Ailbhe Malone talks with Hildur Ársælsdóttir from Amiina about Playing by the Rules, Instrument-Swopping and Sigur Ros

‘I think a lot of normal stuff influences us, like food and textures of things, and handcraft, stuff like that.’ No matter how Eyebrowy deem to classify Sigur Ros, ‘pretentious’ is not a word one could ever use in conjunction with Amiina. The group, comprising of Hildur Ársælsdóttir, Edda Rún Ólafsdóttir, Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir, and Sólrún Sumarliðadóttir , originally worked as a classical string quartet before recording with Sigur Ros (on () and Takk) and finally releasing their first solo album Kurr in 2007. The quartet’s classical background is apparent, a fact which Hildur readily acknowledges- ‘Classical music- our education- has influenced us a lot. That’s the pillar, if you can say so. That’s where we come from, that’s a really big part.’ Whilst they embrace their classical training, they admit that, as a style, it is too constrictive-‘We come from a classical background where, you know, you’re not supposed to decide a lot of stuff for yourself, you’re supposed to play by the rules. When we met the guys (Sigur Ros) we started doing more creative work and we just found it fascinating.’

Though Amiina are quick to stress that they are a separate group, and not a side project of Sigur Ros, the effect that Sigur Ros has had on them is undeniable. Hildur speaks about the group as if she was a 16 year old girl describing her first boyfriend- ‘When we started working with them we realised that you can do whatever you want, that there are no rules.’ It would appear that ever since then, Amiina have been doing whatever they want. Their music mimics that of Sigur Ros in that it has no lyrics-. ‘It’s much more natural for us to write songs without lyrics, because of our background. We’re so used to inter-weaving melodies and that kind of focus on nuances and sound rather than lyrics. I think all of us kind of, when we listen to music, we don’t listen to the lyrics and remember them. We listen a lot more to other stuff, other factors in the music. So, it was something we didn’t even think about, it was just so natural for us to do instrumental music.’- but it has more drive, and an inherent sense of fun that their fellow Icelanders lack.

In keeping with their organic ethos, Hildur explains that- ‘when we create the song, we’re not really thinking of how to perform it live, so we use whatever instrument we want, not really thinking about it in practical terms. So when we then do live versions, arrangements, sometimes we have to sit down and discuss how we’re going to do it, practically. We would really love to have more hands than eight, but we don’t, so we have to figure out a way to make things work. It’s kind of our choreography.’ Watching Amiina perform is a singularly serene experience. It is clear Amiina are at ease in their current musical territory, during concerts they glide around the stage whilst swapping instruments at a ferocious pace- sometimes mid-song. . The group members dress similarly in long, pretty dresses and they alternately bop, sway and nod to the music as they play. Alarmingly self-contained, even when playing more upbeat tracks such as ‘ammaelis’, Amiina act like they’re all in on a big exciting secret- which they might, just might, let the audience in on. Hildur giggles that- ‘We like cosy little festivals. We’re not really fans of the big festivals with all the loud drunk people rolling around. We’re more into cosy indoor things.’ They shun projections and showy visuals, stating that – ‘We think there are so many details happening during the show, just in the performance. At the moment, we think that may be enough to look at. I think that’s what at least some people like about us, that there’s always something to watch.’

Quietly, Amiina are still building up their musical artillery – ‘We REALLY want to learn to play the Theremin. We have one and we’re trying to practise, but it’s hard to learn. That’s one of the instruments that we’ve been dreaming about for a long time. I’d also like to learn to play the clarinet, that’s a really fascinating instrument.’ Every member of the group is a multi-instrumentalist, and their list of instruments ranges from Viola, to Glassophone, to Musical Saw. The latter instrument shines on ‘Rugla’, transforming the melody from prosaic to hypnotic. Further on in the album, ‘Hilli’ swings gently by, allowing for Japanese influences, whistling, and ethereal vocals to happily co-exist within a waltz tempo. Lead single ‘Seoul’ showcases a Gideon Harp and Service Bells duet over the shadow of a Korg drumline. Amiina’s musical fearlessness seems to stem from, finally, being able to do exactly what they want to do. Hildur agrees-‘We always had it in the back of our heads this idea of doing something together that was our own thing, and we didn’t really have the time to do it until a few years ago-’, before mischievously adding that- ‘It’s much more fun making stuff up on your own than doing what people tell you to do.’

The first time I heard Asobi Seksu was when my sister arrived back from New York with a copy of Citrus. She had heard it some record store and immediately asked them what is was and bought it. It turned out to be Asobi Seksu’s second album, Citrus. That was about three months ago and I haven’t stopped listening to it since. A more accessible blend of shoegaze and dream pop, Citrus is a collection of songs perfectly combining the beautiful ethereal vocals of Yuki Chikudate with the peddle heavy crashing guitars of James Hanna which bend and weave up, down and beyond the octaves of the six string. The 2006 album was re-released by One Little Indian in Europe in August and now Asobi are on a massive European tour.

As Yuki sat in traffic in Manhattan, I gave her a quick call ahead Asobi Seksu’s first Irish. Starting out in New York at the height of the Strokes popularity, Asobi Seksu are a band that have struggled to command attention. Even in their home town of New York, Yuki explains that when Asobi Seksu “first started out, people were not so open to what we were doing.” Back then “it wasn’t a very popular sound” but a few years on and things have changed “it’s exciting for us now that people are actually paying attention.” And with Lyrics that hop, skip and jump between Japanese and English, AS make for interesting listening.

The Asobi Seksu sound while it may be raw at times is extremely honed and finely tuned, Citrus had a master plan to make sure everything came together in recording “we had crazy charts and we arranged everything before we went into the studio, there was a lot of preproduction.” Time well spent in my opinion, as the songs possess certain dynamics that go beyond the obvious My Bloody Valentine comparisons. Although MBV are clearly a big influence, the comparisons do get a little taxing for the band at times “obviously it’s a band we like a lot, you know and it doesn’t bother us that people see the comparison that they reference that band but at a certain point it gets to be a little too much but it’s just that one band, there were other bands around at the time who were experimenting with those textures and with that kind of guitar sound.”

What makes Asobi Seksu so good in my mind is their ability to merge really upbeat pop vocals with psychedelic synths and layers of pitch bending tremolo laced guitars. They don’t just emulate the sounds of those that have gone before but instead make the sound and textures their own. When I asked how it felt to continue touring with the same material for the past two years, Yuki simply replied “every song feels new because of the audience” and because of that it gives the songs “a whole new perspective, a fresh new take”. So with that in mind, try catch them live and see what your perspective is.

Asobi Seksu play Crawdaddy, November 25th.

So here we are, in the back of a Ford talking about dinosaurs. This is not your average interview. Talking with Analogue just hours before their album launch in Crawdaddy band members Grattan, Arron and Crickey are debating the higher merits of the water born dinosaurs without a hint of worry or expectation of the night ahead. In less than a few hours they will launch their debut album, the oddly named It’s Easy To Be Alive You Just Are, but it’s dinosaurs that are nagging on their minds.

Star Little Thing are a strange mix. Lead singer Grattan is quiet and contemplative. Arron is an average, cool Dub. Then there’s Crickey- sporting an odd mix of fashions (including a hat seemingly formed from the backs of a legion of sheep)-the enigma, carefully pondering our questions like a scientist working out an equation. Last year they released the explosive and incredibly danceable single ‘Lovers of Life’ that was a revelation in sound and style compared to what many of their Dublin peers were throwing out. It felt as if they had blown away the cobwebs residing on the morose shoulders of the singer-songwriters glutting Dublin and were heralding in a new exciting era in dance within our fair city.

Grattan and Arron had previously been in a rock band together, which over time dissipated. On the way they bumped into the wonderfully eccentric Crickey. A sculptor and a lover of jazz he is never without a bunch of slightly worn notebooks in his hand in which he jots down words, lines and lyrics about anything and everything. Though unorthodox, something special happened in the brew that has now become Star Little Thing. “When we meet up it’s like a fusion of the three of us” Grattan explains from the driving seat. “I could be writing on anything. I could be somewhere completely different and the guys can be too and then we meet”.

Hours were spent in Grattan’s basement over the last year creating the album. Their first single ‘Where Is The Child Gone’ is a brooding stomper of a dance tune that simmers with ambition. Though it is the video that catches Analogue’s eye. Part of the video involves Grattan dancing in the middle of a busy Dame Street in front of bemused onlookers. “ We did it once with four or five cameras” Grattan tells us, trying to hide his grin. “This cop was literally on us so. If you look at the footage the cop is just looking at us for ages and he was just sitting there on a bike”. “The cop literally said to him what was he doing wearing a top with a map of the world on it and yellow trousers” adds Crickey, “so he said it’s a map of the world so he knew where he was going!” This wasn’t the first foray into the strange on a video shoot for the band. “The one on Moore Street was weirder!” Grattan continues. The video for ‘Lovers of Life’ involved a trip to Moore Street with the three lads wearing an odd metallic chassis with seven cameras strapped onto it, made by Crickey himself. “It took twenty minutes. We ran down the road, than another street, which was a dead end and all there was was this Chinese guy just looking at us!”

The oddness continues into the live set. While the two giant hands which were a regular feature are gone, Crickey spices things up with glow sticks and flashlights. “The music’s full on” Arron tells us. It is in their live show that one gets the full experience of Star Little Thing. They blast out a set which by the end of their crowning night in Crawdaddy has a bunch of Brazilians at the front almost fellating one of Crickey’s glow sticks in a fit of music induced ecstasy. It is this combination of quirkiness, great music and blistering live sets that make Star Little Thing stand out from the crowd. “We want it to be about the music” Crickey tells me quietly and affirmatively, “that’s what we want”. And that’s what we want. Star Little Thing is a band that is bursting with potential, all wrapped up in a cheeky and affectionate Dublin charm.

Dan Snaith, formerly Manitoba, now Caribou - all-round one-man-band’s ethos is simple: ‘It’s always very much music to me, the thing that excites me is sound and aesthetics and the way that music makes me feel.’ His new album, ‘Andorra’, is a melodic funfair, encompassing dream pop, lush production and swirling hooks. As research for the record, Snaith fervently catalogued sounds and chord progressions, in order to find the ideal combination of melody, rhythm and timbre: ‘There aren’t that many chords or chord sequences in the world that humans like to listen to’, he explains, ‘I went through loads and loads of different songs, from any band from any time or whatever, not for the production really, but for how the songs were put together- the lyrics and the harmony and how all those things work together. I found there were so many common trends as I looked through these songs, a lot of songs would be just the same as another song from twenty years before.’ Though Snaith has a Ph.D in Mathematics, he’s reluctant to emphasise an analytical backdrop to this research. As with Caribou’s music, he prefers to advocate an all-encompassing, all-embracing approach: ‘It wasn’t about being too analytic and sitting down and figuring out some chord sequence that I liked and then using it. It was just about figuring out what I find interesting about melodies and what I find interesting about how they can carry emotion and how they can make changes and harmony and stuff like that. Not about using other people’s ideas, but exploring what interested me about that melody or sound.’ ‘Andorra’ doesn’t broach complex social issues, or allow for personal commentary-‘My music isn’t about chronicaling my life, or about social things going on, it’s about the enjoyment of how much I love making music and listening to music. The album is composed of minute masterpieces, which, though they flow seamlessly into one another, also stand their ground alone. The latter was Snaith’s main aim when writing the record- ‘This time I wanted every song on the album to be like an actual song, an actual composition. I had all these ideas, like arrangement, melody and stuff. It wasn’t like I was thinking ‘what’s this song going to go into next’, I just put them in the order that made the most sense to me.’

Though the above principles translate well in the recording studio, they seldom come across as encouragingly whilst playing live. Though, in typical Caribou fashion, Snaith is unfazed: ‘It’s not like it’s ever been a problem, like ‘how are we going to play this song live’? There are some songs on the album that we can’t play live, so we just don’t play them, or if we have to change them a lot to play them live, we just change them.’ While this attitude appears nonchalent, the reality encompasses late nights, rehearsals and a lot of hard work- ‘We play together for a month every day, for, like 8 hours. I’m lucky that the guys in the band are all amazing musicians, so we just took the songs and said ‘let’s try you playing this, and you playing that’, then discussed whether we wanted to play them like they were on the album or differently to how they appear on the album. It’s an enjoyable process, you know.’ Given Snaith’s overarching interest in aesthetics, it’s not surprising that he plays a large role in the production of the visuals for his live show- ‘In the past the videos we had were by Delicious 9 - a Dublin-based group of animators. We used them for the last two tours before this, but this time around, because I wanted more freedom to improvise as musicians on stage, it was important to me that the videos not be so narrative, because the narrative structure just ties us to playing the songs in the same way. This time it’s more like patterns and geometric shapes than lighting effects or strobe-y effects. Myself and Ryan in the band have put them together actually.’

Yet, while Snaith cultivates the image of a laid-back musician (to the extent that he conducts this interview between trips to a hot spring spa in the Rocky Mountains’), very little in the realm of Caribou is left to chance. He orchestrated the seemingly chaotic soundings of ‘Andorra’ according to his own directions-‘It was more of a conscious decision last time to have a variety of things going on. I like the fact that it starts with these kind of euphoric, joyous pop songs or whatever, and ends more like everything has fallen apart a bit and all that enthusiasm’s gone. The end takes a weird kind of left turn, I guess’-and his previous incarnation’s name was specifically chosen for its cultural signifiers-‘ Manitoba is, like, a province in Canada, so I wanted the name to have the same remote Canadian connotations’. Snaith, while not self-absorbed, appears to often become lost inside his own head. On writing music, he states that ‘I usually start writing with a bass-line, just a bass or a keyboard, and that would leave room for me to fill in all the harmonies in my head. I leave lots of space for the arrangement while I’m doing it’; While discussing the connection between music and mathematics, he is equally mentally absorbed: ‘It’s such an aesthetic thing for me. It’s not about over-thinking things or being too conceptual. Or conceptual at all about anything. Both things are kind of creative, and things that I can get lost in my head with and kind of play around with ideas and create something…’ Indeed, he admits that it’s kind of a relief to return home after touring, with an empty mind and a renewed vigour- ‘It’s kind of nice to have some space to sit down until something new begins. I kind of like the idea that when I get back it’s a clean slate and I can start again.’

I’ve been kicking at the filing cabinet for a good few minutes now, mildly collapsing mentally, conspicuously unable to open it, to retrieve the stylish little red recorder nestled within, conscious that the other one, upstairs in the studio, is rendered meaningless by the lack of connecting wires, which are carefully stored in this filing cabinet. Behind me the phone I’m meant to be talking on is in use anyway, and a feeling of monstrous nothingness instils itself heavy upon my shoulders. I lobbied to get this interview, and it is gently slipping away like ribina through clenched teeth.

The National popped up a few years ago, releasing a few EP’s, including the excellent Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers,on their own label: Brasslands, the result of a few years of messing around. Their success has been a slow burner, much like their music. It grows on you. It seems, initially, clichéd and heavily referential, but seems to creep up on you. Their last two albums (since they moved to Beggars Banquet) have been noticeably more successful. Unlike with a lot of music that takes time to assert itself positively it is not actually the music itself you have to re-evaluate, its your own thoughts on the issue. You see, or hear, rather, the problem is The National have a singer with a deep voice, play guitars, have insistent, driving rhythms and slyly humorous poses, filled broken relationships and obscure, nearly poetic references, within their lyrics. One almost cannot help but hear Joy Division and Interpol and immediately bracket them. But it’s us, not them. They actually bear mere resemblance, (see above list, if you’ve already forgotten), other than their general brilliance. Now, don’t shout, they’re nothing next to the great seething dark brilliance of Joy Division, but they do stand up to Interpol. Alligator is actually quite the little gem and it’s a little bad natured of me to suggest that its just Beggars Banquets PR dept. that made the difference. Boxer, their second album on Beggars, is actually a further step up, surprisingly.

Hopelessly, I finally, dejectedly give the handle of the filling cabinet one last hopeful little tug, a pathetic nonsense attempt after the spoon jamming and full arm wrenches I was giving it a few minutes later. Naturally, like a cliché, it slides open. A sex kitten of a filing cabinet, playing hard to get. I find Aaron Dessner (multi-instrumentalist, brother of the rhythm guitarist) in a coffee shop, buying, well, coffee. The interview starts after a few minutes of me, panicked, talking down the line whilst he completes his purchase and ignores me.

The National have matured in public, taking a relatively unpromising start, almost feeling their way, from the generic to something with more than a passing resemblance of brilliance. “We all grew up in Cincinnati Ohio, in suburban quiet city, without much access to culture, and me and my brother started a band in our basement with our friends. It continued through high school. Eventually we all went to college in New York city, and years later, we were all living in Brooklyn, we had the idea, to get together. We’d play at the weekends and drink some beers…” They gradually found a voice, the lyrics of Matt Berninger progressing from nearly mindlessly repeated cliches, to minor poetry, full of small images and moments that mesh to create a picture of loneliness and break ups far more effectively than his more literal first attempts. “It was a very gradual process…”

They formed Brasslands along with Alec Hanley Bemis in 2001. Unlike, say, The Mystery Jets decision to form a record label, it wasn’t because they had been rejected by a label. “It was definitely our choice. When we first started making songs and getting together, we were just a bunch of friends, and it (the band) was never something we never intended to do professionally, we did it for fun. Eventually we made our first record, and really liked it, and a fiend of ours said he used to have a label in school, so we re-started it and put out the record. Then there was another record by my brothers other band, but we never actually sent our music into any labels. Even then we were really into independent music and we never really though about major labels or anything.”

Following the reception of the Sad Songs for Dirty lover’s EP they signed to Beggars Banquet, one of the larger “indie” labels knocking about encompassing Rough Trade records amongst others (Gary Numan!). “Well, yeah they’re a bigger label, but still an indie label, so there’s still the feeling like they’re a family. And they’ve supported us really well, helped bring the National international…” It marked a jump in critical aclaim for The National’s next album Alligator. Was it thanks to Beggars? “Well…. I don’t know if it was that. I think Alligator was definitely the first album that, kind of, became something more… well not mainstream but… it seemed very popular. I’m not sure if that was something to do with Beggars as much as where we were, in terms of our sound. It was a very good time, a lot of blogs caught on to what we were doing. Obviously Beggars helped with what we were doing, making it available to everybody.”

Live The National play their tracks expertly, filling the space between performer and audience with an aural presence so complete as to almost be physical. Their songs become big stomping beasts, saturating the gig almost as completely as the sweat-smell. After their recent Dublin gig a friend of mine was so hoarse from shouting, she could hardly speak the next day. An achievement. “We are intense, we try to bring the songs to life. We’re a live band, first and foremost, although that was the last bit we did… Certainly Matt is a captivating front man, you never know what he’ll do. We try to get a lot out of it.”

So we chatted a wee bit on, talked politics (”we’re left wing liberals”) and the road noise became to loud to hear anything for a few minutes. He patiently waited it out, some firetrucks passing, and said goodbye. I’d managed to save a wee bit of the ribena, despite my clenched teeth.

Devotchka, a Denver-based quartet whose unique brand of music has brought them critical acclaim, stormed the tiny venue of Crawdaddy on the 24th of August in a display exuding vibrant colour and sounds that inter-railed through the melodies of Eastern Europe and South America.

The band strode out onto the stage which was cluttered with various instruments, a barrage of percussion behind a beautifully ornate accordion, and two guitars at its side as a mandolin kept them company, all the while under the watchful gaze of the domineering presence of an upright bass. Nick Urata took his position behind a retro microphone, scuffed acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder, bottle of red wine in one hand, waiting in muddied boots while the other members prepared themselves; Tom Hagerman’s formal attire complimented with the delicate frame of a violin; Jeanie Schroeder, hair garnished with a red orchid, embracing her fairy light adorned sousaphone; and Shawn King who took his place behind them amid an assembly of drums.

Their array of instruments reflects their partiality for a fugue of different influences: South American, Eastern European folk and American punk with interludes of ballads and catchy pop. The culprit for creating such a unique fusion seems to be the monotonous ubiquity of rock that has greyed out in the US. “I was really burnt out on the whole rock ‘n’ roll formula of the US, and I just wanted to branch out and invite other styles into it”, Nick Urata, the lead singer admits to me, also crediting his move to Denver as ample inspiration. “There has always been a really kind of diverse underground music scene there … mariachi and kind of some weird western acts have sort of developed [there]. It’s always been sort of a transient city, people coming from all over bringing different influences”.

Having opened for such diverse acts as Gogol Bordello, Marilyn Manson and even a burlesque show, they credit their positive reactions to the fact that they are able to “touch on a little something for everybody”, although Urata admits that it didn’t go too well with Marilyn Manson. “Yea, his fans are kinda jerks. Well,” he concedes, “they’re just aggressive; most of them [pauses and thinks] are marginalized twelve year old boys. They weren’t ready for what we were doing”.

Having established an already formidable following in the US, they recently released their album ‘How it Ends’ in Europe and embarked on a European tour. They self-financed their first three albums which were only released in the US and signed a deal with a European label which brought about the European release of ‘How it Ends’, albeit two years after its American release. A little over half way through this tour and they have already a rapidly growing European fan base. “We’ve had really good reactions so far,” Urata comments.

Known for their live visual spectacle as much as their aural one, they have spoiled their audiences with aerial artists, belly dancers and video montages to enhance their performance. However, on the tiny stage of Crawdaddy, it would have been hard to clutter any of these in, perhaps explaining their exodus into the crowd, initiated by a nod of the head from Nick and acknowledged by Jeanie with a wry smile and a grimace as she manoeuvred her upright bass into the wings. The crowd’s slightly confused gazes followed her off the stage down the steps and into the area where we all stood bemused. Immediately behind her was Nick, his scuffed acoustic guitar in hand, Tom still grasping his violin, followed by Shawn who had swiftly replaced his drums with a trumpet. Taking intimacy to unexpected levels, in true Mariachi style they broke into their South American-infused song, ‘We’re Leaving’. Their arrival was greeted with an appreciative applause as they attempted to condense themselves and their instruments amongst the crowd.

As Hagerman’s fingers spider up and down the violin through a hopscotch of notes, you cannot help but join Urata in the admiration that he possesses for all the members of the band. “I was lucky enough to find some serious musicians, music students, players and these guys wanted to kind of give a go at it” he informs me, adding that he “was on the same page”. Jeanie demonstrates this musical dexterity as she freely trades her double bass for a sousaphone and vice-versa, while Shawn gallops through the rhythm of songs behind the subterfuge of drums but seems equally content to radiate the audience with the warm sound of a trumpet. It’s this vast musical understanding and bartering of ideas and sounds that allows them to create such a diverse and unique fusion that dips its toes into everything from Mariachi, Eastern European folk to American punk.

As they play through their songs, a cheer erupts from the crowd with the instantly recognisable introduction into their song, ‘How it Ends’. The song is taken from the album of the same name and also appears on the soundtrack to the surprise indie hit, ‘Little Miss Sunshine’, although its presence on the latter was attributed more to luck. “The director just happened to hear one of our songs on the radio in Los Angeles by chance and they heard something that evoked the sound they were looking for and we got in touch and started working together”. A score composed and performed mainly by Devotchka and earning a Grammy nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack in 2006, the band were startled by its success in America and Europe. “It was a very small independent production when it started so we were doing stuff over the phone, there wasn’t any contracts or that sort of thing, nobody even knew if the movie was going to come out in a big way,” Urata reflects, adding that this contributed to his apprehension in licensing the band’s music to the film. “I was so wary at first, ‘cause the songs meant so much to me because some of them were pre-existing songs … so we had to kind of put a lot of trust in these people, and I didn’t know what the repercussions of that were going to be”. It’s hardly surprising therefore to discover that he turned down a McDonalds advert. Cringing at the very thought of it, he explains how “they chose a very personal, sweet song” of his and he “saw it associated with a McRib sandwich”. “I woke up the next morning in a panic,” he exclaims. “I couldn’t live with it”.

Playing through various songs from their earlier albums such as ‘Une Volta’ and ‘Supermelodrama’, they also included ones from their most recent album of covers ‘Curse Your Little Heart’. A risky endeavour for even the most accomplished artist to indulge in, Urata acknowledges that such an album can be a possible menace. “Yeah, I thought it was really risky, cause we chose some sort of sacred territory,” referring to such legendary performers as Sinatra, the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed and Siouxsie and The Banshees, artists generally cordoned off from emulation. However, with the band’s far-left take on the songs, they managed to bring a fresh and innovative twist to them. Although Urata comments, “I met the guy from Siouxsie and The Banshees last summer and he came over and I thought he was going to beat us up,” but he adds, “he actually liked it a lot. So that was kind of a good redemption and I think most of the other people are dead so we’re safe there … except for Lou Reed (laughs) … and he looks dead!”

After nearly two hours of vigorous performing, Devotchka relented to the time constraints and allowed their instruments some repose, instigating a perpetual applause from the crowd which ultimately degraded into shameless baying for an encore. Our efforts were remedied by the presumed return of Devotchka for one last song to satiate our short-term withdrawal, provoking syncopated claps and debauched dances to dapple the crowd. Closure was brought to the gig in the form of Nick Urata raising his bottle of vino to the crowd and defiantly knocking it back, affording a drop or two to the pint glass of an audience member.

As they embark on the final leg of their European tour, the future looks bright for Devotchka and promises a lot more characteristically kaleidoscopic sounds. “Luckily we’re just finished up another album. We’re almost done with it and that will be released quite soon by the company in Europe … not two years from now!”

So, will Devotchka be returning to tour Europe any time soon, I question, before the gig in Crawdaddy has commenced. He responds with prophetic words. “We’ll be back. If people like us, we’ll be back”.

Craig Thorn, Mark Kozelek, and the Red House Painters

If you’re browsing a music shop, or for that matter a music magazine, it doesn’t take long to learn the first law of art: the world is full to the brim with failed geniuses. The right combination of talent and drive is rare enough. But with mass media, the talent doesn’t matter much anymore; whether you’re hawking “pop” albums or reviewing “indie” albums, it’s often the image, not the music, that is being sold. This brings us to the second law of art: the world is equally full of the successfully talentless. The amount of pure luck and coincidence involved in commercial success makes it virtually impossible to predict, much less understand.

The musical situation thus becomes painful for everyone involved. Record companies turn down the best albums, because they’re too risky. Reviewers, DJs, and the dwindling owners of great record shops exhaust themselves looking for something obscure enough to seem cool, but good enough to justify. Consumers of music — people who want to experience perhaps 60 minutes of timeless human joy on which no price can be placed, other than €18.99 at HMV — are lost in the supermarket. We are told to buy an album because it’s played at Starbucks, or because the single opens that TV show that we like, or because the magazine owned by the conglomerate that recorded, marketed, and distributed it thinks it’s a masterpiece.

This is why we have friends. In an offhand remark in the acknowledgements of his book Mystery Train — a book good enough to read the acknowledgements — Greil Marcus wrote this line: “As much as anything, rock ‘n’ roll has been the best means to friendship that I know.” I always misremember this line as stating something like the equation “music = friendship.” While Marcus doesn’t quite say this, I feel I should attribute the idea to him. Friendship might indeed arise from sharing the music, but in my life it often led me to the music in the first place.

I met Craig Thorn eleven years ago this autumn, when I moved to Boston from Texas to attend boarding school. He ran my dormitory, where he made epic barbecue and brilliant jokes, as well as the English department, where he taught a class on junk (of all kinds) in American literature. Our first conversation was about music; this was how he learned about each of the 38 guys to whom he had to be a father each year. In that conversation, I revealed my interest in an English band called Catherine Wheel, one of the great underrated rock combos of the nineties. If this earned me a modicum of his respect, the ensuing dialogue earned Craig my undying admiration, tinged with a kind of terror; he promptly named five other more obscure (but technically related) bands that I might enjoy if I liked Catherine Wheel. Basically, he was Pandora, in the days before the internet.

Craig’s boundless musical knowledge and record collection were intimidating to encounter for the first time, but I quickly realized that they were made to share. He ran a student magazine — Backtracks — in which he wrote lengthy, almost philosophical music criticism; he was a manager and legendary DJ for the school radio station. It was impossible to meet him and not find your horizons expanded. While this might have started with something as simple as borrowing a CD, the real horizons in question were not musical, but human. More than simply a means to friendship, music held the possibility for Craig of an encounter with the whole world, a catalogue of experience wider than his own. Music was a means to, and a definition of, family and community. Both were his reason for living.

Such a man does not have a favourite band. Nonetheless, in the late nineties, Craig was a missionary of the Red House Painters. He wrote about them, it seemed, at every possible opportunity, in school publications as well as major magazines. I have none of these articles anymore, but I remember a blizzard of eloquence that convinced me to knock on his door one day and borrow everything they had ever recorded. I saw Songs for a Blue Guitar on sale in 1998 in Chicago, at a record store that no longer exists, and bought it immediately. Gradually I collected every disc, somewhat because I liked the music, but mainly because of Craig.

The Red House Painters formed in 1989, the same year that the Pixies came to take the kids. They made a decade’s worth of albums in San Francisco, after which the lead singer and driving force, Mark Kozelek, went amicably solo. Their quiet and introspective music was never quite in step with the times, which were more defined by loud introspection; the poor reviews said that the Red House Painters were about despair, while the good ones said they were about nostalgia. Success on a massive commercial scale eluded them, partly because Mark Kozelek is that kind of genius who finds self-promotion painful, and partly because he insisted on making the music that was necessary for him. If others see him as a failed genius, it is not how Kozelek sees himself; on the contrary, his album was in stores when he was 25, and he felt like a rock star. In 1999 a two disc Retrospective was released; regardless of sales, this doesn’t happen to just anyone.
The first label to press a Red House Painters album was the formidable 4AD, which released Down Colorful Hill (1992) on the strength of some reverb-soaked demo tapes. It was followed with two self-titled albums, better known by their brooding cover images, Rollercoaster (May 1993) and Bridge (October 1993). The stunning Ocean Beach was released in 1995, and then abruptly — in the face of a small but obsessive fan base, excellent critical reception, and growing popularity in Europe — the label opted not to release Songs for a Blue Guitar, and dropped the band.

For those DJs, reviewers, buyers, and label owners who are prospecting for gold, it’s usually a pretty good sign when a label drops a band over an album. As Robbie Robertson said of The Band, “Music should never be harmless.” A fight over a recording signals that something actually different has just appeared, and that someone in power is scared; Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is a classic example, but the final two Red House Painters albums each did time in legal purgatory. Supreme Records, an Island subsidiary, snapped up Songs for a Blue Guitar and released it in 1996; the follow-up Old Ramon was scheduled for 1998, but was withheld by Island during the merger wars of the late 1990s, and wasn’t released until 2001 on SubPop, after Kozelek bought it back. These struggles also ended the band, and the next four releases were of Kozelek playing alone.

Songs for a Blue Guitar was the first true synthesis of Kozelek’s many influences and moods. The opener seems to fit the pattern of the back catalogue, with a singer-songwriter formula and emotive, autobiographical lyrics. The second song, one of two title songs, is the same but different, featuring the only female backing vocal in the whole Kozelek discography. Nothing in that discography could possibly prepare you for the third song, “Make Like Paper,” which is rumoured to be one of the two songs on the disc which ended the relationship with 4AD. It is 12 minutes of fierce backbeat and Crazy Horse guitar distortion. It features a 5 minute guitar solo after the first chorus, a solo so rich and daring it suggests Hendrix, Robert Johnson, and Mahler. After the Gibson screams and is possibly in flames, Kozelek goes on singing as though nothing out of the ordinary has just occurred. It is out of the ordinary on a folk label. It might as well be hip-hop.
This is one of many moments on the album that explodes preconceptions. There are covers of songs by Yes (“Long Distance Runaround”), the Cars (“All Mixed Up”) and Paul McCartney (“Silly Love Songs”). An aptly titled, trifling piece of work, this last piece is totally resurrected in the retelling; this time, the five-minute display of absurd guitar virtuosity is at the beginning of the song. The expressive rage and unadulterated beauty offered here properly earns the opening line, “you’d think that people would have had enough of silly love songs,” and when we hear the chorus that McCartney made insipid — “I love you” — we actually believe the Red House Painters. Mark Kozelek brings real artistry to his covers; his solo album from 2001, What’s Next to the Moon, consists entirely of Bon Scott-era AC/DC songs, which are tender and unrecognizable, and his most recent project with Sun Kil Moon — a kind of Red House Painters 2.0 — is the album Tiny Cities, composed of twelve Modest Mouse songs transposed into Kozelek’s reflective and minimalist style. As these seemingly insane career moves suggest, Mark Kozelek is remarkably adept at avoiding irony, even when singing songs that seem to need them. On Old Ramon, he pulls off a love song to his cat.

In 2003, Kozelek and his drummer Anthony Koutsos reformed as Sun Kil Moon, releasing first Ghosts of the Great Highway and then Tiny Cities in 2005. Ghosts continues the best traditions of the Red House Painters, but with the illusion of a new band; it was Kozelek’s most successful album to date, if someone is counting by sales. It is a lush and unified album, telling stories about famous boxers who died young; obsessed with death, the album celebrates life. The old fascinations with memory and geography are firmly in place, but the singer has become a bard, and moved well beyond simple autobiography and despair. This is no more failed genius by any measure; this is a man doing what he loves as though it were second nature.

Sun Kil Moon sounds for all the world like Kozelek has “grown up.” Somewhere between the first time I heard them and now, as I’ve moved around the world carrying the albums with me, so have I. Kozelek’s joys, sorrows, landscapes, and women have accompanied me. As always happens with great music, the sounds and words are now bound up with my own memories. I’ve done my best to pass this music on to friends so that they can carry this reflection of the world, and perhaps a piece of me. I’ve tried to make friends with the music, and music with the friends.

I also continue to listen to Kozelek’s work to carry a piece of Craig, who passed on down the great highway on 12 June 2006, at the age of 47. He left behind such a cacophonous legacy of sounds in the hands and minds of those who knew him that it hardly would be accurate to say that he is gone. The lives of those that knew him — and their CD collections — are the Retrospective that confirms his place. In his case, music finally did become the friendship, since the music is all I can encounter down the old pathways where he was. Even though the song is not about him, I have never listened to “Make Like Paper” without thinking of the first autumn that I met Craig, or the last summer that I saw him.

Leaves are turning brown
All over the ground
Leaves make like paper
Make like paper sound

[5-minute guitar solo]

Way back, back then
I considered you my best friend
But the last time I saw you
I knew I’d never see you again.

Architecture in Helsinki are an octet hailing from Melbourne on a mission to pepper your ear drums with the finest indie pop that will make you do the whirlwind, whatever that may be. Three albums in with the fabulously playful Places Like This just released this spring. They have succeeded in fashioning a sound full of eccentricity, combining the stranger spectrum’s of indie rock with the simplicity of pop. This is a band not only intelligent but also frolicsome who are well worth splashing out a few bob of your hard earned cash on.

So what are we to make of these antipodean pop stars? I had the wonderful opportunity to speak to the uber friendly and charming Kellie Sutherland. Just like the band she eschews normality. “I’m a modern day musical gypsy” Kellie happily pronounces when I mention what must be the travails of being in a band these days with constant touring and push and pull between concert venue and recording studio. “I got rid of all my stuff. I pretty much have what’s in my suitcase and a few boxes of records and CD’s and books in my family’s storage space” she says with a friendly smile. “It’s quite liberating. You should try it!” Em, I don’t know. Does one not long for the comforts of home, the feeling of “Damn! My favourite sweater’s in Melbourne and I am in San Fran!” but Kellie is resolute. This is a woman changed by touring and the relative ease of modern day travelling. “It has really changed my mind about looking at things and how much impact I was making on the earth. I said to myself ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe I have accumulated this stuff to begin with!” So there you go folks, touring is good for the soul and the environment. I’m not sure it is the life for me.

Constant touring and experiencing new environments and cities has over the course of time slowly changed the dynamic and style of the band. Change is definitely the correct term to use to describe the last two years, especially the time between the most recent album and the one prior to it, the strangely named In Case We Die. A change of scenery for some band members-the vibrancy and cacophony of Brooklyn for lead singer and songwriter Cameron and Kellie, well, all over the place, have brought about a shift in direction for the band. This has enamoured the band with new fans but also alienated one or two who feel the new, more pronounced electro sound anathema to them. So has this new environment aided the new shift in style? “Definitely the intensity of the environment in Brooklyn had a huge impact on how Cameron wrote the songs and being away from home changes the way you think about recording” Kellie tells me.

With band members strewn across the world it seemingly brings up the question of how does one record an album together? If Cameron’s in America, the rest of the band in Australia and Kellie somewhere between San Fran and Mumbai can a band actually work separately? It seems you can and Architecture in Helsinki are testament to that. So how does one do I? “We wrote songs without actually playing them together”. Odd….”It sounds like a really strange concept but it kind of worked for us and the record. If Cameron hadn’t moved then we were at risk of making the same album and that was the last thing we wanted” So how was this done I ponder. “We wrote the songs and demos and sent them over instant messenger and we would have meetings once a week online and talk about ideas and swop ideas and piece together songs” Ah the wonders of modern technology!

The change continued into the recording and producing fields of the album Places Like This. “Cameron had this world drum machine which could make loops and I think just one or two synths. The initial demos that turned into songs really infiltrated how the band sounded. We didn’t have horns as melody makers as in the last two albums” So it seems we have found the origin of this progression to a more electro sound. “We have been touring for quite a few years” Kellie continues. “We did the first two albums ourselves. (Fellow band member) Gus did a lot of engineering. On this last record we had our own engineer and the pace that we recorded was a hundred times quicker. Our ideas and how we expressed them were really turned quickly into reality. It was pretty amazing!”

So a new lease of life and experience into an already lively and intelligent band augur well for the future of Architecture in Helsinki. So I bid adieu to Kellie as she continues on her worldwide tour and look forward to the next musical instalment from Melbourne’s finest.

“It was offensive!” Emma Gaze explains to me about that infamous incident at the Trinity Ball in 2004. The programme that year had made some below-the-belt comments about a four piece from Brighton, the enigmatic Electrelane. “It was offensive ‘cause it said something like ‘you had better watch out if they start mentioning feminism’. ‘It was bullshit” adds Mia, ‘It was just people assuming because we had talked about that and people had brought that up in interviews, we were going to bring that up! Like we were going to be lecturing people from the stage. It was stupid!” And there you have it. 3 years later the band have finally been given the opportunity to state their opinion. “It was mean about most of the bands but most especially us and Buck 65, and we asked ourselves- ‘why are they doing that?’’’ concludes fellow band mate Verity.

Electrelane, hailing originally from Brighton, have added a welcome conviction to a music scene that in many cases has been sorely forgotten and neglected. This has from time to time been a source of curiosity to the press. Sometimes it has been skewed into becoming a source of feminism almost anachronistic with today’s world. However what I discover in this delightfully erudite band is nothing more controversial than a love of their music and a strong sense of direction musically -and with life as a whole. This is a troupe of women who have no qualms about stating an opinion and playing a blistering set, and thank goodness for that.

Formed almost ten years ago in the bedroom of band member Emma Gaze’s house, they now have four albums under their belts. These include their fantastic sophomore album ‘The Power Out’ and the beautiful ‘No Shouts No Calls’, which was released just this spring. But it hasn’t been all plain sailing. A few disagreements with the record company and of course, the age-old strain of being in a band for so long had begun to affect the band. With the release of their third album ‘Axes’ in 2005, things came to a crossroads. “It was the worst period we ever had” Mia recalled. “It was like saying to ourselves ‘we would finish or we would do another record’”. So what brought about the change in sentiment and eventually the release of a fourth album? A split! No, not from the band as such but a break from the local environment of Brighton. Emma headed to London and Verity to Berlin. “It was more productive meeting in certain times and places and doing your own stuff in between” Mia continued. So was the break helpful and refreshing? A resounding nod of approval answers my question. “Being in Berlin was so inspiring. We would wake up and it would be nice and sunny. It comes across in the record as it’s nice and happy,” Emma tells me. ‘No Shouts No Calls’ was brought forth into this world by a stronger, more content band than the one that gave us ‘Axes’.

‘Axes’ is an odd record. Odd for it is a totally live album. Yet it is not an album recorded in the Astoria with the background sound of wailing fans. This is an album entirely recorded in the studio. Verity explained to me the concept behind ‘Axes’- “We are more of a live band and wanted it on record. We half -tried it on albums before and now we thought ‘why not do it in a studio, in one go?’” The record company were predictably, a bit dubious about such a departure, especially after the critical success of The Power Out? “The record company would have liked to have us record something with singing on it as it would be easier and sellable. However the only way we could do something is if we could do the stuff the way we wanted”. The girls stood their ground. “We caused them a few problems”, Emma continued, “because we’re not like, you can do our art work and stuff. They were like, ‘No Shouts No Calls’ would have done better if we hadn’t done ‘Axes’ but we told them that there would never have been ‘No Shouts No Calls’ if we didn’t do ‘Axes’”.

So there you have it. Electrelane are not going to badger you with feminist rhetoric and they are not going to sit down and let people or record companies get in the way of doing something they clearly feel passionate about. Electrelane are true artists and believers in what they do and worth checking out the next time they play. They also -thankfully for us- don’t hold a grudge.

Fumbling around in the murky gloom of The Olympia dressing room, James Mercer, lead singer with The Shins, is having trouble locating a light-switch. We’re supposed to be conducting an interview, but considering we can barely make out each other’s faces, Mercer has taken it upon himself to rectify the situation. Finally, success, and a feeble light above the mirror flickers on. As my eyes adjust, I realise this is an extremely modest setting in which to interview the lead singer of one of America’s biggest bands.

Yet Mercer seems unfazed by his surroundings, and as he settles into one of the Olympia’s battered red velvet chairs, I think he could be any overgrown indie boy recently pulled off of the streets of Dublin. Scruffy jeans, a nondescript t-shirt and a couple of days worth of stubble: if he wasn’t an international rock star, you’re pretty sure his mother would be sitting at home worrying about him. However, unlike most scruffy indie boys, Mercer is engaging and articulate (and polite, he helps me check my mini-disc player is working), and within thirty seconds it is clear how much of a professional he is. Which is to be expected, when you consider that he has been playing in bands since the early 1990s. After earning his rock and roll stripes in his first group Flake, Mercer set up The Shins in 1997, striking a deal with his parents: if this latest attempt did not produce an album to be proud of, he’d put down his guitar and head back to college. It was lucky then that the seeds for The Shins first album Oh, Inverted World were sown during this period, and the band has been growing in stature ever since.

The Shins first played in Ireland three years ago, taking in both Oxegen and Whelan’s, and Mercer has fond memories of the Irish gig-going public. When I ask him what we’re like compared to American audiences, the answer could almost sum up the typical American view of Irish natives in general, though from Mercer it is a compliment. “You guys are more boisterous in a jovial, good natured sorta way. There’s really boisterous crowds in our hometown of Albuquerque but they’re not jovial - they’re kinda threatening and hostile!” This may explain why Mercer has since upped-sticks for Portland, Oregon, a place with a greater respect for music, it being the spiritual home to the late great Elliott Smith. “Portland is a cool place. It would probably feel less ‘foreign’ than a lot of other American cities. It’s kinda like a European city, it’s a modern progressive town.” In more than ways than one, Portland is a million miles away from the desert landscape of his New Mexico hometown; as Mercer happily admits “It rains all the time.” Considering the non-existent summer we’ve witnessed, it seems Mercer has every reason to feel comfortable here on Irish soil. The subject of rain naturally brings us onto festivals, and we discuss the mud-fest that has become synonymous with outdoor events these past few months. However, this year, The Shins’ festival experience took them to further-flung territory, as they played the Fuji Rock festival in Japan, and came across a completely different fan base. “Japanese fans are totally nuts, but at the same time completely restrained. And there’s no trash anywhere,” Mercer laughs incredulously, “kids don’t throw shit on the ground!” What they do do however, is give. Mercer gives an embarrassed shake of his head. “The first time we went to Japan we felt like bastards, because we didn’t realise they had this tradition of gift giving.” The band members were regularly greeted in their hotel lobby by crowds of polite soft-spoken Japanese fans, eager to shower their idols with gifts before deferentially scurrying away. On returning to Japan this summer, Mercer made sure he came prepared. “This time I went with all kinds of smoked salmon from Oregon. They were stoked!”

From this bizarre anecdote, its clear there are clearly different rules of engagement for different continents, so how does Mercer feel about Europe in comparison to America? The Shins are big business in the States now, their 3rd album Wincing the Night Away debuting at number 2 in the Billboard charts, the highest ever placing for their label Sub-Pop. There was a great deal of hype surrounding the band after their name check and soundtrack use in a well-known American indie film, so is the hype less pronounced in Ireland and the UK? Mercer is in two-minds. “It’s definitely catching up. Selling out the Olympia, that’s a big deal for us.” It’s less manic for the band in Europe, but only slightly. “You step back in time a little bit, but it’s changing quickly. In a way its kinda sad - things are so much simpler when you’re a smaller band. Now you start sweating the small things, whereas when you’re a smaller band you just show up and you don’t really have the ability to worry about how you end up sounding. You just go out there and do it.”

Of course, Mercer and his band-mates have been going out there and ‘doing it’ for more than a decade now, so the rise into the big leagues is appreciated after years of playing small venues in supporting slots. Nowadays, bands are being signed before they’ve even played three chords together, so does this make Mercer feel old? “I think I feel old because I am old! I’m 36 now, I’ve been this way for ten years though.” Indeed, it seems Mercer was born a generation too late, and any outward signs of ‘coolness’ he says are an act. “I was always faking it when I was in Flake. I pretended I was into what was current, but really I was like “Whatever.” In reality I was listening to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Sam Cooke.” He was still cool, just in an old school way. “We’re always asked (adopts perky TV presenter voice) “What’s your TOP FIVE RECORDS from last year,” and Jesus, I’m like “I couldn’t name you ten records that came out in the last ten years!” Of course, he is exaggerating slightly. “I have the Arcade Fire record, I have the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah record, I have the Peter, Bjorn and John record. I’m hipper than my mom!”

Much of Mercer’s inability to keep up with today’s music may have something to do with the fact that touring and recording takes up the majority of his time. Add to this the recent birth of his son, and it’s unsurprising that he’s unaware of the new music that is out there. Considering these factors, its therefore also unsurprising that touring is becoming less of a priority for him. In the week that they played the Olympia, the Shins had a gig scheduled for the following 5 nights, in 5 different countries. Mercer admits that the buzz can get old very quickly. “At some point its gonna feel like we’ve played this fucking set for a year now. That’s when you get the feeling its about time to do a new record. You get this kind of intuition about it, and it’s at that point that I’ll start pushing for time off.” This is not to say that Mercer does not enjoy gigs, he simply does not appreciate the concept of touring as glorified promotion. “There’s always some sort argument to do a gig because “Hey guys, if you do this - they’ll play you on the radio!” He snorts sarcastically and rolls his eyes heavenwards. “Which is a really shitty game to play.” The Shins may be a big American band, but their label, Sub-Pop is still only an independent label, “And indie labels have no fuckin’ sway at all” where the radio markets in the US are concerned. “Even all those alternative radio stations in The States are extremely corporate. It’s just like the old days - its payola.” Not that Mercer is too bothered really. While he laments the narrow-mindedness of the MTV generation, he’s not exactly sure he wants to be lumped in with ‘emo’ bands and lip-synching Britney-alikes. “It’s not like a lot of our songs fit in with My Chemical Romance, and this is the stuff that seems to be really working - the kids fucking love it! You can’t really argue with that - that’s our lot.” What Mercer seems to be saying is that The Shins may not be down with the kids, but really, they’ve been around too long to care. Later that night I watch them walk out onto the Olympia stage to greet the ‘boisterous jovial’ Irish crowd, and the vibe is certainly not that of your typical emo-gig. True enough, there are guys with ludicrously tiny waists in skinny jeans hiding behind their floppy hair, and there are a few girls with panda eye make up and skull-and-crossbones all over their t-shirts. But the higher proportion of the crowd are new professional types, still not willing to abandon their indie credentials even though they’re now probably working 9-5 and have a mortgage. This is the spirit that The Shins successfully tap into as they launch into an energetic set- yeah we’re older but we’re still hip. Hipper than your ma, that’s for sure.