An Interview with Broken Records

Broken Records - Kathy (demo)

It's been almost two years since Broken Records first graced these pages, and they've only grown more popular and impressive since then. From playing small clubs in Edinburgh to heading off to the European festival circuit, the band have turned heads all along the way. Their debut album doesn't disappoint. Though I admit I was a little underwhelmed by the titular lead single, that may have been my own anticipation. The band haven't put a foot wrong, reworking their older demos to give them a fierce new energy, and adding newer material that shows both how far they've come, and the potential for greatness ahead. Longtime member Ian Turnbull was kind enough to answer some questions ahead of the record's release.

How are you?
Very well thank you!

Are you happy with the record? What is it about?
We’re very happy with how the record turned out and we’re all just really pleased to have it finished. I don’t know if it’s specifically about one thing, but lyrically all the big themes are covered: Love, Death, Romance, Unrequited Love, Nostalgia, Anger, Apathy and Hope! Hopefully the music compliments these themes. It’s definitely dramatic and songs like 'Slow Parade' have a really uplifting feel to them. Certainly, Jamie has always been adamant that we don’t want to define what the songs are about, and the listener should have their own interpretation of what the songs mean to them. Although lyrically some songs have obvious settings (ie- Eilert Loevborg), on the whole I think the narrative conjures up a scene but you take away your own meaning from it. For example, I think 'A Promise' is a continuation of the narrative from 'Until The Earth Begins To Part' from the point of view of the other party, but I have no idea if this is what Jamie intended or the two tracks just happened to be put next to each other on the album!

How has your sound developed since you played your first few gigs?
I think when we started out as the full 7-piece band we were really excited to have so many instruments and options at our disposal that we got a bit carried away! Everyone would play their parts at full tilt all the way through the songs and it often ended up being too chaotic. As time has gone on we’ve learned not to overplay things and be more careful with our arrangements, so every part is in service to the song. If you listen to the original single version of 'If The News Makes You Sad, Don’t Watch It' and the new version on the album, they’re quite different. The new one has been stripped back quite a lot so the individual parts are much clearer, although it’s by no means sparse!

'Kathy' is a gorgeous song - why did you decide not to include it on the album?
Thank you very much! It’s an old favourite of ours too. However, it belongs to an earlier incarnation of Broken Records, so when our old drummer and bassist left we decided to start again with a clean slate and a whole new batch of songs. I think we played it for a few of the early gigs we did as a 7-piece, purely because we hadn’t got enough new material together, but we haven’t played it at all in the last two years. But who knows, one day it might be resurrected live if the occasion is right...

How did you find yourselves on the wonderful 4AD? Did you have offers from major labels?
Last year was a bit strange and frustrating for us, mainly because of the way things were going in the music industry and the general economic downturn. There had been tentative discussions with major labels, but because things were changing so quickly in the industry, things would grind to a halt two or three weeks after. Having so many band members is a daunting prospect and we were also a bit worried about how we could make things work financially. We’d been talking to 4AD for a while and thankfully they were very patient with us while figured out what on earth was going on. We’re all delighted to be on 4AD and definitely think they’re the right choice of label. Their back catalogue speaks for itself and so many of the current bands we love have also been with 4AD, including The National, Beirut and Bon Iver.

You've gotten a lot of support from online sources such as Song, By Toad - how important do you think this was, and do you think it's something necessary for bands starting out these days?
I think Matthew from Song, By Toad was the very first person to write anything about us (there, I said it: “he discovered us”!) and he’s probably been our biggest champion for the last two years. At the same time we’ve watched his blog grow to become one of the biggest for supporting local music in Edinburgh and Scotland. It’s been really good to have the support of bloggers like yourself, 17 seconds, The Waiting Room, and many others because so many people are turning to music blogs over the mainstream music media to discover new music. The mainstream press undeniably still have an important function, but blogs can cater to much more of a niche market and are a great way to help the music reach like-minded people. Getting the attention of the bloggers is also essential for any new band because that's where the music industry A&R people are looking too.

What is the songwriting process like for the band?
The lyrics and melodies for the songs are always Jamie’s. Quite often he’ll bring a chord structure and a tune to the rest of us, then we’ll add our parts to it and maybe try and tweak the arrangement and structure until we’re all happy with it. Other times someone will come up with a riff or a part on another instrument and we’ll all play about until a song grows out of it. For example, 'Nearly Home' was based on Rory’s main violin hook and the whole thing just evolved around it.

What's the story behind 'Thoughts On A Picture (In A Paper, January 2009)'?
Like I said before, we don’t want to define the meaning of songs, but I have to admit I’m not really sure what this one is about. We’d been playing the song live for about 6 months before it was recorded but the lyrics were unfinished. When it came to the studio Jamie disappeared for a few hours to finish off the words and I think he was taking inspiration from what was around him at the time, hence the January date. I have no idea what the picture was of!

What's been your favourite description of your music so far?
“Russian Danger-Folk” was quite a good one, although it probably only applies to 'A Good Reason' and 'Eilert Loevborg'!

What's ahead for Broken Records?
We have a tour around Scotland and England starting on the 2nd of June in support of the album release, then it’s into festival season. Amongst others we’ll be playing at Glastonbury, Belladrum, Haldern Pop Festival in Germany, Truck Fest, Green Man and Summer Sundae.


{MySpace + Buy}

{Also, check out the line-up for Haldern festival. It's so good it's unnatural.}

dancing about parenthetical girls

Parenthetical Girls - A Song For Ellie Greenwich

Quite some time ago, this blog's very distinguished curator asked me to do a review for Parenthetical Girls' show in Whelans. I had to cry off at the time due mainly to a number of real life commitments, which included both a number of computer science course assignments and administering to some poorly sheep. I'm not even kidding, and behold! all ye, the face of 21st century Ireland.

But, although these excuses were wholly truthful, they were not the whole truth. Time wasn't entirely the issue. I actually spent some hours working on it, but found myself facing for the first time a far more significant problem. To illustrate, here's but one of the many abandoned drafts still haunting my hard drive like little certificates of failure.



Those nearly-four words represent - and I'm not joking - several hours worth of work and about four thousand false starts over several days.

"Parenthetical Girls are t"

I don't really know where I was going with the "t". I mean, I must have had something in mind, just to commit to a letter like that, but I'll be damned if I know what it was.

So that's 22 characters, only three actual words, no punctuation marks, and I'm not even sure if "are" counts as a verb. The lack of punctuation is especially ironic if you really dig punctuation humour, in which case savour this moment, because God knows you will know few other pleasures in your lifetime.

Yes, I had been absolutely crippled by the very worst writer's block I've ever had in my life. It was like having some sort of internet stroke. I'd completely hit a brick wall in the review, and found myself so distracted trying to tackle it that I couldn't get anything else done either. Even my general recreational internet usage suffered. For three insanely frustrating weeks, I tried every angle I could think of, to no avail. I thought I was on to a winner for a bit when I started by describing the venue - you know, set the scene - but then after three or four paragraphs of interior decoration description I caught myself typing the words "window sash" and realised that I was only fooling myself.

The problem, I realised about a month ago, was actually this: They were really, really good.

Like, really really good.

Seriously, really really good.

They were so fucking good, in fact, that all I could think of when I wanted to write about the show afterwards was "Man...

They were really good."

I could go on. Literally that, too. I mean, in my head, I could hear the "really"s getting more insistent, but those were the only words. Zac Pennington's voice was really, really good. The songs, well the songs were really, really good. And so on. This is, as you can imagine, a very limited descriptive avenue.

I eventually got over it and started writing little bits and pieces again, but subsequent attempts at that review - by now, just for my own peace of mind - were equally doomed. Parenthetical Girls became my gracefully slender and uncomfortably forthright White Whale. No matter how I tried to approach it, I couldn't find any way of describing the evening's festivities without presenting either myself or the band as monumentally pretentious wankers - a preferably avoided problem of it's own - but more criminally, I just couldn't write anything I would have bothered my own arse reading afterwards. I could think of vague, rambling bits and pieces about their old-school showtuney stylings, or the remarkable front with which they get away with their subject matter, but it just wouldn't click together into anything that either represented the show properly or explained why I enjoyed it so much.

Now, I'm a reasonably wordable girl, and I like writing about music, but when I looked back at any other previous reviews I'd been fairly happy with, it became depressingly apparent what they all had in common; they were all about shit bands. Not just shit bands, but bands which blew hot, meaty chunks in such spectacular fashion that there was entertainment to be had just in the description of it's magnitude. In fact, I don't think I've ever written well about a band I loved.

It's a simple problem. Picture, if you will, a giraffe fighting an emu to death. On the one hand, it would be messy and awful, but on the other hand, I'll bet you like the image. It's all right, you don't have to admit it out loud. The emu and giraffe protection people won't be knocking down your door or anything. The beauty of it is, I didn't have to describe the giraffe's attitude or tell you how the emu went about the business of throwing down, the basic facts of the scenario are enough to do the job. Shit bands are like that. I mean, you wouldn't want to be caught in the middle - I understand emus are aggressive as fuck, and remember giraffes poo from a height - but it's an easier thing to write about than a regular non-violent emu incident.

Music, when music does what music is for, does something that no other communicative medium does. What that something is isn't something you can easily articulate. If you could, you'd do it some way that wouldn't require you to spend so many hours swearing at your stupid cheapass learner instruments in the beginning, or to cultivate so many grossly unsexy callouses later on, or eventually, if you're really quite exceptionally lucky, to sweat right through your clothes for the benefit of crowds of paying onlookers.

It's a simple and obvious notion, that whole dancing about architecture thing, but evidently I'm really fucking slow on the uptake because I'm 23 and I've only just properly gotten a handle on it.

Parenthetical Girls got it before me though. And even though the themes they cover are often wincingly identifiable, the songs they play and the way they play them just hit a frequency that defied my capacity to usefully talk about it. All the interesting stuff happened right there on the night, somewhere in between the lyrics and the music and the performance and the performers.

So I guess, about seven months late and now totally redundant, that's my Parenthetical Girls review. They were so very good that they left me without anything worth saying afterwards.

Those bastards.

{This is a review from the wonderful Gemma, our occasional contributor and supplier of witty remarks and clever photoshoppery.}

my body for the sky

{via}


Local Natives - Airplanes

There's something world-conquering about this song, in the momentous stomping of the drums, and the simple strings, the direct and honest delivery of sweetly sad lyrics. It's some narrator standing in a room, fingers kicking and tapping across a gently turning globe, dotting different locations and memories: I loved you, here, here and here. It's the entire stretch of a love affair, holding it at both ends like a piece of jewellery, some handmade necklace filled with more love in its length of string, and flat-worn chunk of wood, than in any pearl. It's where things stop and start, showing that there's nothing separating the points where he ends, and she begins.

Local Natives are a bit new, and rather good. This song sounds like Cold War Kids taking Fleet Foxes' emotional tinge and wrapping themselves in it like a flag, all the better to make you listen. Find out more on their MySpace.

i wanna be the one

Check out this gorgeous video for 'Sunlight', one of the best songs on Harlem Shakes' Technicolor Health, one of the best releases of the year. I've written about this album once already, but it definitely bears mentioning again, especially when the music inspires something this inventive. Incidentally, it has just been released on vinyl - and you can order it at InSound.

these ears will listen

{via}


Deradoorian - This Is The Heart Now

I have a thing about abandoned buildings. Everywhere I go, I gaze at them as though I can't stop taking them in, and can't help but imagine the last person leaving, locking the door of what was once their business, or their home, or their factory. In east Germany, there are a lot of abandoned buildings.



I wonder, sometimes, what it is that gets me about them. I'll always enjoy living in an old building with scratched paint, a battered wooden stairwell, and a dangerous stairs winding down to a dank and dark cellar. It would become my home quicker than a space on the shelf of a bright new apartment block.

Buildings like these have seen people come and go. The hard-working inhabitants or workers, they loved the place once, and had to leave it to nothing, leave it abandoned to nature, or vandals, or steady, unnoticed decay. You can see it easily, the desertion, the neglect, the hurt. And I wonder, in twenty or thirty years, when these buildings are gone, or decrepit, or remade, if it will show someday, when I surprise myself in the mirror, or see someone else's picture of me.

Angel Deradoorian is also a member of Dirty Projectors, and she has an EP out now. It's called Mind Raft, and it's very very good. The above song is not on it, but I don't know where it's from, I only know that I love it. Weirdly, I first wrote about Deradoorian almost exactly one year ago.

--

Apart from the beautiful picture taken from an article on Detroit's neglected public schools, the above images are from Chemnitz and Naumburg. If you like them, you might like this, my new favourite photography site.

a routine malaise

Finally, an answer to most pressing question of the year: just how good is Grizzly Bear's 'Two Weeks'? Answer: Head-explodingly good.
Also, take a look at their gorgeous acoustic rendition of 'All We Ask' on the latest Black Cab Sessions. It's bewildering how perfect it sounds.

in dreams

{via}

I couldn't sleep last night. I lay with my eyes gazing blankly, not tired enough to close them, with no thoughts, just space. The light fading dimly outside the blinds wavered, and the night with all its dark little sounds murmured just beyond it, but in my bed nothing changed. It seemed to me that I was growing more and more awake, and the bed seemed to grow smaller around me - and the sheets beneath my body seemed to grow restless in retaliation, as if they were trying to pull the bed away from me.
Eventually I tried listening to music, setting my whirring little machine onto shuffle, trying to find something that would lead my mind to slumber. It took hours, but as the haze overtook me, a song began that seemed to match the blue and yellow strains of light tiptoeing in onto the ceiling, a beautiful song that made me want to give in to it, and follow it wherever it went when it finished, into my dream, into a welcome and deep sleep.


Brian Cullen's Love Bullets - Chinese National Anthem

I have no idea what that song was, I'm fairly certain I dreamt most of it, but I think this was what it started out as - a fine mess from Brian Cullen's Love Bullets. It certainly has that gorgeous little intro that feels like wandering into another, gentler, level of sleep.


Wrapping Paper - Hold Up The Neon Sign

But - it could also be this here song by Wrapping Paper - a fuzzier, altogether brasher affair with a kicking little melody that feels like it was recently in my head while I slept, rearranging things the way it thinks I might like them.


Wrapping Paper - The Torture Garden Song

Wrapping Paper also undertook, a while back, to write a song for this blog. A theme song, as it were. I can't really explain why it took me this long to share it. This is something that will also be done for you if you buy his rather lovely EP.

hands up hands down

A Classic Education - Best Regards

Hello there! Do you have a moment to take our personality test? Just a moment? Thank you. Well, okay, it's quite simple really: first of all, we'll just go through a few basic personal questions, and then we'll know whether or not there's anything we can help you with. Sound good? Okay.

To start then, have you ever been in love? You have? Excellent! And would you say you're proud of how it went? Sorry? Okay, not to worry, we can come back to that one. Do you think you've been at your happiest yet? Well, that's true, you are young, no need to rush things. There's plenty of time to turn things around. The important thing to remember is that it's never to late to stop making yourself unhappy. What's that? Yes, I've taken this test many times, and it was the best thing I ever did. One more question, and yes of course I will answer a few for you. If you could go back and do something differently, would you?
Sorry - just a minute please, the question's not finished. If you could go back and do something differently, would you - would you spend more time with your mother? Would you have learnt to cycle earlier? Would you have spent more time on that poetry, would you have learned to cook for your friends, would you have gone walking in the hills near your family home, would you have learned your neighbours' first names? Would you have kissed that girl who was too shy to tell you how she felt? Would you have made sure you never ever said I love you without meaning it?
I can see that this question has upset you. It is a rather long one... But not to worry, we have the perfect way to fix that sadness that rests on your face. Here, listen to this song. It has the answers - not necessarily the ones you want now, but something to help you find them. You'll feel better, I promise you. Apart from that, don't forget that it's summer. It's your time of the year, the sun is here warming the ground beneath your feet. And remember: you can never say no to a girl in a summer dress. I think that's what the song is really about, actually.

This is A Classic Education's new single, out now on Bailiwick Records. It's remarkable, and just one example of the amazing things this band can do. You can buy the 7" single here, for £4, and you should.

we will try

Super Extra Bonus Party - Comets (feat. Heathers)

As soon as this song kicks off, you know that it's one of those rare and surprising instances where everything seems to go together perfectly. Between the lunar guitar lines and the insistent vocals telling us to close our eyes, the entire mood of this thing is like being out on a summer night, at some vantage point over a city that once felt new and strange, but suddenly feels like it's yours. It feels like your home, where your friends are. And though it's starting to grow cold, you'd rather stay, because you like seeing it like this, everything at once, not as big and distant as you'd once thought. You only ever feel this for places you come to love.

As much as I liked SEBP's debut, it didn't quite grab me the way it did others. Night Horses, however, is a different beast, and it's been growing on me with every listen. It's got a host of familiar faces (well, voices) on it too, featuring contributions from Cadence Weapon, Heathers, and Fight Like Apes' MayKay.
Also, that album cover. Just look at it.
The album launch is this Friday in Andrew’s Lane Theatre. If their live show is half as good as people say, it'll be a fantastic night.

the parts i don't like

DM Stith has brought his band on tour with him to Europe! And as well as playing astoundingly good concerts (one of which I saw, more of which soon) they've been playing sessions, and doing interviews, and lovely things like the above performance of 'Pity Dance' for our good friends at Maps. There's one more song, more downloads, and an interesting interview to be found over at their site. And if you'd fancy an acoustic version:


DM Stith - Pity Dance (Torture Garden session)

An Interview with Win Butler

... Or, if you prefer, an interview with whoever's running his Twitter, and doing an oddly hilarious job of it, too. I have no idea who it is, but for the sake of making this interview a big deal, I'm going to assume it's him, and not just someone who thinks that the public persona of Mr. Butler that's been cultivated almost by accident over the last years by a combination of the media's earnest adoration, the internet's cultish adoration, and his reticence and loomingness is badly in need of satirising.

Hello Win. How are you?

I'm sorry, can you speak up?

It's a bit late here actually, I have to keep it down.

Sorry man. I don't notice the time anymore, since I learned not to sleep. I'm good, in an indefinably troubled kind of way. Just kicking back with a copy of Atlas Shrugged and a cup of hot dry gravel. To relax.

Well that's good, I guess. I've a feeling this interview will be imbued with that indefinable sense of trouble, actually.

Last job I tried for, they said the exact same thing. Got it, but was later told I'd sold the clogs with a certain menace.

Atlas Shrugged? That's about you, right?

A "shrug" is like... a passing action. Whereas it's just a permanent thing for me. I'm in a state of shrug.

Might there be a bit of an Ayn Rand influence on the next record then?

Probably not, I mean, nobody can spell it. They can't even agree on whether to give John Kennedy Toole a hyphen or not. Although personally, I think the guy earned it.

How come you decided to do this interview anyway?

I decided to do this interview entirely due to my little-appreciated sense of whimsy. I mean, I started this band on a bet. It started out being kind of funny, and just got out of hand. I can't help taking up an absurd wager.

The road to hell is paved with whimsical wagers. Also, Grammys.

I've got a bet with James Murphy. We're racing zeppelins to the 1871 World's Fair at the Crystal Palace. He wins, they get the Redhead. We win, we get Nancy Whang.

Where's the whimsy on Neon Bible, for those of us who missed it? It's in 'My Body Is A Cage', isn't it? I knew it.

NB was originally a testament to disco- a "Neon Bible." But we got the Pipe Organ for christmas, felt like we had to use it, y'know? Turns out Pipe Organ's not great for doing the Saturday Night Fever thing.' Plus Tim kept laughing at the word 'pipe organ'. Every fuckin time.

Hmm. So, why Twitter?

I like Twitter 'cause I can get away with being terse. Although 140 characters is just decadent.

You're taking to it well. I expect future material will consist of 3 minute songs with fourteen words or less. No more (ATB)s.

We're thinking of ditching actual lyrics altogether. Just gonna yell noises. Nobody ever knows what the hell I'm saying anyway. I mean people love that Sigur Ros guy. Guy? It's a guy, right? Bet nobody ever accuses the Sigur Ros guy of stealing their... uh... he looks like a badminton guy... Their badminton stuff.

He is indeed a guy - but be careful, that could end up in the NME. Both the exclusive-details on the new record and the inter-band putdowns.

We could take Sigur Ros. Flaming Lips, I don't know, but Sigur Ros, they'd get punished. Unless they've got Iceland powers. We owe Bjork a solid though, so we'd be cool to Sigur Ros.

We both know bands never really fight anyway. I mean, AF has a married couple, siblings and a redhead, and you lot get on peachy.

Arcade Fire, getting on peachy.

I tell them what to do and they do it. 'Cause I'm so big.
Thing about a band like ours though, all it takes is one bad redheaded apple. And I'm not saying nothing, but this lifestyle isn't easy. Late nights in the smoking parlour and laudenaum, nearly ended us. You just gotta take some time out, get some distance between you. The Baltics, that's about far enough.

Hmm. Is it fair to say you have favourites in the group? I think it might be.

Well, I know who I'd rather take on a sun vacation. Somebody I won't have to take to the burns unit afterwards, for instance. That said, sun vacations are wasted on me. I don't tan - I make the sun paler.

I see. Not exactly what Canada needed, I'd say. By the way, are you Win Butler?

Sure. Did you know I was in the Merchant Marine? Also, I stole that guy's basketball. And I'm Mormon.

Fair enough. Well, that won me a bet. I knew you were a Mormon.

---------

Arcade Fire - Black Mirror

For more in this vein, see here and here. To donate to Partners in Health, a worthy charity patronised by Mr. Butler, click here.

true love (fun with YooouuuTuuube)

YooouuuTuuube is an image generator that turns videos into big beautiful scrolling reams of awesome - and the best and most popular example at the moment is that fine Alice mash-up song and video by Pogo from not too long ago.

Pogo - Alice

There's an interesting Wired article on it here.

{Thanks Charlie!}

I'm moving to the Philippines

Lavender Diamond - You Broke My Heart

What happened in the Philippines? It seems to be the most emotionally sensitive place on earth! It must be constant heartbreak and heartjoy! How do they get anything done? I am convinced, now, after some rudimentary research (and surely this is just the tip of the iceberg) that it is a place unlike any other. You can't argue with science - or, I put it to you, Google Insights.

Ireland has different sensitivities, it seems.

{Lavender Diamond - they are beautiful, and wonderful, and I saw them live once and it was like watching hearts being sewn onto sleeves. Find out more about them.}

Hauschka

I've been listening to Düsseldorfer Hauschka's gorgeous Snowflakes and Carwrecks for a little while now, and though this track isn't on it, the video is perfect for taking the gloom out of your Sunday. It really is beautifully made.

{Buy}

into my arms

{via}


Laura Marling - (Interlude) Crawled Out Of The Sea

When will you come back? We miss you. Someone said you would be at the bus station today, I waited for four hours. Standing before every bus as passengers gushed out, sweaty and aching from the trip. No face was yours, and the last face out each door, stepping onto the pavement - that was agony.
I sometimes wonder what you did to me, to make me this way. And not just what you did to me, but what did you do to the sky? Every time I look up now, it's not like it used to be. Clouds used to be full and airy, with life and light in them. Since you left, it's like there's nothing in the sky but rags. Empty, torn things, with their insides pulled out, each one floating uselessly like an old cloth in dishwater. Nights, too, have changed. Stars used to glitter and hum brightly, familiar little signs telling everyone something secret - they used to, but stars now look less like pins of warmth holding up the night's blanket, and more like the dead insects smeared on my windscreen.
I can understand why you left us, but I wish you'd have left the sky the way it was.

{Buy}

the clouds did pour down

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Mixylodian - Fairly Well

This song can't be listened to once, it doesn't work that way: you need to get familiar with it, let it in, until it stays on your mind. That tapping at the start, it's like your mind turning on, starting up, running your life again. These things will come back after you've forgotten the song's name, or where you heard it. And after that it only gets better, when you finally come back to it and decide that maybe it's right for you after all.
It's like some small detail like a street sign that you used to see every day, reappearing outside your new home, as thought it's looking for your attention. The beats here, the delicate, polite vocals - it doesn't take long till you believe they're singing for you, and you don't want them to stop.

I've written about Mixylodian before, because they're very good. This is their new single, and I adore it. They're currently on tour in Canada - you can find out more on their MySpace.

from in your car

we saw the fire

I cannot wait.

1. BMB (Alternate Version)
2. Around The Lion Legs (Slow Dance Version)
3. BMB (Roberto C. Lange Remix)
4. BMB (Son Lux Remix)
5. Suzanne (Randy Newman Cover)
6. Be My Baby (Ronettes Cover)
7. Untitled

A song I've been in love with for nearly two years made new, somehow combining David Stith, Son Lux, Asthmatic Kitty and the Ronettes in one package. This is going to be good.