The interview starts a day early and in Camden
not Farringdon; we’re outside the NME ‘on’ night with Ikara Colt and
Tahiti 80.
There I am waiting for the punters to finally leave (they already have
– here starts a long train of incompetence) when Erland turns up. He’s
been watching the band and thinks they’re good. He also has some words
to say on the worth of interviews with websites that make me worry
about the following day. We all toddle off to our respective
destinations (mine should have been my bed but wasn’t).
So here we are 18 hours later and he remembers who I am and turns out
to be a thoroughly nice chap. English to embarrass any Englishman (As
these Nordic types usually do) and enthusiastically talking about Kings
of Convenience (KOC), Turin Brakes, I am Klute and Belle and Sebastian.
The setting is ideal – a listening room at source HQ in Farringdon,
Erland is dressed in his trademark style (including the obligatory big
glasses). Initially (and you might not have expected this) he is
dancing to a garage remix of something by Playgroup. He dances
suspiciously well. Sober, he possesses all the action and fluidity I
can only manage (or at least believe I achieve) when drunk. I am
jealous, this is not the position I was expecting to be in. Later when
I state that you can’t dance to Kings of Convenience he looks slightly
taken aback and states that you can; I know I can’t but I suspect that
he could without much effort, and probably look good doing it.
Why this overlong and unexpectedly journalistic introduction you’re
asking – surely this is out of character? Well, yes, you’re right. The
reason is the second piece of incompetence – I have a MD recorder but
no minidisc! Pen and paper it is then. What follows is an abridged
version of what was, for me at least, an enjoyable conversation
punctuated by furious (and largely illegible) scribbling.
We started talking about the Tahiti 80 gig the previous evening –
Erland, it would appear, has a fantastic memory and informed me of a
conversation Glyn (he of After Skool Klub) could not remember ever
happening about how what London needs is more “Juice Bars”. This
occurred in ’98 when I was 20, monogamy was more than a vague concept
and clubs were new and exciting.
As well as juice bars London apparently needs some good nightclubs –
it’s all “60’s and garage – no good music” what we need is “Stereolab,
Belle and Sebastian and Ride”. He’s right of course so anyone running a
club like that drop him a note and I expect he’ll be right down. Also
anyone running a club like that should drop me a note and get included
in the listing.
Talking about a new KOC album he looks a bit annoyed; apparently
they’re not happy at the number of singles taken from this one; They’d
have been happier stopping at Toxic girl and, surprisingly, he says
“Toxic girl was the only real single – they’re all good songs but
they’re not singles” and that “Toxic girl has a playfulness” lacking in
Failure, people think it’s “too dark”. Having said that they are very
pleased with the new arrangements in ‘failure’.
You’ll be interested to hear that alongside the second KOC album (which
they hope to finish in May ’02) Erland is involved in a separate
project with “more beats”. Of this he says it’s “completely different…
unsoulfull and beat driven…” and that he’s “not always warbling” which
will make for an interesting change. Don’t worry though – the new album
will contain similar material with some new elements appearing on the
new single but basically “the same music but new songs”. The thing that
amused me most from the interview were the statements relating to the
genesis of the KOC sound; not so much a deliberate creation but a
reaction to the fact that taking a band about is a lot of effort and an
attempt to focus more completely on the lyrics. Hence no band – just
two chaps and guitars.
On the subject of making albums Erland has a number of thoughts -
mostly it would appear, critical of Air. He asks “why does Air take
three years to release an album that sounds like it’s taken two
months?” He also thinks that “vocals should mean something”, you should
be able to ask “how do they make you feel” but with Air you feel “like
you couldn’t be arsed” which is never good. Going to the opposite
extreme can lyrics say too much - for instance the continual
storytelling of Belle and Sebastian? “I do get the feeling that Stuart
Murdoch writes about something. Leave the song and listen to the music”
which certainly works for Belle and Sebastian – they generally go down
a storm in a club and there’s not much interest in delicate
storytelling after 4 pints and 2 hours of dancing.
Erland is perfectly happy to be labelled as a cornerstone of the
much-vaunted “New Acoustic Movement”, moreover he says “I think that of
those bands we are the one that is the most… If you replaced NAM with
white bands then we would be the purest white - totally focussed on
Acoustic Music”. This is fair – Turin Brakes, perhaps second if there
were a NAM race - tend to appear on stage with a backing band complete
with organs and basses and other equally unsporting accompaniment.
So there it is – Kings of convenience are actually quite interesting. I
was unconvinced till after this and I went back and tried to listen to
the album without falling asleep… And you know what? It didn’t work.
Again. I’ve decided that starting listening at 2am is the problem and
not the songs though.
matty |
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