Taken from the Odd Blood LP, Yeasayer’s ‘I Remember’ has been given a visual once-over by the Brooklyn based band’s friend Sophia Peer. Released in celebration of Valentine’s Day, the brand new video tracks an old biker on his journey through the desert whilst the trio’s hypnotising, romantic melody soars over the top.

The year is 2007, and a shuffling, seemingly disinterested crowd is gathering at The Barfly awaiting the live London debut of a four-piece from Brooklyn. Ripping their way through infectious percussion, hand claps, electronic noises and a vocal range that most would be jealous of; this was Yeasayer 3 years ago. Skip forward to present day and the bands previous longing looks across the road to The Roundhouse seem to have paid off. By their own admission, tonights sold-out show signifies that they have “made it”. And even though they’ve only made the physical journey of a few hundred yards across the road from The Barfly, tonight’s show is worlds apart.

Up first are fellow Brooklynites Suckers, whose eponymous EP was produced by Yeasayer’s Anaud Wilder and Chris Moore (Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, TV On The Radio). Drummer/keyboardist Brian Aiken and fellow multi-instrumental chanters Austin Fisher and Pan join frontman Quinn Walker on stage as they construct jarring electronic rhythms punctuated by screeching staccato guitars and an contagious eccentricity. Flailing his arms around and imitating sock puppets as he sings, Quinns’ gritty vocals ring out over glitchy synths and whistled melodies as the band attempt to free whistling from its twee folkster trappings.

With the circular hall of The Roundhouse beginning to fill, the lights dim as the synth stands on stage begin to glow green, throbbing with the pulsating synths of ‘Madder Red.’ Tonight’s opening soundscape reverberates around the room, followed by the gently plucked guitar and euphoric sing-along accompaniment of Chris Keating, Ira Wolf Tuton and Anand Wilder’s sweeping, harmonised vocals. The stands turn red as the band’s stop-start rhythms and unusual instrumental pairings induce particularly jittery dance moves.  Taking a breather from the electronic distortions of Odd Blood,Yeasayer break into ‘Wait for The Summer’ with its more organic structure that replaces heavy sampling with physical instrumentals.

Yeasayer have always walked a fine line between infectious off-kilter, left field melodies and glossy electro pop; fusing both elements perfectly in numbers such as Dark Was the Night only track ‘Tightrope,’ an absolute highlight of this evening. Playing through classic cult indie anthems such as ‘Ambling Alp’, ‘Sunrise’ and ‘2080’ ensure an audience so loud even the vibrating bass of the speakers situated directly in front of me can’t drown them out.

Leaving their more difficult art-rock numbers behind, tonight sees Yeasayer largely abandon the gloomy in favour of confident jubilation. Just before the blistering keys, muted bass lines and distorted bleeps of ‘O.N.E’ echo forth from the speakers Keating screams: “If everyone here doesn’t dance to this, I’m going to quit music right here and now.” Happily, every single person obliges.

Festival season is upon us. How can you tell? Well, bands are playing tiny warm-up shows, using the opportunity to test out new material, variations or lighting and set lists. For someone who doesn’t live in London, this is our time. Cambridge gets the first date of Yeasayer’s pre-festival tour, fresh from their Guardian Guide front-cover weekend.

On entering The Junction, the first thing that hits you is the Bedouin-style tent drapes erected over the stage. Amazingly, they work in transforming the rather industrial surroundings of the venue into something much more homely. When we arrive, Clock Opera are currently wooing the crowd with their particular take on the post-Arcade Fire musical landscape. Blending AF’s early, grand and exploratory take on indie, they’ve added the repetitious sparkle of Steve Reich plus the angular funk and post-punk influence of Talking Heads. Whilst it might not be particularly original, it’s mesmerising and accomplished and, for the small crowd that have arrived early, it’s a great set.

Yeasayer take to the stage as champions elect. The swathes of cloth over the stage give the lighting a nice, diffused effect, and seems to perfectly match the slow, hypnotic vibe that percolates through their entire set. What strikes me initially, as this is the firs time I’ve caught them live, is how dependent on electronics and pedals they are. Each song seems crafted and tinkered with live. The underlying rhythms are pretty much already there, and it’s the beats and percussions that are added live, giving the songs an urgency and directness and augments this low-level repetition.

The entire set turns out to be a party. A giant dance party no less. Yeasayer’s musical greatness comes from their ability to blend a wide variety of  influences. Whilst not being “World Music(TM)”, their live set bellies their magpie nature, taking in West Coast, East Coast, European, African and Far East musical threads and weaving them into something new. Those exotic, alien, rhythms just make everyone want to dance.  ’New Year’, ‘Ambling Alp’ and ‘O.N.E.’ break free of the confines of the record, and take on an additional dimension, feeling more vibrant and less cold. In fact ‘New Year’ still sounds as alive and as brimming with excitement as the first time it burst from my headphones.

As the party continues, there’s a brief break as Chris Keating spots a kid wearing a Clash t-shirt near the front. As the crowd responds feverishly to him saying their one of his favourite acts, he mentions that they’re “Trying to be as good as them”. It’s an interesting acknowledgement, and makes a great deal of sense. The Clash also wanted to move beyond their garage-spun roots (to varying levels of success), but became a massive “rock” band. And it’s this cross-roads that Yeasayer have also arrived at. Where they go from here is entirely up to them, and they’ll need to find the right line between making popular, and yet personally satisfying, music. But whilst their live sets are as impressive as this, they’ve got one less thing to worry about heading into the festival season.

Photos by Valerio Berdini

I don’t know where to start. This time last week I was a sweaty mess of half wrecked excitement somewhere in the centre of Barcelona. Now I’m sitting with the sniffles alone in my bedroom trying to figure out how to consolidate one of the best festivals of my life into a word count below that of the Oxford English Dictionary.

I arrived at Bristol airport at 5am on Wednesday after about three hours of sleep on my friend Sophie’s sofa. I got in the boarding queue early so I could get a window seat, all for the benefits of a solid surface to sleep against, not for the view. Air travel is slowly starting to scare me more and more. Not because of the volcano or Lost or anything. It’s just the bit when you’re sitting several thousand feet above the ground, turbulence bouncing the plane from side to side, and you realise that you paid more on administration fees than you did on the actual flight. That’s when it becomes a bit scary.

But anyway, I was sitting on the plane, head against the plastic, iPod in lap when slowly a line of familiar faces passed through the gangway. I was on the same flight as Los Campesinos! I gave Neil a lift back from ATP the other weekend so he returned the favour when we arrived at Girona airport, an hour outside Barcelona, and gave me a ride in their van into the centre of town.

I left them to check in to their hotel and fumbled my way through the Metro system to my new home. I was sharing an apartment with 5 friends including Joe from the brilliant Copy Haho. I had a quick shower, a cheeky beer, and headed to the Apolo theatre to do some work for my real job.

That night was the opening party of Primavera; a Wichita records party celebrating 10 years of the awesome label. Peggy Sue played first and were breathtakingly good. I’d interviewed them before their show and while I was waiting my turn some Spanish website got them to play acoustic on the roof of the venue (I cheekily filmed it for you guys). It was pretty special.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’m still embarrassed to admit that I missed First Aid Kit because I was hungry. I’d been in the venue for about 4 hours and had eaten as much of the band’s rider as was politely possible. I had to go and get some food. In the end my friends and I just went to a place round the corner because they had beer taps on every table. I only had a few chips. I’m such a shit journalist, sorry.

We got back in time for Los Campesinos! and Joe and I (now joined by Richard from Copy Haho) decided to get in the pit. Except it wasn’t really a pit, it was more just a group of Spanish people standing really close to the stage talking and smoking. You can smoke indoors in Spain. It makes it hard to jump about like an idiot because you’re constantly worried about setting your hair or eye on fire.

Neither fear nor apathy could stop us though, and we jumped up and down and punched the air for most of the set. And then they played ‘You! Me! Dancing!’ and the whole crowd went crazy. I felt like I was fifteen again, trying to hold my place at the front of the stage while Chino Moreno bounced and belted his way across it. Except this time it was Gareth Campesinos and five of my mates from Uni, and I’m nearly twenty-five and should know better. It was the best mosh I’d had in years (regular readers will be pleased to hear my bag was safe behind the decks courtesy of Ben from Wichita).

The band finished the set with an encore of ‘Broken Hearbeats Sound Like Breakbeats’ from in the middle of the crowd. How they managed to play as Spanish limbs flew from side to side I’ll never know. After the gig I had to borrow Kim’s deodorant because I smelt like yogurt.

My friend Maria who lives in Barcelona was at a bar round the corner called Tequila Boom Boom. Her exact text was “We’re literally like 1min from apolo. Place called tequila boom boom, across the road from u, next 2 the sex show place with the naked lady sign.” We had to go.

I dragged everyone who was left in Apolo, about twenty odd people; my friends, Los Camp, Peggy Sue, Wichita… All to what was essentially a kebab shop. I could feel their eyebrows rise as I assured them this was the place. Luckily, once you walked through the bit where they sold kebabs there was actually a weird little bar at the back. The walls were lined with moulding fish tanks, the cocktails were two Euros fifty, and they played the Backstreet Boys’ greatest hits on loop. It was fucking awesome.

The next day I had a lie in then went and met Surfer Blood for a quick interview. A trip to the beach followed where I spent approximately twenty minutes trying to sunbathe before sacking it off to get a beer.

The festival site for Primavera is only slightly out of the city in some kind of giant car park by the beach. Like all Spanish festivals, nothing really happens until later in the evening. We got there in time to see Surfer Blood but I had to do another interview which involved me getting lost on site trying to find the press tent and then discovering I didn’t have access to the press tent so I missed half their set. I did get to see the bit where Thomas plays guitar with his teeth though which is infinitely cool.

Ummm… so the best thing about Primavera, aside from the ridiculously awesome line up, is that if you manage to sneak yourself a cheeky guest pass then you get free beer. They have free beer in the guest area. Free beer; possibly the greatest thing ever invented by man.

So, after Surfer Blood I got some free beer. Then I watched Titus Andronicus who were fierce. Then I got some free beer. Then I went to watch Smith Westerns but got sidetracked and ended up in this little Ray Ban tent where Comanechi were playing.

It was hilarious. The tent had a capacity of about fifty so it should have been awesome, except you weren’t allowed to take drinks in and they’d employed this poor muscle heavy security guard guy to make sure nobody leaned on the cabinets of sunglasses which lined one side of the tent. He just looked so panicked when people start crowdsurfing. He was stood there, sweating, with his arms spread out across the glass cupboards pushing us away from the sacred lenses. Nice one Ray Bans. Rock on.

I don’t remember quite what happened next. I managed to miss Wild Beasts. The next band I saw were Broken Social Scene who were a lot of fun. I went with my friend Mark from Bella Union and Beach House. Victoria and I compared muscles (I won, but she’s pretty buff) and talked about their hilarious non-existent beef with Katy Perry.

And then it was time for Pavement. I went to watch them with my bro Johnny who I met at a party once because we were both wearing HEALTH t-shirts. We made brokes (bro jokes) for a bit and then I was talking to this French girl who was the queen bro and it was totally brotal (brutal, if you’re a bro).

Everyone was wasted and singing along to every song and having the most fun ever. And they played a totally different set to their ATP performance; they opened on ‘Cut Your Hair’ and ended with ‘Stop Breathin’. Louise (queen bro – I think her name was Louise?) and I needed the toilet so we went to queue for the Portaloos but right as we got to the end of the line the opening chords for ‘Stereo’ kicked in. We ran in front of everyone waiting like lightening and straight back into the crowd BANG in time for the second chorus. It was a total broment.

After Pavement I was wiped, smashed, super happy. I hung at the back of Fuck Buttons with my friend Ed, right near the free beer. Meeting back up with the rest of my apartment pals we struggled our way onto the local bus home just as the skies opened and threw down huge drops of cool summer rain. It was perfect.

After a late start on Friday and a trip to the park I made it to the site in time for Harlem. I love this band. I first saw them a couple of years ago at SXSW and their debut album Hippies is insanely good. It was great to see that they party just as hard live on a festival stage as they do in a sweaty Austin club.

Then I watched Scout Niblett who I hadn’t seen in years. Her new drummer is amazing. He was so excited after each song, throwing his arms in the air cheering; it made me more excited about each song. Not that there isn’t plenty to get excited about in Scout’s dark, jerking, thunderstorm performances. The only problem was that the ATP stage was right next to this set of bushes that everyone had spent the previous day using as a toilet. It smelt like a fucking sewer.

I caught the end of Best Coast including the sing along moment of ‘When I’m With You’, which was ace. I had some free beer. I was unimpressed by Ganglians. And then I tried to go and watch Beach House. It was so insanely (but deservedly) busy for them. Much like the night before when The xx had cleaned the audience from every other stage of the festival, Friday was all about Beach House.  And they delivered. They’re just heart wrenching, dream stealing, soul captivatingly perfect. And they have so much passion and charisma on stage. I just fucking love this band.

Les Savy Fav had to follow, and of course they ruled it with Tim losing a mic to the crowd, begging for it back and then scorching out the audience with a stolen stage light. Although I have to admit, the whole time watching, my smile was still being held by memories of the previous set.

I couldn’t be bothered with Panda Bear after seeing his ATP set so I got more beer and headed to Cold Cave who completely stole the Pitchfork stage. I ran to the front when the opening chords of ‘Love Comes Close’ kicked in and danced like a dick. And then it was time for some band called The Pixies?

To be honest, I was wrecked when they came on stage and all I can really remember is

1. It was awesome
2. I danced like an idiot
3. Someone filmed me playing air guitar :/

Sorry, I’m shit. I do remember that the field in front of the stage was completely rammed – busier than I’ve ever seen it for any band in the past.

I didn’t make it to Yeasayer after. Apparently it was so busy at the Vice stage you couldn’t get near anyway.

The next day, the final day, I met up with No Age for a quick interview before a trip to the beach. They’d been jumped a few days before in Lisbon but Dean was looking OK by the time I saw them. Apparently their sound guy took the worst hits.

I caught a bit of Real Estate, Atlas Sound and Dr Dog who were all good. Avoided Florence like the plague. Saw The Slits who were shit, and then Polvo who were entirely brilliant and tighter than I’d expected. Sadly the ATP stage smelt even worse by that evening.

Grizzly Bear were as charming as ever and No Age kicked fucking noise punk ass. The pit was amazing. For a moment I considered crowdsurfing until I saw some guy fall on his face and remembered my SXSW incident. So I took a video instead.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I tried to watch a bit of Gary Numan but they were having technical trouble setting up the stage so he was pretty late on. I did get to see three songs though, and one of those songs was ‘Cars’. Fuck Yeah!

There’s not really anything I can write here about the Pet Shop Boys except that it was the most fun of the festival. Great stage show, great visuals, great performance and most importantly, great fucking songs. That said, I did meet some boys during their set that kept luring me into singing Brand New songs with them. I say luring; I didn’t need much encouragement. I’d like to see at least one emo rock band at Primavera Sound 2011 please. (kidding)

I ended the festival in the best way you could ever hope to end anything, even your own life. I would die happy if I was watching HEALTH. I have vague memories of bumping into a woman from work and screaming something like “WHEN THEY ‘PLAY DIE’  SLOW I’M GOING TO LOSE MY SHIT” in her face. I really know how to further my career. They ended with new track ‘USA Boys’ after the bruise fest that was ‘Die Slow’. Everything about them is just so good; dynamic, creative, aggressive but completely measured in every move. It was the highlight of my festival.

The next day some bands played in a park down the road from where we were staying. I only saw Real Estate and Smith Westerns. It was fun because it was really relaxed and pretty and I was far too wiped out for much else.

We didn’t go to the closing party that night. I went to bed early so I didn’t miss my 5am start. I’m a loser, I know. And now I’m going to go to bed and dream of Barcelona, and HEALTH, and free beer, and slowly count down the days until Primavera Sound 2011. I can’t wait.

Yeasayer have confirmed a bunch of Autumnal tour dates, as well as playing live on Jools Holland;s Later show on 18th / 21st May.

Tickets for the October shows will be on sale from tomorrow, 12th May.

OCTOBER
19 Cardiff Millennium Music Hall
20 Manchester Academy
21 London Roundhouse
23 Newcastle Academy
24 Glasgow ABC

Yeasayer have always been a band with an identity crisis. As good as All Hour Cymbals was, it wasn’t the most coherent of works. Whilst the Eastern and African inspired elements were constant throughout, they never seemed sure whether they wanted you to dance, or stroke your chin in a moderately cerebral fashion. New album Odd Blood furrows a similarly schizophrenic path, flitting between ultra-distorted experimentalism and undiluted upbeat pop. But, overall, its charms are more immediate than its predecessor. This move toward the mainstream was always bound to split critical opinion, and certainly the album has attracted both ardent praise and vicious scorn in equal measure.

But as concerns the live show, the new direction has been a masterstroke. Even before you get to the music, it’s instantly noticeable that the band have loosened up over the last couple of the years. Previously, their gigs were restrained by their sense of Brooklyn scenester cool, but there’s a sense they’re actually enjoying themselves this time round, and that’s reflected in the audience’s response. At their ICA show a couple of years back, the band received a generally warm (if subdued) reception, but there was no clamour for an encore, no sense of occasion. Tonight, it’s an entirely different story. People were dancing, singing along, really engaging with the material. They’ve put a lot more effort into their stage design too, whilst it may appear to have been stolen wholesale from an episode of Top of The Pops, circa 1984, the multi-coloured screens and prism-shaped keyboard stands fit their new image perfectly.

Of course, none of the extra pizzazz would matter if the music wasn’t much cop, but they didn’t disappoint in that respect either. It’s telling Yeasayer have gone on record to say ‘Rome’ was added at the last minute because it was “great to play live”. Its shamelessly bouncy big band swing with undertones of Lou Bega may sound incongruous on record, but it’s perfect in a sweaty little club like Heaven. ‘Ambling Alp’ has already achieved cult anthemic status, judging by the crowd’s jubilant response and even the older material was tweaked to fit the new vibe, sounding better than ever before. Some songs lean a bit too much towards pure cheese though. I’ve never been able to get along with ‘Madder Red’, whilst some of the later Odd Blood tracks suffer from chronic averageness. However, it’s not enough to seriously impact on an otherwise high quality performance. And whilst their biggest hit ’2080′ had been excised from previous dates on the tour, it made an welcome appearance in London, rounding off the show in suitably sublime fashion. Yes, it’s easy to see why people would be disgruntled with latter-day Yeasayer: they’ve sacrificed some of the sophistication of old for directness and fun. But if that means they’re always this enjoyable, then that’s sure as hell fine by me.

Anyone who claims that Odd Blood, the new record from Yeasayer, is all over the map or a tad uneven clearly hasn’t had much exposure to All Hour Cymbals, the bands untamed, genre-blending debut. It’s quite clear they’ve been musically schizophrenic right from the get go. And that unpredictable, unsettled quality was what a lot of listeners gravitated towards and identified with, intrigued by never entirely knowing what the next song was going to sound like. But the scene Yeasayer returns to with their first full-length in three years is noticeably different and perhaps even more jaded than they remember, now even more entrenched in the ‘what have you done for me lately?’ mentality. The multi-generational terrain that the band has mined so successfully over the years has been scorched by overuse, and their 80′s-aping, international sound isn’t quite so unique anymore. But the band is persistent, and, to both good and bad effect, they remain pretty true to their roots while still delivering a mostly fresh, modern twist on a familiar style and sound.

No matter what your expectations were for Odd Blood, the sinister stomp of album opener ‘The Children’ is bound to catch you off guard. The vocals are distorted and ominous, and the beat sounds as if the band is banging on pipes in the basement of an abandoned building. For such a generally upbeat album, this is a rather atypical, menacing introduction, which I’m sure is exactly what the band intended. Shock and awe, indeed. And while the sound of ‘The Children’ proves startling, the instantly recognizable sound of lead single ‘Ambling Alp’ leads the listener towards much more familiar sonic territory. Even though the Joe Lewis-Father/Son anthem of ‘Alp’ is enjoyable and enlivening, I find that it clearly has a shelf life, and after hearing it for more than a year now it has started to sound stale. Especially when placed alongside the contemporary, New-Romantic elegance of ‘Madder Red’ and ‘I Remember,’ two of the best songs on the album. The moody, reverb-heavy ‘Madder Red’ soars naturally, with Chris Keating’s impassioned vocals blending well with the bands signature tribal beat (although the unhinged drumming of Luke Fasano is clearly missing on Odd Blood). ‘I Remember’ is an instant classic -a thoroughly modern, synth-laden ballad that doesn’t sacrifice a bit of the bands inventive tendencies while still revealing enough of their souls to produce a tender, wistful love song.

‘O.N.E.’ continues the great run of songs on the albums first half, with disco heavy grooves and a carefree, festival ambiance that is catchy and impossible to resist. And by the time the Bee Gee’s-like breakdown hits at the end of the song, more than likely the listener is buying whatever Yeasayer are selling. It’s unfortunate, then, that they don’t build on that connection, and instead retreat to more conventional, unimaginative material on the records rather bland second side. There are attempts at the jubilant chaos of Animal Collective (‘Strange Reunions’) and the vocal theatrics of Dirty Projecters (‘Grizelda’), two bands du jour that have perfected their sounds enough to make it easy to spot the imitators. And even when the band is trying to sound like themselves (‘Rome’), it seems like the spark has just grown faint. The music is vibrant (even if it clumsily echoes Daft Punk), but the chorus of ‘Mondegreen’ is so ludicrous and puerile that it’s impossible to get beyond it to enjoy the song in any way.

So what was once a promising album fizzles out spectacularly, and while it is easy to focus on the songs that don’t quite work, it’s easier instead to concentrate on the marvelous tracks at the start of Odd Blood. Those songs set such a superior standard that even second-rate tracks seem uninspired by comparison. There’s clearly a lot to like on this record, and it certainly is refreshing that Yeasayer didn’t play it safe and deliver anything predictable or a rehashed version of their first album. Ultimately though, Odd Blood is like a New Year’s Eve party that starts with fireworks and make-out sessions but fails to even last until midnight.

Buy the album from Odd Blood | [itunes link="http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/i-remember/id350965781?uo=4" title="Yeasayer-Odd_Blood_(Album)" text="iTunes"]

Odd Blood, Yeasayer’s follow up to 2007’s All Hour Cymbals is due out on the 8th day of February in this bright, fresh new year. Peter Bloxham spoke to Ira and Chris about pop music, visual aesthetics and if the American indie music scene has started to lead the way over the British.

TLOBF: So first I want to talk a little bit about your perceptions of indie in the UK at the moment, because you guys maybe have some early British indie influences but at the moment how do you think that compares to the scene at the moment in the UK.
Chris: I don’t really know what the indie scene in the UK is, to be honest actually. I don’t know if there even is an indie scene here.

See now I would say that East Coast American indie is producing some amazing stuff right now.
Are we East Coast American Indie?

Yes. For the purposes of this conversation, yes.
Hahaha, okay. We can play that game!

Good, yeah. So I think that if you’re an indie band in the United States you know that you’re never going to be like huge mainsream, billboard…. Mainstream in the UK is like pure manufactured pop and watered down indie.
Chris: We do see like a weird… we saw a weird thing last summer I don’t really know like there’s all these bands in the UK that are huge over here that I don’t even know.
Ira: Yeah huge, like stadium huge.
Chris: Like Kaiser Chiefs etc etc

Kinda like Kings of Leon?
Chris: No, I mean well they’re huge the play stadiums in the US. I mean they’re a big fuckin band, but they broke here first. I mean… they’re terrible, but I think that through virtue of the fact that they are American they could get big over here and then keep working on it in the States.

Yeah a lot of bands seem to do that.
It takes a little longer to break over there because it’s huge, y’know…
Ira: It’s huge and also radio is totally different here, I mean you have no real options for radio in the States. I mean there’s college and shit-
Chris: Radio in the states is so corrupt but I think you have a system that allows small bands to like, you know jump up.

Ah now, see I think this is true.
Chris: Well we don’t have [that kind of radio] any more so I think people have given up on it. And so bands like… it’s not like Dirty Projectors or Animal Collective never actually think that they’re going to get into nationwide big radio and sell tons of records. That’s not going to happen.
Ira: They can get on small radio and small markets around the country. And they can just be making a name because they’re original and so they know that blog kids and… it seems like you [in the UK] have a lot of music fans that don’t really know – I’m talking middle of the road music fans that might be attracted to Grizzly Bear – but they don’t really know where to go, they’re not Nickleback fans and they don’t like Creed and they don’t really like 50 cent, because you know the whole hip-hop thing really swallowed up the mainstream but then kind of killed itself.

Yeah yeah, this is what I think has happened to British indie, though. I think it’s an advantage to come from an environment like that. I mean, if you were Grizzly Bear and you were releasing Veckatimest and you know that was going to be a major release and you were a mainstream band and this was supposed to be played on major radio – would that have been the same album?
No

And I think it must be a similar thing for you guys…
It was weird for us to even think about that, I mean we had to come and do a radio edit for one of our songs, like come and shorten it, you know cut it down so it could be played on the radio because it’s sorta a longer song and we’re like “Really?”. It’s like the video we had with naked people in it. In the States, it’s not going to be on MTV, so who cares? But over here they’re like “Well we’ve got to do an edit so it can be on MTV” and it’s like “…they still do that?”. So it’s weird to us, I don’t know I mean we might be down with some pop stuff on the radio, y’know I’m psyched on the new Rhianna thing or new Jay Z thing, I like some mainstream hip hop, some Kanye stuff but in general you know, that’s it for the kind of stuff on the radio that I’m going to like. So we just don’t have any expectations, I mean nobody I know… even a band like Vampire Weekend or MGMT or something who to us are the only friends we have who seem like really huge bands who are really rich or something, even they don’t get played on mainstream that much…
Ira: They get on like alternative radio. It’s like alternative mainstream. They’re still very much in some markets, it’s very coastal. They’re not played all of the country like Leona Lewis would be..

That can happen in this country for indie bands, but maybe, all in all, mainstream recognition is not that much of a good thing for a scene. In fact I think on the whole, ‘indie’ music from America is generally of a better quality that British stuff right now.
Chris: I don’t even know what… I mean what bands are here?

Well, exactly(!)
Ira: The X X they’re kinda rad, doing something pretty cool, different.

Yeah, there are some, but-
I think as a result [of mainstream indie success in the UK] you have a lot of guys who are trying to fit a mould. We play these festivals and there these 19 year-old kids in bands I’ve never heard of who I think just got signed to some major label and they’re coming out, smoking onstage and playing their sassy kinda things and trying to sell, trying to whore themselves to be that thing.
But they’re basically just psyched that someone came at them and said ‘Here’s £30,000” and they’re like ‘OH MY GOD’!

Yeah like ‘Holy shit! What do you want us to do!?”
We’ll do whatever! And you wanna say ‘That’s peanuts and don’t go blow it one place because you’ll be fucked”. I mean actually I think some of those bands to end up being big bands in the States but it’s just … I mean we just played with some, we had this band open up for us and we asked you know, ‘What label are you guys on?”
‘We’re on uh, Capitol’
‘Who?’
Haha, Like does, Capitol exist? It was weird they were young guys and they’re like, ‘So! When you’re touring does your label pick your openers?’
‘Err… no? What’re you-“
‘Does your label make you do this or this?”
‘No! What do you mean?”

“Does your label come into the studio and delete the album and tell you start over again?”
Hahaha, yeah! Or “So uh, what producer did they tell you to work with?”
Err, we produced ourselves…
Ira: I also feel like uh, you see all the kids and the bands are real young. But a lot of the bands you talk about that are coming from America – they’re a little older. Those guys are older, you know TV on the Radio – older. Those guys put in years.
Ira: So they’re coming to it from a very different perspective. Very different assumptions.
I mean we’re not cute.
Ira: And we have different assumptions on.. what we think longevity is. What we want as longevity, even just through the fact that we’re looking at things that way.

Sure and nobody actually told you to go away and write that first album, nobody gave you any promises over it and you just did it.
And also, each step of the way we think ‘Oh great, we get [this much] for our advance, or we get this or this festival and so on’ but I know that next year that might not be the case!

Right, but you’ll still be band even if that stuff isn’t happening in much the same way that you are now.
Ira: We’re still going to be making weird music.
Chris: Or just not sitting on our laurels about it, you know? Not treating it a way where we think ‘Oh we got that advance, we made it, we can chill out!’
People often ask, is there a lot of pressure on your second album because you made it and we ‘re we still haven’t ‘made it’! We’re not even trying to ‘make’ it we’re just trying to do it! It’s not about making it, I mean no-ones buying a boat. I don’t think we’ll ever buy a house.
Ira: You’re invited on my boat when I get it though.

Thanks man.
Ira: It is true about that age thing though, it is weird because… There’s no band that busts on of New York that’s like twenty.
Chris: No. Animal Collective, I know most people think that Sung Tongs was their first record. That was like their fifth record. Those dudes are in their thirties. TV on the Radio are slightly older like thirties to late thirties, they were busting their asses all throughout the Nineties.
Ira: Blonde Redhead, Yeah Yeah Yeah’s.

Totally but that’s completely because… I mean at nineteen you could’ve been one of those bands but nobody came along and thought ‘This is marketable and profitable in the current climate’, I’m gonna put you guys on stage here, here, here and here, make an album…
Right

Whereas, say you were nineteen and on the trajectory to where you are now and someone had come along at that age…
Chris: It would’ve been awesome! I would’ve done it, I know I would’ve done it!
Ira: Totally! That’s what I was trying to do when I was nineteen!
Chris: That’s how I thought it worked, like ‘Well if we keep writing these little tunes then eventually we’ll get picked up!’ – but I think in England that really does happen.

It does happen. And it’s… a good thing but also a bad thing because we don’t produce much of those more mature…
Chris: It’s a good thing for those kids but yeah its bad ultimately for the scene…
Ira: I think it’s bad for the progression of any art form.
Chris: Yeah I mean, The Smiths. They had to really like work at it to catch on, no major label wanted to touch them. That’s why they were on Rough Trade and so that’s how the indie movement got started in the first place.
The other thing about the UK though I think there’s a cool uh, I like all the electronic music culture, the dubstep scene and the grime scene I don’t know how much of that is embraced by the mainstream. I know Dizee Rascal and that kinda thing crossed over into that world but in general I think that’s pretty cool, that’s pretty different, pretty fucked up. You put it on and it’s like say Roots Manuva or something, it’s not derivative, while it is a similar trajectory to American hip-hop but it’s not like Belgian hip-hop which is like “Da Beats In Da Bop Doo Da Da Da”

Hahaha!
But you know the UK stuff is really different, all these off-beats and you know, the kick will be like on the two.
Ira: I feel like that gets into American pop actually I mean Tricky co-wrote Umbrella, right?

Uh-huh. I feel like those scenes over here are healthier and more productive because they are allowed to exist outside of the mainstream and can please themselves and develop.
Chris: It just seems like the sound system, Caribbean influenced culture that would be thriving in a more independent hip-hop scene , it just seems a little more real. So that why the word Indie is always like… Indie?

It’s a weird thing isn’t it?
Stupid, like… UK Indie, I don’t know what it means and…

It’s a genre here, in the States it’s more descriptive I think.
It’s kinda become a genre in the States, but I take a little bit of, it’s like I look at like um I still believe in the idea of independent record labels, or even independent bands. If you’re Radiohead and you’re still on a major but you still dictate everything that you do.

Yeah yeah yeah I get that.
So I believe in that ethic, you know?

Well consistently they’re the guys who come up the best albums, really. Obviously I guess.
Ira: Yeah

Another thing I wanted to ask you about was. The fact that Yeasayer has quite a distinct visual aesthetic. Is that something that you’re deliberately controlling?
Chris: Yeah. I went to design school. So I went to school for Fine Art, decided to be a film major I was going to be a graphic designer but just got burnt out on it after a year. When I first graduated school I did some graphic design for like hip-hop reecord labels, that was one of those early jobs that really suck. It sucks to have some saying to you “Can it be more urban? Can you do a little more funky?”
So doing the design for our stuff and just as a result I know to have a pretty grounded aestetic and I think we all know what we like and uh, if I’m not doing it then we have a pretty close family of people, good friends that’ll do it, like the guy who does our lights for our live show, he builds these customized scultpures, he’s a guy I went to school with and has been a friend of mine for around ten years and he did the artwork, he and I came up with the concept for the artwork with the new record and he like did it. And as a result it’s very weird, I mean, he’s a weird dude and he came up with some weird shit that was like, we’re really trying to push this borderline between what’s well-designed but also ugly, unsettling and sort of interesting.

Like really avante garde?
Yeah, I mean I think it’s a nice… you have a nice platform for doing that when you’re in a band. The t-shirts, the things, the website stuff, the videos all the things that you can do and basically become an artist or at least a director of it all, a production designer of it all but you have this band and you have funding for it.

Yeah yeah totally, and you have a ready made audience, too. I mean, how hand-in-hand with the music is the art and the moment? Are you working more on things after you’ve finished the music or…?
Chris: Personally, when I write songs I think about little movies. Little visual cues within it, lyrically that’s where it comes from and it helps me. I don’t have any formal training in music, maybe somewhat in the production side but in terms of visuals I spend a lot of time studying that so…

I think that the art and the video for Ambling Alp is quite abstract, are the lyrics abstract? They don’t sound very abstract.
Chris: They’re actually pretty literal. Out of any of the songs I think they’re the most literal. Yeah I was more into like kids who made that, these guys are called Radical Friend and them just feeling out the flow of the song as opposed to just trying to tell the story. I mean you can listen to the album and hear the story, you don’t need to see the visuals of the story, you can make them up in your head when you listen to it, I like to see visuals that are totally different.

Also, I think Odd Blood on the whole, it sounds like a freer, happier album. Is it coming from a freer, happier place?
Ira: I think it’s clearer. I think a lot of the first album, we kinda figuring out what we were doing and layering upon layer and really creating this mood. And I feel like with this we’re … I don’t know if emotionally we were in a clearer state. In some ways we probably were. I feel like it’s much more of a physical, immediate album. I think it felt like that when we were making it.
Chris: I think there’s some dark uh, dark stuff on the record. But yeah in general I feel like there’s more love songs. Yeah, it’s a happier record I guess. It’s… a different record.

Well that’s good(!)
I don’t know if I’ve figured out the overall sentiment on the album yet.

So you didn’t have an overall idea of any of the moods you wanted to project really?
Chris: I don’t think we had an overall idea necessarily about lyrically what it was going to be about, but sonically we had an idea and we sort of started from that idea which is like making a poppier record with like more electronic dance and production inspired beats and production techniques that we liked and wanted to mess with.
And as a result, maybe write some love songs on top of that. More personal stuff and then some stories, Ambling Alp is kinda a story song, Stranger Union is a story…

It’s pretty un-self-conscious.
Is it? I don’t know.

Yeah I think to write love songs and admit that they’re love songs and lyrics like those from Ambling Alp, it’s pretty head on and unashamed.
I don’t like ironic music but I dunno ‘unashamed’, it’s not like.. you hear all of this music and that’s like the Pop Sentiment, that you have to walk to the fine line of being cheesy before you like eeegggh.
Ira: before you fall over into the pile of Snow Patrol.

Hahaha, yeah. Yes. Totally.
Chris: You don’t wanna trip into the Snow Patrol.
Ira: You do that and then it’s like, every album has to be a really goodgey love song.
Chris: Nononono, no wait! We’re doing DISCO ROCK now!
Ira: No, dudes! Sorry!

Haha, you guys can get away with it though, because you own more instruments.
Ira: Hahaha!

When you have one dude playing acoustic guitar and then… power solo! I’ll tell you you’re in trouble.
Chris: People love that shit! That shit gets huge! People love that crap!
Ira: I, I think it’s also performance.
Chris: If we wanted to be huge we should just have an acoustic guitar…

Yeah! So maybe you could do that?
Chris: … I don’t wanna be huge(!)
Ira: I don’t wanna be huge in that way. Then you’re just huge for a song.
Chris: That doesn’t even sound like fun, I just don’t want that. It sounds awful!

Yeah. Even Kings of Leon said recently that they don’t even like their own music anymore.
Chris: (Impeccable Caleb Folowil impression) SOMEONE LIAK YOOOO!

Should’ve seen that coming dude when you wrote that song.
Ira: Heheh, I know! What were you thinkin?
Chris: (still in mid-flow.) IMMA NEED SOMBODAAI
Ira: What did you think that you weren’t going to have to sing that song every day for the rest of your life?
Chris: They’re laughing all the way to the bank I guess.

Maybe if after they had written that someone had said ‘Guys, you really want to record this? Because that’s it for the rest of your lives if so.’
Chris: Yeah… if someone presented me with that option I’d be like ‘Okay!’

You reckon?
Yeah cause then I could still do that and then I could still do like weird… I could still play, I could still do Upset the Rhythm nights with some weird noise band. Someone might say ‘You’re that guy who wrote that terrible song!’ and I could say ‘Yeah… I’ll buy you a beer.”

Hahaha, I’m really sorry about that, hey!
In fact, I’ll buy you a car!

HA!
It would have to be guaranteed though.

Someone comes to you. Some weird guy shows up. And he’s like, got a suit made of gold. He says ‘Heeloo… tomorrow you’ll wake up with this song in your head and you’ll write it and the next week you’ll be partying in a Jacuzzi with Beyonce’
Chris: Yes…. YES!
Ira: I think the best of both worlds would be to able to excorsize those demons and then sell it someone else to someone else to sing.

Like Prince.
Ira: Yeah, like Prince, the guy form One Republic. Not that he’s really -
Chris: Haaha, the guy from One Republic!
Ira: Yeah not that he’s all like “Yeaahh, sticking to MY roots on MY thing!” but I guess that’s how he makes a lot of his money. But yeah getting that shit out of the way. I would LOVE to write some songs for Creed.
Chris: Being indie is definitely over-rated!
Ira: And Nickleback. I could write the fuck out of those songs.

You should do it. Call someone up.
We’re trying, man, we’re just getting our foot in the door right now!

Oh yeah I guess you gotta do the whole Yeasayer thing and then…
Chris: Politics, politics.
Ira: Playing in smelly bars that don’t have bottles of water for hundreds of people is overrated.

Yeah? I think it’s a beautiful thing.
Both: It can be. It can be!
Chris: I don’t wanna do it for the rest of my fuckin life, man! Jesus!

(giggling)
Ira: I don’t wanna be forty and doing it.
Chris: It’s not my end goal. And I don’t find anything romantic in it. Like ‘It’s just so real’ and that ideal.

And you guys write your own stuff in demo form and then you come together and work it out?
Ira: Yeah there’s ideas, sometimes someone has a more complete piece but yeah we always get together and produce it.

You get a lot of stuff that way? More than you’ll ever use?
Ira: I think that’s the goal. Yeah we did on this one.
Chris: We do a lot of revisions though!

You have b-sides? Enough for an EP or something?
Ira: Yeah I like the idea of having something but an EP is sometimes just like ‘Heeeere’s the CRAP!’. I like that there are deleted scenes on movies and everything but sometimes I think, ‘Oh… this really changes how I think about this movie now..’
Chris: We’ll have some B-sides, but an EP… I feel like if we’re doing to do that it should allude to what we’re going to do in the future in a way. And not just be “Leftovers!”. I mean we had some trouble almost at the end, we swapped out some songs and replaced with some ones that were B-sides to have the ‘flow’ and energy the same.

So those other tracks are still waiting to be…
Yeah they’ll show up in a BMW commercial at some point.

Hey that’d be awesome.

Odd Blood is released on 8th February… look out for a review on TLOBF soon!

Out of nowhere comes details of a new home AND a new album from New York’s Yeasayer.

They’ve now signed to the Mute label everywhere except North American, where Secretly Canadian will be looking after them.

On top of this, the band have announced a new album, entitled Odd Blood, which will see the light of day on 8th February 2010!

On the 30th October 2009, Yeasayer will be headlining the Guggenheim Museum in NYC and will expand their lighting globe set up in the famed Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda to create a more interactive affair.

If you can’t make the show you will probably be most entertained by visiting these sites that night from 3am (UK time) for surprise details: yeasayer.net | twitter.com/OddBlood |www.myspace.com/yeasayer

Track Listing
1. The Children
2. Ambling Alp
3. Madder Red
4. I Remember
5. O.N.E.
6. Love Me Girl
7. Rome
8. Strange Reunions
9. Mondegreen
10. Grizelda

Photo by Valerio Berdini

Before the imminent release of their corking new album The Century of Self, we made some time for a chat with art-noise supremo Conrad Keely from the band, and got to hear his views on art, science, religion, musical inspiration, the joys of relocating to Brooklyn and much more.

Hi there Conrad. How are you?
Hello.  Yes, I’m good.

What time of day is it over there?
It’s 1.30pm here in Brooklyn.

So, I saw your band at All Tomorrow’s Parties last May.  How was the festival for you?
I’ve always enjoyed those festivals. We’ve done four.  Three in the UK, and then this year was the first time that we did it in America.  Although the audiences here in America were a little bit older than the average age of the British audiences, it’s one of those festivals that I think is very unique in its ability to have the audiences and the performers really kinda come together, just hang out together.  You don’t really get that from a Reading or Leeds!  That’s why we wrote a song about it: ‘Festival Thyme’, the song that’s on the E.P.

Am I right in thinking that you have some family over here in the UK?
My mother’s family: three aunts and an uncle, and cousins.

So do you spend quite a bit of time over here?  Are you a regular visitor?
Only in so much as because of the touring that we do. I get to see my family: my cousins and my aunts and uncle come out to see the shows. I was born in the UK, in Nuneaton and we moved back there when I was 8 years old for three years, so I definitely have that connection there.

So, the new album then. People are saying that it is right up there with the best stuff the band has ever done.  How do you rate it?  Are you one of these artists that is bored with an album once they’ve finished making it?
There’s definitely a part of me that’s thinking about the next record already.  But I’m definitely by no means tired of this record.  We haven’t even gotten to play some of these songs live yet, so we’re excited with interpreting them for live performance.  Our songs always have continued to grow on me.  That’s one of the reasons that we still play songs from the first record: for us they still embody statements that we want to make as performers.

Do you have favourite tracks, or parts of the album?
I have favourite parts, I don’t necessarily have favourite songs.  The middle part of ‘Halcyon Days’ is something I was really fond of, that I’d written back in my first band, in college.  I had always liked it, so I finally used it for something in a recording.  Also ‘Insatiable’: I’m really into how the lyrics came out on that.  And all the instrumental parts of the record: that was something that I really enjoyed doing.

I read that ‘Insatiable’ was originally written as the score for a film, but wasn’t then used.  What film was that?
Oh, it never came out.  The film was never produced.  It was called ‘Insatiable’ and I never saw it, but I heard that it was really bad [laughs].  When I first was told about it, all I was told was that it was a vampire movie, and so the song that I wrote was supposed to be deliberately vampire-esque.  The irony was that the music that I think they wanted for that movie was something that sounded more like nu-metal.

Can you tell me a bit about the collaborations on the album: I think you worked with Yeasayer?
Yeah.  We did the final tracking for the record in New York, which has a very collaborative atmosphere.  Our producer had known the Yeasayer people for a long time, and called them in.  But also there was an artist called Brenda Ratney, who sings the female vocals in the middle section of ‘Halcyon Days’.  She just happened to be recording next door.  The studios were in a basement, and there were two studios side-by-side, so there would always be people walking past us.  She would go in to the next studio, and Jason [Reece] is probably ten times more social than I am, and loves to talk with strangers, so we formed these friendships.  People would check out what we were doing, and we would play each other our tracks and stuff.  There was definitely a great collaborative feel going into this record.

That’s interesting, because I thought there would have been more of a “community” of musicians back in Austin (Texas) – where you used to be based – but it sounds like you’ve found something like that where you are now, as well.
Well, the thing about Austin is that although there are a lot of musicians, it’s not necessarily as collaborative.  Also in New York the quality and calibre of musicians that you run into up here is usually pretty high.  Like, Brenda Radney – the girl that was recording next door – had been signed to Justin Timberlake’s label, and she had come second in some international singing competition.  She was spot on, flawless. So that’s one major advantage with New York.  Any session musician that you would hire out here is going to be top of their game.

‘Fields of Coal’ appears to be a song about a reluctance to perform, or go on stage.  Do you suffer from actual stage fright, or is it more about a lack of enthusiasm for performing?
The funny thing about that song is that it’s the only song that I’ve ever written on tour.  I actually wrote it before I was about to get on stage at a festival.  On the bus.  It’s not stage fright, I don’t think I’ve ever had that, but it is that fear of… when you’re about to do something that’s really strenuous, not just physically but emotionally strenuous.  After weeks of doing this it can be very draining: emotionally draining and mentally draining.  You almost feel like you’re disembodied.

So in an ideal world would you prefer to do shorter tours?
I think in an ideal world I would never to play the same place twice.  There are so many places that I would love to play in the world, and just continue to travel.  But I don’t mind touring, I love touring.  For me, one of the greatest things about it is travel.  I’ve travelled since I was a young child, and travelling to new places has always been on the top of my career considerations.  If anything, I just hope that I improve on my tour stamina, and how much I’m capable of doing it.

A lot of what you write about and sing about seems to cover if not religious then certainly “spiritual” and quasi-religious themes – like ‘Isis Unveiled’ on the new album for example.  What are your personal beliefs?
I have spiritual beliefs, but I am against the idea of organised religion, and I see it for its flaws.  I love it for its beauty and tradition, I’ve always loved religious art and even music, but I was raised by parents that studied all religions.  In fact the book ‘Isis Unveiled’ was a book that my parents owned and had on the bookshelf.  I grew up with that book, and it was an indictment of both religion and science, saying that they fall short of spirituality, but that freed of them we can achieve this higher spirituality.  I have strong convictions, but not necessarily about some kind of personified godlike being, that people seem to feel they have to understand.  Anything that created the thinking behind the science and the physics that I’ve studied and know about would be way beyond our meagre comprehension.  So it’s not so much a desire to understand this thing as it is just a kind of letting go, and allowing it to work through you.  I think this is the creative compositional process that I hear many writers talk about: feeling as if they are a conduit for something.  Just the sense that they’re channelling in a creative power from somewhere else.  Stravinsky said that he didn’t write The Rites of Spring, that it flowed from him.

Like the way that musicians often say that they woke up having dreamed a song or a lyric.
Yeah.  Even beyond that, just the geometry behind the music, and the amazing mathematics of music which makes me think about things such as what music would be to alien races, based on the universal mathematical laws.  Music that is outside of our terrestrial experience, but it may be strangely similar.  That’s a theme that I played with in the song ‘Bells of Creation’.

Art is also clearly something that is significant and important to you.  You did the cover of this album in biro, is that right?
Yeah, all the artwork on this record was done with a blue ballpoint.  Blue “biro” [laughs].

One of the things that I miss, now that more and more music is in ‘download’ form rather than a physical item is the cover art and the whole feel for an album that you get from the artwork.  How do you, as an artist and musician, feel about that?
Oh I definitely embrace the new technology.  I didn’t even bring my vinyl collection with me to New York because it was just too big.  But that hasn’t stopped me from appreciating the artwork that goes along with records, or even my desire to create artwork.  When I was a young child the artwork was part of a record.  I would sit there looking at Led Zeppelin 4 and looking at the inner sleeve.  When I create my artwork I’m thinking about that young kid who has found this record among his parents’ collection, and while listening to the music is exploring the drawings that I make for the CD sleeve or the album sleeve.  So although it does seem as if it’s something that has gone away, there are still bands out there that take it very seriously and consider that part of the album.  One of the bands right now whose artwork I really enjoy is Mastodon, who put a lot into their covers.  For me it’s something that definitely will always be intertwined with the music itself.  To that end what we’re planning to do is tour the artwork with the album, we’re going to be setting up some exhibits on this next European tour, for as many of the gigs as we can.  Eventually it would be nice to have a touring installation, but that’s probably going to be for the future – there’ll be some logistic challenges [laughs].

Didn’t you do an exhibition with Melissa Auf Der Mar recently?
Yes.  She showed her photography and I showed my pen drawings.

What, at the moment, is inspiring you musically and artistically: what are you listening to, or reading, or…?
There are a lot of local Brooklyn bands that I was listening to when I was writing these songs  - like we already mentioned, Yeasayer, and Dirty Projectors and a couple of other bands: Black Mountain, Fleet Foxes.  Also, I’ve been listening to a lot of soundtracks.  I always enjoy listening to soundtracks to movies, and I also find a lot of inspiration with movies themselves, because we try to have a cinematic quality to our records.  We want the listener to be able to close their eyes and imagine scenes, or feel like they are being taken on a journey.  So movies are something that we always fall back on for inspiration.

So do you mentally write your own soundtrack, while you’re watching a movie?
Oh no, I mean, usually I’ll listen to the soundtrack that’s there [laughs].  But recently, No  Country For Old Men came out, and that didn’t have any incidental music.  There was no soundtrack music for it, but what an amazing soundtrack, it was so interesting.  You really just heard the ambient noise of each scene.  That was really special.

Do you read much?  What kind of books and authors do you like?
I did go through the Cormac McCarthy books after watching that film [McCarthy wrote the book 'No Country For Old Men', on which the film was based].  I do like a lot of non-fiction work, like Bill Bryson.  I’ve always liked his writing.  I read a book called ‘The Far Pavilions’ by M M Kaye before I wrote the song.  That’s probably one of the best novels that I’ve read in a while.

That’s about Afghanistan?
Well, it takes place in Pakistan, I guess it was still India at the time, during the great game between Great Britain and Russia, but definitely set in the same contentious part of the world.  It’s 150 years ago, but it did draw a lot of parallels in my mind.  Interesting.

Do you read music magazines, and look at your own reviews?  What music websites do you use?
To be honest I don’t read music magazines.  I definitely don’t read them to find out what people have to say about other bands, unless they just happen to be there.  For the most part I like to get my news from word of mouth and what I see when I go to a show.  Occasionally I’ll read reviews that have been passed along to me, but for the most part I just have to try to remind myself that that is not really what’s important, that a review of the record, or even the press covering the record is not necessarily going to change anybody’s opinion.  I think the listener is really foremost in my mind as the person whose opinion I’m worried about.

The only thing that I check out online – because I’ve been a member of it for a while – is eMusic.  You get a membership and then you can download a certain amount of songs every month.  I definitely steer far from their rock or alternative sections, and usually go for the folk or early jazz stuff.  I can’t help that: I’ve been in a rock band for thirteen years so I’m kinda inundated with the alternative music scene, so I look elsewhere for a release.

Well, thank you very much for speaking with us.
Thank you, we’ll see you in the UK!

…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead on Myspace

Dark Was The Night is a fundraiser for the Red Hot Organization, an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS, comprising 31 exclusive tracks. Moreover, though, much like a previous Red Hot effort, 1993′s No Alternative (Nirvana, Patti Smith, Sonic Youth, Beastie Boys, Smashing Pumpkins, Pavement, Jonathan Richman), it acts as a snapshot of a certain time and place in North American alternative music (Stuart Murdoch, Devastations, Riceboy Sleeps, Antony Hegarty and Jose Gonzalez company excepted). The record takes in a healthy cross-section of the major players in the scene over the last couple of years; a period of unbridled creativity and critical hosannahs shone upon the music that not so long ago would have been quietly left to fend for its own cult following on the underground. So how do you approach something like this, with no thematic link or stylistic even keel, just a hell of a lot of proven quality intended, as the producers Aaron and Bryce Dessner (of The National) have reinforced, merely as a showcase for “the best in independent music, with an emphasis on traditional themes played and arranged in a contemporary way” (whatever that means)? By throwing traditional review narrative form out of the window and tackling it sequentially, I guess.

So… Dirty Projectors kick off with a David Byrne collaboration that he may have written the words to but in recording doesn’t seem to include David Byrne on anything more than backing vocals, although ‘Knotty Pine’ seems to funnel the wired shuffle of Talking Heads’ first couple of albums to a more straightened out version of Dave Longstreth and co’s eclectic culture surfing. Nick Drake’s ‘Cello Song’ is given The Books’ elegant glitch-folk treatment with Jose Gonzalez on restrained vocals, drifting gorgeously on a digital looped bed. Feist and Ben Gibbard come together on a spare, chiming countrified version of ‘Train Song’ (made semi-famous by Vashti Bunyan) that sounds more like Nancy & Lee than either’s proper work. The development of Bon Iver from solo project to full band expansion while keeping that necessary intimacy continues on ‘Brackett, WI’, brittle guitar and heavenly harmonies this time joined by organ and prominent bass; it wouldn’t have been out of place on the Blood Bank EP. Folk standard ‘Deep Blue Sea’ originally appeared in home recorded lullaby version on Grizzly Bear’s Friend EP last year and reappears fleshed out and warmer, Dan Rossen’s vocals and fingerpicking augmented by woodwind, electronic distortion and percussion. If their forthcoming album takes after this it’ll be unstoppable.

The National themselves take the spotlight next, ‘So Far Around The Bend’ less outwardly emotive than usual in a sawing back porch strum with decorative woodwind frenzy and a song about a woman lost and alone through choice in New York, apparently “praying for Pavement to get back together”. Yeasayer do their expansive otherworldly rhythmic thing a lot better than usual on ‘Tightrope’, and it’s far easier to get excited about than another version of ‘Feeling Good’, especially as My Brightest Diamond adds little to the original arrangement. Title track honours are left to avant garde San Franciscan string section the Kronos Quartet, and once four minutes of plucked string bending has sufficiently tested your patience Antony appears with Bryce Dressner on backup for a fairly perfunctory, vocal pyrotechnic-free version of Dylan’s ‘I Was Young When I Left Home’. Justin Vernon returns with Aaron Dessner backing him up on ‘Big Red Machine’, which pitches Vernon’s multitracked falsetto against insistent piano hammering. It’s an odd juxtaposition but no less intriguing for that. Hard to tell if ‘Sleepless’ is much of a preview of the Decemberists’ rock opera direction, given the stately nearly eight minute rumination sounds like it could have been an offcut from Castaways And Cutouts. Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam gives himself sixty-seven seconds on ‘Stolen Houses (Die)’, which means he’s reduced to vocal and guitar and so can’t ruin it with the soft rock settings of late, while Grizzly Bear and Feist both reappear with a reworking of ‘Service Bell’, originally from the former’s Horn Of Plenty debut album, which with its percussion loops and doo-wop backing vocals actually sounds more like Rossen’s Department Of Eagles, before the first disc closes with something of a war of choral folk attrition, more than ten minutes of Sufjan Stevens. ‘You Are The Blood’ – another cover, apparently – throws a curveball of electronic bleeps for its first thirty seconds and continues in a pattern of underlying electronic effects, samples and and found sounds in the background in a way he hasn’t explored since 2002′s Enjoy Your Rabbit, over which gradually develops a pattern of sympathetic male-female harmonies, cinematic brass and galloping drums before breaking down into cutting up his own vocals and instruments, veering off into heavily reverbed George Harrison piano-led contemplation for a bit, then back to the laptop, then explodimng into joyful brass-led fanfare, then distorted guitar solo over glitches, then solo piano voluntary, then a bit of everything to close. Phew. There’s as many ideas in this one track as those that have followed Sufjan’s path have ever had, and whether one-off playful experiment or signpost as to where he goes whenever he next deigns to record an album – three and a half years since Illinois now – it’s a masterstroke.

Still with it? Good, on to CD 2, which at least initially is something of a disappointment. Even Arcade Fire’s ‘Lenin’ turns the bombast down but ends up sounding more like their pre-Funeral EP, reaching towards something distinct without quite making it. Chief offenders are Beirut, still in underwhelming French mode, and My Morning Jacket, who turn in a song that sounds almost exactly like a British 80s AOR hit that I frustratingly can’t place (helpful, I know). As with most things it takes Dave Sitek to turn things around, who gives the Troggs’ ‘With A Girl Like You’ the fuzzy, synth layered production treatment he’s recently given Telepathe, plus horns and Sitek’s vaguely threatening lower register. Never mind knocking out a cover, Buck 65 reworks a track that’s already been on this compilation, turning Sufjan’s epic into the queasy, gospel choir aided ‘Blood Pt 2′, while the New Pornographers look inside themselves and knock off a version of their own Dan Bejar’s Destroyer’s ‘Hey Snow White’ that allows them to really indulge their AM radio rock fantasies and Yo La Tengo are in one of their relatively subdued Velvets moods on ‘Gentle Hour’. It says here Stuart Murdoch’s ‘Another Saturday’ is to the tune of traditional Scottish folk song ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’; whatever, it’s the type of ruminative, personal acoustic lament Murdoch hasn’t recorded in some time, and with references to his church background.

Riceboy Sleeps will be a new name to most but lead member Jónsi Birgisson of Sigur Ros won’t be, the eight and a half minutes of slowly shifting and drifting ambient waves almost daring the listener to use those ‘glacial’/'pastoral’ descriptions that have long since been deemed passe when describing Birgisson’s main project. An alt-countrified run starts with Cat Power’s interpretation of ‘Amazing Grace’ which is – shock! – Memphis bluesy and continues with Andrew Bird taking the warmer approach of his current album on as he grants the Handsome Family’s ‘The Giant of Illinois’ lush orchestration alongside his own multi-layered violin plucking and sawing and shimmering guitar, before Conor Oberst scratches a bluegrass country itch duetting with Gillian Welch on a reworked ‘Lua’. It suits him. Blonde Redhead are also in stripped back mode collaborating with shimmering Melbourne outfit Devastations, a laid back, comely Kazu Makino sounding oddly like Black Box Recorder’s Sarah Nixey against distorted piano, and it’s left to Kevin Drew to bring the whole charabanc home with the yearning slowcore of the Low-esque (if not Low-esque titled) ‘Love Vs Porn’.

So no, it doesn’t all work, and even by the nature of “previously unreleased tracks” for something promoting the fresh pickings of the very best available there’s quite a few reworkings and covers. However, despite the first CD being clearly the stronger, the hits clearly outweigh the misses, showing a new possible direction for some (Oberst, Sufjan), bringing the best out of others (Yeasayer, The Books) and doing what it should do, reasserting the claims of some of its most lauded (Bon Iver, Grizzly Bear, The National, The Decemberists). This is where – oh, let’s say it – hipster music largely stands in early 2009, and we’re all the better for it.
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Dark Was The Night