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Gorillaz Video Screening
Gathered in a small studio in London’s Soho, you have to wonder what could possibly be so impressive about the new Gorillaz video that Britain’s journalists have been shepherded together for a screening. New single “On Melancholy Hill”...Read the full article.....
Frankie & The Heartstrings : Interview
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Sometimes, (not often mind), you go to see a band with a vague sense of expectation, born from nothing more than early releases and odd pieces of press, only for, by some twist of fate, this band you considered “fairly decent” until now to prove one of the...Read the full article.....
Save BBC 6 Music : Consultation
As many of you will be aware Digital radio stations BBC 6 Music and the Asian Network are facing closure as part of a shake-up of the BBC. This proposal has caused general outcry amongst musicians and music fans alike...Read the full article.....
The Drums : Interview
Full of nostalgic charm, The Drums have taken the music scene by surprise in one of the most unlikeliest success stories this year. Harking back to a golden age of music, their surf-tinged indie pop...Read the full article.....
Acid Washed : Interview
Acid Washed are the Parisian duo of Andrew Claristidge and Richard D'Alpert, and although they have day jobs, after hearing their polished self-titled Record Makers debut album, you’d think they’d be full-time musicians... Read the full article.....
Gorillaz : Plastic Beach
What is a Plastic Beach? Is it a metaphor for the consumerist world and its destruction of the planet? Or is it a genius way of not getting sand in your swimming costume? It does not really matter, because... Read the full article.....
Kid Sister
Kid Sister has had a certain amount of notoriety for some time despite her long-awaited debut album only just being dropped after being pushed back over and over again. Such notoriety can be attributed to a number of things...Read the full article.....
Interview with Andy C (RAM Records)
Andrew Clarke, aka Andy C, has been the biggest name in UK drum & bass since it started hitting speakers back in the early 90s. Beginning his career as a producer, he then co-founded the UK’s biggest drum & bass record label to date, RAM Records...Read the full article.....
Hot Chip : One Night in Brixton
Walking through the corridors backstage at the Brixton Academy en route to meet my interview subjects never fails to stir up the musical sentimentality ingrained in me. There is always an air of excitement and adrenaline surging as...Read the full article.....
Beach Break Live 2010
This year sees the return of the UK's biggest student festival, and the ONLY place to be from 14th to 18th June: Beach Break Live 2010, set in the picturesque surroundings of Pembrey Country Park...Read the full article.....
Bigger Than Barry Records
“I was Dj’ing at Mad Decent events in Birmingham when I had this idea come to me...”, sounds like a line from the latest Windows advert. But instead of thinking of ways to complicate PC’s, Tom Short, aka Shorterz, was instead dreaming up his own record label...Read the full article.....
Delphic : Interview
Following a whirlwind 2009, synth masters Delphic show absolutely no sign of letting up. With the release of critically acclaimed debut Acolyte already stamped down as an early achievement...Read the full article.....
Still Flyin' : Interview
San Francisco superband, Still Flyin' have joyously bounded a long way since their joke fuelled dub and reggae infused early development. Their complete refusal to reflect the dark mood of the moment infecting the world...Read the full article.....
Shy Child : Q & A
After a three year hiatus, New York's Shy Child are returning in 2010 with a sound that's more lush, dense, intoxicating, and surprising than ever... Read the full article.....
Slof-Man : Interview
Listing his influences as Benga, Loefah and Skream amongst others, Slof Man makes no apologies for jumping on the Dubstep bandwagon. Despite entering the scene very late, Slof-Man has...Read the full article.....
Plastiscines : Interview
As one of the first signings of Nylon Records in New York, the Parisian all-girl guitar-wielding group Plasticines are back with their sound expanding sophomore record this year. The rock’n’roll of their former effort still exists... Read the full article.....
What or Who to watch out for in 2010
The Noughties are over and we have to say goodbye to the first decade of the Millennium. It is a shame because there was many zeitgeist breaking moments in the decade in the music world. The irony then, that 2009 was a pretty nondescript year, is not lost...Read the full article.....
Albums of The Decade : 2000 - 2009
I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of seeing television programmes lamenting what a piss poor decade the so-called ‘noughties’ have been. I mean, a decade is just a period of time definable by the fact that it spans exactly ten years...Read the full article.....
Whats New?
Shy Child : Q & A
After a three year hiatus, New York's Shy Child are returning in 2010 with a sound that's more lush, dense, intoxicating, and surprising than ever.
Their previous album, the critical and commercial breakthrough "Noise Won't Stop", brought the duo of Pete Cafarella (vocals, keytar) and Nate Smith (drums) to worldwide attention, landing them supports with the likes of The Klaxons and Muse, bringing them on a global tour that took in Europe, the US and Australia, and even performing for Stella McCartney at Swarovski's Fashion Rocks event, and Jools Holland on "Later...". Their forthcoming album however, released on the venerable Wall of Sound label, promises even more. It is brimming over with a surfeit of offbeat ideas and addictive melodies, overstuffed with their trademark infectious beats and off the wall flourishes. Brace yourself for the onslaught; 2010 will belong to Shy Child once more.
'Liquid Love' is released on March 1st 2010. The first teaser from the album 'Criss Cross' is currently being given away for free from the Shy Child website - www.shychild.com.
During their recent UK come back shows www.4ortherecord.com spoke to Nate and Pete about the writing and recording of ‘Liquid Love’, and their need to ‘embrace the chaos’ of their work.
4or The Record: The first Shy Child full length record was released in 2007 which was the same time the nu-rave effect was taking hold in the UK, subsequently drawing you in by association. Was it a justified comparison in your opinion?
Pete: Yeah that happened but we made that album before we even heard of nu-rave, so didn’t know what this nu-rave thing was.
Nate: I think it was mainly because we went on a big tour with the klaxons at the height of their nu-raveness, so it was more by association I guess. Plus we don’t have guitars and are obviously a very synth heavy band too so that was where the comparisons were made. We weren’t nu-rave though.
4TR: The soon to be released follow up album ‘Liquid Love’ is a very obvious move away from your original sound, involving ethereal soundscaping and a density of layering that was not apparent previously.
Nate: Yeah it’s very different, there’s definitely more soundscaping plus it’s more structured and composed and layered. And a lot less angular than anything we have done before.
4TR: Was it an intentional move towards something new for the band?
Nate: Oh yeah nothing just comes out - we all like pop music and the songs we wrote are indicative of all those kinds of songs.
Pete: I think we always knew we weren’t going to make another record like ‘Drop The Phone’ again, so we spent a lot of time writing and it took a lot longer to make. But at the same time we weren’t worrying about it sounding like old stuff or trying to make new stuff, for us it still sounds like a Shy Child album.
Nate: Yeah it’s a really inhibiting way to approach a project if you are thinking well this is where we are coming from so let’s continue down this path because we started on it. No-one cares about your path they just want cool songs so I feel like if we made ‘Drop the Phone’ 2 it would have bummed us out and would have bummed other people out. So we had to move things along and progress it to make ‘Liquid Love’.
4TR: You worked with Chris Zane on production duty for this album, was his involvement a push towards the fresh sound?
Nate: Yeah, we had the very good fortune of working with Chris Zane who is an old friend of ours and produces with a really good pop sensibility. He had just made a record with Passion Pit which is a very poppish band and we started with him right after he finished that so he was already in the zone. So it was good timing for us, especially because we didn’t really have a concept of instrumentation, it was sort of trial and error through trying out a bunch of different keyboard sounds and drum sounds and seeing what we liked.
4TR: The set up for your live show has changed along with the sound, was that a natural effect of where the new writing took you?
Nate: We wanted to make the record first and make it the best record we could make and when that was strong then we would figure out how to make a live show out of it, so that’s what happened.
Pete: The record was composed and conceived as a very non-live thing; we did alot of just strictly computer composing and writing first. I think a lot of classic pop song writing is done like that because it’s meant to be performed by someone else, like songwriters from the old school would write it on paper and give it to someone to sing, they didn’t think about shit. So when we were making this record we wanted to reference that as like a song can exist in an acoustic guitar format or a funk band format or whatever, I think that’s sort of a classic pop idea.
4TR: When you are writing a Shy Child song is it wholly collaborative?
Nate: Pete does all the lyrics but the music is definitely a very joint effort, like for a lot of the songs one of us would go and work on something in the studio and then the other would come and add to it, so it’s an equal thing for us.
4TR: And what do you think makes a good Shy Child song?
Pete: I think the magic key to a good song or a song that’s a hit is when you have lyrics you enjoy and music you enjoy but when you happen to line up the lyric with the music that’s when you get a great song. It’s totally random you know. Like if you have a bunch of melody and harmony that doesn’t say anything you don’t know what that vibe is about, so the song could be a break up song or a whatever song so you just arbitrarily assign that lyric to a track and when you hit the right one.
Nate: Well it kind of depends on each song doesn’t it.
Pete: Its not like you try out some words and see what you think, you have to finish the fucking song - the singing and the music. A song isn’t born from just singing and playing, you know what I mean? It’s like you can have a cool melody but that says nothing about anything its just a melody it lives in an abstract realm of reality. A song is built around the music and lyrics I think and its when those 2 worlds collide in a cool way that’s when you have an awesome song and that collision working is an arbitrary chaotic event. I have been thinking about this a lot can you tell, it’s random it’s fuckin random, you don’t know what’s going to be a hit until you finish with the song
Nate: Yeah but you have an idea what a song is going to be like, you don’t have to wait till the very end to figure that out
Pete: Well I do, I have to wait to the very end to figure out what kind of song it is, like with ‘Disconnected’ we didn’t know that was going to be the single, we were just making a song. But then when we were done with it we were like I think that’s probably going to be the single.
Nate: No I kind of always knew that was going to be the single
Pete: Well maybe you’re in tune more than I am; I’m saying that you have to embrace the chaos of it.
Nate: I always embrace the chaos that’s why its fun to make a record, its totally chaotic, you don’t say alright here are ten songs we are going to record and first we are going to lay down the tracks.
Pete: Yeah fuck that, that’s how I don’t wanna make a record, I’m not into documenting it.like that.
Nate: But half the songs on the record were not the songs we originally came up with, or maybe they were songs we made in the studio or maybe we took a song and recorded it and thought that’s kind of weird lets put some lyrics into it, that is the chaos we are talking about.
Pete: No that’s not what I’m talking about, I’m talking about the collision of lyric and melody and harmony and vibe. I’m not talking about the demos sounding different from the final song. I know that chaos you are talking about and I embrace that too but I am thinking of something different.
4TR: So Pete you always knew ‘Disconnected’ was going to be the lead single from this record?
Pete: I did, I always kinda knew.
Nate: I thought other songs were just as much potential personally, I think the idea in 2010 about what works as a single and what people respond to like is that there are no rules now. A band can make a really fucked up sounding song and it can be the single and people will love it.
Pete: Like hey ya by outkast is a really weird song, structurally its weird and it’s in a weird time, but it works so well.
Nate: Often it’s the dark horse on the album that will be the huge hit that happens all the time. Embrace the chaos, thank you.
4TR: What is the story behind the video for the single ‘Disconnected’?
Nate: Yeah I have no idea about that I don’t make videos
4TR: Ok, so you are not creatively involved in the concept?
Pete: well yeah most of the time we are but we usually let the directors come up with the idea so it’s up to them as it’s their creative project. We really like the video for ‘Disconnected’ actually.
Nate: Yeah I think it’s come out pretty good but I would make it way way more fucked up if I could make a video. I think the juxtaposition of weird imagery versus a fun pop song is what’s cool to me. I like the way it starts out but then by the end I see way too much of my own face so I get weirded out, I don’t want to look at my face.man.
Pete: We need to make a video that we are not in.
Nate: Yeah I don’t want to be in the video,. What is this 1981, you don’t have to be in your fuickin video.
4TR: Anything you would like to add to the interview before we finish?
Pete: Embrace the chaos. That is all.
Interview: Francesca Strange
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