We finished Stray Dog City because me and Ade had gotten paranoid about each other - plus we were desperate to play live and all they wanted was bloody mod bands. We couldn't keep track of what we were doing, we were churning out ideas that we are still trying to sift through. After a four month lay off, me and ade started talking again, a new name, a new set of songs [what's new?], and a new focus on more clipped, edited songs.
Ade was focusing on these toxic, glow in the dark guitar noises - the sonic equivallent of toxic waste. I was getting into layering the bass live with delay and chorus, just a nice grainey bass sound that was maybe a little bit too dirty looking back. But Books and film and Fires Made Safe are still two of my favourite slices so far.
We were definitely trying to find a balance between our influences at the time - electronic and new wave stuff - or sounds versus strumming.
The first time we did it live was a massive thrill - it was even scarier than doing Stray Dogs because we had no kit to hide behind, things were really stripped back, there were hardly any beats involved, and I was really trying to be brave with me voice! We never played to many people but everybody was surprised and intruiged.
Ade could focus on getting some mental guitar sounds, and we could both pretty much make it up as we went along, but without having to worry too much about mixing all the other elements - we'd left the midi stuff behind at this time, it was taking too long to transport, and we'd be getting hassle from the promoter or the sound morons, and we'd be too pissed off to enjoy it. So everyting was rolling over one or two loops. Then we got Lee in to do some percussion and I think that was a nice balance.
So it was really a case of trying to make like a field operation for the lab!?
I'd be the first to admit that I was playing the boss - I'd always felt I was coasting with Stray Dog City - I wasn't focused, but we were learning as we went along. It's definitely a less chilled out sound.
Maybe this was our attempt at being a band - we definitely gave ourselves more focused rolls this time [in the hope that this would reduce the stress and complexities of playing guitars, bass, decks, doctored tape machines, midi drums, snare, percussion etc].
for more see tar-online and the lab
mp3's coming soon
books and film
chameleon [live]
missing tooth [cd and cassette]