REFUSED

“WHEN I WAS YOUNG, I BELIEVED IN THREE THINGS:

MARXISM, THE REDEMPTIVE POWER OF CINEMA, AND DYNAMITE. NOW I JUST BELIEVE IN DYNAMITE.”

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST DENNIS LYXZÉN BY JAMES ALVAREZ

Calling Refused an influential melodies, a great chorus or a great hook. band is an understatement. When you add that to our background ideas This Swedish hardcore ensemand politics, it makes sense.” ble transcended the confines of genre and music scenes in “There’s something about when we get tothe late ’90s, and laid the foundations for gether with Refused, we find that essence of the shape of 21st century punk with their what we are and what we should be. That’s iconic and aptly-titled album, The Shape of something fantastic,” he says proudly. “It Punk to Come. Their subsequent implosion, doesn’t sound like, we don’t move like any 14-year breakup, and glorious reunion in other band. On War Music we definitely 2012 has already been well-documented. found something that’s very much Refused.” Long story short, they’ve been pioneering the “New Noise” since before New Noise was War Music is a sonic Molotov cocktail, meant a thing! to burn through the malaise and disinformation that stifles social and economic jusNow Refused is back with another aptly-titice. It is armed with passionate new songs, tled, socio-political zeitgeist album-du-jour, and liner notes packed to the brim with inWar Music, which dropped in October courspiring quotes from iconic figures. Take this tesy of Spinefarm records. doozy from director Sergio Leone - “When I was young, I believed in three things: Marx“War Music is very much a contrast to the ism, the redemptive power of cinema, and

Freedom record,” vocalist Dennis Lyxzén dynamite. Now I just believe in dynamite.” says, comparing Refused’s new album with their 2015 grand return. “Freedom was writ“We needed to create a record that really ten when we didn’t really know what we goes into these times and talks about what’s wanted to be as a band, you know? The 2012 going on around us,” Lyxzén reveals. “We’ve reunion was so massive that we were like, talked about these ideas and expressed what type of band are we? Are we this huge these sentiments for a long time, and the arena rock band, or this hardcore band?” world is catching on to the fact that capitalism as a social construct and economic sysFreedom was a diverse and eclectic punk extem is failing. It’s something that resonates periment that highlighted the band’s heavy with so many people because the world is roots, as well as the evolution its members so messed up. had undergone during their hiatus. “Playing those Freedom songs live with a second “At the same time, the world is incredibly poguitar player, you get an idea about what larized. There’s a lot of people who don’t actually works live,” Lyxzén explains. “Someagree with what we’re saying, but I think times we were like, ‘eh, doesn’t really work that’s because a lot of people are so used that well,’ but then some really do. That’s to the abuse by capitalism that they can’t when we started writing [the songs] ‘Blood imagine a world where they’re not being Red’ and ‘Turn The Cross.’ It was like, take abused. They’re so used to the propaganda the idea of what worked on Freedom, start and the brainwashing they can’t really see there and see what we can do.” another way, and they’re like, ‘oh they’re just like leftist crazy people.’ But that’s fine. This, the band’s fifth studio album, is a fiery I’ve been a leftist crazy person for the past return to the band’s explicitly anti-capitalist, 30-plus years,” he laughs. pre-breakup heyday. In a time of unbridled corruption, income inequality, civil unrest, “If we don’t have the same political ideas, we and sexual predators in office, Refused lash live in a democratic society where we can out at the ills of society with tracks that are talk about it, decide what path our society equally infectious and blistering, like “Viowants to go on through democratic eleclent Reaction” “I Wanna Watch The World tions, so on and so forth,” Lyxzén says. “We Burn,” and “Economy of Death.” can still be friends. We don’t have to share political beliefs, we can still talk and hang “It just felt like a title that summarized these out. That’s a cool thing. [But] with respect to times,” Lyxzén explains. “We felt [with] that Nazis and fascism, the whole idea is that it’s the violence of the songs and the ideas we super undemocratic. So, I don’t really see put out in the lyrics, the title War Music just that we have a responsibility to talk to Nazis, kind of made sense.” or to try to understand Nazis or fascists.

War Music is a more focused affair than “In terms of our politics, we’re not unreaFreedom. At times the album recalls the posonable characters,” he says. “You can talk tent urgency of their 1996 effort, Songs to to us and we can exchange ideas. We are Fan the Flames of Discontent, while maintainunreasonable when it comes to fascism and ing the creative strides first etched on The Nazis.” �� �� �� Shape of Punk to Come.

“When you create all these songs, you want the record to be dynamic, to have ebbs and flows,” Lyxzén declares. “If every song on the record was ‘Turn The Cross,’ then it wouldn’t be special. We’ve always been suckers for

CINEMA CINEMA INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST / GUITARIST EV GOLD AND DRUMMER PAUL CLARO BY BRIAN O’NEILL

“Undoubtedly there's a Spinal Tap-esque element that surrounds this venture,” concedes Cinema Cinema vocalist and guitarist Ev Gold, remarking on the mockumentary band’s Jazz Odyssey departure. “Put it like this - if we had a career, this would be a career suicide record.”

Ev and his cousin, drummer Paul Claro, speak in thick Brooklyn accents. It’s obvious that they are right at home sitting in Martin Bisi’s BC Studios, where they will be playing live later that night. The albums they recorded here, 2014’s A Night At The Fights and 2017’s Man Bites Dog, are furious displays of angular guitar skronk, wheezing vocals, and throbbing off-kilter percussion. The kind of sounds that prompted Greg Ginn to personally invite them to open for Black Flag.

Before Man Bites Dog was released, the group had already collaborated with multi-instrumentalist Matt Darriau. It might not appear that the Brooklyn duo’s brash punk would mesh with one of the most influential jazz musicians of the last fifteen years, but they had more in common than one might suspect.

“Improvisation is a large part of what Paul and I do,” explains Gold. “It's been like that since the very beginning. When a friend introduced us to Darriau, his thing was like, ‘I'll play with you guys, but the deal is, we've got to show up and just play.’ Ultimately, we decided to take it into the studio for a full-night's session, which yielded two albums' worth of material.”

CCXMD, released on Nov. 1, 2019, is the first of those albums. “Cinema Cinema x Matt Darriau seemed to be the proper name to pop on this thing,” explained Gold. “We wrestled a bit with call[ing] this a side project. Then we realized that this was just Cinema Cinema being renegotiated by having this titanic reed-master, who has the wind of a thousand sails.”

The album is a throwback to the experimental artists that emerged from New York’s halcyon days, including Sonic Youth, Swans, and John Zorn. This is not lost on the band, who didn’t seem to embrace their homeland until now.

“When we would say we're from Brooklyn, [people] were like, ‘but where are you really from?’” laughs Claro.

“We really didn't have any interest in embracing our Brooklyn heritage,” admits Gold. “We feel like we've reclaimed it now, so I'm glad those kinds of sounds and sensibilities are coming through.”

The live performance at BC Studio that evening didn’t include Darriau, despite the show being on the cusp of CCXMD’s release. Inconsistent timelines are par for the course for a band that waited to release CCXMD until Man Bites Dog, which was recorded later, came out.

Gold smiles. “This summer here with Martin [Bisi], we did a session with Thor Harris [Swans, Angels of Light, Shearwater],” he says. “That yielded what is going to be a part of a double-album that we're working on. Tonight, we're playing the second part.”

They have plans to do shows as a trio this spring. Probably not supporting a puppet show like in Spinal Tap, but they’re ready for whatever comes.

“About five years ago, we were playing a gig in a cemetery,” Gold says, and sighs. “As we finished, a magician was introduced. We're literally dripping sweat, we had just finished the last note, and the follow-up act was a magician.”

“Who we had to sit through,” Claro says, cracking up. “Because our gear was still on stage.” ��