THE ACADEMY OF SUN

[ Interview with Nick Hudson from The Academy of Sun by Diego Centurión. Photographs: Liene Lisovska ]

BRIGHTON'S FINEST: THE ACADEMY OF SUN

Quarantine. We need to meet the Sun again. The world is at a crucial moment, strange and stopped in time... It seems that we live a great nightmare, Dante-esque and like a science fiction movie. We have the time, but very few people know what to do with it… we propose a trip that may be enjoyable for you with a band that has been making its way for several years. From England we bring a band that makes psychedelic post punk more than just an attractive sound; we invite you to enter a restless mind, like that of leader Nick Hudson. The Academy of Sun was born in Brighton nine years ago, is a quartet made up of Nick Hudson (voice, piano, synthesizers), Kianna Blue (bass, synthesizers), Guy Brice (guitars) and Ash Babb (drums).

And in this talk with their vocalist Nick, we get to know his past, present and future of this band, as well as his solo project.

Hello Nick! Thank you for agreeing to conduct this interview.

Hey! Thank you for having me.

And to start this interview, we cannot fail to mention this strange moment that we have to live, tell us where you were surprised by this quarantine?

Well, I Iive in Brighton, on the south coast of England. What I've found most surprising about quarantine is how long the days are and yet how quickly they go. Time seems especially amorphous, and within that I'm having to enforce and be very conscious in performing miniature rituals to give some shape to the day. I'm sleeping terribly – because with no in-person dialogue we're living in a perpetual dream state, any communication mediated by screens. It's not real communication and so I'm finding my mind is bouncing all over the walls of the cathedral, knocking gargoyles askew and shattering stained glass hagiographies all over the altar.

There are so many questions that occur to me, it costs me a starting point, that's why I start with this quarantine. I have seen that you have been very active releasing songs and albums in this last period, as well as delaying the release of the band's new album, The Quiet Earth. Tell us a little about these last months.

It was all going so well! We had a tonne of shows lined up. The album release campaign was all timelined. I had two tours set up. Then everything, as for all of us, collapsed. We're deeply missing playing together, and we have indeed postponed the album release until June. Meanwhile, I'm finding myself vacillating between hyper-productivity and sullen, apathetic paralysis. But yes, I've just finished a film score, and will start another one soon. I have a solo record recorded except for ONE

violin line – when studios re-open I'll finish that. I'm working on a film and an electronica EP. Kianna Blue (The Academy Of Sun bassist) and I have been demo-ing new band material too.

Now let's travel to the past. Tell us, how does the decision to compose songs manifest in your life?

I had played piano since I was six. In parallel I had always written prose and poetry. It wasn't until I was around twenty-three that I felt impelled to conjoin the two disciplines, and when I did I quickly found myself haemorrhaging songs. I've written over a thousand at this point.

I have read that the band has had exquisite reviews, such as the review by Julian Cope or Stuart Braithwaite from Mogwai, among others. Tell us about your first influences at that moment of starting to feel music as part of your life. Who or what inspires you to continue doing it today?

Very early influences would be film soundtracks and Lou Reed. Then in my adolescence, which was essentially spent self-isolating in preparation for this pandemic – haha – I discovered Mr Bungle, Faith No More, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Portishead, PJ Harvey, Bjork, and rarefied my soundtrack listening into a steady diet of Ennio Morricone, Wojciech Kilar etc. As for today: I'm listening to Ernst Reijseger as I write this – an incendiary Dutch avant-garde cellist and composer. Tanya Tagaq can do no wrong. Philippe Sarde's soundtrack to The Tenant bewitches me near-constantly. Cleric, from NYC, who I recently saw supporting Mr Bungle, are devastating. I love Arca. It's also worth noting that I draw influence colossally from artists working in other media – Tarkovsky, Pasolini, Marina Abramovic, Robert Wilson, Anselm Kiefer, Maya Deren,

I understand that The Academy of Sun has a good relationship with Mogwai, tell us about it...

Ah, I've just known Stuart and his wonderful partner for many years. You should check out Elisabeth Elektra's album Mercurial, by the way. It just got released and it's brilliant.

Talking about the new album. Tell us about the composition process.

As is often the case, some of the songs fell out of the womb fully-formed, whereas some had to be embroidered together from various body parts, with a bolt of lightning passed through to give it cohesion. It was an epic process of overwriting, then subtraction. Once the essence had been hewn, we arranged it collectively in the studio. It took about two years to make the entire thing. The igniting impulse was that this record should be a 'jukebox for the end of the world' – and while I'm not saying that Covid-19 signals The End Times, it does feel a little uncomfortably prescient.

I have read that the video for the song "The Parts That Need Replacing" has been inspired by Elizabeth Báthory, can you tell us how the video was made?

It was made with a minimal but exceptionally talented and adventurous cast and crew, and the generosity of a very sympathetic butcher.

Returning to the subject of this reality that we are living. How did this new way of life change the band? Do they rehearse remotely, do they broadcast through social media?

There's no practical way we could rehearse remotely. We're a loud band and so much of the experiential richness of music and performance is go-

verned by the present energy in the room. We just don't have adequate technology to rehearse remotely, and I'd hazard it would be profoundly unsatisfying even if we did. I've live-streamed a few solo piano improvisations. But in all honesty, I care too much about aesthetics and production values to engage too readily with this particular avenue of performance. We're chatting a lot, releasing videos, singles etc. And we're very excited to play live again – eventually.

It's hard to make plans right now, but tell us what are the upcoming plans, both yours and from The Academy of Sun?

I think I speak for us all when I say that our primary plan at this point is to do whatever it takes to remain vaguely sane. Other than that, we're gonna release more single and videos, and the album in June. In the absence of shows we'll

likely generate more video content – little short films, teasers, atmospheres etc. I'm about to start work on another short film score, and I've nearly finished this electronica EP. I'm working on an experimental travelogue film drawing upon footage accumulated during my various recent travels. I was in the arctic this time last year! I'm also writing a lot more. I have two prose fiction pieces ready to go. But I want to disappear somewhere genuinely remote in which to complete them. So we'll see how the next few months play out.

To end this interview and thanking you for this possibility. What would you say to readers who don't know The Academy of Sun yet?

I would say “Heliogabalus implores you to genuflect at our altar of a thousand suns.” and “What are you waiting for.”

Thanks Nick!

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