The Hives

Snappy, upbeat songs? Check. Frontman with witty on-stage banter? Check. With five albums-worth of tracks like ‘Hate To Say I Told You So’, ‘Main Offender’ and ‘Walk Idiot Walk’, The Hives are a band built to thrive in festival environments – just ask anyone who attended, or watched the live stream of, their show-stealing performance at Coachella last month.

Agoria

With his stripped-back techno tracks, DJ/producer Sébastien Devaud, aka Agoria, has happened upon a distinct sound which melds the classic Detroit sound he adores with the European electro he finds himself immersed in. His ‘Forms’ live show is a complete audio-visual experience – perfect for a good old-fashioned rave, especially with his suitably late 2am slot on Saturday night.

Django Django

With critics gushing over their debut album, Django Django have lived up to the hype that has surrounded them since the second half of last year. Their art rock tunes are infused with hints of electronic, psychedelia and folk and should trigger lots of spontaneous dancing during their Saturday evening performance.

The Minutes

Dublin rock ‘n’ rollers The Minutes roll into Clermont-Ferrand on Sunday evening when they’ll play before The Hives on the main stage. It’s the latest in a long line of high profile gigs for the band, who will also performing alongside The Black Keys, Foo Fighters and The Stone Roses over the summer months.

Amadou & Mariam

The Malian husband-and-wife duo are one of the headline acts on Sunday night. Performing together for almost 40 years, their music has evolved from simple guitar-and-voice arrangements to a rich, vibrant mix of world music genres, but always with Afro-blues at its core. Their Sunday night set should help provide the perfect finish to Europavox 2012.

Lecs Luther/Rejjie Snow

Having caused a stir in the blogosphere with his YouTube video for ‘Dia Dhuit’, Dublin rapper Lecs Luther threw a curveball recently when he decided to change his stage name to Rejjie Snow. Amazingly, his Europavox appearance will be his first ever live performance. He’ll be joined on stage on Saturday evening by Kid Krul.

Keep Shelly In Athens

Keep Shelly In Athens like to play their cards close to their chest, releasing very little information about themselves. What is known, is that they’re a duo comprising of musician/producer RPR and singer Sarah P, and that their brand of shimmering, dreamy chillwave draws comparisons to Air, Club 8 and St Etienne.

Esser

The fractured electro-pop on Daniel Esser’s first LP, Braveface, divided critics on its release three years ago and the follow-up, Enmity, will likely do the same when it’s released next month. The Europavox crowd are likely to get a taster when Esser takes to the stage on Friday night.

Well, are you?
We’re totally wired as usual, from various substances…coffee, Red Bull, etc. Actually, we’re totally tired from writing the new show, but a good tired.

How did the two of you first come to work together?
Desperation and loneliness… The fuel of comedy. We’ve been working together for 10 years in covers, original and tribute bands but finally took the comedy plunge three years ago.

How seriously do you take your music? Ie – do you use cotton gloves to play your mint condition collection of Smiths singles etc etc?

Yes, we don’t even eat meat near them.

Is it hard to combine music with comedy without it all getting a bit “Weird Al Yankovich”? Or is there something just inherently funny about pop and rock music there to be mined?
Life is inherently funny! And it’s easier and more rewarding writing songs that are funny than it is writing sad singer-songwriter “my lady left me, the world’s black” songs… As for Weird Al, that’s parody! Even musical comedy looks down on that; he didn’t write it, he changed it! Though we might try and write the ultimate, greatest parody song ever as a challenge for the show, now you’ve asked. No pressure.

Lorcan, how are your chops? Can you know your pentatonic scales?
My chops are sweet ‘n’ sour, cause I’m more of a Triad man… man! Though they are hard to play on stylaphone…

In terms of a release, will you go down the studio album route, or is a DVD better given the visual stand-up element?
Both – the CD of the DVD of the show of the tour… We are recording the album at the moment, but the live show and the album are such different mediums so what works live doesn’t always work on record and vice versa. We’re releasing it on December 21st, just in case the Mayans are right in their end of the world predictions.

You’ve been booked to play the Academy on May 26. Nervous? If so, how will you relax pre-gig?
Nervous? Yes. It’s squeaky bum time. Will we choke? Will we make it across the line? Will we leave it ‘til injury time to claim victory? As for relaxing, we’ll sleep when we’re dead! That’s a line from Jon Bon Jovi. Now kids, Jon Bon Jovi was a star from the ‘80s. Now, the 80s was decade… Oh forget it.

Emmet, what’s the one impersonation you just can’t quite nail yet?
Danny O’Brien, our special guest for the evening. I tried impersonating him but it turns out that’s fraud. Pierce Brosnan is a tough one also, and I’m raging about that ‘coz I love the cheesy fecker. It’s more of double D’oh 7 when I do it! He makes my Bond-impression collection incomplete.

What other musicians make you laugh? I always think Neil Hannon has a brilliant sense of humour.
Neil Hannon has some divine comedy. Boom Boom! Crystal Swing are hilarious. Lorcan loves the comedy stylings of Leonard Cohen, and Tom Waits’ piano tuner has a great sense of humour. But seriously, we love the brilliant singer-songwriter Trevor Browne. We’re always happy if he’s on the same bill as us as we get to bask in his greaterness.

You’ve appeared on the Republic of Telly a few times. Tell us a nice story about Georgia Salpa.
Unfortunately, we’ve only seen her in the papers, just like you. We’ve requested that she be in every sketch or video we’ve ever done, but it turns out it’s in Bernard O Shea’s contract that she can only appear with him. Although, I saw her on the street one day and she looked right at me. It was a dirty look, sure, but I took it. Anyway, Lorcan prefers Nadia Forde so we won’t fall out over it.

Totally Wired play the Academy, Dublin on May 26. Tickets €17.25.

Who are you and where are you from?

The three of us share a common ‘tribal language’. Growing up, we drank the same economy-size Mountain Dew from SuperAmerica, saw the same bad movies on Channel Nine, heard the same great rock radio on KQRS, and learned about jazz from going to the Dakota Jazz Club in St. Paul. This Midwestern heritage is not as obviously deep as that of, say, New Orleans or Senegal, but it has its own twisted charm. The first time TBP played together, we were not called The Bad Plus. We were just teenagers trying to play jazz standards in the living room of Reid Anderson’s family house in Golden Valley, Minnesota. Reid and David King had been best friends since the age of thirteen. I was younger by two years and had met Reid when he went to college in Wisconsin. When Reid put us together in his mother’s house that day in 1990 – well, let’s just say the results were less than magical. We would have been shocked had you told us that fifteen years later we would be a full-time band.

Who are your favourite artists from your hometown?

Prince! Husker Du, the unsung drummer Eric Gravatt.

What’s it really like touring?

You don’t get to see much! Just the airport, the hotel, and the venue. The best thing is when you get to eat local.

What’s your favourite city/town/venue to play?

Minneapolis, New York, London, Paris, Dublin…many more.

What’s your ideal festival line-up?

It’s all about how much the audience digs what’s going on. Hopefully there aren’t too many bands or stages, so that everyone has enough concentration.

What has been your biggest achievement of the last year?

We premiered our arrangement of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. That was a real accomplishment, and we will be touring it in Ireland.

What do you do to relax?

Watch movies and TV; exercise.

What are you reading?

A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan.

How about TV, anything good on the box?

Buffy, The Wire, Breaking Bad. Sometimes old Columbo episodes!

What’s the last thing you bought online?

Gear, CDs, books…

Who would you most like to collaborate with if you got the chance?

We’ve talked about trying to wrangle in Ornette Coleman…

What is the worst cover your band has ever performed?

‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’.

What website do you visit most?

Do The Math, the blog of pianist Ethan Iverson

What is your favourite…

…album of the last year?

Blue Soliloquy by Sam Newsome.

…song?

‘The Long Goodbye’ by John Williams

….lost classic song?

‘Nothing to Lose’ by Henri Mancini

… record label?

Blue Note

…current artist?

TBP loves Portishead, their last album was great.

…YouTube video?

Jeez, not sure about a new video — is it ok to say we watched this recently?

A new artist that you are most excited about?

James Blake

What was the last great gig you went to?

Bill McHenry with Orrin Evans, Eric Revis, and Andrew Cyrille.

What should we expect from your Irish shows?

The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky.

The Bad Plus play Mandela Hall, Belfast (25th May), National Concert Hall, Dublin (26th), Hawkswell, Sligo (27th), Riverbank, Kildare (29th), Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick (30th), Triskel Christchurch, Cork (31st)

Your new album is called Nootropics, known also as ‘smart drugs’, how did you get to be interested in the relations between technology and the human being?

Well actually technology is at a point where the relationship between human and technology influence us as a species. It’s how we survive, it’s how we live. We were interested in the fact that we can use technology to change ourselves on a basic chemical level. It brings up questions like “What do we wanna change? What don’t we wanna change? Is it a good thing or a bad thing?”.

What’s your opinion on these kind of memory and intelligence enhancers? Do you think it’s a reflection of how society works nowadays, challenging our capacities to work harder, better and faster?

I guess human always used technology to improve the situation they’re in, their capacities. It goes back to agriculture or even before that. I think now is an extension of that. It’s interesting that what we have on our plate is the power to redesign ourselves, that’s kind of new.

On Nootropics, you take a step back from guitar-driven melodies and concentrate on keyboards with a more experimental approach and even ambient tracks. Was it something you were aiming for or did it come naturally?

It is something we have planned for, to use keyboards in addition to guitars. We wanted to record the album somewhere where we had a lot of in-house synths.

Your singer Jenna said in an interview last year for Soundblab you were good friends with your hometown’s dream-pop band Beach House, have they influenced you on this album, especially for the atmospheric synth melodies and soft reverberating guitar parts in the background?

I guess to an extent we end up being influenced with anybody we’ve toured with. For Beach House, we were more influenced by their work ethics than the way they write songs. They are extremely hard working. I’ve known Alex (Beach House’s guitarist) since we were both 18, I’ve been good friends with him for a long time, I figured out a lot about how to work from him.

The sound of Nootropics seems colder than on your debut album Twin hand movement, with binary rhythms and obsessive bass lines, close to 80’s Kraut-rock music. What was your state of mind when you wrote these songs?

Maybe some people would say it sounds cold and mechanical. I don’t think that the songs come off that way, when you sit down and you listen to the whole album there’s a lot happening on top and beneath this “cold” impression. It’s an interplay between the deliberately static. It’s a duality we have between what’s human, what’s organic, what’s corporal, and the technology that is cold and dehumanizes us. Technology is built through human experiences, it’s how we survived, in the early days of humanity we figured out how to make tools to keep ourselves alive. We have to realize what helps us and the things that are destructive for us from the atomic bomb to this information age where things are virtual all the time. But at the same time, to be a human you do have to love technology on a basic level. If you try to live without a home, without a house, it would be really difficult. There are things we have to celebrate about it. The question is not “Is technology bad?” but more “How much technology is good for us?” There’s a way to give it life. So on the album there’s this mechanical film but also we try to engage, to dance with this concept of technology, give it life, love cause it’s an extension of who we are.

What were you listening to during the recording of the album?

We were listening to a lot of different things in the band. But we were on the same page for kraut-rock and some things that we tried to refer to intentionally like Kraftwerk and Neu! .

One could say Nootropics is a more cerebral and challenging for the listener than your debut album, did you change the way you play the songs for your live performances?

We started playing them pretty much the same but they’ve evolved with live character. You can try to recreate what happens on an album live but to an extent it’s going to evolve. There are some elements that happen during live shows, there’s a certain vibe different than on the album.

Is your new direction going to influence the way you play your old tracks, and do you intend to keep a balance between the first and second album in the set-list?

Now we have five people on the band so when we play old songs we’re able to bring new elements, Carter (keyboardist) has brought some really cool ideas to the old songs that we play, there’s some new synths and guitars. They are a little bit different, for the better. We play mostly the new album.

You’re on a European tour at the moment, have you got a city you’re really looking forward to playing? What are your best memories from your last trip?

There are a lot of places that were exited to play, we’ve never played in Prague that would be exciting. To go as far east as the Czech Republic is really new for us. We played a gig in small town Saintes we arrived late we hurried. They said “stop unloading it’s more important that you eat”. Someone from the neighborhood cooked for us, gave us champagne, some of the best food we’ve eaten anywhere. No one in town seemed to mind, it was very nice, we ended up having a really good night. That level of hospitality is incredible. You don’t get treated like that on USA tour it’s always “hurry up and play”!

Lower Dens are set to play Forbidden Fruit Festival in Dublin June 3rd along with headlining acts New Order, Death Cab For Cutie and Death In Vegas. Tickets are available on Forbidden Fruit website.

Much like Fovea Hex, Sheeran’s approach combines the traditional with the avant-garde, the earthy with the impressionistic. Her debut release proper – 2010’s Music For The Deep Woods EP – and last year’s crowd-funded album Lust Of Pig & The Fresh Blood were stunning and evocative works that reflected a restless, curious and inventive mind. Combining elements of folk and baroque pop with abrasive electronics and gothic textures, her eerie soundscapes were complemented by a potent vocal range, along with lyrical themes that ranged from the forlorn to the macabre.

Last year’s full-band shows in support of Lust Of Pig…, meanwhile, were a revelation: fleshing out her songs and revealing new nuances with the accompaniment of a string section, harp, bowed saw and electronics. Even when she doesn’t have the advantage of a full band, Sheeran’s theatrical sensibility (the visual arts being a long-time interest of hers) comes to the fore, whether it’s with her attention to stage lighting or – as with her show in Whelan’s last year – utilising dramatic pole-dancing accompaniment.

What’s most exciting about Sheeran is that the quality and diversity of her music is more than keeping pace with her prolific work-rate: since the Music For The Deep Woods EP she’s released two further EPs (To The Depths and Murderous Love), a collection of live studio recordings, her impressive soundtrack accompaniment for Paperdolls’ ABSOLUT Fringe festival performance, a split 7” with Katie Kim, three remix EPs, and now her new album What The World Knows. On top of that, she’s increasingly focusing her attention on the ‘alien pop’ duo she’s formed with collaborator Marc Aubele (who mixed most of her solo releases), Nanu Nanu – a more upbeat, synth-based project who have an album due this year. Phew.

“I cried all day and I didn’t even get a kiss” is the arresting opening line on What The World Knows, but the album wastes no time in forcefully grabbing your attention. From the off, the sound palette recalls the ominous, malevolent textures that characterised Lust Of Pig standout ‘A Wake’. The opening title track and ‘Redlight’ are all guttural, juddering electronics and seething melodrama; the sinister feel of the latter further heightened by a dispassionate, robotic-sounding vocal. Which is an interesting inversion: on previous records Sheeran’s vocals have stood out as a turbulent, elemental force, whereas on the early stages of this album the dramatic instrumental backdrop is as much an indicator of inner turmoil – if not more so.

It doesn’t quite retain that sort of intensity throughout though – indeed, this is the musician’s most varied record yet. ‘Forever Love’ is possibly the best thing she’s done: a low, hypnotic drone and a quietly insistent rhythmic heartbeat framing a superbly measured vocal performance. Meanwhile, Sheeran’s filmic craft – that impeccable ability to conjure mysterious imagery in your mind’s eye – is as evident as ever on tracks like ‘Until Danger’s Gone’ and the ornate, classically-tinged ‘Hurricane’. Lyrically, references to loss permeate ‘Lonesome Soldier’ and ‘Death Of A Star’ – the latter an elegy of sorts to her late mother.

State interviewed her in advance of this weekend’s upcoming full-band show in Whelan’s (due to be her only performance of What The World Knows material this year).

The new album has a strikingly different sound and feel to it. Does it feel like a new phase in comparison to your previous work?

In a way yes it does, and I think it’s a lot to do with the experience I have gained in relation to recording and electronic production and things like that. Over the past year or two I’ve learned so much. It really made this album a lot easier to make, both for me and Marc Aubele who mixed the record.

Would it be fair to say that the Murderous Love EP was sort of a chance to get some remaining songs out there and wipe the slate clean, in a way?

Yes it was, but to be honest I have felt like that about every release so far – and even on this album there are songs that I had already recorded long before my debut album even surfaced, songs like ‘Hurricane’ and the title track ‘What The World Knows’. It’s only now, having released this one, that I really feel that I am up to date with my music and can actually start looking ahead at what new material may be brewing… exciting times.

What The World Knows leans more towards electronic textures in general. Did you take a different approach to recording the material for this record than you did on the previous ones?

I’ve always enjoyed experimenting with electronic sounds and fusing that with acoustic and more orchestral sounding music, but really for a long time I didn’t know what I was doing. This album was a chance for me to put some of the techniques and skills I had learned from the last records into play, and it definitely helped create a more unified, slick sound. I also had a new microphone that I used for all my vocals and also the cello and harp – so sonically, it was much easier to fuse the acoustic and electronic elements as there was a common sound across the board. That is a problem that I have often encountered through recording albums myself at home, or wherever I happen to be recording. It can often lead to difficulties in terms of combining all the recordings to sound unified, or like they were from the same time/place. This album has a lot less of those problems, and I think it definitely comes across in the overall sound of the record.

You’ve been involved in music for a long time, and you were/are a part of the Fovea Hex collective. How much of an influence or inspiration was it working with musicians like Clodagh Simonds and Cora Venus Lunny? Were there any live performances that were particularly memorable?

We have done some really incredible gigs, mostly in Europe. It was an invaluable learning curve getting to play with such great musicians/creative minds from the young age of 15. It really opened me up to a whole world of musicianship and professionalism that it would have probably taken me years to get to see had I not been on board with Fovea Hex. Getting to see how gigs are run in places like Italy, Spain, Austria and France was also very insightful, and something I’m glad I got to see before I really started gigging myself here in Ireland, because I had a good perspective on how well things can be run.

With the Fovea Hex performances we did, it’s actually very difficult for me to pick a favorite…they were all so special! I guess there were two in particular that blew me away. In 2007 we were invited by David Lynch to close his ‘The Air Is On Fire’ exhibition that he was running in The Cartier Foundation, Paris. We played outdoors in a natural amphitheatre surrounded by ancient trees, and our dressing room was the entire penthouse of Cartier, Paris. We all got such a shock when we got brought up in the glass elevator and they opened the door… that was a serious ‘wow!’ moment. I think we spent the first half hour bursting into fits of laughter in disbelief at what was actually happening. Another really special Fovea Hex gig was when we played outdoors in Trentino, way high up in the Italian Alps. We were at the very top of a mountain – they have an astronomical observatory there – and we could see literally for hundreds of miles. Singing out into those huge valleys as darkness was approaching was another amazing experience. I also got to see (thanks to the observatory folk) the surface of the Moon, Venus and one of Jupiter’s Moons – if I remember correctly – through their amazing telescope.

Would you have found that Fovea Hex’s music influenced your own solo work?

Well, being involved in Fovea Hex was one of the first recording experiences I had – and my first exposure to digital recording techniques – so I really took a lot from that. Before then, I had only ever recorded onto an 8-track. When I would go up to Dublin to do vocals for Clodagh she was recording everything herself in a studio in her house, so it was very personal – we weren’t just renting out a recording studio for a day or whatever – and I saw everything: how to put a track into a record, how to position the mic, ways of applying reverb, ways of editing out crackles and pops from the vocal, not to mention the realization that songs don’t have to always follow the same rules of ‘verse, chorus, verse’. Her style of songwriting is so unique and at 15, you’re still so impressionable – you’re soaking everything up. I’m sure that would definitely have had a big influence on me.

There’s a very theatrical feel to your music and a very strong visual element (whether in terms of the accompanying promo videos, or just the images it conjures up when you’re listening to it). When you’re writing the material, do you have specific images or associations in your mind? Do some songs have more vivid associations than others?

I do think of imagery when I’m making a song, but it seriously could be anything… a series of lines, a scene out an old rotting window, the colour orange, a scene from a film that might not even have been made yet, it varies so much! I can’t help that though. I don’t try to do it on purpose to like, ‘help’ the song come out – it just sort of happens on its own. Sometimes it’s crap because you might not really like the imagery your mind has associated with it…but you know yourself, once you have an image in your mind it’s near impossible to get rid of, like when you see a car crash or something.

I know for ‘A Wake’ I always see a moment from my friend’s mother’s wake back in 2005 – but it looks like it was happening through a filter of Bjork’s ‘Human Behaviour’ video, and then a vampire woman that’s on this 3D poster I got ages ago sits up in the coffin. Yeah, makes no sense…and not really that related to the song! But you get the idea of how random it is. For ‘Sleep F**king’ from my first album I always see a huge whale skimming the surface of the vast ocean as it gathers air for another momentous dive to the depths.

Some folks down south won’t have heard your brand of vicious alt rock just yet. For them, who are you, and what are you up to?
We are Axis Of, hailing from the north coast of Ireland but relocated Belfast. We play crushingly heavy pop music to put it simply. We are in the midst of getting things ready for our debut album and preparing tours to coincide with the release.

Rock Sound, by all accounts, absolutely love you. How has the reaction to Port Na Spaniagh changed your profile in general?
It’s definitely helped our online presence to no end. I think it shocked people a bit as until then we were seen as a bit of a straight up hardcore band based around fast paced drums and screaming, having a song with a big catchy chorus seemed to change at least some peoples perspective on us. It also helped us in the live setting as it gave the crowd something to sing along to without having to listen to the song 100 times to decipher what we were saying.

Did the Maida Vale sessions feel like something of a coming of age?
I would say so, as overjoyed and thankful as we were for being given that opportunity, I was a bit nervous we would turn up, show ourselves up like amateurs and make them regret ever choosing us. I was quite surprised how well it all went, the guys in the studio had recorded Bowie and hundreds of other amazing artists, but they said we were by far the best….I joke, but we got all our takes done efficiently and were all finished with around 2 hours of our time slot left. The guys were saying they were impressed by our tightness and professionalism. They have obviously worked for some really big names, so that’s a compliment of the highest order.

Heavy rock’s a million miles from the ‘in’ sound in music right now, which is probably a great reason to be playing it. Does being ‘unfashionable’ make the scene more concentrated, or just introduce more challenges?
I guess it depends on perspective. In my lifetime guitar music (especially heavy) has never been overly popular in the mainstream, well at least in a chart sense. So for me it’s always been the same, heavy bands will continue to be sustainable just on a smaller scale. Even within the confines of heavy rock, there are many fashionable and unfashionable scenes. You see thousands of kids going to see a metalcore band covered in tattoo’s, where as a grunge band would maybe struggle in this day and age. I think we’ve been blessed in the sense that our music’s kind of hard to pin down, which means we end up playing with many different kinds of bands to different types of people.

The album’s seemed like a long time coming. How’s progress?
It’s pretty much done, a few tweaks here and there. It’s been a long time coming for sure, we’ll probably be totally sick of before it sees the light of day, but at this stage we absolutely love it and can’t wait to get it out.

We heard you once had a fairly spectacular van crash in Germany. Have there been any other huge ‘moments’ on tour?
The crash really put things in perspective, a few months before hand we got clamped for messing up our road tax, and got fined £300. At the time it was the worst thing we could ever imagine. The crash just took things to a whole new level, and we’re still paying for it now. It’s a shame because the tour it happened on was shaping up to be the best we had been on. Being pulled over by the French police because our van was not in the correct weight restrictions was pretty scary, but even though we were clearly breaking the law, they let us go (presumably) because we were dumb and Irish.

You seem to tour relentlessly. What are the best and worst things about being on tour?
The best is playing packed out shows full of people who love you; the worst is playing empty shows to one person who hates you (the promoter).

There still seems something of a disconnect between the Northern Irish and Republic scenes – by all accounts Axis Of are doing better in terms of show sizes on the UK mainland than down south. Is there anything in particular that you think causes the relative lack of border-crossing music?
I see what you mean; there are plenty of bands who would get a ferry over to the UK before crossing the border for shows, which makes no sense at all. Maybe some bands see the mainland as the quickest route in getting to labels, managers etc. To be honest, we love playing in the south. I would say our shows in the south have grown bigger than that of the mainland, which is just natural, as we get to play in the south a lot more, and we get the opportunities to do better gigs because our pool of contacts in the south is a lot better than in the mainland. Our shows in Cork, Dublin and Galway have been growing, so at every opportunity we try to play these places, as well as small towns, as they can turn out to be the most fun. The south is such a good resource, nowhere in Ireland is too far from anywhere else in Ireland, so you can always do one off gigs, which can’t be said for the UK, as you would need to make the ferry trip worthwhile. Plus Ireland is much nicer to look at.

How much difference have ASIWYFA made for bands like yourselves in championing Northern Irish rock – their promotion seems far more genuine than a brotherly thing?
A massive difference, we’ve found people coming to our shows solely off the back of our association with them. Because they’re so genuine in their music, people believe every word they say, so when they champion a band, people listen. Plus its not all talk either, they have helped us out massively. They were instrumental (apologies) in helping out after the crash, they’ve got us on their gigs playing to sold out venues all over Europe, they’ve lent us gear and transport without hesitance and are always there for advice. I think it’s safe to say without them we wouldn’t be where we are today, and without us they would probably be a lot more successful.

You have an impressively ungoogleable band name. How did it come about?
Naming the band was one of the hardest things we’ve ever done. Do you go for bland and unoriginal or eccentric at the risk of sounding pretentious? It’s a fine line. It comes from the phrase Axis Of Evil, but too many bands were called that, and we wanted it to be a bit less embarrassing. Bear in mind this band started when we were 17. Not that we’re making excuses.

A lot of your tracks have an angry edge. What’s make Axis Of angry in 2012?
It’s important to keep context, we’re not constantly angry, we all come from comfortable backgrounds and we’re incredibly grateful for the privileges that we’ve had through our upbringing. I guess it’s like any person or band, some things make us happy and some make us angry. One thing that is incredibly frustrating is the campaign to bring fracking to Ireland, we’ve been here before with the Lignite campaign and it seems people haven’t learnt. The damage it will do to the local environment with contaminated water and air, gas leaks and explosions and endangered local wildlife is not speculation. These effects have happened everywhere that fracking has taken place. Some say it will boost the local economy, but that’s far from a given with most of the resulting gas being shipped overseas. Asides from that it will industrialise beautiful parts of the country, which is something that can’t be taken too lightly. There is very little to gain from the whole thing and it will only benefit a very select few. You hear about things like this happening all over the world, it’s just especially upsetting when it happens on your doorstep.

Your live shows have gained quite a reputation. Is there anything in particular you like to throw into a live set, or is it just a case of keeping things as energetic as possible?
Asides from all the volume and heavy riffs, we like to keep it fun and upbeat. It’s good to see people mosh obviously, but we like to encourage dancing, singing and as much crowd surfing as possible. Not everyone likes getting pushed about so it’s important not to alienate anyone. If a gig’s going well, people will vibe off our energy, it’s a really nice thing when that happens. My dream is to have a crowd of a thousand people doing the same synchronised line dance to one of our songs. When that happens we’ll know we’ve made it.

Axis Of play the Camden Crawl Dublin on 11th and 12th May, venues to be announced on the day. Tickets are on sale now priced €40 for the weekend, €25 per day.

Following the fate The Fallout Trust then The Corrections, how difficult was it to push forward with Clock Opera and what drives you?
I am driven to make music and to play it to people. My previous bands did the same thing and that music still proudly exists. We are a different band.

As Clock Opera, you first gained online attention with an amazing remix of Marina & The Diamonds’ ‘I Am Not A Robot’, and have since then Au Revoir Simone, Blood Orange, Metronomy, Tracey Thorn & Feist. Apart from the obvious artistic value, do you find remixing useful for maintaining a presence, keeping blogs aware of you etc.?
People in the music industry seem to equate silence with failure, so I think you are right to suggest that remixing has been useful in maintaining a mutter. But we’ve made a lot of fans that way too & played with a lot of the bands I’ve remixed, so the benefits are many.

By comparison, your own band sound is pretty straight up – anthemic, heart-on-sleeve , life-affirming pop-rock – have you encountered surprise as to what you really sound like as opposed to what may have been projected by your remix work?
You make us sound like a modern-day Status Quo. I don’t consider us to be straight up pop-rock, so I refute that part of your description. I used a lot of the same techniques for our album as I do on remixes, but as we’re a band, it also sounds like a band. In my experience, people who’ve discovered us through the remixes love to discover that there is another side, and vice versa.

Though it’s from 2010, ‘Once And For All’ could have been written with The Olympics in mind, and ‘Belongings’ could be this year’s ‘Chariots of Fire’. Did someone in marketing cop this and influence the album’s release date? [This is a not a dig, in fact the opposite. Time to Forget is sure to soundtrack much of the BBC coverage]
Yes, the game is up. We are a focus-grouped, blue-sky marketing agency round table construction, timed perfectly to explode from the Olympic torch. We’ve all learned how to move in slow-mo, so that montages can be recorded in real-time. In fact all the medals have been decided already & the whole two weeks of telly has been recorded. I can tell you that after the closing ceremony, Usain Bolt gets carried away on Tower Bridge, dives into the Thames & is never seen again.

In preparation for the festival season, what have you worked hardest on for your live show?
My abs, my rear deltoids and my inner calves.

From the Camden Crawl Dublin line-up, who do you most recommend and who will you be checking out?
I haven’t seen Kwes live yet, so I very much hope that our paths cross.

Have you seen this marimba overdub of ‘A Piece of String’? If you had room on stage, would you have that guy on board?
Yes, we have, he’s great. I would have him, Toumani Diabate and Steve Martin on banjo.

Clock Opera plays the Camden Crawl Dublin on May 12th, venues to be announced on the day. Tickets are on sale now priced €40 for the weekend, €25 per day.

So Keith, what have you and the guys been up to lately?

Well Andy Burrows has just moved over from London to New York and we are currently establishing a band base here. It’s weird as it’s the first time that We are Scientists as a band have all lived in the same town concurrently in years. The last time was when we recorded our first album.

Has Andy influenced the writing style or the way the group have been working on the album then?

It is hard to attribute the album change to Andy but definitely the way we have been working on the album construction has changed. With the last album, Andy was living in London and working on his own album while we were living in the States. We only ended up sporadically getting together to work on the songs at weekends or over the phone. So all of the work was hurried, and involved us all working or listening independently to MP3 tracks and choosing ones to work on.

How is the album progressing?

Right now we are working on arrangements for the songs which have been written and we are messing around in our rehearsals stage. So the whole writing experience is really fun right now.

How is the album sounding? Have you stuck to the last albums style or adopted any new elements?

Well it’s a slightly mellower album then what people normally associates us with, but nothing mellower then what we have produced before. I think most people associate us with big dance sounding, up tempo numbers and it definitely contains songs like that but the average BPM of the songs have slowed a bit and it’s gone a little more atmospheric then we normally do. But do not worry it is still all pop songs.

Are your lyrics focused on alcohol driven frivolity still or have you changed the tactics a little as you have matured?

(Laughs bemused) Hmm, I think the explicit promotion of alcohol is at a low on this album, but the spirit and volumes consumed have maintained its rigorously high standard of excellence. However lyrically it may not be as rampant but there is still time for me to crowbar and influence it.

Do you think your musical tastes have influenced this album?

This album is less influenced by specific bands, as previously I would have always been able to name bands which were influencing tracks on the albums.  For example the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, Franz Ferdinand, Hall and Oates and Fleetwood Mac have all influenced previous albums but I do not think we have ever recorded a song which totally sounds like any of them.

This new (as yet untitled) album is different. We have been listening to a lot of electronic pop recently as Brooklyn is very much into synth pop at the minute, so it is been slightly inescapable. Living here and being interested in local music, you can’t not be influenced right now. I am sure some synth stuff may creep into the album but it’s not what the album will sound like. It may just be a stylistic influence as no one is going to be hauling out a keyboard on stage.

So will there be a slight Grimes influence on this album then?

Ha, ha, yeah I love that Grimes album and I have been listening to it a lot. We have pretty similar musical touch downs but it is definitely not going to influence our sound.

Do you have a timeline for releasing the album?

We are scheduled to start recording at the end of May and we are hoping to be finished in mid-July with an autumn release data.

Will you be showcasing the new tracks at the Camden Crawl in Dublin?

That’s the plan. We have not really showcased any new songs yet at shows. I think I am always a little squeamish about playing new songs for multiple reasons, so we always reserve the rights to change lyrics and compositions afterwards. I always start sweating after we play a new track live as it’s suddenly out there, in the public consciousness. It instantly gets uploaded to YouTube by fans, which definitely ruins the concept of road testing songs. Hence, I tend to avoid reading online comments after we play a new song as I am definitely highly susceptible to the commentary.

I am definitely one of the reticent ones in the band who insists on playing all the old tracks and singles, while Chris hates that sentiment, and always pushes to play the new songs.

Touring, recording or writing, which do you prefer?

I really like sitting in a writing space and writing songs, I also love touring but I dislike the process of tearing tracks apart and implementing enforced edits until we think a song is right. It’s a really stressful process watching your songs being dissected. I tend to hate being in the studio and going through multiple takes of a voca which will be on our album for ever, while  everyone is hanging out in the recording room chatting. The part where you are creating music for prosperity is my least favourite section and it actually makes me want to throw up.

However this time will be different as we are recording in New York for the first time. It’s with a friend which should make it more bearable, as we can pop out whenever some random snare drum beat is being perfected.  So hopefully it will be a breezier process.

Memorable gigs or festivals ?

We had a great show in Dublin several years ago where we had a stage invasions and kids starting knocking over Chris’s bass amplifier over which is incredible heavy and tall. They started attacking one of the bouncers and it got terrifying apocalyptic which I thought was great.

Ah hopefully this Friday Camden Crawl Dublin gig will be just as memorable.  We are Scientists plays the Camden Crawl Dublin on 11th and 12th May, venues to be announced on the day. Tickets are on sale now priced €40 for the weekend, €25 per day.

It seems to have been a good year or so for Jape, particularly with the popularity of the album, which you’re quoted as having written ‘three times over’. Are you glad you left things as long as you did?

Yeah I suppose so. I mean, you can argue that it’s better to put everything out that you do but I always end up regretting anything I put out that I’m not 100% happy with, so I’m glad I waited. I still hear things I would maybe have done differently all the time but now it’s time to move on.

Ocean of Frequency is a far cry from Ritual; perhaps less immediate, yet it really worms into the head. Did your musical outlook change a lot in the break?

I suppose I got a bit older and a little bit more thoughtful about the whole process of writing. I actively wanted to do something that wouldn’t necessarily be immediate, but would rather worm it’s way under the listeners skin if they gave it the opportunity. It was an experiment, and I think it worked out fairly well.

How have you found melding your new material in with the older hits in the live set up?

It’s been easy enough, we usually rework the tracks for the live setting and these were no different. It’s always a challenge to play the electronic stuff live and keep it interesting and energetic.

You seem to have ample musical outlets, from bleepy dance to heady math rock. Is there something about your musical background that strings them all together?

Every project has a different dynamic, with different members and sounds so I try to apply myself to each situation the best way I can to make it work. It’s good because I get to look and listen from different perspectives with each project, and that keeps the juices flowing.

What will happen to your different projects now that you’ve moved away?

They will all keep moving on at their various speeds and maybe I will pick up one or two more over here as well. For now I’m focusing hard on writing for Jape though.

Redneck Manifesto in particular have seemed to be on the backburner, at least in terms of live appearances, for some time. What does the future hold for them?

Same as ever. We will continue to do stuff at our own chosen pace, and stuff will happen when it happens.

To some extent, are you falling out of love with the guitar?

Not at all, I love the guitar, particularly the bass guitar, and I play every single day. I love it just as much as I ever did but also love other instruments as well.

You must love the Choice Music Prize after winning for a second time. How highly do you value that kind of acclaim?

You can’t attach too much importance to awards but it does feel good to have won twice. The only time I feel really happy is when I write something new that I think is good. It’s an addiction for sure.

Do you have any specific plans for the money?

I bought a mixing desk and owed some money to the VAT man = money gone. Ten grand is a lot of money but I mean there are people doing FundIt campaigns for more than that you know, it’s the one question people keep asking me for some reason and I can understand why but it’s getting kind of annoying.

You talked of self-doubt in the writing of Ocean Of Frequency. Has the critical reception given you confidence?

I always feel a lot of self-doubt with songwriting, it drives me mad, sometimes I really don’t know why I do it but then I can never stop. It’s something in me that I can’t control, if I don’t write I don’t feel happy and then even when I am writing sometimes I don’t feel happy. I love it more than anything in the world, I’m fascinated by music and melody and the emotions and power it can bring.

You seem to make a point of supporting independent musical efforts in Dublin, particularly when it comes to gestures like reduced prices at Record Store Day, smaller shows and a very conversational twitter feed. Was Jape fed by the Irish music scene as much as vice versa?

I love to interact with people, especially musicians because I find it very inspirational, I love to see people do what they do and excel at it, it makes me feel the world is a better place.

Are there any particular aspects of your new home that you’re expecting to come out in Jape’s next release?

A lot of Scandinavians have a very keen sense of melody, I find, so maybe something melodic, I have some new tracks on the go and they are quite electronic, more so than Ocean of Frequency. It will be exciting to see how it turns out.

You’ve played across several continents over the last few months. Have any particular moments stood out along the way?

So many great times. Japan was brilliant, sitting in a volcanic pool of water (an onsen) and laughing with my friends. It can be nice to be alive sometimes.

Jape play the Camden Crawl Dublin on 11th and 12th May, venues to be announced on the day. Tickets are on sale now priced €40 for the weekend, €25 per day.

Who are you and where are you from?

Dave Heumann, from Baltimore, USA

Who are your favourite artists from your hometown?

Future Islands, Celebration, Lower Dens, Microkingdom, Pilgrim, and Dope Body come to mind off the top of the head. There are some other ones too that I’m sure I’m forgetting.

What’s it really like touring?

It’s just like “real life”, only compressed so that the highs and lows are closer together. Also I find my sense of time changes so that time periods such as, say, two weeks, seem completely arbitrary and inexorably linked to the feeling of space and movement.

What’s your favourite city/town/venue to play?

Hard to say. It used to be Miss Peapod‘s  in Penryn, Cornwall, but our friend and contact there has moved. Maybe by the end of this tour we will have a new favourite.

What’s your ideal festival line-up?

Maybe some scenario whereby Neil Young and Richard Thompson would headline and the rest of the list would be friends of ours like Hush Arbors, Luke Roberts and Pontiak. That would be pretty cool.

Tell us a tour story…

Well, there was the other night in Lille where three of us got on this ridiculous carnival ride called the “vertical limit”, which scrambled our insides and resulted in next-day intestinal distress for everyone that went on it. We also had an excellent beer tasting tour in Fribourg, Germany, and a visit to this amazing amateur zoo near Padova, Italy which was behind the hotel we stayed in. Those were just from this current tour.

What has been your biggest achievement of the last year?

It feels like an achievement every time I pay my apartment rent for the month. I’m like “nice, I pulled that one off again”. Other than that, maybe writing the songs on our new split, Aureola.

What do you do to relax?

Just the usual things like reading, meditating, browsing the internet. Also drinking tea and vaping (using an e cigarette type device), but those are more like habits.

What are you reading ?

Oh just some stuff on esoteric philosophies and techniques at the moment. I want to get back into fiction again but have no idea where to start.

How about TV, anything good on the box?

Mine is basically only used for streaming movies and  other online content at the moment. I do like Louie though.

What’s the last thing you bought online?

Some US to UK and Europe adaptor plugs. So much of touring revolves around charging devices. Also apps for my iPad and mp3s and ebooks here and there.

Who would you most like to collaborate with if you got the chance?

Maybe Dylan Carlson? He makes some really cool music. Or  maybe someone whose music I find interesting but don’t know it all that well, like Nick Cave.

What is the worst cover your band has ever performed?

Gordon Lightfoot‘s “Sundown”, which we did once at a party. I messed up the words so badly that we had to stop the song. That was embarrassing. Great song, though.

Have you ever trashed your equipment? When and why?

Not… on purpose.

What website do you visit most? (discounting email etc)

Reddit and Google Plus. Because fuck Facebook.

What is your favourite album of the last year?

Not sure, but that newest Group Inerane one is pretty great. Also the new Pontiak, Echo Ono. And when did Neil Young’s Le Noise come out? That one is awesome.

When you called it a day did you really think that was the end for Orbital?

Totally. As far as I was concerned, that was the end of it, otherwise it’s a bit daft, really. We went for it. We decided to stop.

Why did you get back together then?

I missed it. It’s a bit like driving down the road. You can’t really see the car you’re in but if you get out and watch the car go off in the distance, you think ‘that’s a nice car, I’m pissed off I got out of that car’. About four years later, you catch up with it, jump back in and off we go again. It’s a bit like It’s A Wonderful Life, where you’re quite down on yourself. It takes you to step outside of it to realise, actually, this is a good thing. It’s amazing, really, to be able to step back into something you thought was dead and there’s a whole new world of life there and fully appreciating it this time.

Wonky seems to hark back to the sound of the first four Orbital albums – was that a conscious decision?

What people are hearing is hopefully an honest, good album which is why it sounds like the first four. It probably doesn’t but it kind of does because it’s still us and hopefully if it’s good, it fits in with the other good music we’ve done. We had a very clear objective. We’d done two years of touring, really enjoyed it and said, ‘let’s make some music that we wanna tour with’. We wrote music to play live. Those first four albums are very much done in the spirit of the ‘90s, late-‘80s dance music so because we were thinking about large stages and festivals when we were writing it, it’s got that feel about it. Tracks like ‘Never’ and ‘Stringy Acid’ are very simple which when we play live make sense because they’re loud and big and brash but they still have emotional content.

Zola Jesus and Lady Leshurr are unexpected collaborators for you but work incredibly well. What was it about them that made you want to work with them?

The songs chose them. We thought maybe these songs would be good with a vocal. With Zola Jesus, we felt it would be great to have a wailing goth kind of vocal, a strong voice – definitely female. And then we stumbled across her and she had this really powerful voice, almost like the woman from Propaganda. It was the same with Lady Leshurr. I was listening to the track thinking what if we had some rapping on it, like Missy Elliot, but we couldn’t find many female rappers. Then somebody suggested her so we checked her out and we thought, ‘woah, she’s like a machine gun, she’s perfect’ – we wanted someone who was really sharp on their timing. So it was basically a case of deciding what we wanted and then finding someone who could deliver. Often you collaborate with people over long distance but they both came into the studio on the last week of the album. We were kind of confident of the tracks working as instrumentals if it didn’t come off. But Zola Jesus came down in the last few days and we mixed that and then Lady Leshurr came down the second last day and she just hammered it out quickly in a day and then we mixed it the next day. Which is why the album ended up being called Wonky because that was the last track and it was our celebratory day and we thought, ‘fuck it, let’s call the album Wonky’. We’ve always named things like that, like ‘Chime’, it’s named that because it sounds like a chime, so that track’s called ‘Wonky’ because it’s kind of wonky.

In between the Blue album and Wonky, the music industry has entirely changed. Have you had to think about how to adapt or is that something that you just don’t worry about?

We’ve always had the same management team and I leave it up to them ‘cos I’d be an idiot not to – that’s what they do best, music is what I do best. But I’m quite enjoying it because the thing we loved with Orbital was the playing live and that’s where you can make money nowadays and the record is just really a tool to keep playing live and keep it fresh. That’s how music used to be before the 40s or 50s, music was all about playing live and they thought that recorded music was killing live music. Now, recorded music is dying and the internet is killing that. If you don’t accept change you’re gonna have a tough time with life and getting older. Everything changes. The music industry changes. People aren’t going to stop wanting music – people love music – it’s been there ever since people could bash rocks together- it’s just interesting finding out how it’s gonna work now, how we’re going to earn money from it – if I can earn my living from it, I’ll be happy.

As our chat continues, we end up talking about his solo album (“it was a great experience but cost a lot of bloody money to do”), the Electric Picnic (“a proper festival, there’s loads of mad shit going on”) and how he finds limitations creatively-stimulating (“when I go into a studio with too many synths in it, it’s a bit overwhelming because you feel like you have to use them all”). Talk eventually turns to the launch gig they did with Public Image Limited for Record Store Day.

“I was really hoping to have a chat or get my photograph taken with John Lydon. I only saw him pass in the corridor but I did actually get to meet Mike Read, the Radio 1 DJ from the 80’s, how great was that! It was mad, it was one of those things with someone who because you know his face so well, you think that you know him. (I said) ‘Oh, hello what are you doing here?’ and slapped him on the arse and then thought, ‘Oh shit, it’s Mike Read, I don’t know him at all”. I had a really good chat with him. So I got to meet Mike Read, I didn’t get to meet John Lydon, but hey, that’s how it goes sometimes”.

We end our conversation with Phil listing his current listening favourites. He namedrops Irish knob-twiddlers, The Japanese Popstars, who they’ve been touring with (“they’re set to go a long way, they’re a real festival dance band”). He continues by reeling off a load of female artists – Joanna Newsom, Kate Bush, The Unthanks, Emily Portman. “I like the slightly odd melancholy harmonic female singers because it’s the absolute antithesis of what I can do – I just can’t get anywhere close to doing that”. On mentioning how great it would be to hear Orbital collaborate with Joanna Newsom, Phil asserts, “give me any of those ladies to collaborate with and I’d be really happy”. Here’s hoping we get that fifteen minute techno harp track on album number nine.

Wonky is out now on ACP. Orbital play the Electric Picnic in September.

Now the album’s been released, does it feel that everything’s moved up a gear?

Yeah, it feels kind of crazy right now looking at our schedule for the next couple of months. It’s pretty chaotic but it’ll all be fine, that’s for sure. It’s exciting. We’re new to touring at this level, before we were more of a weekend warrior band. It was about getting home to work for the week and then go and play on the weekend. Now we’re getting to do something we love every day and go places and meet people. At the same time it can be hard. When we were at SxSW my girlfriend was about to have surgery and I couldn’t get back when I needed to. You have to learn how to deal with that.

Having grown as a band so organically, is it hard to adapt to these new circumstances?

We’re asking a bunch of questions right now. It seems we lost control of this little project we created at some point and we’re trying to regain that. You have to put things in other people’s hands and you got to have faith in people on your team. They know more about this business than we do because we know nothing. Every day I feel like I know less and less.

Was there a point when it became clear how big you’d become?

There was a show we played in Milwaukee that we sold out. We thought there’d be about 500 people but it was this beautiful lavish theatre, the stage was huge and we didn’t have our own sound guy. We really felt out of our element on that one so we were nervous and excited.

As a band you seem to strike a balance between the old and new way of doing things, such as releasing Boys & Girls on vinyl with a digital download code…

In a sense, especially when it came to recording. We just wanted to make it the way a lot of our favourite records sounded. There’s also a lot of current bands that we love and we wanted to incorporate bits of that. We’re not anti-digital recording, I just think that for a band like us analogue was the best way to go. It’s great to have our record on vinyl, I’ve always had records. The big US retailers are starting to stock vinyl again, I got the Prodigy the other day.

Do you have your own album on vinyl?

Well I got one copy and we put it on and both sides were of side 2 do we had a problem. It had to go back to the manufacturer so I haven’t got my real copy yet.

Southern music appears to have moved a long way from the days of Molly Hatchet and Lynyrd Skynyrd?

There are so many bands drawing on so many different influences. Some take from the southern rock of the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd, but there are also punk and electronic acts all from the state of Alabama. There’s a lot of southern influence in our music but I’m also a huge Rolling Stones fan. They had some of the twangiest guitar licks I’d ever heard.

The sense of community is strong…

There’s something special, all the bands playing original music seem to support each other. It’s like an underdog mentality. Everyone wants to see someone come from here and do well. Drive-By Truckers are a prime example of that, they’re heroes to everybody in our music community.

Is it the same kind of mentality that you’d find in cities such as Montreal and Seattle?

Being from a small town you can’t just find a guitar player to be in a garage soul band, you have to work with what you have. Everybody’s just friends, that’s how groups start round here. In New York or LA I imagine it’d be easier to pick a scene but in our band we’re all extremely different in our influences. It’s about finding a common thread and narrowing it down enough to make a record. You have to be patient and wait for the right band to come along.

Alabama Shakes play Academy 2 in Dublin (Sat 5th) and Kilkenny Roots Festival (Sun 6th)

We’re approaching the first anniversary of the album’s release – what have been the high points of the period?

Having the album on Playbutton & cassette, playing the Body & Soul festival and getting nominated for the Choice.

Was it difficult to translate a record made at home into a full band experience?

It was fairly easy really. We have a pretty laid back attitude towards it. We have to be fluid because we don’t have the full band a lot of the time so we are very adaptable. I think that keeps things fresh.

What were your initial hopes for the album’s release?

I just wanted it to be heard and I hoped that people would like it.

Do you see its success as a flag bearer for the Popical Island collective as a whole?

Yes definitely, getting nominated for the Choice was nice because I think it shows how far you can get with support from your pals.

Did your experience in other bands prepare you for this time round?

Yes, it helps to have that because you take things with a pinch of salt and don’t get carried away. My previous experience was of a very different time. It’s virtually impossible for bands to make money these days; everyone else gets paid before the musician does. It’s just a hobby for me. We just try not to lose money on it.

Does having a band made up from musicians who play with so many other people act as a benefit?

Yes it gives perspective. We can be a physically exhausted sometimes because we’re working full time on top of music. I do find it tricky getting all seven members together but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love it when we’re all together.

Tieranniesaur play the Camden Crawl Dublin on 11th and 12th May, venues to be announced on the day. Tickets are on sale now priced €40 for the weekend, €25 per day.

How is the tour going until now ?

Jack: It’s fun, before we were in South America and we managed to go around six different countries, it was cool to still be at this stage in our career, playing for new audiences, new people that have never seen us before.

How is it different from playing in Europe, in terms of the reception for example ?

Ed: They’re quite excitable. I think there’s something about the heat, they’ll scream louder than other audiences. It helps you enthusiasm level. I don’t know if there are so many international bands playing there every week, so it’s more of an event. There’s still a magic about live music and rock ‘n’ roll there. We were in a hotel with the Foo Fighters and we saw banners in the streets, it was amazing. It was funny because we pretended the “FF” logo was ours.

Tonight you’re playing for the Trinity Ball, are you pumped ? Have you ever played for something like this before ?

Jack: We played at my university a year after I left but it was really really bad. It was really early in our career, they put money on the real bands and we got a bit left over. We were talking to our booking agent, and we asked “what can you get us first ?” he said “£100 and some warm lager” (laughs). But Trinity Ball seems like a really big thing with a good line-up.

Do you have memories of going to the university ball as a student ?

Edd: No, not really cause I didn’t find it interesting. I shouldn’t say that ! (laughs)

Jack: I did have tickets to go to mine but a friend of mine was dumped by her boyfriend so I hung out with the crying girl and didn’t get to watch the Fun Lovin’ Criminals who were playing that night, which is probably a good thing.

You got big plans for the summer with festivals like Roskilde, Sziget, Lovebox, are you preparing something different ?

I think we’re gonna do some fun stuff for Lovebox, it’s definitely a special gig for us.

You played three times there, good memories ?

Really good definitely. I don’t remember the first one but for the second one we were up against Duran Duran and we did alright which is great. It’s a festival I genuinely like to go to, because it’s near where I live but also it seems like a really ‘London’ festival, they have a sort of ‘across the board’ line-up with many different things and genres.

You played some DJ sets in Ireland in february, tonight you’re at the Trinity Ball and soon at Forbidden Fruit, do you have a special relationship to this country ?

I would say we try to make up for the time when we didn’t play in Ireland. We feel the guilt of not having played often here so we want to rectify that. We did a really great show at the Olympia some months ago.

You’ve been touring your last album for more than a year, what’s the…

…best gig you played ?

Jack: I think probably Glastonbury. It really worked, it was fantastic, the weather changed, the rain stopped and the sun came out, there was a huge crowd.

Edd: We were against a mystery act that was revealed to be Pulp, so we got lucky people stayed, we did alright.

…best moment you had ?

Edd: Out of the Glastonbury thing, there was a gig we played in Columbia. It was a really big venue around 2000 people, when we arrived there was next to nobody in there. We thought that was gonna be awful and nobody in Columbia knew us. And finally people arrived and it felt like this kind of electricity you have when you expect nothing and suddenly it all works out.

…song that keeps playing in your tour bus ?

Edd: Well we all have our mp3 player so we don’t really listen to music together. I listen to a lot of Steely Dan at the moment.

…best meal you had ?

Edd: There was this one time when I ordered lobster, it was on a bed of pasta. I saw the cook in the kitchen and it looked like a trailer for the wrath of the titans, trying to kill this beast with a knife …

Do you plan on releasing new material anytime soon ?

Jack: We have some things knocking around but haven’t had time to really get to it.

Friendly Fires play Forbidden Fruit next month.

Fiddle, loop stations and a career launched on national television. Is there no end to the randomness of your creativity?

Ha, it’s funny how I fell into the TV thing, I had never played music solo before then. I’m happy with where I am after three years, It’s going in the right direction.

Fusions of Irish traditional music and modernity often seem to end in trad. rock. Do you think it’s important that the genre is twisted in ways that show a more imaginative development?

I think there is a wealth of stuff in traditional music that hasn’t been touched yet. Electronic music these days has a great culture of sampling and finding really cool stuff from other musical styles, and mixing it into electronic music. We have an amazing musical style in this country that has hardly been touched, one full of interesting and unique melodies and sounds. The first time I realized this was when I heard Passion Pit’s ‘sleepyhead’. The fact that an American act was using Irish traditional samples and we weren’t? Madness. I learned the fiddle traditionally so I had a little background in it, but in recent years I’ve learned to truly appreciate it. If you come to one of my live shows you will even hear sean nós samples. They sound amazing, so different.

How do you go about converting the more complex aspects of your electronic edge into something that can be performed on stage?

It’s really important to me that the live show is good. It’s how I started playing as Daithí; I didn’t start as a bedroom producer. I try and do as much as I can live, so I have my laptop set up so I can loop drum sounds, the fiddle and synth stuff. I can also trigger lots of samples at once, so I can do big drops and choruses without having to loop everything at once. The live show is really energetic, I want people to dance, so I try and get as energetic as possible while on stage.

What you played on TV, which is still where a lot of people will remember you from, was perhaps a bit more traditionally minded than your normal sound. Have you found yourself pigeonholed as a traditional musician at all?

Once the TV stuff finished, definitely, I was being asked to play at trad. sessions and traditional concerts, which is a bit difficult, people didn’t really get how different it was. I knew if I played in those concerts it wouldn’t go down as well as say an indie gig would have. It was difficult from the other side as well; I was pigeonholed as a TV talent show contestant. I really felt I had to prove myself in the independent music scene, which gave me a lot of drive starting out. I loved when people discarded me as a TV thing, as I’d play a good show and change their minds. That was the biggest buzz after the TV thing had finished.

How did life change after you unveiled your sound so publically?

It was crazy, an amazing experience for an 18 year old, I am happy I did it. I learned a lot in those years as well, about myself, how the media works and how the music scene works. I gained a lot of confidence in myself and my music, I think that was the biggest change, I was so unsure of myself before that.

Did you find you had to take a step back and look at what things become, or was the show simply a great way to push yourself forward from an almost standing start?

Shows like the ones I did are great for getting a huge amount of publicity fast, But as soon as they are done the publicity and everything just drops off, really suddenly. It is no way to create a lasting musical career. I wanted to start from the bottom again and work my way up, I started supporting as many bands as I could and played everywhere, Then I did about two months where I was playing in the Roisin Dubh in Galway every week, and finally Gugai (Roisin Dubh’s manager) offered to manage me, and then It all kicked off the right way.

Given your blend of styles, what kind if audiences might turn up at a Daithi show?

It’s interesting to see who goes, I think in Ireland we have a really good independent music scene, and a lot of my audience would be the type of person who goes to lots of Irish gigs. But then recently I’ve had more and more people who are into dance music coming to the shows and really going crazy, it’s great. You get guys who I wouldn’t look at in the street hugging me off their heads. It’s scary stuff.

You’re very much Galway-centred, and have the city’s main musical man Gugai as your manager. How has that collaboration helped push you forward?

It’s been great, you couldn’t have a better manager, He knows everyone in the Irish music scene, and has loads of experience. When we first started working together he apparently had a load of favours to call in,  So I got some really nice gigs to start off, it really got my foot in the door, and it’s been going really well since then. I was the first person he had ever managed, which was a confidence boost to me. That guy knows his music.

We’ve heard whispers of an album, and that it might go heavy on the guests. Is there anyone in particular to look out for?

I’m still working on the album. I’m really excited about it, but I really want it to be special, so I’m taking my time and making sure that it’s really great. I can’t sing at all so I’m pulling in people to do vocals. I’ve been lucky to work with some amazing people so far, no one I can name yet though, But it’s great to see other people putting their own slants on my music; it’s great to see a mixture of styles. One person who will be featuring is the amazing Elaine Mai. She already featured on my track Carraroe, which you can get for free online at daithi.bandcamp.com, She is incredible.

When can we expect to see the finished project? Is there anything lined up that might surprise us?

I’m aiming to have it out by the end of the year, with a couple of singles released before hand. There is one big Irish name going to be featuring, someone who has been a part of the Irish music scene for a while now. All will be revealed soon.

You can already be counted, locally at least, as one of the small number of artists that can get away with just a first name. Madonna, Britney, Cheryl (so we hear) and Daithi… we’ve heard your fan base in the UK is not insubstantial, too. Any plans to go more international?

Ha what a group of artists to be lumped into! It has always been the plan to try and go abroad. Music is one of the best ways to travel, and I’d love to be touring, playing gigs every night. The Irish traditional influence is bound to go down well abroad; I reckon people would enjoy it. I’ll develop a bit more in Ireland and then start spreading out, hopefully.

Daithi plays the Camden Crawl Dublin on 11th and 12th May, venues to be announced on the day. Tickets are on sale now priced €40 for the weekend, €25 per day.

Doyle has just released the album Chalant – Memento Mori, centred on telephone answering machine messages from the 1980s, interwoven with original piano and electronic compositions. These “verbal time capsules” preserve the voices of now-deceased loved ones, his young son, colleagues and close friends, evoking jolts of nostalgia that posed family portraits can rarely achieve.

While the pieces offer a snapshot of Doyle’s life during a particular period, the album’s universal themes and interactions steer the listener down their own memory lanes as the compositions evoke “a world of ancient race memory” – the inherited subconscious ideas and feelings passed on from our ancestors. State spoke to Doyle about his inspiration behind the album, and how it compares with his other acclaimed projects.

Was there any particular event or milestone that inspired you to invoke the phrase ‘memento mori’ [‘remember your mortality’] for the album?

There was the milestone of becoming a grandfather last year as I listened to my son, then aged 10, on the answering machine.

Does the period of the late-80s hold particular significance when you look back?

My career was in full bloom back then, and it just so happened that I got an answering machine at that time to cope with all the messages. I knew even as I recorded them that one day I would incorporate them into an album. I composed the music for this new album quickly, it only took about nine months, from October 2010 to 2011. The tapes were in a box in my studio all the time. There is about a half an hour of recordings for each month (January 1987 to December 1989). In the end I used less than I thought I would.

The messages are described as “intimate verbal time capsules”. How does this compare with memories evoked by flicking through old photo albums?

More like old family movies. They really give a crystal clear idea of an artist’s life in a Merrion Square flat in Dublin in the 1980s. The music came first and then I fit the messages in with it.

When you played family and friends the finished album for the first time, what was their reaction to hearing their words along with the music?

Somewhere between muted and amused.

Was it difficult to include passages from loved ones who have since passed away?

No it wasn’t, as I was coldly fitting the text with the music. After the pieces were finished I felt an emotional response as an artist to the work and how the combination seemed greater than the sum of their parts.

What’s the significance of the street depicted on the album cover, and when was the photo taken?

The photo was taken recently by an old friend Paula Nolan who places photos she takes of Dublin cloud formations on her Facebook page. I ‘liked’ so many of them and this one in particular struck me and magical. Clouds and the sea give a feeling of permanence/impermanence.

One of the most poignant passages is ‘Coat Hanger Kisses’. What’s the story behind this message from Jonathan Philbin Bowman [the journalist who died tragically in 2000, aged 31]? It’s difficult to tell whether it’s a late-night stream-of-consciousness or a brilliant fully-formed poem.

It’s part of a longer message he left when he was talking about the joys/difficulties of being a young father, and then he suddenly went into this – a stream-of-consciousness by a young mind on fire.

First of all, what’s with the name?

Well it’s a good to have a name so that people can associate your music to it and recognise you by one group name as opposed to listing off our five full names every time you wanted to drop us in conversation, or a blog.

Now we’ve got that out of the way, you played a show at the original Camden Crawl in London last year, how did that go?

From what I recall it was a lovely surprise, something of a hallmark moment from last year.

What are you looking forward most about playing at the Dublin version?

Just being in Dublin, and hopefully playing a good gig there. We were there a while back but forgot to tell anyone to come.

We apologise in advance for this question, but we have to ask – how would you describe Dutch Uncles to a punter who hasn’t heard you before? How are you going to knock their socks off in Dublin?

We’d like to be as good as Sparks. We’ll try and knock their socks off by trying to live up to that.

And while you’re at it, do you have any exciting live tricks up your sleeve – you’ve got a touch of prog-rock sensibility in your musical arrangements so grandiose prog showmanship, we hope – or what can we expect at a Dutch Uncles live show?

No capes, beards (albeit sometimes) or spaceship sized light shows. Just our music, played live, but faster.

You’re often referred to as highbrow, intelligent, or cerebral pop, which sounds a bit daunting. What makes your music that bit smarter?

I’m not sure its smarter, think that word is a bit loaded… we’ll settle for ‘ridiculous’.

How do you manage to juggle your King Crimson-esque shifting time signatures and proggy complex structures with the light-heartedness of pop?

That would be telling you something that we can’t really fathom ourselves.

Apparently, you’ve got a third album on the cards – as yet unnamed nor with a release date. Care to share any more details with us? Will us lucky Dubliners get a taster?

Certainly will, but I imagine it will all be new stuff to you Dubliners anyway.

Dutch Uncles play the Camden Crawl Dublin on 11th and 12th May, venues to be announced on the day. Tickets are on sale now priced €40 for the weekend, €25 per day.

In the live setting, the emphasis is very much on live performance as opposed to the laptop-reliant fare you’d usually expect from such an act. Wright has referred to the approach before as a form of ‘remixing yourself’, but by his own account the live set is constantly changing. With new track ‘The Source Of Light’ recently premiered by Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1, it’s going to be interesting to see where Wright takes things in 2012.

State spoke to him ahead of his Dublin visit….

D/R/U/G/S tend to perform in a spontaneous, improvisatory manner in a live setting, compared to many other electronic artists. Do you enjoy the energy of risking mistakes and creating as you go along?

Absolutely, that’s what makes it a ‘live’ show – I don’t have a sequencer or Ableton to fall back on, and I have made some serious mistakes! It’s that pressure that keeps me focused nowadays though, especially if the show’s going well and people are really into it, its a great feeling.

Has the live set being refined or adapted in any sense since you started, or is it still pretty much the same approach?

Most definitely. When I started in late 2010 all I had was a Roland SP-404. I’ve learnt so much in terms of structure and the flow of a live set now, its just a totally different thing. The visual aspect is something we’ve recently been working hard on. Wilson, who does live visuals for us, is a bit of a genius really. I don’t understand what he does but it looks incredible. I want every aspect of the show to be as live and creative as possible, hence why there’s guitars and keyboards all over the shop now.

D/R/U/G/S seem to operate outside of the UK underground dance spectrum, and in your own space or niche. How do you find the reaction when playing Fabric, or other club-oriented sets, as opposed to festival sets? Would you tailor the vibe accordingly?

I definitely used to really engineer my sets dependent on what or where I was playing, but I think I’m a bit more confident in my own sound and where I sit in the world now to have to do that so much. I’d like to think that the sets have become more cohesive and more their own sort of thing now. On the last record I think it’s pretty clear that I was struggling to position myself and really questioning where I was, especially in relation to the dance and DJ worlds. I really feel like I’ve come through that now and I’ve kind of got back to the original idea which was to just do my own thing and not worry about where I sat. Just write good music.

Have there been any live shows that have particularly stood out in the last year or so?

The second Fabric show last year was amazing, I was proper nervous about how I’d be received doing a live set in the middle of DJ land and it went brilliantly. Obviously Leeds and Reading were massive, Reading in particular: we had a tent full of kids, it was crazy – I was on first so expected it to be empty! On a more personal level, the Warehouse Project show back home was very special. It was sold out, main room at the warehouse, everyone I know was there – great memories.

Do you find yourself road-testing material on the basis of how live crowds respond to it?

That’s one of the benefits of how I perform live, it’s very easy to slot new material in to try out. Although in saying that I tend to write with how a track sounds as a stand-alone piece in mind, rather than tailoring it to a live or DJ setting. It’s usually more a case of adapting a finished track into a live version.

What can we expect in terms of releases in 2012? How have you found your sound or your approach progressing since your first release?

I’m still finding my way in terms of my own sound, definitely. I’d love to do some more focused house tracks simply with a view to fitting them into my own DJ set, hopefully before the end of the year. There’s a couple of releases in the pipeline, due to be confirmed very soon.

You got into electronic music fairly late on. As a result, do you think you’re less bound by expectations and conventions than maybe other producers making electronic music?

I think that’s pretty clear to hear in the tracks – I come from a live band background, playing live is something I’ve always done and is really the main focus of D/R/U/G/S. Everything I write is focused around the live show because it’s written in the same way it’s performed. It means my tracks are difficult to DJ with and don’t really fit in with the current dance music trends but that’s the whole point. I’ve seen so many electronic acts’ ‘live’ shows recently and they’ve been a joke. I can spot a fake live show a mile away, and it’s frightening how many are kicking about.

You’ve done some great remixes for other acts. Any particular favourites?

The Lykke Li remix is still probably my favourite. It never really got used at all, but every time I play it it gets a great reaction and people are familiar with it, which is nice as it only really exists on my Soundcloud.

D/R/U/G/S plays the Camden Crawl Dublin on Friday 11th and Saturday 12th May, venues to be announced on the day. Tickets are on sale now priced €40 for the weekend, €25 per day.

Classically trained on violin and cello, as well as having a background in school chorus lines (as with the rest of the bands female populace) Best fished a keyboard out of a rubbish bin at the end of 2008 and initially started writing music as an exchange for the party lifestyle – out with the intoxicants, in with the creativity. Slowly over the course of the following two years, like some musical serendipity, the rest of the band formed around her. First Melanie Moser brought guitars into the mix, creating the spaced out shoe-gaze sound the band now portray; in 2011 Carrie Ashley Hill “dropped in for some music therapy, started singing harmonies and now plays a little of everything”, remembers Best; Hill suggested Jane Herships for bass and Gregg Giuffre – who had been mixing demos of the previous line-ups material – stepped in when their drummer quit a week out from a gig at Webster Hall Studio.

Their expansive neo-psychedelic sound may have been cemented when Melanie brought her electric guitar to a jam session but for Best it was something that also came from “being a little music nerd in the 90’s. I listened to college radio and loved everything from the Grateful Dead to Bikini Kill, anything off the Kill Rockstars label, and I also adored the space rock sounds of Slowdive, early Verve, and Brian Eno. When visiting my father in Philadelphia from Macon, Georgia, I would make him take me straight to Tower Records to buy every indie music zine I could get my hands on. I just wanted to buy every weird and obscure record out there”.

When asked what influences their sound, they quote a vast range of sources. For Herships it’s Lou Barlow and Joni Mitchell; with Hill it’s “Townes Van Zandt and Kris Kristofferson – REM and The Cure”; while Moser states anything from Joan Jett to Sally Field as hers. Their distinctly cinematic sound echoes this diversity and each member brings something unique to the fold, but there is no stringent ethos to the process of writing their music. It’s the close bond they share as a group that pulls the different strands together, their “collective state of mind” which influences the sound:

“We are conscious of creating a dynamic, but it’s just fun, and it seems to happen naturally; there is a good meshing with our voices and musical aesthetics. Carrie just sings and adds harmonies wherever she is moved to do so; it’s instinctual. Janelle writes alone when having a bad day, presents the basic song on keyboard with vocals to the band, and then we jam on it together, everyone freely writing their own parts. The magic of Desert Stars is rarely do we hear a member playing something we don’t like”.

Having only just released their debut single – double A-side ‘Boys I Like/Farewell Decade’ – they are making their journey towards the recording of their album this summer. The almost choral vocals and sweeping guitars prove their title is more than apt in its panoramic implication, and create excitement when thinking of what this will sound like spread across ten or more tracks. But for a band starting out, there are always hopes and dreams of what the road will bring for them: is it platinum record sales? Sold out venues? “All of the above and continue to make music we love to play and stay like family”.

The Magnetic Fields have been around for about 22 years. It has put you in a unique position to gauge and view an ever changing musical landscape, what’s been most interesting for you in terms of trends? Have you ever noticed yourselves, consciously or otherwise adapting in response to those trends?

I noticed years ago that reggae comes back in, like clockwork, every five years, like hemlines going up and down. I always think I should plan ahead and do a reggae album timed perfectly (like Willie Nelson, and the Clash, and Serge Gainsbourg). But I never get around to it.

Interestingly, in your discography you have something of a concept heavy double trilogy in contrast to your latest offering, which you’ve admitted is relatively void of concept. Why did you feel a trilogy was appropriate? Would you attempt one now, in today’s musical climate?

The trilogy never goes out of style. And, it’s always a surprise.

With Love at the Bottom of the Sea; did you feel restricted in the scope of a single album? Or was this balanced out by the relief of the return to synths?

Artistic limitations are helpful as definition. Like the first thing a painter knows is the dimensions of the frame.

I noticed that you mentioned your ‘no-synth trilogy’ was a result of you becoming bored with the over usage of synth and the limits of the technology.

I wouldn’t say that. I was bored by the way they had become essentially electric organs.

What first fascinated you about the synth sound?

I’m always intrigued by sounds and textures I haven’t heard a million times.

Do you think you could become bored with the new technology available to you?

Well, no, because it’s like a new family of instruments, sort of like percussion and sort of like mechanical instruments; hard to describe, which is the point.

I notice, at least in Ireland, there’s a lot of synth-heavy music being made. Do you think synth is in danger of being overused now?  

No, just used too badly.

You also mentioned it’s a sound that started off as being futuristic but then began sounding retro – has this affected your use of them in your work?

I’ve played with that for decades.

And finally, thank you for taking the time to respond – as well as taking the time to play for us here in Ireland. I hope you enjoy yourselves and that we’re kind to you.

You’d better be!

The Magnetic Fields are playing in Dublin on the 28th of April in the Olympia Theatre and in Cork’s Opera House on the 29th. We’ve got pairs of tickets to both gigs, email giveaway@state.ie by Friday noon with your choice of Dublin or Cork to be in with a chance to get them.

Tickets are available from the venues’ websites or from Ticketmaster.ie.

There’s been a bit of a gap between EPs has all this producing malarkey been distracting?

Yeah, I guess it has been. When I was working on my first EP (No Need To Run) which was an instrumental one I was also helping out on the Dels record, it was a busy time. No Need To Run was actually an unfinished piece of work but (record label) Young Turks were eager to get it out there and I was happy to let them do that. In between that and Meantime I put out a free download ‘Get Up’ just after Warp signed me but it that was an old track. Now I’m kinda focussing on writing and recording new stuff for my album, I think recently I’ve been getting more comfortable working as an artist not just a producer.

The lead single ‘Bashful’ has a giant pop chorus and overall Meantime is extremely warm sounding incorporating a range of influences and styles, is it a deliberate move away from the cold ,angular, insular sound of people like James Blake?

I’ve always tried to bring warmth to my music, the warm sound I guess just comes from me completely pouring my heart out, that style is part of me. It’s the only way I really know how to express myself, in that big range. We have access to everything nowadays and I don’t think there are any musical boundaries left so I’m just including all my influences. Although, at the same time I always strive to make something that’s new to my ears at least, I just try to make music that’s true to myself but it’s still music that will push boundaries.

Speaking of influences and pushing boundaries, is it true that the track ‘Honey’ was inspired by the Beach Boys’ ‘Vegetables’?

Well I guess ‘Vegetables’ is probably about drugs! (laughs) but it’s more about the idea of putting myself in the position of being inanimate, trying to imagine myself as an object but still having that human condition. ‘Honey’ is me imagining if I was a cabbage, looking around and spotting a jar of honey on the shelf and perceiving it to be the love of my life.

Woah. Sounds deep. So, we know you love the Beach Boys but are there any records in your collection people might be surprised that you own?

If people were new to my music I guess maybe they’d be a bit surprised that I love Rubber Soul and I also have a lot of Paul McCartney stuff in my collection.

You’ve done a mixtape with Micachu and obviously the DRC music project with Damon Albarn, what is it you enjoy about collaborating?

It’s funny, I don’t know how I’ve collaborated with all these people, I guess I’m just in the right place at the right time! I love collaborating, I learn so much about myself when I’m working with these completely different people. I filter anything I’ve learned through my own creative process and then make it my own. That’s not why I collaborate though; I do it because I admire the people and their music.

What was it like working with Damon, King of Collaborators?

Well Damon and his team picked out a group of people they collectively admired to work on DRC but there wasn’t anything regimented or rigorous, we had complete creative free range, which was great. Damon’s always doing about six things at once constantly but with this project in the Congo he really believed in us and believed that we’d complete a cohesive body of work in under a week. It just demonstrated to me how little an ego he has.

Is there any artist living or dead that you’d love to collaborate with?

Uhhhmm. John Marytn but in a way I’m not sure I’d have wanted to work with (personally) him as much as I love his music! Oh, I was thinking about this the other day, I’d love to work with Alicia Keyes cause I think she’s a modern day Carole King.

So what can we expect from you live at the Camden Crawl Dublin?

(Much laughter) Ehh maybe me tripping over my words! I’m just getting used to projecting and moving live. I wouldn’t call myself a ‘singer’ like James Blake I’d consider myself more a musician but I’m getting used to using my voice on stage. Maybe if I had more of a budget I’d do the hologram thing like Snoop with Tupac!

We hear that you’re a massive fan of tea. Can you give us some tips for how to make the perfect brew?

First, take cold water from the tap. NEVER use warm water or lukewarm water. Boil the water, get your PG Tips or whatever and put that in your mug, pour the boiling water over it and leave it for exactly 2 minutes and 42 seconds or 3 minutes depending on your palette. Take the bag out or leave it in if you’re lazy. Use whole milk NEVER skimmed milk or you can use soya milk it’s not as sour as it used to be honest! Then you’re sorted with the perfect cuppa.

Meantime is released on Warp Records on April 27th. Kwes plays the Camden Crawl Dublin on Saturday May 12th, venue to be announced on the day. Tickets are on sale now priced €40 for the weekend, €25 per day.

Your first album talked a lot about loneliness, the need for someone to love and who cares about you, whereas Orangefarben is concentrated more on memories and how to handle life after your first breakup. How did this experience affected you and your songwriting?

It was a very difficult time. Writing this new album, It wasn’t easy as the first. I remember John my friend and producer saying that very same thing before we started. Time was short and I was pushing myself to get up and start a new healthy routine. But facing the memories everyday made me miss, made me hurt. It was my way of getting through the past, with a clear mind and understanding. It would have built up inside if I didn’t go through the dark first, I felt it was the best way to go, honesty and a desire to be well.

Do you feel like you’ve grown a lot between the two releases?

Absolutely, I look back and think how childlike I was; pure, and a bit naive. Two months of touring can double into a whole year or even two years of life experiences… I lived fast. I do live fast. It’s just how it goes. Not many things phase me much anymore. I  am trying to always grow better at responding  and communicating and giving better performances. My friends and family are really important to me. I think making these albums with my best friend John Baccigaluppi really is a huge part of my growth and heart. He’s like the godfather.

Did this first relationship with another woman help you be more confident and express yourself in a more intimate way? 

Yes, of course. In every way, I think love transforms… I learned how to share more of myself. Communicate..

Orangefarben (“Color of Orange” in german) is the nickname you gave to your ex-girlfriend, how did she react when she learned about you making a record about your relationship?

She is real special to me. I showed her the album first… More as a gift. I wasn’t trying to impress her or change anything. I just wanted her to know how much she means to me. I think she held it all close to her heart.. She closed her eyes and listened with care.

When listening to the first single ‘Broke’, it sounds a lot brighter and even positive than what you wrote before, were you aiming for something more accessible and pop? 

No, I wasn’t trying to be anything really, or sound poppy, it just came out that way. Just like a mother having a baby, she doesn’t tell the doctor how she wants her baby to be, the baby just comes into existence. ‘Broke’ was a simple melody and all I did was add instruments and try to layer and experiment with sounds until I really liked it.

On this new album you play most of the instruments, like you did on Songs For The Ravens, even drums this time. Is it because you fear that other musicians wouldn’t be able to understand your vision of the songs and their construction or is it just because you find it easier to do it that way? 

I think I had no fear at all really. I didn’t think about other musicians thoughts, but rather my own. I know I am not a professional drummer or guitarist, but I am good at being natural. I don’t try to make it easy either, I just do what I feel.

Who is accompanying you on stage for the European Tour? 

Robert Wilks from Kent and his friend James Simpson. And of course my lovely friend Amber Padgett.. We’re all having a great time! Thanks.

Listen to Orangefarben streaming on NPR

New album Radlands is due for release on April 27th, the band’s first concept record. It has allowed them to mature as song writers, as they have stripped down their sound; removing the heavy synth sound of their previous record, and instead concentrating on crafting songs as opposed to hit singles.

It also marks the start of a new era for the band with a new line-up (due in Dublin for the Camden Crawl Festival in May) as Matt Parks comes in on pedal steel and Peter Cochrane takes over on bass guitar for Kai, resulting in a fresher sound and what appears to be a more relaxed demeanour. Gone is the media swagger and instead you get a real sense of pride for this album, as guitarist Will Rees displays when he describes how much they enjoyed crafting the new album in Texas.

“It was a great experience as we rented a house and set up a mini studio in the sitting room with loads of old rented equipment, amplifiers and microphones and recorded our new album. I really enjoyed doing it in a place which is your home as opposed to a recording studio because you feel like there are no time constraints, no rules and no one watching over you. For us it was a much more structured approach to recording”.

Did recording in the US influence Radlands?

“Yes, I think it influenced it in a big way as it helped us to relax with the song writing and not feel like we had to try and write singles. It gave us the space to develop and unravel the music”.

How would you describe the sound?

“It captures lots of different types of country, country rock, and rootsie style of American music, as, at the time we were listening to a great deal of Crosby, Stills and Nash and Neil Young. One of the big ways this album is different is that there are not any synthesizers on it. Serotonin pretty much had synthesizers on every song, but we completely abandoned them this time and made a record that really just has vocals, electric and acoustic guitar. We wanted to make a pop record. We were very interested in ‘70s rock music at the point and it had similar ambitions to Electric Light Orchestra, Supertramp or Fleetwood Mac. With the new record we wanted to do something that was much more naked and we were not trying to cover different sounds. Writing and recording in America allowed us to present the band in its rawest form”.

What has the crowd’s reaction been to the new songs during your UK Tour?

“I think the new album is something that people will be deliberating a little bit about and getting to know. It is not quite as immediate as our previous records, but saying that people seem to really like it. They have been dancing along to some of the songs and listening to some of the quieter album tracks. It is always difficult at this point when the album is not out yet as people do not know it and they do not know what to expect so it is always a bit frightening for us playing new stuff.”

Any favourite tracks yet?

At the moment I like playing the album’s title track Radland as it is quite a solid piece of music. It starts out very quietly before building and growing into this powerful chorus. I really enjoy that one as it always wakes me up and makes me want to play. However it does tend to change depending on how well they go down.

How have you found the transition of touring without Kai?

“Weirdly it has been a very smooth transition, the playing side of it anyways. It was scarier for everyone at the start of the year when we realised that Kai was not going to be involved in it, because Kai was irreplaceable. There is no one that can do what he does in that way. So we all freaked out basically but thankfully we have met some good people who can really play and believe in the record”.

All good in the Mystery Jets’ camp then?

“It feels like this is a new chapter for the band, as it is such a different sounding album for us. The new blood in the band gives us a whole new chemistry and I do not think we can be compared to what we were doing a year ago, as we now look and sound so different”.

Mystery Jets play the Camden Crawl Dublin on Saturday 12th May, venue to be announced on the day. Tickets are on sale now priced €40 for the weekend, €25 per day.

Who are you and where are you from?

My name is David Best from the group Fujiya & Miyagi and I was born in Leamington Spa in Warwickshire.

Who are your favourite artists from your hometown?

I think the Swell Maps were from around Leamington, or maybe Solihull where my Nan lives. Spacemen 3 were from nearby too. I like them both equally.

What’s it really like touring?

At it’s worst it’s like a works team building evening stretched out for two weeks. The good aspects are playing music to people who hopefully enjoy it. I appreciate touring now much more than i used to, I feel really lucky that we can still do what we do.

What’s your favourite city/town/venue to play?

My favourite city is New York. I have favourite crowds rather than venues. Although this might appear a little creepy Dublin has always been good to us. San Francisco too.

What’s your ideal festival line-up?

Captain Beefheart, Can, Serge Gainsbourg, Parliament, kraftwerk, Terry Riley, Don Cherry, Stooges, David Bowie, Sly and the Family Stone, Emeralds, Prince, My Bloody Valentine, Rob Jo Star Band, The Kinks, Aphex Twin, Roxy Music, Cybotron, Suicide, Miles Davis, Husker Du, Silver Apples, Afrika Bambaataa, Harmonia, The Cramps and The Make-up.

Tell us a tour story…

I haven’t got anything I really want to share.

What has been your biggest achievement of the last year?

Being able to spend lots of time with my 17 month old son Riley. I also dismantled and re-assembled a wardrobe within an hour.

What do you do to relax?

I construct lava lamp patterns in my eyelids.

What are you reading?

Bernard Wolfe’s Limbo. It’s a book from 1952 which shares quite a lot of themes with J G Ballard. It’s a post apocalyptic world where to avoid further wars men voluntarily have their arms and legs amputated and replaced with cybernetic limbs.

How about TV, anything good on the box?

Sherlock and Match Of The Day with the sound turned down.

What’s the last thing you bought online?

It was either a silver Sergio Tacchini jacket or Robert Fripp’s LP Under Heavy Manners. They both came in the post today, as a fascinating aside.

Who would you most like to collaborate with if you got the chance?

Aphex Twin would be good.

What is the worst cover your band has ever performed?

We’ve only ever recorded one cover and that’s ‘Your Silent Face’ by New Order. Very early on we tried to do ‘I Don’t Know Why I Love You’ by Stevie Wonder. It was never finished which suggests it maybe wasn’t the greatest.

Have you ever trashed your equipment? When and why?

I trashed a transistor radio during a band practice once. During a lull in proceedings I was listening to an Arsenal game and they scored in the last minute so I pummelled the radio into the ground with sheer ecstasy. It felt good.

What website do you visit most?

20jfg is one I check regularly. The other would be the live bus timetable for Brighton and Hove. It’s relatively accurate.

What is your favourite…

…album of the last year?

Imaginary Softwoods – The Path Of Spectrolite.

…Song?

Panabrite – ‘Camembert Symphony’

….Lost classic song?

Grandmaster Flash – ‘Scorpio’

… Record label?

Spectrum Spools

…current artist?

Emeralds

…YouTube video?

A new artist that you are most excited about?

Factory Floor

What was the last great gig you went to?

Probably Prince at O2 arena in London a while ago. I haven’t seen that many shows since Riley was born. The greatest show i’ve ever seen is My Bloody Valentine on the Rollercoaster tour at Brixton.

What should we expect from your Irish shows?

I think we are playing better than we ever have done at the moment. We tend to play songs mainly from our records Transparent Things and Ventriloquizzing, plus a couple from Lightbulbs. If there are projectors at the venues they’ll be visuals behind us which look pretty good. Live we sound faster and more aggressive than on record. We are really looking forward to playing in Ireland again.