed large and in detail. We’re all familiar with seeing everything presented in limited resolution on social media, but many of those pictures are never looked at again beyond a few days after they’re posted.

As for my enjoyment - it’s already such a privilege to get to see and hear so many amazing things - I’m lucky to be invited to more events than I can possibly attend, and yet I still feel like I’m missing out on so much! Having the opportunity to contribute something myself by creating an interesting visual record of what took place is just icing on the cake.

Unfortunately, a lot of music journalism follows the money journalists have to sell publications and entice advertisers - so the new and niche artists who are doing amazing things for the love of it often don’t get the attention or media exposure they deserve. Music journalism can be more about promoting and selling than reporting and documenting, and those journalists have some very difficult decisions to make in this regard.

For a long time, you were known for taking photos almost exclusively in a signature, gritty black and white; more recently however, you have been taking photos in full-colour. Why is this so?

SH: Initially that style was due to the camera I used at the time; it just wasn’t capable of recording decent colour images using the low light of the small venues I was photographing in the way I wanted to work. I was trying to capture performances that represented how I was actually experiencing them, including the ambience of the venue, and this meant not using a flash, which would have made the scene look entirely different.

So most of my pictures were shot at the highest sensitivity my camera could handle and had to be converted to monochrome in order to be at all usable, and they were incredibly grainy - but I never saw that as a problem - I loved the result and it really suited the subjects. Many of my favourite photographs by other people are grainy black and white film shots from decades ago; pixel-perfect sharpness is nowhere near as important as capturing a special moment in an interesting light. So I had a crash course in low-light photography and figured out some good techniques, without ever using a flash for about 18 months. I quite often went home with no pictures too...

Over time I’ve tried out different cameras and lenses, and figured out ways of using a flash without destroying the feel of the venue’s own lighting (If I use a flash it’s never in the same place as the camera), so now I’m often able to make a decision as to whether I want to work in black and white or colour for aesthetic reasons, not through necessity. Sometimes colour is just a distraction and doesn’t add to the image or suit the performance, and sometimes I want to shoot a filthy grainy contrasty black and white shot just because.

I understand that this has never been your main job, and that you’ve been highly averse to the idea of taking on photography as a full-time paid career.

Why is this the case?

SH: I haven’t yet figured out a way to turn what I do into a full-time paid career without sacrificing my freedom to photograph who I want, when I want to, and in the way I want to do it. My live work is a personal project more than a job. I want to be proud of every photograph and not be expected to deliver average pictures of bands I’m not really interested in. If I’m at a gig I’m there for the music first, and the photos second; I don’t want it to feel like work.

I see a lot of dull live music pictures, shot by photographers who are paid to show up and deliver a certain quantity of images, so they can’t risk trying anything different which might not work, and maybe aren’t even interested in doing that, so they play safe and shoot average photos habitually. If I had to do that I’d totally lose my love for it.

I take on paid work if it’s something I’m genuinely excited about committing my time to, and this is more often away from the live scene, working with artists who want to collaborate to produce unique portraits, promo pictures, release artwork and so on. It’s the complete opposite of documentary and live photography - creating and lighting a scene purely for a photograph - but I absolutely love doing that too.

From your experience watching, documenting and being totally immersed in all aspects of Bristol’s music, what would you like people to take away from what’s currently happening in the city?

SH: There’s a whole community of wonderful creative people producing profoundly innovative and beautiful music and performances, much of which is totally unadvertised via the usual channels, which I think most people in the city are unaware of. It’s also the most welcoming, inclusive and inspiring community to be a part of. I wish more people would go out and explore and check out a band or performer they’ve never heard of in a random venue.

At the same time, the city is being taken over by luxury flats, and the venues which support the creative community and nurture the new talent while they find their audience are slowly being forced out of business. It’s incredibly sad. But it’s in the nature of creative people that they will always find solutions to these things. Venues close down, but other places will spring up. You can’t put creativity and love out of business.

EBU New Year: New Noise V The Brunswick Club January 2018

The Gnarwhals Pool House EP Launch The Crofters Rights March 2017

BAD TRACKING Bristol Germ Launch The Loco Klub November 2017

Let’s Kill Janice Breakfast Records Launch Ray’s Pizza April 2016

Chuman Crazy Lady Blues Single cover shot March 2017

Memory of Elephants The Stag and Hounds May 2016

SLONK Songs About Tanks Album shot: one of a set of pictures produced for a book which accompanied the release.

January 2017

EP/64 Fiddlers November 2017

Silver Waves The Crofters Rights March 2017

8 ACQUIRE New

GROUND For the torch of enlightenment Must be brought to these darkling plains

O Friends, how long our people have SUFFERED From entrusting public enlightenment to a breed of FALSE PROPHETS at our country’s CENTRE! TRUE HISTORY LIES AT OUR OUTER REACHES, Unbeknownst to our people, who wander ghost-like In this strange landscape, where the BLAND

Walk ENORMOUS, Filled with ILLUSIONARY POWER. IT IS INCUMBENT ON YE TO DELIVER NEWS OF THE MUSIC IN YOUR COMMUNITY ON A NATIONAL SCALE. A DIFFICULT, BUT NEVER IMPOSSIBLE ENDEAVOUR.

Emerging From the Treeline,

Breaking Upon the Heath,

Traversing Valleys,

Bounding Over Mountains, Parading Through The Streets,

Seizing The Capital, WE DELIVER THE NEWS OURSELVES!!!!

VAN ZELLER ENERGETIC GARAGE ROCK Members: Ben Hambro, Nick Berthoud, Alex ‘Bernard’ Callaghan, Charlie Meyrick Illustration: Kimi Zoet

Van Zeller formed when you were all freshers at Bristol University at the end of 2015, bursting onto the circuit with a string of energetic, no-nonsense garage rock shows. You have now cemented yourselves as one of the city’s most exciting and ambitious new guitar bands, cited as part of a new influx of talent in the city. What inspired you to start this project? What were you listening to, and what were your early aspirations for the band?

Ben Hambro: That’s a very kind description, thank you. I think the project initially started out of just having some spare time to fill in our first year of university. I had a few songs and ideas written before we even started that we just kind of went off.

I think I was listening to a lot of Loaded- era Velvets at the time, so I think I was just trying to find that catchy/scrappy melodic feeling in the song writing, although this has probably changed now a lot. To be completely honest, I don’t think we’ve ever even laid out any kind of aspirations apart from just playing live and having a good time doing it.

With only two properly-released singles under your belt, I think it would be fair to say that you have established yourselves principally on the basis of your live shows. What are your influences as live performers, and is there a gig of which you are particularly proud?

Nick Berthoud: I’d say the majority of my influences as a live performer come from the LA garage rock scene – bands like Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Wand etc. But also from watching our mates play in Bristol and around the UK, say bands like Dead Pretties (RIP) and The Black Tambourines.

BH: I think we always just wanted to have as much fun with this project as possible and as a result we sort of forgot that recording music is also part of the process as well if you want to be a “proper” band. I seem to consistently have my tiny mind blown on a weekly basis, but I think seeing IDLES in Cheltenham was the last great performance I saw recently. Personally, I am really proud of the show we did at Thekla, just because it was very surreal to be playing there.

With no booking agent or management, you recently embarked on a self-organised national tour ending aboard Bristol’s 400-capacity Thekla. How was that to organise? What do you enjoy about being a DIY band, and at what point (if at all) do you think you’ll bring other people into the picture?

NB: Whilst the tour was, inevitably, stressful to organise at times, we were lucky to have a couple of great promoters and a TM helping us sort it all (cheers to Dan, Simon & Jake for that), which definitely made life a hell of a lot easier. Having spent a couple of years playing shows all around the country, it had got to the stage where we had the contacts to ask promoters personally if they’d be up for doing a show, rather than having to send out a load of blanket emails; I’d say that’s one of the best things we’ve got out of doing two years one off shows as far away as Edinburgh!

From a DIY point of view, I personally like to be very involved in the organisational side; I find it pretty gratifying to see the work on that side of things pay off. That said, we’re not averse to bringing other people on board: at some stage, there comes a point where you just physically can’t sort everything yourselves. But if, or when, that does happen, we’ll all still be at the heart of every decision, from shows to releases: we’ve come too far doing it ourselves to just sit back and let someone else sort everything for us.

Your first release was your You Can’t Lose/ All Or Nothing single, released on Flying Vinyl; this was mixed and mastered by Spring King’s Tarek Musa- how did you into contact with Tarek? come BH: I think I drunkenly approached him outside Thekla after Spring King had just played Dot to Dot a couple of years ago and he was kind enough to give me his contact details. Tarek might be one of the nicest people I’ve ever met; I think most other people in that situation would have told me to fuck off.

It is my understanding that the songs were initially written by Ben, and then developed with the rest of the band; however, you are increasingly writing collaboratively. What differences do you think that change in your songwriting process has brought about in your music?

BH: The song writing has become mature now, less rushed. When we booked our first show we didn’t have enough songs even for a support slot so I think I got into a habit of just rushing things. I also go through stages of extremely frustrating writers block, so it’s nice to have others around to bounce ideas off. I actually prefer writing with other people, even though song writing can be extremely personal, it can also be quite a lonely experience. I’ve been writing shit songs since I was about 13, I’m now 22, so I really appreciate all the help I can get.

You recently released your excellent second single, ‘The Coward’; could you tell me about the inspiration for that song? Where do you draw your lyrical ideas from?

BH: Thank you, I’m glad you like it. I wrote it about a year and a half ago. It’s a very personal song, but in short I was just extremely frustrated with myself as a man and masculinity in general, and questioning the way men act in certain way. It’s kind of surreal listening back to the song now in the context of the Hollywood sexual harassment scandal and the broader context over the discussion over predominantly male behaviour now, and I’m glad that it’s become a topic that is now at the forefront of the public conscience.

Van Zeller is one of the youngest bands in the city, with many of your peers in this issue having been on the circuit with some project or other since early in the decade. How far do you feel as though you have become part of a community in Bristol, and are you conscious of being newer in the city’s musical landscape than many of your peers here?

NB: Bristol feels like an incredible place to be at the moment if you’re into music, as a punter or as a musician. I feel there’s a sense of community that just isn’t there in many other major cities. As you say, we came onto the ‘scene’ comparatively late when you think about many of the other bands in the city, but there was never a point where we weren’t made to feel welcome, and to be honest I don’t think we’d be where we are today if it weren’t for the support we got from other, more established Bristol bands, promoters and music fans alike.

You might be the only Bristol band I know where all the members also live together; how do you think constantly being in each other’s company has influenced you as a band?

BH: I’m honestly not sure it has had that much of an effect, I guess maybe there is some element of cohesion on stage that come from knowing people really well, but I wouldn’t say it has influenced us that much, I mean there are no four part acapella renditions when the dishes are being done, for example, however much the fans might crave this.

As I write to you, you are entering the second term of your final year at The University of Bristol; how have you found balancing being students with being in Van Zeller?

NB: It’s tough at times for sure, but we manage.

At the end of the day, I think the thing that got us through is the feeling there’s no need to rush anything. If it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen, and to be honest, from watching how other bands have been doing over the past few years, it often seems that the longer something takes to build, the longer it’ll then last.

Finals are fast approaching, and soon you will be free to focus entirely on the band; what do you hope to do next with the project?

NB: One of the main aims is to get some more material out there: as you can imagine, as a band with well over 20 songs written to date, but having only released 3, we’re pretty keen to get some of the newer stuff out, to show the progression in songwriting that’s taken place.

But as usual with Van Zeller, there’ll also be a big focus on the live side: I’d hope to do some more lengthy touring, potentially some support tours too, as we’ve often had to turn them down whilst we get uni finished up. Who knows. We’ll just keep on doing what we’ve done so far I reckon.

IYABE

DARK, EXPERIMENTAL QUINTET

Creating a singular and atmospheric mix of punk, noise, R&B and ambient electronic music, Iyabe have been a celebrated presence in Bristol’s music for many years. While Iyabe is now a full band, complete with two drummers, I understand that it began early in the decade as the solo project of vocalist Sophie Dawes. What originally inspired this project, and what were your chief influences when you began writing the songs that, years later, would appear on your debut EP Biology, Biography, Culture?

Sophie Dawes: Before Iyabe I was briefly playing in a hip-hop band as a bassist. I was encouraged to leave the band and work on my own project.

The drummer and I had played in other bands previous to that, but I had never written my own music, only lyrics. I was given a copy of Ableton Live. With no knowledge of the software I had started experimenting with found sound. I am not sure if anything directly influenced the project, as I did not know how to write. I was able to be completely free and open to create something unique.

How did Iyabe become the full band we see today, and in what ways do you think adapting these songs to be played by five people has changed the nature of the project musically? In writing your new material as a full band, how can we expect it to be different to the stuff Sophie originally wrote by herself?

Hannah Layhe: I don't know how the others joined the band but I had always followed the band and loved the music. I did that dep gig and then became a permanent member. I think doing the music as a 5 piece not only allows us to recreate the recordings live, but build upon the foundations of the original songs and expand the sound. We all bring our own creativity and experiment with layers, bringing a different feel and power to the songs.

I understand that you employ elements of ‘found sound’ in your recordings. How do they find their place in your music, and what do you see them as bringing to it?

SD: At the early stages of writing, the foundsound samples were actually where most of the songs started. ‘Stranger’ and ‘Plastics’ were written by making a one-minute loop. Rupert, Dan (ex-member) and I would then arrange the loops into songs. When I was first using Ableton I used a lot of the VST instruments. I started to hear them in other songs. A lot of drumbeats would sound like the 808 kits. I decided I wanted to collect and use my own sounds; I always wanted to study sound. I want to combine nature and culture as well as technology into my music.

In late 2016 you released your debut EP Biology, Biography, Culture; I always meant to ask about that title- what themes do you see this record as exploring? What inspires you lyrically?

SD: The title of the EP came from a music philosophy lecture I attended at college. My lecturer was exploring the influences of musical taste, these being biology, biography and culture.

As my lyrics are usually biographical I thought this title would be perfect. My lyrics are about the usual things that artists write about; love, loss, family and trauma. They are honest account of things that happened to me in my life.

Members: Sophie Dawes, Rupert Irving, Ben Harris, Oliver Baldwin, Hannah Layhe Illustration: Sophie Dawes

Having- as I understand it- sat on some of these songs for years (fans can find a video of Sophie and Rupert performing ‘Stranger’ as a two-piece as early as 2013), what was it like to finally release this record? Is there a song on it of which you are especially proud?

SD: For me personally it was a huge relief to release the songs. When I started the band I became very unwell. It takes me a lot longer to complete a project so when I do it feels like a huge achievement. The EP launch was a massive success and was dubbed the fifth best Bristol gig of 2016, with Massive Attack’s Durdham Downs performance at number 1. I find it hard to choose which song I am most proud of. ‘Tell me do I’ was a vocal idea that started the band. It used to be just an interlude in our live set that has developed into arguably one of the strongest songs on the EP. Working with Olly as a producer has been amazing because he is extremely talented but also because he has given the songs the care and consideration they deserve.

My favourite song from the record is ‘Stranger’; could you tell me about the inspiration for this song?

Ben Harris: That’s my favorite too.

SD: Whilst I was writing this song I lived in a very strange flat on The Durdham Downs. It was massive, I spent most of my time there on my own.

I remember it being winter. The rooms had very high ceilings and massive windows, stain glass of figures like Newton throughout. It was freezing and isolated. You would have to cross the downs to get to the local shop, which I was too anxious to do in the dark. I was struggling with terrifying dreams at the time. I wanted to explore fear and innocence, which was a common theme in my life. Even at the most dark and strangest times in my life I managed to find comfort. The original choral lyrics were ‘you will have to see it for yourself, stranger things have happened’.

In EP closer ‘Metacroc’, Sophie sings about ‘progression, progression, progression, progression’; how far do you see yourselves as an experimental project? Do you think your sound has been particularly influenced by the wealth of leftfield guitar music that exists around you in Bristol?

Oliver Baldwin: I think the term ‘experimental’ is often coined when music really just takes on a bunch of different influences. We all have very different backgrounds and bring lots of flavours to the band.

I would say that while our songs definitely have experimental approaches in some areas, we also have bits that are really accessible, for instance, ‘Plastics’ is really just a four chord pop song, with a bunch of weird stuff over the top.

BH: The songs we're currently playing have in themselves progressed with the addition of Oli, Hannah and I. All of us have added our parts to the songs and have helped them to develop into their current form but I think they still retain their original character. They just sound bigger and fuller. I'd say we like to experiment insofar as we all have pretty varied tastes and are all open to hearing and trying out new ideas. Nothing gets ruled out until it's been tried out and if we all like it, we use it. It's hard not to be inspired by all the great music that's happening in Bristol right now. There is such a wealth of talent that we're really spoilt for choice and it's got such a strong musical community that people inevitably rub off on each other.

Members of Iyabe have also pursued side projects, including x.Fleshbarbie.x and Ogives (who will be releasing new music around the time this magazine is released); how do you see Iyabe’s music as relating to these projects?

SD: I don’t think Iyabe directly relates to the other bands at all. I personally have collaborated and worked with many musicians in Bristol, so obviously I sound like ‘Sophie, which you can hear in Fleshbarbie, but it is very different. In the same way, Ogives sound like Ben Harris- you definitely will not hear another guitarist like him.

You can hear that in the record, but again its different.

BH: The setup between the two is pretty different so the relationship for me is usually in terms of sounds. Whilst playing with my solo setup I often find new sounds that I think will translate well to Iyabe.

Guitarist Oliver Baldwin is also a successful producer, and has worked with artists including PJ Harvey; this is a question I’ve also always meant to ask Velcro Hooks/Spectres’ Dom Mitchison, but how far do you think working as a producer has influenced the way you approach your band as a musician?

OB: Well I originally co-produced the band with Sophie, before joining as a musician, so it’s hard to say. But I’m infinitely more interested in the song as a whole over my own musical input. If stuff doesn’t fit together then I step in, for instance if it needs a bass line that isn’t there. If the song needs no changes, I can step out for a bit. I love that I don’t play a note in ‘Tell Me Do I’. Good production is about creating a great song, not about reverbs and delays. So the writing and arrangement is always the priority.

How far do you feel as though you are part of a community in Bristol?

SD: I feel as though Iyabe have been accepted into the Bristol music community right from the start. I think there is always the question of ‘where do they fit?’ Promoters and venues struggle to find us support slots sometimes because we are unusual.

This has opened up some interesting gigs for us, It wouldn’t be weird for us to play a commercial pop festival as well as a independent noise gig. Our first support slot was at The Louisiana supporting electronic dance DJ Ulrich Schnauss. I do feel that marketing the band has been difficult, it does feel good to not be pigeon holed into one genre. I hope that’s a sign we are doing something unique.

You’ve taken a very long break from performing, but I understand you have been writing new material; what aspirations do you have for the next year in this band?

SD: Iyabe have never really played outside of Bristol before, I would be interested to see how other cities receive us. There are things I have never experienced as a musician; touring playing big festivals etc. However, my ultimate priority is the music: writing, experimenting, new songwriting and recording techniques. I just feel very grateful to work with the people I do. If I continue where I am years from now I will be happy.

Whatever comes from that will be a bonus.

THE ORNSTEINS MELANCHOLIC ELECTRONIC-FOLK Members: Joe Groves Illustration: Janey Hayes

I first met you when you headlined the first Breakfast Records ‘All Day Breakfast Festival’, performing with your band Let’s Kill Janice- an incredibly popular fixture in Bristol’s guitar music which you fronted alongside SLONK / Milos Planes’ Joe Sherrin. Could you tell me a bit about your time in that band? How do you think your work as The Ornsteins relates to your time in LKJ?

The first song I heard of yours was ‘Disneyland Smiles’ on Breakfast Records’ Breakfast 2# compilation; a beautifully sweet, sad song featuring layered electric guitars and vocals and a simple drum-kit.

These days, your live set sees you use vocal effects, looping stations, and these excellent, compressed electronic beats reminiscent of those employed by The Rebel through his Gameboy Colour. How did electronics become such an important part of your set, and do you expect them to become a bigger part of your music as the project continues?

Joe Groves: LKJ started as a side project to Holy Stain, a band me and Sherrin were in with Arthur from Jesuits (who graced these fine pages last issue). This was back when we were idiot teenagers rather than idiots in our mid20's. It acted as an outlet for mine and Sherrin's poppier songwriting that didn't have a place alongside the offensively loud shit we were doing at the time and it became a full-time thing after the demise of Holy Stain. I then got a looper pedal, and started writing everything using that. Quite a few of the Ornsteins songs were written whilst LKJ were still functional, but just didn't fit in with what we were doing, similarly to how Janice was born from Holy Stain, so the three bands I've been a part of have almost been a continuation of one another; at least as far as my contributions are concerned. I do miss being able to turn up at a gig with a guitar and a few pedals rather than a goddamned table, stands, and two backpacks full of stuff on top of all the standard gear.

Transport is a fucking nightmare.

JG: Grabbing some drum machines and sequencers felt like a natural progression once I realised how much I enjoyed making repetitive music in my bedroom. I’ve always been fascinated by hardware synths and cryptic looking gear with a multitude of wires and knobs and blinking LED's because I’m a huge fucking nerd. For the first handful of shows I was playing to a looped backing track, as until that point I’d only ever played in 'punk' bands where I could just blast on a load of fuzz and reverb and no would notice if I fucked up. The aim was to start simple and gradually make things more complex, which is a trajectory I’m still on. I attempt to add a few new little tricks in every time I play as I’m most definitely still learning how to use all of this stuff, plus, as I get more pieces of gear I can add new elements to my songs. I try my best to keep my recordings as close as possible to what I can achieve live so I am tied to what I can do with the equipment I have available, rather than having the infinite possibilities of doing it all in a DAW. Having actual hardware is so much more appealing to me as I feel that having everything there in front of me allows for a much more liberating and creative workflow. Rather than having a computer in between you and what you're hoping to achieve, you have to work with the nuances and quirks of pieces of gear, often resulting in interesting creative limitations that can actually end up being a huge benefit to the songwriting process. Plus, it looks really goddamned cool having a table full of incomprehensible machinery. I've recently got myself a sampler, so will be working that into my set up for the next batch of songs I write, and I’d imagine there will be more and more electronic elements as my collection of toys grows, although I’m always going to try and keep a balance between the electronic and the organic; for this project at least.

What inspired you to pursue a solo project, and what were your chief influences when you began writing music as The Ornsteins?

JG: I didn't feel like the music I was writing was appropriate for LKJ any more, either due to the amount of layers I wanted not being achievable with a four-piece band, or it being too stylistically different so I decided to go it alone, as they say. I've always written on my own, and a lot of the appeal of doing a solo project in this form is that I can just do everything myself, whenever I want. I have my rig set up in my bedroom so can hash out some new ideas, or practice whenever I please, and I can make it as repetitive and dense as I want without having to ask some other folks to play a simple part for five minutes straight. The Beta Band have probably been the biggest influence on this project. I think they do the blend of catchy pop songs with electronics and samples better than anyone else, which is of course something I aim to do. Aside from the obvious pop influences, I'm a big fan of krautrock, psych, hip-hop, and acid house - which all have a heavy focus on repetition and grooves, which are things I try to incorporate with the short, melodic pop songs.

Also, as far as playing live, Giant Swan/The Naturals have been hugely influential. Every time I see them play I'm always scratching my head going 'Wait a second, how the fuck did they do that?' I wanted to induce that same reaction in people, so it's always marvelous when someone approaches me after a show and goes 'Wait a second, how the fuck did you do that?'.

While you have occasionally performed with Lily Cooke from Jesuits, I understand you write and usually perform by yourself; why did you decide to give this project a plural name?

JG: Well I try to create the sound of a band on my own so it felt a bit more appropriate giving it a band's name, plus I intend to occasionally do gigs with other members so sometimes the plural will be deserved.

Mainly though, it's just a bit of a stupid joke! It's fun to confuse people a bit some times. I like the thought of doing some Darkthrone-esque kvlt as fvck artwork for my emotional pop songs and silly stuff like that.

Whilst the themes and presentation of my music is often fairly 'serious' and heartfelt it's good to not take yourself too seriously and have a bit of a dick around where possible.

Bristol is rich with other excellent garage-rock/folk projects, such as Human Bones, SLONK and Oliver Wilde; do you feel an affinity with this other music being made in the city, and do you think your music has been particularly influenced by the community of artists around you?

JG: Oh, absolutely. Some of my biggest influences are the people around me, without a shadow of a doubt. Arthur from Jesuits and Sherrin from SLONK have both been enormously important in my musical development, since we've been playing together/friends for years and years now. I’m blessed to have people that talented around me for inspiration and support. Also as mentioned earlier The Naturals/Giant Swan have had a big hand in getting me to where I am now creatively, but really there's such an incredible wealth of varied and amazing work going on in Bristol, especially over the past ten years, that it's all rubbed off on me to a degree.

While I’d be hesitant to label ‘Anasthesia’, ‘For Hendo’ and ‘Disneyland Smiles’ as ‘sad songs’, they are certainly all marked by a very potent sense of pathos; do you see that as a defining feature of the project? What inspires you to write?

JG: Indeed. I like to think of it as happy-sad. A few people have put it to me as being nostalgic, and that's a term that I think works too. I never really think 'oh I want this song to sound like this', I just jam until something good comes out and follow it naturally from there and it always seems to come out sounding that way.

My songs are always highly personal and reflective of where I am/was at that particular stage of my life, and are pretty much always an outlet for my multitude of worries. I tend not to try and hide behind vocabulary or obfuscate things and attempt to state my feelings in the plainest way possible, as I think if you're writing emotional music, then relatability and sincerity is the most important factor. I rarely write about the things that make me happy, and my songs generally need some emotional spark to inspire them, to the degree now that when something negative happens I can't help but think 'Well, the silver lining is I’ll probably get a song or two out of this'!

How would you like to imagine people reacting to your music?

JG: As emotionally as possible, really. The feeling that something you've created - especially something so personal - has touched someone deeply in some way or another is one of the finest feelings in the world.

Someone telling me something I’ve written has made them cry is pretty much the biggest compliment I can receive, as I pour so much of myself into my work that knowing that I’ve touched someone on that level never fails to put a smile on my face.

My favourite song of yours is ‘For Hendo’; could you tell me the story behind that song?

JG: It's a pretty soppy one that one - It's a love song for one of my best friends, as quite a few of my songs are.

I struggled with some personal issues last year and my friend Ayesha received the full brunt of my ranting, and she was always understanding, supportive and amazing; regardless of how much of my bullshit she'd have to hear. She was also facing some difficulties of her own and I wrote it as a way to both say thank you for all her support and also to try and return some of the comfort that she had given me when I’d needed it the most.

We're both huge Tolkien nerds, so it's a song about our relationship framed with her as Samwise and me as Frodo; as we all know that Frodo never would have made it back to The Shire without the real hero of that story.

What do you have planned next for the project?

JG: Lots of exciting stuff this year! I've been sort of keeping it under wraps whilst I hone my live performance/production skills as most of it is still relatively new to me, but I feel that it's at a point now where I want to get it out there. I'm putting out my first single soon with an album coming later in the year, and I'm also going to be featured on the next Breakfast Records compilation which is out on 21st of April they're putting on an all-day party at The Louisiana to celebrate the release so go check that out!

MATT LOVERIDGE ECCENTRIC HIGH PRIEST OF THE BRISTOL AVANT-GARDE (MXLX, TEAM BRICK, FAIRHORNS, KNIFE LIIBRARY, GNAR HEST, BEAK>…)

Illustration: Harry Wright

The past fifteen years have seen you inhabit a

myriad of different identities, genres and styles, whilst retaining an utterly singular, influential presence in Bristol’s experimental music. From the piano-and-vocals music of Knife Liibrary to the ear-perforating industrial noise of MXLX, you have erratically and impulsively pursued a range of sounds and aesthetics, often recording with many different projects at once. Visitors to your Bandcamp page will find over 30 records, and the Team Brick ‘Digital Boxset’ alone features 60 tracks ranging in length from 30 seconds to almost 20 minutes. As an eccentric, critically-celebrated artistic chameleon, inspiring and influencing many of the city’s best artists (our readers may recall Oliver Wilde and Jesuits’ Arthur Brown discussing you in Chapter I), you’ve played an important role in the recent history of Bristol’s music. How did you start out here, and is there one project you particularly identify as?

Matt Loveridge: I just started in my bedroom, screaming through a Metal Zone distortion pedal, making a racket on a minidisk. I put my first thing out at the end of 2002 and just kept going, usually borrowing other people’s shit.

Around 2011 I stopped being Team Brick, and started recording everything on my own, or mostly on my own, using a really shit Dictaphone and a stolen copy of Cubase.

I probably identify the most as MXLX, but all the projects are different… they all address different ideas and disciplines.

At the centre of the Matt Loveridge myth, supposedly tying your projects together in some cryptic, unexplained way, is ‘The Croatoa Institute’. Could you explain that to our readers?

ML: I’d love to, but they won’t let me; they’ve never given me the green light. Last time I tried to, they locked me up for a week in their office; I was chained to a radiator, monitored constantly by CCTV… How did you escape?

ML: I promised I’d play Brahms on the piano for them for a couple of days.

Recurring across your various projects, there’s this kind of duality between really abrasive, confrontational noise (as on MXLX’s An Actual Weapon) and very meditative, melancholic, introverted music (as on Knife Library’s Relentless Hammer). Those two things, constantly at odds with each other in your oeuvre, appear starkly together in what is probably my favourite song of yours full-stop: ‘Your Bastard Mouth is Open and Will Not Stop Howling’, the opener to 2017’s Kicking Away At The Decrepit Walls Til The Beautiful Sunshine Blisters Thru The Cracks. How would you explain the relationship between those two contrasting elements in your music?

ML: They’re definitely there all the time because… well… I’m angry and sad all the time. I think there’s also aggression in the acoustic stuff, as much as there is in the loud stuff, it’s just a more seething, pent-up aggression, and the aggression in the more noisy stuff’s a bit more celebratory, but melodically it’s pretty miserable. But yeah, I like that duality…

As is the case with most of your tracks, the lyrics on this are quite difficult to make out, and I can’t find them (or any of your lyrics, for that matter) online. What is the song about?

ML: I don’t like to publish lyrics; I feel like if I’m going to print the lyrics I might as well print out the chord sequence and the tabs and just show you how I did everything. I don’t like to put much importance on lyrics; for me lyrics are just a thing to sing to. Putting too much importance on lyrics kind of cheapens the whole thing for me.

Yes, you’ve mentioned before that you always tack the lyrics on at the end. In my experience speaking to other artists who approach lyrics like that (The Rebel, for example) it’s generally because they see writing lyrics as an obligation; they don’t really enjoy the process and actually find it very frustrating. Is that the case with you?

ML: Yes, very much so. I also don’t like the idea that a song’s about something. For me, that song’s about 5 minutes long.

The title comes from this time I was sat on the toilet and my dog wouldn’t stop barking.

You’ve compared your use of noise to the use of an instrument, but what impact do you expect it to have on your listeners? Are listeners meant to feel discomforted or confronted?

ML: No- the opposite of that! I see noise as a really joyous outpouring of excitement and sunshine. All sorts of industrial acts have… I don’t want to say tarred it… imbued it with a certain aesthetic that I’ve never heard in noise. I always hear like… happiness. I feel very warm and enveloped when I hear noise- I don’t experience it like an endurance test.

Something that you’ve discussed with me before about Bristol is that, while it seems to have some artist or other representing every major, established ‘genre’ in popular music, there isn’t any metal here.

However, some of your own work, particularly the track ‘Radio Silence’ from ‘Documents Shredded // Communications Ceased’ certainly seems to knock at metal’s door.

What do you get out of metal, particularly as someone who is- for the most part- an electronic artist?

ML: I grew up listening to Metallica, like since I was six years old, and the same thing I have with noise I have with metal as well: the heavier and more brutal it is the happier I am.

Grindcore makes me smile.

After Kicking Away… , my favourite album of yours as MXLX is probably I Aim to Understand Nothing, which I’d actually say is probably the record that’s most similar to Kicking Away… despite being released two years earlier. At the end of closing track ‘And All Will Be Well’, are you singing in a foreign language?

ML: Yes, that record definitely set me on that course with the project.

The lyrics on that are complete bullshit, I’m just making sounds; I always sound like that live, I never have lyrics or anything. Partly because I don’t want the lyrics to dominate the song, but also I have a bad memory.

Much of your work is instrumental; one of my favourite tracks by you is the longform, organ piece MXLX- 8, a 2007 track which clocks in at around 40 minutes. How was this to write, and have you ever performed it live?

ML: I want to do it live but it would be very hard; it was just made on Midi.

It actually took less long to make than it does to listen to. It was just like 8 repeating loops, but they all have different lengths, and I left it rolling until I thought it was long enough.

Your project Gnar Hest is recorded entirely digitally, with no live instruments, not even a Midi Keyboard; you program each note into the computer individually. Why did you start imposing that restriction on yourself, and what do you think you get out of it compared to your live projects?

ML: It puts my head in a different place.

If I play with my hands, my hands have muscle memory so I just naturally go to certain places; that’s why there’s always similar sounds between Knife Liibrary tunes, my hands just always do the same old shit.

Kniife Library, a stripped-back project typically reduced to simple piano and vocals, came - as I understand it - out of a frustration with the ‘timidness’ of most acoustic music. What would you like to see your music as Knife Liibrary as dealing with?

ML: Misery… murderous thoughts…

I love the Fairhorns stuff I’ve heard, especially the album ‘Fuckup Rush’, but I don’t know much about the project. Is it another solo thing or do you work with other people?

ML: That was another solo moniker; I get people to do certain bits for me but 90% of it I do by myself. Fairhorns started out as my idea of a pop project, but it’s not like that in my head anymore. It’s a process of mutation, just letting it- not even evolve- just squirm into the ground or move along.

You were also a member of Beak> for many years. How would you describe your time in that band? As quite an introverted artist and person, was it hard performing on big stages?

ML: I don’t mind being in front of big audiences. We played 2000 capacity shows and I don’t mind being in front of those crowds, I’m just there doing my job. Also I’m not like a crowd-pleaser, I’m concentrating so much on what I’m doing onstage it could be one person or a million, it doesn’t bother me. I look back on it positively for the most part, I really enjoyed making the records.

How has suffering from autism and mental health problems affected your music? Have you drawn from it more or less than its hindered you? Do you think its had a more constructive or destructive influence on your art?

ML: It’s always hard to tell because I don’t know what it’s like to not be autistic. With autism you generally have like, one focused interest in one particular thing, and making records in my particular thing, and everything that goes along with music itself.

I probably wouldn’t be doing all this if I was neurotypical, but then I also find the social aspects really hard… being nice and stuff…

Photograph: Alastair Shuttleworth

Many artists I know in Bristol cite you as a crucial, catalysing influence in Bristol’s music, with Arthur speaking in our last issue about you as having taken many new Bristol artists under your wing. How do you see your place in Bristol’s music, and what influence would you like to regard yourself as having had on it?

ML: None. I’m just another bum doing what he does.

Your music is critically lauded, especially by The Quietus, who named Kicking Away… as one of their albums of the year, but you’re still widely under-recognised outside of the city.

This magazine principally comes out of my frustration with the lack of people that know about music like yours; do you aspire to having strangers hear your music?

ML: Yeah definitely, I care about that stuff; I’m just not good at that aspect of the job. All I can do is write stuff, and that’s it.

How do you find live performance?

ML: Terrifying, but worth it when it goes well… but devastating when it goes wrong.

Perhaps it’s because Kicking Away… is the record of yours I’ve sat with the longest and listened to the most, but I do think it’s the best thing you’ve done. How do you feel about that record?

ML: It’s my favourite too. That’s my most like, together, concise record. It’s the work I’m proudest of, definitely.

You recently took a long break from music; what were the reasons for this?

ML: Mental health reasons. I was really depressed and anxious and pissed off at myself for trying to do ten people’s jobs at once; I just felt like it wasn’t going anywhere, so I just freaked out and packed it in for a bit.

But you’re getting back to it?

ML: Yeah… it’s a fucking curse sometimes. If I had my way I’d still be quitting.

Riffs keep coming into my head and my brain gets pregnant… and I keep having to give birth to these fucking albums.

MXLX

CHAPTER II ENDS

(AS THE CAMPAIGN TO ACQUIRE NEW GROUND BEGINS!)

AN ISSUE CAN ONLY BE SO LONG. These projects are just threads in a larger, grander tale.

There are many, many more to show ye.

THE BRISTOL GERM WILL INDEED RETURN, for a glorious third issue, exploring more ARTISTS, LABELS, and PROJECTS from this GREAT EPOCH. THIS HISTORIC MOMENT IN AVANT-GARDE MUSIC Will indeed, finally, be delivered to the masses, chiselled into the popular consciousness, and marked in the annals of history.

THE STARS ALIGN; Eyes turn to the city as several Bristol projects (IDLES, Giant Swan etc.) break through on to the national stage, and new projects emerge at a startling pace.

The Landfill can’t obscure it much longer. The junkyard prepares to be re-shaped.

AND WHAT OF YOU, DEAR

READERS?

LISTEN to these artists, for this epoch must be

heard to be understood. Writing, good as it can be, is always a compromise for the first-fact of musical/aesthetic beauty; only in encountering it firsthand will you know its dazzling brilliance.

PROTEST the cultural treason of complacent music journalism, and hindrances to the promotion and experience of great art.

SPREAD the news of this community, and SPREAD THIS GLORIOUS DOCUMENT!!!

THE NOBLE CRUSADE CONTINUES!!

CREDITS Artists/Projects: EDWARD PENFOLD / E B U YAMA WARASHI / SCALPING TIMEDANCE / THE NATURALS WENONOAH / SLONK JOHN BENCE / MATT LOVERIDGE ORO SWIMMING HOUR / EP/64 EMILY ISHERWOOD / LICE KAYLA PAINTER / NOODS RADIO BAD TRACKING / VAN ZELLER SIMON HOLLIDAY / IYABE STOLEN BODY / THE ORNSTEINS

Created, Written, Designed & Edited by: Alastair Shuttleworth

Illustrators: Harry Wyld Jason Baker / Matt Dickson Yoshino Shigihara / Harry Wright Edward Penfold / Sophia Jowett Guillaume de Ubeda Sam Bedford / Sophie Dawes Nicholas Stevenson / Lisa Rose Joe Watson-Price / Adrian Dutt Ed Bidgood / Jack Machin Ian Moore / Simon Holliday Alastair Shuttleworth / Paul Jacobs Kimi Zoet / Janey Hayes

FRIENDS, FIGURES & PARTISANS IN THIS NOBLE CRUSADE ADRIAN DUTT, HARRY WYLD, HARRY WRIGHT, ROBIN STEWART, FELIX DRAKE, KY WITNEY, ELLA PAINE, MATT DICKSON, JAMES RUSHFORTH, ALEX HILL, JAMIE THOMAS, ISAAC JONES, ALFIE TYSON-BROWN, JASON BAKER, NICK MEADOWS, YOSHINO SHIGIHARA, LORENZO PRATTI, GRAEME SMITH, LEWIS GRAHAM FITZJOHN, CONRAD VIJAY SINGH, DANIEL BENJAMIN TRUEN, AGATHE MAX, IWAN BEST, ANDREW BAYLISS, FIONA RICHES, FAT PAUL, MAX KELAN, GORDON APPS, IAN MOORE, OMAR MCUTCHEON, GUILLAUME DE UBEDA, JOE SHERRIN, SAM BEDFORD, JOHN BENCE, SOPHIA JOWETT, SHAWN JOSEPH, TERSHA WILLIS, SAM BATES, SEAN ROE, TOM FRIEND, OLIVER WILDE, NICHOLAS STEVENSON, EMILY ISHERWOOD, LISA ROSE, ALEX STUDER, PAUL JACOBS, SILAS DILKES, GARETH JOHNSON, BRUCE BARDSLEY, DALI DE SAINT PAUL, JOE WATSON PRICE, KAYLA PAINTER, ED BIDGOOD, ROSENA WENONOAH, EDWARD PENFOLD, LEON PATTRICK, JACK MACHIN, SIMON HOLLIDAY, JON DUNNE, BEN HAMBRO, NICK BERTHOUD, CHARLIE MEYRICK, ALEX ‘BERNARD’ CALLAGHAN, KIMI ZOET, SOPHIE DAWES, RUPERT IRVING, BEN HARRIS, OLIVER BALDWIN, HANNAH LAYHE, JOE GROVES, JANEY HAYES, MATT LOVERIDGE, LINDSAY SHUTTLEWORTH, STEPHEN ‘THE PROF’ SHUTTLEWORTH, RACHEL SHUTTLEWORTH, GUY PUGH, ALIESHA KUMAR, SAM COATHAM, TOOM PARRY, HENRY REES, WILL OLIVER, ANNA POPE, ELEANOR RALPHS, MIKE MIKIHALAS, CRISTINA RIOS, HONEST JON’S, SEAN FORBES, MASAHI NAKA...

O Friends! Look ye in HORROR

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