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Thursday, 04 December, 2008

PLANETNOTION TELEVISION!

CAMERA-FOLK AND FILM EDITORS WANTED!

Planet Notion is looking for guys and dolls to film and edit features for its new TV channel, PNTV. Accompanying Notion to artist interviews, gigs, fashion shows, festivals and international events, you will be skilled, passionate and full of ideas about how to produce shit-hot video content. Camera-folk will be experienced and ideally have their own equipment, or at least access to equipment, while editors must be able to turn projects around quickly, and with stylistic flare. If you can both film and edit content, we would especially like to hear from you! These casual, unpaid positions would be ideal for those looking to develop their showreels, and to get the chance to travel, film major artists and top events.

Please email lucy(at)musichqmedia
(dot)com if you’re interested in getting involved, cheers!

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Inner City Pressure - Bloc Party

Inner City Pressure - Bloc Party

Personal, politicised and feverish as ever, Bloc Party are back. While ‘Silent Alarm’ tears through indistinct places, new LP ‘A Weekend In The City’ dances, staggers and plods about a hostile London, ricocheting between love and hate. The drums still lord it up, but this time Kele Okereke’s upfront lyrics demand space all of their own: ‘East London is a vampire that sucks the joy right out of me.’ It’s a moody day, a kind of grey, and we’re waiting for Kele to arrive at John Henry’s Studios near Camden. Gordon Moakes busies himself with equipment, Matt Tong has disappeared somewhere and Russell Lissack is curled up on the floor, sleeping off a heavy night at Trash’s last party. (‘Everyone was there – Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons...all gnawing their faces off!’) The band’s publicist jokes that the fiery frontman ‘is probably fretting about what to wear,’ but when Kele rocks up, headphones firmly implanted, more profound thoughts are etched across his brow. The quizzical lines dissolve as he smiles broadly. Kele and Matt head to the greasy spoon upstairs, while I take a seat with Gordon in the studio. ‘I could tell that he ( Kele ) had a vision, there’s no other way to put it,’ bassist Gordon remembers. We get to talking about the departure this record makesfrom the genius ‘Silent Alarm,’ with its hallucinogenic vocals, frenetic paceand abstract subject matter. He reasons, ‘It is a willed attempt to go inanother direction, but people know that the logical thing to do for a band likeus is not to do the obvious thing.’ This time the band has printed all of Kele’slyrics, which retain the same urgency but carve a certain starkness thatinsists you mark each word. ‘Oh yeah, the time spent on the lyrics has beenthreefold if not more this time,’ he continues. I wonder how the band feelabout bolstering lyrics that are so deeply personal to their frontman;have the lines taken on significance for each individual member? ‘Yeah,definitely. I mean, I don’t identify in every case but I think if you taketunes like ‘Uniform,’ they’re kind of a statement that we didn’t do before.’‘Uniform,’ has trademark Bloc Party drums – above a brooding bassline theirmounting rhythm wrenches the track according to its will, charging before Kele’s ‘We can’t be hurt,’ is through and taking you to a rougher terrain. Whenhe urges, ‘Have another line, have another drink,’ Russell’s guitar snaps intoa euphoric solo which fades to the faint sample of a siren: grisly reality isback, where everyone ‘look(s) the same.’ The tune takes off from a shoppingmall, some vast glittering shrine to ‘disappointment,’ where the guitars aretentative and sombre piano chords march past windows, faces and lights. ‘I don’t think we ( the band apart from Kele ) necessarily acknowledge the effect of the lyrics really, but it’s only because with this record the lyrics were kind of the last piece of the jigsaw.’ This monolith of an album certainly feels like it has been constructed to a grand design, just like the city that is its subject. Gordon insists that ‘Going into a room and trying things out is still there in the band, alongside this other idea of trying to build things mechanically and digitally, so there’s two sides I suppose. It’s still quite organic and we still keep things really loud!’ The fact that the band only just played new single ‘Prayer,’ live and all together in the studio a week before – ‘It was fun!’ – reflects this new nuts-and-blots brand of Bloc Party, which can be stripped to components that engineer a more complex and varied sound. Layers also make the tunes harbour internal twists. Gordon continues, ‘You know it’s a cliché, bands say they can’t go on writing punk rock songs forever, but it’s just focusing the energy in different ways – the suspense is still there.’ Indeed, the entire album operates along a seething energy; rushing toescape, urging oblivion, raging until the end, hopelessly wishing back theold times and then resisting the pressure to move forward. Although equalin mental and emotional energy, these different and very human impulsesmove the body at varying speeds, just as time becomes distorted andirregular within the chaotic cities we inhabit. ‘A Weekend In The City,’ windsabout this warped clock of human experience, lurching and pausing by turns– the overall rhythm of the record undulates a great deal more. Gordon ispleased with the ‘variety’ on the new album, which ranges from ‘The riffy monster track which is ‘Song For Clay,’ and then there’s ‘SRXT,’ that’s veryintrospective and kind of a little harder to do, especially since we’re knownfor our pace.’ ‘SXRT’ is named after an anti-depressant and suggests suicide,but all against a backdrop of rousing melody and life affirming beats. I wait to ask Kele about the lyrics in that one, but Gordon agrees about its upward movement; ‘Yes, it’s full of life when it kicks in. I was just listening to itactually and imagining it as maybe some future show with an orchestra and choir. There was no outlet for ‘SXRT’ to go, so it could only be the last track,it just had to go in. It’s a pity we don’t have the technology to have alternative track endings ( laughs ) It would be quite nice, because ‘Sunday’ is almost like the happy ending and ‘SRXT’ is like the sad one. But on the first record wehad ‘Confidence,’ so we were conscious of not repeating that pattern of thereflective thing coming last.’ And of course ‘SXRT’ is a song written aboutendings, signing the madness off. ‘Poetry is a loaded term but to just read the words is worth a lot. I certainly felt for the first time that this is representative of more than just a quarter of us. I wouldn’t have changed much about that, which is always a good sign! ( Laughs ) With tracks like ‘Song For Clay,’ I just love that line, ‘Live the dream like the 80s never happened,’ it’s just perfect. ( Chuckles again ) It’s a great line.’ While he’s been on the road and partying back home, Kele has developed a taste for knife-edged lyrics, targeting everything and everyone housed within the heaving metropolis: The Daily Mail, young urbanites, politicians, TV, Converse trainers, tattooed arms, commerce and excess. ‘January is endless / Weary eyed and forlorn / The Northern line is the loudest,’ and the beat goes on. Kele’s depiction of the city strikes a chord with Gordon: ‘It’s just that Shoreditch mentality and I suppose I tolerated it for a while...You’re a student, then you get a job, then you rebel against your job and that’s the kind of vibe, especially in London. I can relate to that sense of failure in you know, thinking that it’s your friend and then thinking that you hate it, trying to grapple with it.’ While Kele still lives in the East London area that is his tormentor and his saviour by turns, Gordon moved out a while ago – ‘I wouldn’t want to live there forever!’ The album itself ultimately leaves London to breathe other air, just like this city centric record was actually recorded in rural Ireland, where their producer could shield them from distractions. One day ‘He walked out and could hear this song throbbing through the walls – he wanted to get a mic out there and record the ambient noise.’ So fragile birdsong sounds for a brief moment after ‘Waiting For The 7.18,’ and its dream of escape, only to catapult us into ‘The Prayer,’ with its charged, unfaltering drums and tribal chanting. ‘I can imagine that the birds might have worked at the end almost, because you’ve had this whole experience of being in the city but it’s finite. But here the little hint of birdsong is almost like a vision of the escape, a moment of respite...And then bang! ( Laughs ) The next tune is there!’ Written into ‘7.18’ itself is this urgent treasuring of fragments; the ‘Just give me moments,’ refrain acknowledging that lasting peace or fulfilment are a fallacy. And so the sounds of the city amplify themselves to impact on their tunes: distant American talkshow chatter, foreign tongues, harsh metallic grating effects and even a train announcement compete with the band as they play – ‘That’s when Kele had a Dictaphone and just recorded it on the Central Line, coming out at Liverpool Street Station. So we literally used the urban noise, not just imitated it.’ It’s this ‘noise’ that Gordon remembers as the worst thing about living so centrally, he ‘never became immune to it,’ as this record echoes well. Ironically enough, I can’t even write a paragraph of this feature without a siren screaming outside the window of Notion’s Shoreditch office – playing on the stereo, Bloc Party’s cacophonous cityscape is bleeding back into and reverberating around its sources, adding to the mayhem and making me type faster. Can’t be bad! However, as Gordon says, ‘The point is it isn’t a theory, it’s still a record, it still works at a kind of basic level with drums and guitars or whatever.’ Gordon himself steps up to the drums this time around as well. At a Bethnal Green studio they used, ‘We found this little, very poor sounding kit. So we just brought it in and started messing around with it.’ On ‘Sunday’ the band decided to bring it back to being all about the beats. Gordon ( who is left handed ) sits alongside Matt and his kit – ‘We’re going to get ‘Bloc Party’ written backwards on mine, so that it looks like a reflection,’ - the two playing drum parts that both collide and compete. Computer generated beats marry their rhythm in the mix. ‘So, it ( the drumming ) is still one of the most important things for us, but it’s manifesting itself in different ways. There were a handful of songs that started with guitar parts, like ‘Song for Clay,’ and ‘I Still Remember,’ but I’d say seven times out of ten, we were thinking about drums.’ We return to Bloc Party’s original breakthrough: a band that wanted their tunes to ‘Sound good in a club. We’re inspired by that, when there’s a pounding about the beat that you can’t get away from.’ ‘Silent Alarm’ was the pounding of primal, unharnessed energy. Here the pounding we’re hounded by as we listen is always aimed at a particular target: it has an object and it has a name - rage, addiction, fear, alienation, desire, disbelief...Like Gordon says, ‘There’s a hundred different expressions, so let’s try something.’ His shrug and grin read, ‘Job done!’ I find Kele and Matt watching the news on TV, eating chicken, chips and peas out of polystyrene containers. The media is just one element of modern life that Kele struggles to believe in. ‘Misinformed and full of despair,’ is how he describes the city dwellers in his stories; ‘Information is still being mediated and kind of prescribed by somebody else.’ By contrast, Kele’s language is simple, undiluted, often repeating lyrics so that they become hypnotic mantras. Lines like ‘I can charm them, I can charm the room,’ get repeated and scratch themselves onto your consciousness like miniature terrorists. Or is this the limit of language itself? The voice in ‘On,’ a barely disguised ode to cocaine, repeats itself as the drug wears the user down; his tongue is ‘loose’ but his words lose meaning every time they get regurgitated into London’s senseless nocturnal vortex. ‘Deflation,’ is the word Kele now selects for this chemical effect. Cleverly enough, the repeated lines also impart the quality of cocaine cravings, as well as reinforce the cyclical nature of an addict’s Saturday night: racking one up, snorting it, spouting some rubbish, snorting another, saying the same thing again. And then the paranoia arrives. Not only do lyrics utter themselves over and over, but vocals get echoed, stretched, layered and distorted: sparring voices compete both above London’s beastly roar and inside its citizens’ heads. ‘Uniform’ uses echoing, harmonised question and answer sequences, but do lines like ‘You can be happy just playing dumb,’ represent some inner persuasion or the Big Brother style dictates of the city outside? Or have these boundaries crumbled completely? Over to the lyricist himself: ‘The fragmenting effect of the media and our general loss of identity was something I wanted to capture. That’s why there are so many affected and manipulated vocals or drum beats, everything is kind of sampled or looped. It’s not just a band playing songs, everything sounds like it’s being processed.’ The record opens with some fine vocal manipulation from Kele: his brooding solo suddenly switches pitch and style, the soprano tones imparting an altogether different voice and identity. But the band offers this human record up to London’s supreme machine, rendering Kele’s very lines fragile messages from an endangered species. As he points out, ‘Everyone experiences technology everyday – that had to make it into the music.' Just as our lives are becoming mechanised, the city in Kele’s lyrical imagination is almost as human as its own denizens: 'This sense of the city being a living kind of entity, that’s why it's not just focused on one person’s perspective throughout, it's lots of different stories.’ Here he pre-empts my question about 'SRXT' - across a record that is designed to be a kind of reservoir for so many jostling lives and emotions, the distinctions between self and other dissolve; it's the purity of the feeling and how that makes its dent upon the mechanics of the city that counts. Nor am I going to ask Kele how much there is of himself in the character from 'Hunting For Witches,' who sits 'On the roof of ( his ) house / With a shotgun,' threatening how 'Heads are going to roll.' Elsewhere on the record policemens’ faces are stamped upon, judges' fingers are broken and ballerinas' feet cut off, but it's more an atmosphere of violence than anybody's particular crime. 'SRXT' is unique because it empties itself into an expansive rural landscape - we remember the wind that buildings deflect for the first time. If leaving the city behind encodes death, then is it our life blood as well as a 'vampire'? For Matt the vampires are characters on the scene who 'aren't really projecting enthusiasm or inspiration, they just want to take from other people.' Kele even becomes a body snatcher as he ventriloquises these figures, and now he talks about himself as a kind of human radio, a loudspeaker for diverse voices and dialects: 'I have to be as receptive to the outside world as possible when I'm writing songs. I'm always writing and jotting things down all the time, because the more I'm tuning, the better my work will be.' As a group, Matt reckons 'We've got a lot more focus and are more unified this time round,' which must account for their assured delivery and the courage to leave their signature breakneck speed behind. Still, he reveals how 'Waiting For The 7.18,' - the drum n bass tinged track where Duncan strikes a kit as well - 'Wasn't supposed to be like that at all, it was meant to be very slow and sombre and pretty downbeat but it's better for me this way!' Kele continues: 'As a band we don't tend to like very much, to chop and change and musically... We don't leave much space, we use anything that's kind of urgent and kind of uh, uh, uh!' And it's back to classic Bloc Party antics: high octane music with a heavy heart. It seems the only way out of the duplicitous city for Kele's characters, or indeed the band themselves, is disco or death. Just as Duncan described their common love for beats that pound, the dancefloor is a place of sanctuary, almost spiritual, where everyone is equal, honest, spontaneous. In Kele's words, 'It's one of the few places that people can go to have an immediate experience that isn't mitigated by any external factors. It's like you're part of a community, just working to the music - it's something rare in modern life that you experience it in a pure form.' And so runs the lyric: 'Standing on the packed dancefloor / Our bodies thrown in time / Silent on the weekdays / Tonight I claim what’s mine.' The weekend intensifies urban evils but also magnifies moments of clarity. It's a hyper reality where Kele sees 'magic' but also menace, just like how London freezes him in a no man's land somewhere between fascination and recoil. Before I leave Bloc Party to belt out those beats I want to know why they think people should hear the new album. Because it contains 'a love that is louder than words'? Because, like Gordon says of the deserted, neon bathed cityscape on the record’s sleeve, 'You can project anything onto it'? Or is it more monumental than that? 'Because we are the voice of today!' Kele sniggers, cracking the other guys up. Jokes aside, in just seven words, Kele may have smashed it; if we ever required a band to represent us, Bloc Party would do themselves proud. BLOC PARTY'S 2ND ALBUM 'A WEEKEND IN THE CITY' IS AVAILABLE NOW (WICHITA RECORDINGS) SPECIAL THANKS TO JOHN HENRY’S STUDIO FOR ACCOMMODATING US SO KINDLY WORDS: LUCY WILSON PHOTOGRAPHY: DAVID RYLE

tags: | bloc party | inner city pressure | a weekend in the city | witchita recordings | more...

Chasing Rainbows with The Klaxons

Chasing Rainbows with The Klaxons

Some bloke has been making love to the fag machine for about two hours now. He writhes up and down it, sweaty, eyeballs a-go-go, jaw dislodged, when a techni-coloured flurry of facepainted Klaxons disciples rushing straight into the mosh suddenly inspires him to try to get in on the action. A leg extends, his neck arches... it's all too much. The shiny holy cigarette dispenser just feels so good, and besides, the boys on stage aren't being shy as they belt out their anthems. Chaotic live shows, an almost embarrassingly dedicated following, an accidental media cream-fest sparked off by some casual 'new rave' comment - and all without even unleashing their debut LP. We shared a late morning gin and juice with James, Jamie and Simon to be taken on a whistlestop tour of their first album, 'Myths Of The Near Future.' Seatbelts, please! OK BOYS, FIRST UP CAN YOU GIVE US THE LOW-DOWN ON 'TWO RECEIVERS'? James: It’s a space ballad. I think of crystals when I hear that song! Jamie: It’s like a future police report! Simon: I think it’s very aquatic as well! Jamie: It's quite an early one isn’t it? I think it’s one of my favourites, you know. It's a future news report about goings on and, er, neglect. IT'S A NICE OPENER, QUITE UNEXPECTED... James: Yes, you expect a big bang. I love it, it eases the way in, it's like thunder coming towards you! NEXT IT’S 'ATLANTIS TO INTERZONE'... Jamie: Never heard it. (Ma ma ma...starts making a quacking, bleeping noise like the song)...It’s mental, about things that don’t exist! Simon: It's the one I choose to skip the most when I hear the record... James: Me too. Jamie: Yeah me too. Heard it so many times. 'GOLDEN SKANS'? WHAT IS A SKAN? Jamie: It's a light. It’s a song about bringing together a euphoria in different places, hands, lights, streams and skans... Simon: It's the most pop thing we've ever written. Why is that? James: Because it's got a big woo woo part in it. It's happy and sad at the same. Jamie: It’s euphoric pop with a twist of melancholy. James: Not a lot of it, just a little bit. It's got a tail that lashes about. It's a fish! 'TOTEM ON THE TIMELINE'... Simon: Inspired by our 17 year-old trips to Magaluf Jamie: It's quite fun to be able to sing Mother Teresa and Princess Diana in the same sentence. WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO SUMMON THESE FIGURES TO THE RECORD? James: Jamie got a really nice Princess Diana key ring. Touching. HOW ABOUT PLAYING AT A ROYAL EVENT? James: No one's asked yet. The Princes said that on the 10th anniversary of their mother’s death, the best present would be to put on a concert. Simon: She died in 1998. My granddad died then. James: Oh. But anyway, they thought the best present was to have Elton John, all the players bar us! Plan B is doing it as well. (All three are laughing). COOL. HOW ABOUT 'ISLE OF HER'? James: It's a...What is that? Simon: I think the darkest song on the album. It’s my favourite track. Musically, it’s kind of the places where we were. Jamie: I think musically, it’s the weirdest arrangement. Its not like a formulated song, its chorus has parts that change. James: Short straw? Some psycho in face cream running around the streets... 'AS ABOVE SO BELOW'... Jamie: It’s a song about relations. Equality. The positive and the negative interrelations between the two. Co-existence. Simon: A Brian Eno rip-off song. James: It's the most song song that we’ve got. 'GRAVITY'S RAINBOW' - IT'S A THOMAS PYNCHON NOVEL ISN’T IT? Jamie: Yeah. I read it in a call centre in a week. James: It’s actually a song about premature ejaculation because the chorus goes 'Come with me, come with me,' and about future love so it’s the idea of singing about ejaculation, while the crowd joins in and then it becomes a big pop song! 'FORGOTTEN WORKS'? Simon: The last track we recorded. I think it's a psyche song! James: It's a song about the difficulties of being killed by tigers (laughs). Reeeeal psyche vibe! 'MAGICK'? Jamie: It's about cultism and the bringing about of change by using rituals. The ritual is the music and we’re bringing about the change. From a band without a record deal to a band with one, by means of the darkest ways possible. Simon: We actually had a couple of occultists at our show in York! I don't know but maybe there’s a lot of them round there. They probably wanted to see The Long Blondes or The View. 'IT'S NOT OVER YET'... Simon: Probably one of the best songs ever written. Massive, massive pop song. It was on repeat on a school trip to Germany. There was a point when we were doing the album when we panicked about doing a fair enough version of it, and then we went to the pub and came back. Felt better. Jamie: It’s all about sitting away from the edited sound really. Loss and hope. It's a big song about continuations. James: A real sad happy song. Either way, it's not over YET! AND THE LAST TRACK, 'FOUR HORSEMEN OF 2012'... Jamie: It’s one of the earliest songs we've got... James: Also it's good to end on a kind of raucous number. Simon: We could have done it the other way round... We end our set like it! SO, GENTLEMEN, IS THE APOCALYPSE NIGH? James: It’s coming. Jamie: We've got just under 6 years and two more albums. Yeah, easy! ARE YOU HOPING TO SURPRISE PEOPLE WITH HOW THE TUNES AREN’T SIMPLY DANCEABLE, HOW THEY SHIFT IN MOOD? Simon: It's something for your bedroom or a night out, we're working on both! WHICH PEOPLE ARE YOU MOST EXCITED ABOUT WORKING WITH? Jamie: Erol Alkan and James Ford. The remix we did with Erol was the best. Unfortunately we didn't end up using the tracks that we’d made for demos... It was when we signed our record deal, our concentration was all over the place. But he gave us so much and that remix really raised the bar. Erol is the perfect example that nice guys should do well. He's been so supportive since day one. THE VIDEO FOR MAGICK IS LIKE A RADIOACTIVE 'EVIL DEAD' CROSSED WITH SOME MAD PRODUCTION OF 'KING LEAR'... Jamie: Basically it's the visual genius of an up and coming UK director, Saam. We've worked with him loads now and he's does really well on a low budget! It's about evoking an unknown and it taking over us in a black hole in the unfortunate death... an unknown evil if you like. James: The neon stuff coming out of our eyes is radioactive rage, a mixture of paint and water! Jamie: It's the unknown isn't it? James: We had a lot of fun watching Simon drown in a pool of green paint and freezing water. ARE ANY OF THE SONGS ON THE ALBUM LOVE SONGS? Jamie: They're all love songs. Strange, twisted melancholic love songs. Every single one of them, I'm not unfulfilled just melancholic! THERE'S A KIND OF BROODING ENERGY TO THE WHOLE ALBUM... James: Yes, brooding! Brooding! Simon: It’s like us brooding but when it comes out it gets to someone else and fulfils, becomes something else like a love record. ANY COLLABORATIONS YOU FANCY DOING? Simon: I think Joanna Newsome, Grace Jones... Jamie: I'd like to make a record with the deceased Arthur Russell. For me that would be ideal. James: TV On The Radio - they're lovely people! We had a massive collaboration the other night around Jamie’s house. Simon: Oh, don't talk about that! Let’s not talk about that James: It was disastrous. Basically, there were around ten well known artists, celebrities, artistes around his house making music, it was the worst thing you've ever heard. People with musical profiles losing it (laughs)... a bad idea! IS LITERATURE A BIG INFLUENCE FOR YOUR LYRICS? Jamie: Reading allows us distraction from everything that goes on in real time. Doors to other places that are like the start of songs... DO YOU LIKE TO PLAY WITH LANGUAGE WHEN YOU WRITE TUNES? Jamie: Definitely. I like twisting language and we find words that are so interesting they’re the main point of contact... that’s a lot more meaningful! James: We’ve made sure that we’ve written our lyrics down on the record so that you can digest them. I was listening to my friend's record the other day and when she pronounces her 'k's and her 't's, you can actually hear - and it makes it that much more sexy. On our record there’s lots of 's's. It’s really funny because in the mix they sound so harsh, like this sssssss snake record. So we went around taking them down basically. Every 's' on the record! WHAT GETS YOU ON THE DANCEFLOOR? James: I love Britney Spears ‘Toxic’! Jamie: I just can’t stop listening to 'My Love' by Justin Timberlake. Biggest song of the year for me. I listened to it somewhere in the region of one hundred times in three days and it’s driven me slightly mental. IS DANCE MUSIC DEAD? Simon: No, dance music is taking a turn. It's on the turn, it’s catching the wind. James: Breakbeat! Not Big Beat! It’s massive in London and on the bingo town circuit. Pure energy minus vocal. Jamie: Someone needs to come through with a massive breakbeat tune and put over a cheesy vocal and maybe it'll be fine. It needs a vocal. WHAT'S THE BEST PARTY YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN TO RECENTLY? James: It was in France the other night when we turned up to DJ without any records. It was like the biggest indie disco I'd ever been to. Any song from anyone, Babyshambles, The Smiths... Just really indie! Grrrreat! DO YOU THINK THAT THE POLICE SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO CRASH PARTIES? James: Well I think Sting's been doing a great job! (Laughs) Simon: Yeah of course they should... it's disruption of the peace really isn't it? DO YOU HAVE ANY TIPS FOR ANYONE PUTTING ON ILLEGAL PARTIES? Jamie: Don’t tell the police. Just keep it a bit hush hush... don't put it on myspace! And enjoy yourself! IF YOU COULD ASK TONY BLAIR ONE QUESTION, WHAT WOULD IT BE? James: What is it that makes you in love with the Queen? Does that affect our daily lives? Jamie: What underwear does Cherie wear? Simon: Does New Labour and New Rave have any correlation? (Laughter) Jamie: I'd like to ask him what he does in his spare time. James: He plays guitar! And listens to Klaxons! DO ANY OF YOU HAVE GIRLFRIENDS? James: We are all single. We had to split with our girlfriends so that we could commit to each other and swear a sacred vow to each other. Simon: I’m having the most unsuccessful year with women! Jamie: You have to make a sacrifice-ish! AND WHY SHOULD PEOPLE BUY THE ALBUM? James: Why not? Simon: Because it's good. Because it’s better than everything else out there. Jamie: If people are excited by pop music and change and are excited by new fresh things, they should buy it. And I don't think it'll be that expensive when it first comes out, like £9.99 or something, which isn’t too much. IS THE ARTWORK ON THE ALBUM YOUR OWN CREATION? Jamie: It's a nice special edition of our artwork that we designed ourselves. James: I like for artwork to describe what's inside; it makes something worthwhile and our’s should fit in with everything we do... BEST MAKE THAT YOUR MISSION STATEMENT THEN James: Wow - that was fun! Well done! The best interview ever! KLAXONS' 'MYTHS OF THE NEAR FUTURE' IS OUT NOW ON RINSE / POLYDOR WORDS: LUCY WILSON PHOTOGRAPHY: GRETA ILIEVA

tags: | klaxons | chasing rainbows | lp | myths of the near future | james | jamie | simon | more...

4Hero

Listening to a 4Hero track is like stepping into a musical matrix. Dego speaks of the Pied Piper when we meet, whose lively, nomadic spirit is an apt one to personify 4Hero's style of tune. Taking the instruments, exploratory nature and randomness of jazz as a core, introducing strong vocals and rolling with plenty of crisp funky beats, Marc Mac and Dego have always worked their tracks in and out of rich influences. Like the title of their new LP, these boys like to 'Play With The Changes,' rewriting boundaries and keeping their sound distinct. In Marc's words, 'The best piece of music for us isn't confined to one type of genre or whatever... There's a techno element, jazz, house, everything you know.' 4Hero's ransacking of contrasting techniques and styles is what makes them still sound so fresh and bold after a six year break from the scene. He continues: 'Over the past five or six years, there's been so many things that have changed in our lives that probably would have stopped us from making this album but, you know, rather than see the changes as negative, we've worked with them instead.' The complexity of 'Play With The Changes,' testifies to this fruitful time away as it progresses at its ease. Strings and live drums mutate into synthetic beats, while jerky electronica and queer effects give way to orchestral flourishes. Uniting the whole are the largely female vocal performances, their sensual, individual varieties of jazz and soul lilting over drum n bass arrangements or lazy saxophone and horn. Dego will readily admit that he 'find(s) it easier to work with women!' with the bill of songstresses he and Marc recruit reading like a who’s who of contemporary womanly talent. 'Les Fleur,' starlet Carina Andersson returns to work with the pair, poetess Ursula Rucker is invited to add her verses to the mix, and daughter of Cosmic Jazz Bembe Segue lends her style to 'Something In The Way,' alongside Bugz In The Attic's Kaidi Taitham. Each tune has unique edges, pulsing with the particular elements that seethe within it. Such rousing creations from the same men whose 'Awakening,' tune bemoans 'The constant downward spiral of music and humanity.' Inspect the lyrics of 'Play With The Changes' and you’ll hear despair as well as hope; while the succession of tracks uplift on a musical level, some lyrics unsettle in their dark vision. Are affairs so bad that there is more negativity in our lives to write songs about than subjects for us to celebrate? Dego answers this one: 'There can be more inspiration there, people just living from hand to mouth and then you know it's way off the scale, but for me personally, nah, there isn't much hope! Things are getting worse and worse...' 'Awakening' sets Ursula Rucker's haunting 'song-speak' against rolling jungle drums, acid flutes and laid back piano sequences, the momentum of her poetry towing the track along. All of this power and beauty from a voice for whom this is 'my soliloquy of missed opportunity,' - 4Hero work well with such paradoxes, pouring disturbing lyrics into major keyed music. Dego laughs when I ask him whether there really isn't any hope – 'Ha! 'What's this about 'what we can do?' I've got to self mission!' - but new Dad Marc is in a different place: 'Having a child has changed everything, I can't afford to think that negatively anymore.' Jokes follow about Marc’s flair for hope leading him to wind up a father; the pair complement each other well and it's their opposite attitudes and energies that must also bring so much dynamic tension to their music. 'Life,' according to this record, 'ain't always a bed of roses,' but the pervading message is to 'Get up, get up, get over it'; a new brand of protest music that introduces us to a politically minded 4Hero. From Dego's words, it seems that the pair of them felt duty bound to break from the surrounding vogue for mindless music; 'I think nowadays a lot of music hasn't really got anything to say. In how many years time we'll still cringe at some of the stuff, hopefully not much, but it's all about that, trying to say something that matters and will last.' He speaks disapprovingly of people who aren't alive to the world's problems in an era of such inequality and upheaval, just 'wanting to party like it’s 1999 or whatever!' Racism, natural disasters, poverty, crime, terrorism, drug abuse, generational struggles, the burden of history...Heavy topics get strapped to music that is by turns delicate and funky; the lyrics might discuss the darker side of life but they are never allowed to weigh down colourful rhythms and uplifting instrumentals. This cushioning effect of the beats and melodies is precisely why the words in 'Awakening' are spoken rather than sung. We discuss the difference it makes to the track. For Dego, 'It's more direct and more immediate, like sometimes you get lost in the music. Then Ursula's voice, the tone of her voice as well, she really cuts through it and it does make you like, 'What’s she saying?' so you listen up.' This central focus upon the voice and its particular colour and mood is classic 4Hero - what makes their work so human and so hard to ignore. Marc gets to thinking about opening track 'Morning Child,' with its euphoric strings and throwback funkiness. Written just after Marc's son was born, this track is firmly rooted in an actual relationship like so many on the album. 'The mother was involved in the protests of the 60s but in her daughter's generation no one stands up for each other or speaks out.' 'Keep smiling, just like an angel,' urges the older voice; a message to humanity as well as to her baby. 'Play With The Changes,' constantly works like this to weave together the public and the private, as if music is a vehicle for uniting the world and pain and fear dissolve in song. Certain words get isolated and turned into talismans; in 'Stoke Up The Fire,' 'Change' is repeated in a mantra like fashion, impassioned like a prayer. A dry Dego retorts, 'Things aren't going to change for us!' but there’s a cheeky glimmer about his expression that softens the statement. Similarly, 'Look Inside,' has the chord progressions, racing strings and liquid drum n bass quality to intensify lyrics about moving forward after painful experiences. Here’s Marc: 'It is quite a dark lyric but the music is actually positive. Like when someone is hooked on drugs and they've got to find another way.' On the track, FACE's vocals are full of yearning, propelling the music further and enacting its message. Meanwhile Jack Davey purrs seductively on 'Take My Time,' a sexed-up number that gets us talking about the symmetry between music and making love. 'Have you seen the video for that tune as well?' laughs Dego, 'That was our project, baby! I know that B flat is the love note and it ain't no joke! Like the Pied Piper yeah? What was that, a flute?' Marc now takes the helm: 'I guess the cheesy sex angle is the saxophone, but yeah, isn't the flute the sign of the God of Love?' Erotic or not, 'Play With The Changes' is certainly made with a whole load of love. A love for life in wanting to make it better, a love for language in its lyrical play, and above all a love of music - 'When we're searching for break beats there's all kinds of things around them...That little bit of the drum solo or bits of brass, there's some mad rock records, so you start to listen to loads, it gets really eclectic.' From junglist jazz to the mellow Stevie Wonder cover, to 'Sophia,' an ambient track that wouldn't sound out of place on a Zero 7 album or 'Dedication To The Horse,' a punky ode to their mate's band, 4Hero have built an album designed to surprise. According to Dego, 'It's good to have the type of music you drink yourself silly and dance all night too, but people have been eating too much of it! And getting fat!' For all of its lyrical awareness of our time, on a musical level the record has a retrospective feel, which Marc believes is 'Psychedelic! Yeah, from 'Morning Child' to the guitars at the end...' Dego shakes his head wildly, but then this is an impossibly rich album - descriptives arrive thick and fast. Dego himself struggles to express it: 'No doubt it's eclectic, nothing too heavy but at the same time...' The full-stop to his sentence is a smile - it's all too technical! You should buy 'Play With The Changes' because as Marc says, 'We need the money,' and like Dego teases, 'Some of us need to get away!' Somewhere the duo certainly aren’t tied to anymore is the UK drum n bass world: 'We're not tied down, we’re simply trying to find good music across the board, whatever it is.' Amen to that! With this expertly crafted record and the warm, wild way it salutes a whole history of black music, Marc and Dego have returned to raise the bar again. 4HERO'S 'PLAY WITH THE CHANGES' IS OUT NOW (RAW CANVAS) WORDS: LUCY WILSON PHOTOGRAPHY: MATTIA ZOPPELLARRO

tags: | 4hero | play with the changes | raw canvas | marc | dego | morning child | more...

Just Jack

Just Jack is back with 'Overtones', a danceable interrogation of modern life that is stylish and assured. Jack's lyrics summon tragic-comic characters from wanabee Z-listers to Ikea cut-out yuppies, while beats borrowed from hip hop, disco, house and funk bring the right mood. Fresh from a soundcheck in Notting Hill, Jack’s chat is just right, trust! WHERE DID THE 'WRITERS' BLOCK' SAMPLE COME FROM? Some BBC record, the first British woman describing going off to win a gold Olympic medal. She was a long jumper - I chopped out the sport and it had the right sort of casualness; how she says it was pouring and 'Good Old England...' I always find odd records, loads of spoken word stuff, and then there's people in spandex and big hair...if anything’s a bit out there, I buy it! DID YOU SET OUT TO 'CAPTURE LIFE IN ENGLAND'? More to capture life generally, to find universal truths. I’m not making out like I’m a UK eccentric, although people think so! I don’t want it to be just music for my mates to listen to. SO WHAT KIND OF PICTURES DO YOUR LYRICS PAINT? Hopefully reasonably true ones. I’m not looking at everything just through my viewpoint; I use stuff that interests me, little stories become songs. ONE LYRIC SAYS 'NOW I'M OUT OF MY SHELL...' ARE YOU? The line before that is about weed psychosis, being paranoid and not going out, everyone staring! It really fucks you when you’ve got to do what I do. I was most prolific when I was in France with no weed at all. My brain went into overdrive, I was hyper - I started in the first place because I did people’s heads in! 'DISCO FRIENDS' - ARE THEY ASSOCIATES OF YOURS? Novelty sunglasses and mullet wigs! It’s about a girl I met and her experiences. Disco kids are nutters and pill heads, crazy bastards still up on Tuesday, missing work and stuff. IT’S A MELLOW TRACK...IS THERE MORE OF A COME-DOWN FEEL TO IT? When I think of clubbing it's in slow motion. It's opposite to what you expect and you’d miss the words if it was banging. IS 'STARS IN THEIR EYES' DESPAIRING OR AMUSED? That isn't about people who go on reality TV but the people who create that world. It means nothing, just plastic. THE BEATS... ARE THEY SAMPLED? I got a drummer to do this tribal thing after I was walking about the studio and heard an Adam Ant track! IS 'LOST' ABOUT A REAL PERSON OR SOME AMERICAN PSYCHO FIGURE? People going to Ikea every weekend! This guy fills his life with possessions; the buzz dies, he has an affair, thinking that will sort him out. Consumerism is wrong! WHY DO YOU WRITE SO MANY TUNES ABOUT FRUSTRATION AND FAILURE? Sad songs are easier to write! 'Glory Days' is happy with dark undercurrents. This might sound wanky but it’s like mankind always fails; we make beautiful paintings and buildings, but end up killing and destroying. Greed gets in the way. My songs walk the line between sadness and hope. I like bittersweet things that reveal beauty in a dark situation. 'TALK TOO MUCH' RECALLS A PRINCE STYLE FUNKY VIBE... We were saying, 'Turn up the Prince guitar!' I like his stuff so it creeps in occasionally! WHAT ELSE INSPIRES YOU? I wrote 'Hold On' after listening to Simon and Garfunkel, and ‘No Time’ pays tribute to Masters at Work and my favourite house producers, but tiny influences come in from everywhere. I listen to anything I can get my hands on. IS MUSIC IS THE BEST VEHICLE FOR COMMUNICATION? I suppose with the combination of words and a melody, you can say more. 'I Talk Too Much' is about arguing with someone you're with, you can’t leave it! WHAT IS 'SYMPHONY OF SIRENS' ABOUT? Sex! My girlfriend lived opposite a police and fire station...The flat was pretty hot and that’s the whole vibe of the song; if you listen to the lyrics, it is a bit dirty! 'THE INTERNET, DRUGS AND MASTURBATION,' IS THIS THE AXIS OF EVIL?! What about TV, every other Channel 5 documentary is like soft porn! WHAT WORRIES YOU MOST ABOUT THE WORLD TODAY? War, people resorting to killing, it's a bit much. Also consumerism and shallow messages on TV, with so many people watching...I worry so much! WOULD YOU SAY THAT YOU WRITE PROTEST MUSIC? Just pop music about loving stuff or hating stuff. DO YOU COMBINE FUNKY GROOVES WITH BLEAK LYRICS INSTINCTIVELY? Angry songs can sound happy and vice versa. It messes with people's heads, upbeat songs about breaking up - the best club songs are dark! SOME OF YOUR BACKING VOCALS HAVE A GOSPEL VIBE? I love gospel, and house music that's like gospel, I can just sit with my headphones on and cry! IS JAZZ ANOTHER INFLUENCE TO THE LAST HALF OF THE LP? I like a lot of broken beat jazzy stuff; funk comes from classic jazz. WHO WOULD BE YOUR DREAM MUSICIANS TO COLLABORATE WITH? The Neptunes or Cee-Lo, who I’ve liked for years. Maybe Jack Johnson... WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THE TITLE 'OVERTONES'? Overtones are harmonic things but double meanings as well; it suits the songs and the world I’m talking about. JUST JACK’S 'OVERTONES' IS OUT NOW (MERCURY) WWW.JUSTJACK.CO.UK WORDS: LUCY WILSON PHOTOGRAPHY: MATTIA ZOPPELLARRO

tags: | just jack | overtones | mercury | the neptunes | cee-lo | jack johnson | notting hill | more...

Cassette Jam

Your life could change massively just by entering a competition. Look at Leeds based duo Rory Lyons and Will Graney, who went from being your average bedroom DJs to professional players after taking part in last year’s Babycream DJ competition. Since being crowned winners they have toured the world, held down regular residencies at Babycream (Liverpool) and Dirty Disco (Leeds) and dropped sets at some of the world's biggest clubs from Liverpool's Cream to Ibiza's Amnesia. Having just been taken on by Paul Van Dyk's agent, the boys are in huge demand. They took time out of their busy schedule to chat exclusively to Planet Notion... Words: Natasha Siggers What have you been up to since you were crowned competition champions? Rory: Basically we won the competition and got a residency at Dirty Disco at the same time. Dirty Disco is this massive club in Leeds, they get massive guests on there and basically they both went hand in hand. Then we got asked to do the Lake of Stars festival in Africa which was amazing, then lots and lots of gigs. We've had some amazing gigs like at The Arches in Glasgow; we'll be going back up there again soon. We've got an agent now, who's got Paul Van Dyk too. Did you do a lot of training or preparation in the run up to the competition? Will: Yes and no. We weren't gonna even enter the competition but our housemate entered a CD for us just before the closing date. We played off two mixes that was quite hard to do to make sound anywhere near good… the first round of the competition was the first time we’d actually played out together properly! Rory: We'd been doing it for years individually but that was the first time we had played out together. So what made you want to be a duo then? Rory: We just got really pissed on a few nights and just started messing about because we’ve both got quite random tastes in music. My old man owns a record shop and Will's old man was a DJ as well so we just had this amazing record collection - like Prince and James Brown - things that no-one really plays much now. What do you think set you apart from the other competitors? Will: We just did our thing in the finals and we played something like 27 tracks in like half an hour. Rory: We always try to do something different... and we didn't really look like we were taking it too seriously. How important is interacting with the crowd in the competition? Rory: You have more interaction with the crowd as a duo. You get some DJs that always have their head down concentrating. We just got really hammered and danced around! Will: When we were at Lake of Stars festival, Mikey from Bugz In The Attic said 'what you play isn't what I'd usually listen to, but it’s just amazing watching you two, you're having such a good time and it’s really infectious!' Fair enough! What was the first thing you did when you won the competition? Will: I fell over immediately. We got a bottle of champagne each and we were spraying it at each other and I was wearing a pair of really stupid cowboy boots, fell straight over on my back! Did you feel much pressure being touted as competition winners on line ups? Rory: No, it's been good training because you'd play for like 5 hours at a time in the competition. Will: The first time we played we did 7 hours! Rory: It's just like a really long practice session. It trained us up really well. The day after my birthday we played at Cream's Birthday at Nation (Liverpool) and we were ready for that, it was quality! Will: We played the last set in the Annexe - 4am till 6am. Do you still go out clubbing as punters these days? Will: Not so much now Rory: We don’t get the chance anymore! Will: We had last Saturday off - it was our first Saturday off in ages - and loads of our mates were going to Technique or Asylum in Leeds, but we were like 'no, we're going for a meal!' (laughs) Rory: It’s like a novelty to stay in and watch 'Match of the Day'. How would you describe your musical style? Rory: I don't think we're housey at all Will: Nah, we got marked down in the first round for not being housey enough Rory: We're more kind of like electro, tech, indie sort of stuff. Which DJs do you admire? Will: Erol Alkan. He's just got that interaction with people. Rory: I like 2ManyDJs... They have an amazing sound. Do you still use vinyl or have you converted to laptops? Will: We don't use any vinyl anymore. I used to use more vinyl but it's such a pain in the arse to carry round. With laptops you've got to plan everything meticulously. We like CD's because you can just go through them and randomly pick them out, it's much better and easier. Do you get many freebies now you're 'proper DJs'? Rory: Yeah it's getting that way now, like promos. It's pretty nice to wake up in the morning and you've got new stuff to listen to. What are your plans for the summer? Will: We've got a few gigs at Cream in Amnesia. We're just gonna see what happens really and just fit things round Cream. Think you could be the next big thing behind the decks? You could be in Rory and Will's place by entering this year's Babycream DJ competition! There is a weekly residency at Babycream, a gig at Liverpool superclub Cream, a set at Northern Lights in Leeds and many more goodies up for grabs, so hand a 60 minute CD into the venue or send it to: Babycream DJ competition, Room 202, The Vanilla Factory, 39 Fleet street, Liverpool L1 4AR Closing Date: Friday 20 April 2007 (First heats: Sunday 22 April 2007) Click here for more details.

tags: | just jack | overtones | mercury | notting hill | hip hop | disco | house | funk | more...

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