The plan was to follow up the filthy angst-riddled industrial-strenght fuzz fest of Maastricht Circle EP with a more down-tempo, loved up affair. Sort of Barry White on Ketamine. Even though we think K is for vacuous middle class de-voids, and Barry White is for sexual predators with moustaches and slip-on shoes. Stick around, it gets funnier.
But sticking to a plan is a rarity amongst all but the most human. And there's been such a really great response to the demos of songs we were working on in December (more angst-riddled filth). That gave us the impetus to get them finished rather than spend weeks performing exploratory surgery on the frequencies of each drum in turn.
The fact that people actually paid for downloads (rather than waiting for some clammy Czechoslovakian charmer with a moustache and slip-on shoes to host short-wave radio quality text files of them on a Celeron PC tower wired up to a car battery in the back of a van).
So while you're waiting for the Vass Man to siphon off enough diesel from a nearby Renault to fire up his Server, there are now 3 new songs up on bandcamp.
This is a real point though. Mainstream bands have the luxury of corporate funding. They also have to deal with the leveling effect of file-sharing. File-sharing is nothing new. Genuinely independant acts and labels haven't been effected in the same way.
The problem is that the industry has always been behind the times in terms of what is actually going on in the world, particularly in youth culture and the innovations of adults who haven't given up to money-greed.
Before mp3's and file sharing, people had access to blank CD's. Before that, it was cassettes. Hell, people were copying vinyl back in the day.
I've always compared music to food. It doesn't grow on trees.
Of course, food actually does grow on trees. Amazing isn't it? But 99% of the time somebody owns the tree. Some people even earn a living by tending to the trees, nurturing and supporting them. Gathering what are known as 'crop'. Crazy yeah?!
When I was a kid, I started to get interested in the idea of making music. I wasn't interested in being in a band. The people in bands (almost exclusively male, overly macho in one way or another, not quite middle class but with a bit more money than the rest of us) made no sense to me. They weren't artists. It wasn't creative it was just about posturing, copying, getting attention. I wasn't interested in getting attention but I seriously felt the need to make.
I was only vaguely aware of the way that a certain song could put you in a very specific mood.
We're holding on to the final mixes of the more brighter, less spite-fuelled songs like Hahaharem and Simm for the moment. Not to say that this current batch is entirely about treading water via people's faces:
In one song, there's even a guitar part that actually bares more than a passing resemblance to the sound of a real-life electric guitar. Lead-guitar even. It's our Massive Attack meets Iron Maiden song. And no, I'm not being at all ironic when I say that.
The truth is, all along what I've been trying to do is combine the 'Tripple Lead Attack' blues-metal of late 80's 'Maiden, with the melody-free, 3 am valium groove of recent Massive Attack albums.
We previously posted demos of these songs on soundcloud (Glass Keys, Throwing Shapes and I Hate Your Band / SlowTime). If they do alright on bandcamp we'll see about getting them on Spotify etc. If not, we'll deny everything and claim that we spent the whole time secretly finishing off the less nasty songs.
Looking at video footage this weekend. Wanted to go see Blindness playing in Brixton but I'd been up til dawn the previous night working on a new idea (since I was reminded it's been a long time since we did any slow beats, or any fast beats for that matter). So time to play with some different tempos don't you know. Also my hair looks stupid.
This post is dedicated to Milan Vasilev. My Czech fiend who passed away in December. One of the few genuine people I've met since living down here. I won't fowgedaboudit, Milo
Turkish.
