For the final post of the day, it's down to me - whilst theexistentialist sits down with a nice cup of tea.
Avid readers will remember last month I was really lucky enough to feature a wonderful debut album from a cracking electronica act called Cantaloupe. The album is called Zoetrope and it was genuinely one of the best debuts I'd heard in a long time. You can read that feature: HERE
The chaps and chapesess agreed to be gently probed by my probing thing for an interview for these very pages and here, below, you'll find it. I hope you enjoy it and also hope you'll consider buying the album, cos it's stonking.
1.)
I think your album is one of the best debuts I've heard in years. I
don't get to feature nearly enough of this genre on the
blog. Who are your electronic and also your non electronic
influences in musical terms?
Simmo: Thank you! That''s really encouraging. That's a hard question to answer, because
it's hard to narrow it down! We all enjoy a
broad range of musical styles. I think that there's something to enjoy in many songs, and something to learn
from most of them. With ska punk being the only clear
exception.I got in to electronic music in my teens, initially through fairly
mainstream stuff like Leftfield and Orbital, which then opened the
door to the stuff coming out on Warp and Rephlex. In my
early twenties I forgot about electronic music a bit, and was
listening to/playing a lot more post-punk or post-rock
stuff. Post-rock opened the door to Krautrock, and
bands like Cluster
and Harmonia rekindled my love of synths (*thegeneral chips in at this point to squeal with delight at Simmo mentioning Krautrock and the oft overlooked Harmonia). The record took about 18 months to write, during which I was listening
to a lot of groove-based music - Talking Heads, Chic.
early 80s NYC Boogie, afrobeat compilations, contemporary
stuff like Luke Abbott and Wax Stag. The vocal stuff was
probably more informed by Broadcast and Stereolab, who have
been big favourites of mine for a long time (*cue a second squeal from thegeneral at a mention of Broadcast and Stereolab)
Eleanor:
Having collaborated on 2 of the vocal tracks I would actually cite the same
influences. I listen to a wide variety of genres, but I think the style of
music I'm writing dictates what influences I draw on.
David:
It can be difficult as an artist to pin down what sound you've ended up
creating, especially when you are collaborating through email with everyone's
ears pricking up to different sounds. I think you can hear how much we all
enjoyed the William Onyeabor excavations in the last couple of years, as well
as stuff like Cocteau Twins and early synthesiser scores for films - well apart
from all the boring horror film reissues, anyway. From a guitar perspective, I
was really inspired by the acquisition of a Jazzmaster and its unique tremelo
system, as well as some useful techniques picked up from some time serving in
Ex-Easter Island Head's Large Electric Ensemble in the last couple of years.
2.) There are sometimes criticisms levelled at
electronica that it isn't "proper" music. I think
that's a
bit of an insulting load of cock. What would
you say to that?
Simmo: I think that would be a pretty extraordinary thing to be saying in 2015. I'm
utterly uninterested in ideas of authenticity in any
art form - they're only ever wheeled out by the people
whose status is somehow threatened by new forms of
expression. Fortunately it's not something you hear
levelled at electronic music much these days, given that it's been an
integral part
of popular music for 40 years!
Eleanor:
Who's saying these things? And what kind of electronica are they listening to?
Dave:
People with no imagination. There's no such thing as improper music.
3.) Moog, Korg, Roland, Bontempi? (Or all four?)
Simmo:
I'll have one of each please! I'm not as synth-savvy as I could be/should be, actually. I'd love to
start a collection of old analogue synths but I don't
have the money and would probably be divorced within a
year. And I've only really started getting my head
around synthesis properly over the last couple of
years. I've always been caught between technicality and
immediacy when music-making, and the process of creating
synthesized sounds often felt too laborious; the immediate
excitement of an idea could be sucked dry by hours of fiddling
with knobs, trying to perfect a sound. But on the other
hand, I felt like my songwriting was constrained by too
limited a "sonic palette" (can't think of a
less wanky phrase). Eventually I worked out that I just
needed to bite the bullet and spend a year or two learning
and applying the principles of synthesis, so I could speed up
the technical process and not lose the immediacy. But it
still requires discipline - the thing about writing with
synths is that because you have the power to adjust almost
any conceivable variable, it's hard not to succumb to the
inevitably doomed temptation to perfect sound forever.
Knowing when to stop is very difficult. Nearly all the sounds on the album come from a Nord, with a smattering
of Alesis Micron and Novation Ultranova. The only
analogue synth is a Roland Juno 60 that belongs to the studio.
Dave:
Of course, if anyone wants to offer us a sponsorship deal we'll shamelessly
answer this question with your brand of synth here (*thegeneral chips in to let the band know I can probably arrange a sponsorship with a 1980s CasioTone if they're interested...no...thought not...)
4.) Can you tell my readers (Hi again Mum!) if you've got
any gigs
coming up or any plans for them?
Simmo: Yep, we've got a bunch of dates coming up. We're sort-of-on-tour in April, May
and June,
doing long weekends or a few consecutive
weekday shows wherever we can.
Dave:
We all work full-time and live in separate cities, so we have to carefully plan
our shows. We have some exciting plans for later in the year, but here are the
details of our gigs in the first half of 2015:
14.04.15
| Head of Steam, Newcastle | w/ Monster Killed By Laser & Sun Dance
15.04.15
| Kazimier Gardens, Liverpool | w/ Monster Killed By Laser & Gurgles
16.04.15
| Caroline Social Club, Saltaire | w/ Monster Killed By Laser & Gurgles
17.04.15
| The Eagle Inn, Salford | w/ Monster Killed By Laser, Barringtone & Hot
Shorts
18.04.15
| Chameleon, Nottingham | w/ Galaxians & Blunt Mountains
08.05.15
| The Hairy Dog, Derby | w/ Cheap Jazz & more TBC
09.05.15
| MK Gallery, Milton Keynes | w/ Arabrot and John Doran, Chrononautz &
Klaar
22.05.15
| The Corner House, Cambridge | w/ Model Village & Alnegator
23.05.15
| The Star of Kings, London | w/ Model Village & Alnegator
24.05.15
| The Wheatsheaf, Oxford | w/ Model Village & Alnegator
25.06.15
| Venue TBC, Nottingham | w/ Elk & The Skipping Forecast
26.06.15
| The Audacious Art Experiment, Sheffield | w/ Elk & The Skipping Forecast
27.06.15
| The Matrix, Grimsby | w/ Elk, The Skipping Forecast & East on Main
5.) What's next musically for you?
Simmo: I really have no idea.Geographical dispersion doesn't make it easy, and working
full-time
doesn't leave as much time/energy for
songwriting as I'd like. That said, I really enjoyed the
process of collaborating remotely during the making of
Zoetrope and it was a huge influence on the eventual
sound of the album. Now that Eleanor has joined the band full-time, we'll be looking to
make use of her beautiful voice a lot more. But short
of doing some more vocal stuff, I really haven't got a clue where the next record will take us...
Eleanor: Why thanks very much. I'm definitely looking forward to working on
some more vocal tracks, but also touring the album with these folk. I think
once you play songs live you get a sense of how people respond to them, and
that can influence what kind of music you want to write next.
Dave:
Playing as a quartet has been really fun so far, so it's going to be a lot of
fun stretching out and working out just how much we can achieve with two more
hands and feet and a brilliant musical brain added to the mix.
THANK YOU to Cantaloupe (Simmo, Eleanor and Dave) for being such brilliant sports and agreeing to the interview. Here's to more great music from them very very soon.
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