Things The Grandchildren Should Know

 

Over the course of last weekend I read ‘Things The Grandchildren Should Know’ an autobiography of sorts by Mark Oliver Everett, better known simply to his fans as ‘E’ of successful US cult band Eels. I’ve been a fan of his band since hearing the weird, looping sound of ‘Novocain For The Soul’ over ten years ago. It was a strange song. Something about it didn’t sit quite right with me and I think that was what I found fascinating about it. They were, and still are, impossible to pigeonhole. Not quite alternative. Not quite pop. Not really a rock-band. Hell, they’re not even a proper band per se. Eels is basically E and whatever musicians he chooses to work with at a given time. Everett would go on to write ‘Daisies of the Galaxy’ and ‘It’s A Motherfucker’ which are, in my book, probably the two most exquisitely beautiful songs ever written.  Songs that are perfect in every way, my desert island discs. You listen to them and everything is all right in the world.

So it’s quite incredible to think that such  rare, flawless musical artifacts could come from the mind of someone who has experienced such horrendous personal loss in his life so far, loss he writes about in a disarmingly unpretentious manner in this remarkable book. Where do we begin? Well, his renowned American quantum physicist father Hugh Everett III died suddenly at the young age of 51 when Everett was still a teenager. His troubled, Neil Young-obsessed older sister Liz would go on to take her own life after several failed attempts and finally his mother Nancy would die of cancer. Death follows E everywhere. After he moved to LA, his kindly landlady would pass away, then a close female friend, his roadie, more friends and associates. Just as E believes the Grim Reaper has decided to leave his side for good, death returns in a rather spectacular and scarcely believable way. On September 11^th, 2001, his cousin Jennifer and her husband were on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.  If a movie-script were to be written on E’s life, it would never get the green light – too implausible and far-fetched, they would say. But it’s all true. Nearly everyone important to him has died yet E writes so movingly and without self-pity that it never becomes too emotionally overwhelming, as it’s leavened by E’s self-deprecation and dry wit. There are even laugh-out loud moments, especially when he describes how, a few years before her death, his mother acquired a ‘boyfriend’ so old (85) that he actually knew one of the Wright brothers – ‘one of those guys that invented FLIGHT!’. Running concurrently with the story of E picking up the pieces of his life every few years as someone else close to him is dispatched to oblivion, is his struggle to be taken seriously as a musician and all the music-industry bullshit and false dawns that entails. Eventually, he succeeds and Eels are now are one of the most respected acts in the world right now. Against the odds, Everett succeeds and survives and has managed to stay sane and reasonably functional as a human being. He is one of very few people on the planet making money from doing what he loves. It seems like a reward for all the shit he has waded through. Now 46, Everett will release an eagerly awaited new album on June 2nd called ‘Hombre Lobo’. The story continues and is far from over. I hope Everett lives to 100.

Ken Fallon

 

A Mogwai Weekend

A couple of weeks ago Glaswegian masters of post-rock Mogwai came to town to play a three-night  weekend residency at the Academy venue on Abbey Street, Dublin. I went to all three as the Mogwai live experience is like no other. I’ve been to a lot of gigs and only My Bloody Valentine can equal the sheer intensity of a Mogwai gig. As a friend said at one of the three gigs – Mogwai never disappoint. It’s true. I’ve seen them eleven times now and they just get better and better. If you go a lot of gigs the thrill of live music can dissipate over time but going to a Mogwai gig is like going to a gig again for the first time. It’s a visceral, immersive, musically dynamic experience. The strange sounds  they wrangle from their guitars. The precise strangely hypnotic drumming. A back catalogue so rich that  there is rarely a fear of a mid-set slump. The volume levels that make your ear-drums swell inside your head, though if truth be told, they’re not as loud as they once were (I was completely deaf for a few hours after seeing them for the first time in 2001). These days, they’re still loud but it’s a contained, structured loudness – not just loud for loudness sake.

But what’s most unique about them is that they’re not slaves to fashion or fads or styles. They don’t have any other agenda. They never appear in their own videos. They’re so ordinary looking even their own fans wouldn’t recognise them on the street. It’s ALL about the music and these gigs just accentuated how gifted they are. They varied the setlist so much that they ended up playing over twenty-five different songs over the three nights. Friday night they rolled out the ear-bleeders: ‘Like Herod’ then ‘Batcat’ and a rare outing for ‘My Father, My King’ as a encore. A shimmering ‘Helicon 1’ is one of the highlights of Saturday’s gig while Sunday night is a quieter affair, with some nice revisits to their bleak masterpiece from 1999 ‘Come On Die Young’

For a band that provide little or no vocals, no visual accompaniment, no rock-star histrionics, no bona fide ‘frontman’ and not much banter with the audience, it’s near-miraculous that they can still be so utterly compelling for two hours. It’s the beauty of the music, each piece of music structured as a musical crescendo that takes you on a journey, however corny that may sound. If each song is carefully and precisely structured for full emotional impact, then the gig as a whole has clearly defined pattern also. With that strategic set-list they keep you in suspense, teasing you with all their more downbeat, gloriously brooding tracks, lulling you into a kind of aural comfort zone until that big, destructive, apocalyptic maelstrom of guitars and drums and squealing feedback at the end that leaves you stunned and floored. It’s a strangely addictive experience. Three nights were not enough. 

SETLISTS

Friday

The Precipice/Small Children In The Background/Friend Of The Night/Scotland’s Shame/Travel Is Dangerous/Hunted By A Freak/Thank You, Space Expert/Summer/I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead/Killing All The Flies/Like Herod/Batcat/My Father, My King

Saturday

I’m Jim Morrison,I’m Dead/Friend Of The Night/TN/Scotland’s Shame/I Know Who You Are But What Am I/Ithica/Thank You, Space Expert/Travel Is Dangerous/Hunted By A Freak/Helicon 1/2 Rights Make One Wrong/Ratts Of The Capital/Batcat/Kids Will Be Skeletons/Mogwai Fear Satan

Sunday

Autorock/Hunted By A Freak/Cody/May Nothing But Happiness Come Through Your Door/I Love you, I’m Going To Blow Up Your School/I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead/Christmas Steps/Scotland’s Shame/Friend Of The Night/Killing All The Flies/Thank You, Space Expert/We’re No Here/ You Don’t Know Jesus/Glasgow Megasnake

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OU1VeRbbK8

‘Anvil! The Story Of Anvil’ could change your life.

A few weeks ago I saw ‘Anvil! The Story of Anvil’, the fantastic documentary about Canadian thrash-metal pioneers Anvil,  as part of the brilliant Jameson Dublin Film Festival. On the festival programme it stated that the band would be in attendance, along with the film’s director Sacha Gervasi. Upon entering the cinema however, I saw placed incongruously beneath the massive grey cinema – screen, a drum kit, bass, guitar, mic and some Marshall amps that go all the way up to 11. Not only were they here but  Anvil were going to play live straight after the film! How exciting! Forget 3-D – tonight we were going to witness Anvil step from the screen and materialise before our eyes like some rock ‘n’ roll version of  The Purple Rose Of Cairo.

The film itself follows Robb Reiner (drums) and his best friend and bandmate Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow (vocals, guitar) as they try yet again to resurrect their metal career. In the early eighties they enjoyed some success, playing on the same festival bills as The Scorpions and Whitesnake while their debut album ‘Metal On Metal’ heralded the dawn of thrash metal. In the film Lemmy, Slash, Lars Ulrich and Anthrax’s Scott Ian admit that Anvil were a huge influence but while they took the ‘Metal on Metal’ blueprint and ran with it to achieve long-term success, it appeared Anvil’s brief fifteen minutes of fame came to an abrupt halt and they promptly disappeared. Fast forward to the present and they now have families, live in sensible suburban semi-detached houses and hold down day-jobs they hate yet still hope of hitting the big time again. They track down an old producer and begin work on a new album. They do a tour of Europe organised by a crazy Swiss-Italian woman but no one turns up. They miss their connecting trains. Robb and Lips fight and make up and fight again. It’s at this point you start thinking if it is a mockumentary a la ‘This Is Spinal Tap’. The correlations with that classic film are numerous: references to Stonehenge, the vaguely comical album titles ‘Forged In Fire’, ‘Backwaxed’, ‘Winged Assasins’, the interview in a delicatessen. Most spookily though is that, give or take one B, Robb shares his name with Spinal Tap’s director Rob Reiner! But it’s all real and brilliantly documented by director Sacha Gervasi, who was huge fan of the band as teenager and this film is somewhat of a labour of love for him. It’s heart -achingly sad but also joyously uplifting, affectionate, inspiring and side-splittingly funny.

As the final credits rolled, the band appeared below the screen and launched into ‘Metal on Metal’ and some tracks from new album ‘This is Thirteen’. Lips ran up and down the cinema aisles, fingers frantically whittling up and down his fretboard. Robb banging away on his drums as if still a teenager back at his parents’ basement. It was a surreal experience but a highly memorable one. After the performance, Lips spoke to everyone and Robb quietly signed autographs. I asked Lips how does he still have that unquenchable spirit and positive attitude after all these years (he and Robb are now in their early fifties). The reason he is on this planet is to play guitar in a heavy metal band, he said. He looks at his brother who has a safe job as an accountant, plenty of money in the bank, a safe pension but who’s utterly miserable. There’s no existential angst with Lips however, no regrets, no what-ifs. He knows why he’s here and he loves being alive. How many people can say that? Fundamentally, it’s a film about never giving up. Go see it.

 ’Anvil! The Story Of Anvil’ is currently showing at the IFI and Cineworld, Dublin. Anvil play The Academy, Dublin on June 14th. See you down the front.

School Of Seven Bells pay tribute to MBV in Whelans.

There’s a song on ‘Alpinisms’ – the debut album of School Of Seven Bells, a nu-gaze band from New York made up of Benjamin Curtis, formerly of Secret Machines and identical twins Claudia and Alejandra Dehez - that is the best homage to the way out sound of My Bloody Valentine since, well My Bloody Valentine. It’s called ‘Face to face on high places’ and it’s very, very good. You don’t listen to it and decry the band for being such copyists. You applaud them for coming up with such a good song that just happens to sounds like an outtake from ‘Loveless’. It’s one of the reasons I went along to see them in Whelans last Monday. Could they replicate the woozy, lazy, shoegazy sound of ‘Alpinisms’ in a live setting? Well, yes actually.

They still look a little unsure of themselves on stage. The beautiful Dehez sisters’ eyes dart around the room alittle self-consciously  : one on keyboards, the other on vocals and guitar. In between is Curtis, eyes down, lost in the music, his previous role in Secret Machines a dimming memory. Behind them there is no drummer which is little disconcerting. And no bass-player. Yet they still manage to propel a rich, full sound however, a sound atop which the twins’ voices sing intertwined, seamless and crystal clear. They play  that song. It sounds great. As does ‘Half Asleep’ which contains the line ‘One day, suddenly, time took a turn that once felt so brief/I blinked to see polite ghosts fading quickly’. Worthy of Auden or Kavanagh is that.  It’s a short set, we forgive them: the tickets were cheap and they have only one album out. They disappear to return to ‘their house party in Swords’.

There is a fine line between homage and unashamed replication. It’s a line most bands don’t see or care about. School Of Seven Bells know where the line is. They take their MBV blueprint and distill something fresh out of it while still sounding like MBV.  They’ve nailed it. They’re good.

‘Half Asleep’

 

The First Great Album Of 2009 : ‘Fever Ray’

It’s only February but the best album of 2009 may have already arrived. In fact, ‘Fever Ray’, the new solo project from Karin Dreijer Andersson, one half of singular Swedish act The Knife, is not released in physical format until March 23^rd but it’s been available to download from iTunes since January.

Fans of The Knife will know what to expect here as it’s full of that murky, eerily distinctive electro-pop we are used to but ‘Fever Ray’ is a little more immediate and accessible than her work with The Knife.Opening with the spooky ‘If I had a heart’ the quality never dips until the final note of the final track. In between we get the perverse pop of ‘When I Grow Up’,  the drowsy confessional of ‘Concrete Walls’ and the solitary beats of ‘Leave the streets empty for me’.  If this is a new Knife album in all but name, then it is the best Knife album yet.

If The Knife was all about the beats and glitches and conjuring up imagery to send a shiver down your spine, the songs here are more personal, less fantastical and a little less self-consciously ‘weird’. Don’t get me wrong, they are a unique and brilliant band but being freed from the creative constraints of collaborating with her brother Olof as part of The Knife seems to have provided a surfeit of new ideas for her, all of which can be heard on Fever Ray. It’s an album that yields something new with each listen, that leaves you a little dazed at the sheer ingenuity on display. It is a dark masterpiece.

 

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Charles Wesley Cooper 1977-2009

January 2009 was a busy month for the Grim Reaper. He took The Cramps’ Lux Interior, who has done a pretty good impersonation of the ol’ Reaper himself throughout the last few decades, and also put poor old John Martyn out of his misery. One piece of unwelcome news that unsettled me the most,  however, was the untimely death of Charles Wesley Cooper (above, right), one half of the relatively unknown American electronica act Telefon Tel Aviv. Although it has not been fully confirmed, it is thought Cooper took his own life after an argument with his girlfriend.  

I became aware of Telefon after hearing the wistful, electro-ambience of ‘Sound In A Dark Room’ on Donal Dineen’s late night Today FM show and have been a major fan ever since, especially of their astute remixes of the likes of Apparat and Barbara Morgenstern where they would often improve on the original. After a gap of four or five years since their excellent last album ‘Map Of What Is Effortless’  they released  ‘Immolate Yourself’ – a collection of songs that had all the hallmarks of being their breakthrough album – in January of this year and live dates were in the pipeline.  It looks likely that I will not now see them live as Cooper’s creative partner in the band, Joshua Eustis, is too distraught to carry on at this moment in time. Cooper’s death didn’t make the newsdesk of NME.com or even Pitchfork but for the few of  us who have been touched by the innovative yet poignant electronic music he and Eustis created over the last decade, it is indeed an extremely sad passing. RIP.

 

Giving Cover Versions A Good Name: Susanna Does Joy Division

I’ve never been a huge fan of the cover version. I’ve always found it to be a rather pointless exercise by artists and musicians whose creative well has run dry. Sometimes though, on very rare occasions, someone comes along and reinterprets the piece of music so well that they give it a whole new dimension. They uncover something that was there all along, something barely detectable and hidden away but now revealed for the world to see. Tori Amos’ cover of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ revealed something new: the deep pit of despair that lay in the heart of Kurt Cobain. Maybe I’m reading too much into it but her sorrowful piano reinterpretation of the song seemed a portent of Cobain’s approaching suicide. After his death,  it was her version of ‘Teen Spirit’ I kept returning to. Somehow it seemed more appropriate.

     Fast forward to the present day and there is another cover version that has spooky correlations with Tori Amos cover version. Another female vocalist uncovers the vulnerability of a male rock star who died by his own hand. Susanna and the Magical Orchestra are a duo from Norway - Susanna Wallumrod and keyboardist Morton Qvenild (there’s no Magical Orchestra) who specialise in understated, deeply personal reinterpretations of established songs by artists as diverse as AC/DC, Dylan, Depeche Mode, Leonard Cohen and KISS. Yes, KISS. Their version of ‘Crazy, Crazy Nights’ has to be heard to be believed. However, it is their take on Joy Division’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, from their 2006 album ‘Melody Mountain’, that is the most affecting. Like what Tori Amos did with ‘Teen Spirit’ , Susanna strips back the song to its emotional basics, its very essence. ‘Love Will Us Apart’ is one of the greatest songs ever written but the nuances of Ian Curtis’ lyrics naturally got waylaid amongst the frantic bass and drums and guitar. Here you can really hear what he was trying to say : ‘Why is the bedroom so cold?/ Turned away on your side…Do you cry out in your sleep? /All my failings exposed…’ . Hearing these words through Susanna’s precise, crystal clear vocals will send a shiver down your spine, as if Curtis is speaking to you from beyond the grave. 

Three Is The Magic Number: The Three Best Albums, Gigs & Films Of 2008.

ALBUMS

1. Mogwai ‘The Hawk Is Howling’

Thirteen years into their career and Scotland’s finest come up with their best album to date. They don’t try anything new but if it ain’t broke, why fix it? Here they stick to what they do best: loud, dynamic slabs of  portentous post-rock  sitting side by side with achingly beautiful instumental moodpieces. Like Neil Young, they are equally adept at making your ears bleed and gently caressing your heart within the space of one album. 

2. Sun Kil Moon ‘April’

There is something very, very wrong in the world when the end of the year comes around and Mark Kozelek’s magnificent opus ‘April’  is nowhere to be seen in any of the December best-of polls. Only Nick Kelly in the Irish Independent seems to be as taken with it as I am, giving it his number one position. It is a masterful and beguiling collection of achingly beautiful songs with Kozelek in the form of his life. Bon Iver got all the plaudits for a similar album of lovelorn torchsongs set to gentle acoustic guitar. ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ is an excellent album that deserved the attention it received but ‘April’ is, to be honest, in a different league entirely. Kozelek deserves better.

3. Fuck Buttons ‘Street Horrrsing’

The number three spot was originally reserved for M83’s quite brilliant ‘Saturdays=Youth’ until I saw Fuck Buttons supporting Mogwai earlier this year in London. If Mogwai do loud by guitar then the Buttons do it by way of fucked up electronics. ‘Street Horrrsing’ veers from strange tribal rhythms to long swathes of pain-inducing drone-rock to God knows what else. It’s exhilarating and highly original but mostly terrifying.

 

GIGS 

 

The three best live music experiences of 2008 were provided by My Bloody Valentine (above), Kraftwerk at Kilmainham Hospital, and the Electric Picnic. I have already written extensively about all three in previous postings so please check out the September archive for my musings on Kraftwerk and the Electric Picnic and the July archive for what were two incredible  gigs by My Bloody Valentine in London, a band that made an emphatic and phenomenally LOUD live return after a sixteen year absence that totally justified their legendary status. All in all, 2008 was a fantastic year for quality gigs and if this was a top ten rather than a top three there would also be mentions for This Will Destroy You (Whelans), American Music Club (Whelans), God Is An Astronaut (Button Factory), M83 (Andrew’s Lane Theatre), Mogwai (Hammersmith Odeon, London), Efterklang and Tortoise at the excellent Analog Festival in Dublin’s Docklands, Ann Scott (Anseo, Dublin), Daniel Johnston and Friends (Whelans), Sun Kil Moon (The Academy), Katie Kim (The Stables, Mullingar), Jape (The Stables), Bon Iver (Tripod), Kathleen Edwards (Whelans), Holy Fuck (The Academy) and so on. Two gigs I regret missing: Neil Young at Malahide Castle (he’ll be back) but mostly Leonard Cohen at Kilmainham Hospital, which now  seems to have gone down in folklore as one of the best gigs ever staged in this country. Oh well. 

 

FILMS

1.The Orphanage

While watching The Orphanage I presumed the director was an old veteran of Spanish cinema that I had never heard of before. A quick check on IMDB.com after viewing the film revealed that the director, Juan Antonio Bayona, is only 33 and The Orphanage is his first film . That’s just plain wrong as this film is, in a word, a masterpiece that, apart from one horrific car-accident scene, never resorts to cheap scares for effect. Beautifully designed and lit, brilliantly acted, exceptionally moving and genuinely haunting, it’s a tale about a woman confronting , quite literally, the ghosts of her past after her son disappears. Is she going mad or are the ghosts real? Bayona keeps you guessing until the very end. It’s a film that feels like a dream, a dark dream about mother/son separation anxiety that will break your heart.

2. Gomorra

If The Orphanage is  fictional, then the gritty, violent and unsparingly grim Gomorra  is a very real modern-day nightmare. It is shot in a quasi-documentary style as it follows a disparate group of characters involved in some way with organized crime and the mafia in Naples. There are so many good things to say about Gomorra but it is its uncompromising portrayal of the wretched lives of its characters and the complete refusal to glamorize them that is so striking. It’s a brave and unusual film that’s a million miles from the romance of Rome and the sun-drenched vistas of Tuscany. This is the flipside of Italy, its dark heart.

3.  Man On Wire

Man On Wire is the perfect antidote to Gomorra. If Gomorrah leads you on a path to despair at man’s inhumanity to man, then Man On Wire is about one man’s quest to show us how thrilling and joyous life can be if you decide to take a different, non-conformist route to those around you. The route taken by Frenchman Phillippe Petit, the engaging ‘man on wire’ of the title, is  high-wire walking. Dangerously high, in fact, culminating in his successful attempt to cross between the two towers of the World Trade Centre in 1974. It’s a simple tale but brilliantly told by director James Marsh. He seamlessly interweaves real and reconstructed footage of the preparation for the daring crossing, interlinked with interviews of all those involved. The fact that these two towers are now gone gives the film a melancholic edge yet it’s  one of the most life-affirming films you are ever likely to see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There Is A God. He’s An Astronaut.

One of the best instrumental (post) rock bands on the planet right now are from Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Not a lot of people know that. They are God Is An Astronaut and they have a new album out, their fourth, called simply ‘God Is An Astronaut’. It’s incredible and contains some most powerfully atmospheric and emotive music this side of Mogwai. 

I interviewed Torsten from the band in January of this year for Cluas.com which I have republished below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s cut to the chase: God Is An Astronaut are the best Irish band since Whipping Boy. From the startlingly good electro-rock of ‘Coda’ through to the surging emotive power of ‘Fragile’ and ‘Suicide By Star’ right up to this year’s quite brilliant ‘Far From Refuge’ album, this Wicklow three-piece have a singular gift for coming up with some of the most brilliantly atmospheric yet darkly melodic (post) rock music there is to be found out there. This is music that is in turns menacing, thrilling, awe-inspiring and not afraid to take itself seriously.

Consisting of Torsten Kinsella on guitar, keyboards and vocals, his brother Niels on bass and guitars and drummer Lloyd Hanney, they have released three albums to date: 2002’s ‘The End Of The Beginning’, 2005’s astonishing ‘All Is Violent, All Is Bright’ and this year’s ‘Far From Refuge’, which the good readers of Cluas.com have picked as one of the top thirty albums of the year. 2006 saw the release of an EP ‘A Moment of Stillness’. Live, the use of disquieting yet brilliantly effective visual imagery in perfect sync with the music makes for quite a memorable and highly recommended gig-going experience. You can see for yourself when the band play two gigs this month. They’ll be at The Button Factory, Dublin on the 18th January and Cyprus Avenue, Cork on the 19th 2008.

Ken Fallon recently caught up with guitarist and vocalist Torsten to discuss the current state of play with the band…

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Both this year’s ‘Far From Refuge’ and ‘All Is Violent, All Is Bright’ from 2005, are in my opinion, two of the finest albums I have heard from an Irish band in a long, long time. Does inspiration for new song ideas come easy to you? How easy or difficult do you find the songwriting process?

We are glad you like our music but I think our music has virtually gone unnoticed in Ireland, for whatever reason. Luckily things have gone pretty well outside Ireland with various licensing deals including deals with Rocket Girl who are now managing My Bloody Valentine. Our recent European tour was very successful with big turnouts and even some sold out shows. We also got to play in places like Moscow, headline the ‘Rock for Peace’ festival in Istanbul, Turkey – in front of 25,000 people – and even got invited to play at the Echo Project festival in Atlanta. It’s ironic we didn’t get one festival offer here despite being promised a certain festival.

As for the writing inspiration, it’s never far away. We write from our hearts, our own experiences and we really like what we do but we are spending more time these days trying to get every new song to its full potential, which is harder than it use to be as the songs are becoming much more elaborate.

You and your brother Niels are the main force in God Is An Astronaut. Do you find the creative process any easier, as there must be a real intuitive understanding of each other?

Myself and Niels have been writing music together since we were kids. We played in bands together since the early ’90s, we share a very similar vision for what we are doing but the main force in God Is An Astronaut is all three of us, and our manager Tommy.

Is there one main songwriter in the band or is it a collaborative process?

Myself and Niels originally were the driving force but in recent times it’s become much more of a collaborative effort with all three of us contributing ideas. I still begin a lot of the initial ideas.

The use of visuals is an integral part of the live set-up. The imagery you use is quite uncompromising yet, aesthetically and emotionally, it always seems to work perfectly with the music. Could you elaborate a little as to why there is such a prominent visual element to the live set-up? Do you have a professional filmmaker/editor who assembles this footage for your gigs and music videos or are you responsible for it yourselves?

We edit and compile the visuals ourselves. The visuals aren’t as essential as they once were but it does add another creative dimension and helps bring the songs and their emotions to the surface in a live setting. In the last year or two we have been focusing much more on the music, which is the reason why we are here in the first place.

The music is largely instrumental with the vocals processed to make them sound like another instrument, thus inviting comparisons with Mogwai, Godspeed et al. Yet the use of synths, and a subtle electronic element to the music, marks you out from these bands. Are you comfortable with being described as a ‘post-rock’ band, however?

We don’t mind the term post-rock (as) it’s been mainly beneficial in helping people to discover our music. Our Last FM page is a good example of this- we are approaching 2 million plays on our Last FM page. But God Is An Astronaut began before we even heard of the term or the scene. We were described initially as dance/electronic and then shoegaze and then finally post-rock. The negative side of it is that journalists make silly comparisons with other post-rock groups, name dropping them in our reviews to pretend they know what they are talking about, making comparisons when there are none to be made. We added vocals in to give the electronic pads and strings a human emotion.

Are you ever worried that you could just end up repeating yourselves with each new album, of possibly ending up in a creative cul-de-sac? Are there any ideas you’d like to explore that are outside the confines of instrumental/ambient/ post-rock?

It is a concern for us but I don’t think we have made that mistake yet. We always try to do something a little bit different whilst retaining our overall sound  and our attachment to melody. We are working on a more up-tempo approach at the moment. We will have a new single coming out very soon, which will be available from our website. It’s more of an electronic sound hybrid whereas our last album was a little more organic.

How was it working with the lost genius of Irish rock Fearghal McKee? Were you a fan of Whipping Boy?

We were all fans of Whipping Boy. It was a pleasure to collaborate with Fearghal, he is still a very creative and original musician.

How do you view the state of contemporary alternative music in 2007? Who are you listening to at the moment? Have you been impressed by any Irish bands recently?

I haven’t been listening to much music for the last year. It’s not something I enjoy when I am writing my own music, as I tend to shut other music out. I haven’t been paying much attention to what’s going on here either, but what I am hearing on the radio sounds quite British therefore a little contrived but well put together. An Irish band called Butterfly Explosion played with us in Hoxton in London just recently. I liked what they were doing.

You are playing a couple of dates in Ireland in January, in Dublin and Cork. Will these be audio-visual shows also, like your gigs from previously this year? What are your plans after that for 2008? Is there a new album in the works? 

We have two shows in both Dublin and Cork on the 18th and 19th of January respectively. Both will have visuals. There is nothing else planned in Ireland other than that. We are working with the Agency Group in New York who will be setting up a small headline US tour in March on the east coast and the west coast possibly for October. We are back to Portugal for some shows in April and a couple of dates in the U.K. too. Another European tour is also planned for later in the year. We are also working on a new album due for release in 2009.

Imelda’s Come Alive

Earlier this year, I interviewed Ann Scott for Cluas.com. You can see the original interview here - http://www.cluas.com/music/features/anne-scott-interview-6704.htm or just click on the June archive to access it on this blog. Scott’s 2006 album ‘We’re Smiling’ is one of my favourite Irish albums of recent years: a beguiling and consistently inventive collection of songs from an unassuming, yet prodigiously, talented songwriter. Irish music video collective Heroes For Zeros recently made a video for one of the album’s stand-out tracks, ‘Imelda’ and it’s turned out rather well. It proves that, with a little imagination, clever editing and an interesting and evocative location, you can go a long way with a low budget. It helps too if you have very good song to work with.