We've been following Adam and Andrea since their 2009 single release on Beko-dsl. It was fuzzy and a bit noisy, but nothing could've prepared us to Doomed Forever, their debut album on Slumberland Records: 30 minutes of lo-fi, chaotic (layers of) guitars mixed with (layers of) Andrea's soothing voice.
The album flows perfectly. It has timing and balance between the heavy guitars, electronic drum machines and more 'trippy', electronic influenced songs.
It's intense. Quirky. Angry. Twee. Shoegaze. Vibrant.
Go to Slumberland, buy the record and prepare your ears.
On Scribble Kite, you can download their first release, from 2008.
The album flows perfectly. It has timing and balance between the heavy guitars, electronic drum machines and more 'trippy', electronic influenced songs.
It's intense. Quirky. Angry. Twee. Shoegaze. Vibrant.
Go to Slumberland, buy the record and prepare your ears.
On Scribble Kite, you can download their first release, from 2008.
On Beko (or here on the blog) you can download their single from 2009 and after the interview, you'll find their latest album, also released on Beko.
In our first interview of the year, Adam and Andrea talk about getting high and drunk during freezing nights, collaborations with record labels, buying spandex, music distribution and creative directions. Always with a very peculiar sense of humour. Enjoy!
01. While gathering information about the band when I first discovered you, I read that you started to make music during the freezing winter nights of New Haven… Do you remember the first time you did that? What you had in my mind by that time? And where does the name come from?
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| photo by jim of fnu ronnies |
Anyway, it was during those long winter nights in 2007 when we would stay up all night get high and drunk and play with the recording gear in my room, until one night I made some few catchy and trippy instrumental tracks with Andrea (sometimes literally half asleep) laying her multiple vocal tracks on top. First few songs that we made were Awesome Animals, Dictionary of Psychology, Different Shot, and Behemoth. All these songs are on the scribble kite rec.
2008 release as well as the latest beko-dsl 2011 release. We were instantly very surprised, happy and proud with the way they all sounded and couldn't wait to make more tracks somewhat the same way. It wasn't until few weeks after, that we realized we have a solid body of work and we needed a name. Coincidentally, our friend Crystal Ward had a funny little name for her imaginary club on her facebook profile. She named it Procedure Club. We all found it really funny for it's sheer meaninglessness and vagueness. We asked her if we could use that name for what, at the time, was our imaginary band, and that's how Procedure Club happened.
02. If your music was a landscape or planet or painting or anything visual, how it would look like?
ADAM: I'd have to be vague and dream like. With no distinguishable faces, pretty landscapes of New England's and Upstate New York's forests, hills, rivers, lakes and villages. Abandoned buildings also go very well with our songs. We once did a soundtrack for Boston's nonprofit group promoting composting. We used the song Vermont for it.
ANDREA: A fuzzy, distorted image. Because people use those terms to describe the music.
03. The first time I heard about you was because of the single you’ve released under Beko-DSL (I’ve talked about it here). How did this partnership happened?
ADAM: Became online friend with Reno who runs the label by befriending another friend of his when travelling in Europe in 2007. But that can be best explained by Andrea herself.
ANDREA: What Adam said is not true at all. I met one of the Beko guys online--we both had similar taste and he knew Procedure Club and we began talking. He said he was starting a digital label with a friend of his to promote artists and good music. He's a lovely guy--really, really sweet and tasteful. We plan on collaborating a little bit in the future..
04. Last year came ‘Doomed Forever’, your debut album, with songs floating around a lo-fi-ish, shoegazy, noisepop-esque atmosphere and sometimes passing through some warm clouds of twee and synthpop. It was released on the awesome Slumberland Records, one of the greatest labels of our times. How did you get to them… Were you contacted by the label? What was their role on the creation/production of the album?
ADAM: Before Slumberland ever noticed us and soon after we got ourselves launched, we kept sending our CDr to labels that we thought would find our music worth putting out. One of them was Bada Bing Records who recommended us to Slumberland. Soon after that, Mike Schulmann of Slumberland, as well as Crystal Stilts, gave us a big compliment on our myspace page. One year later Slumberland put us out and we were very happy with that deal. Slumberland Records always leaves it up to bands to do what bands do best.
But by no means does Slumberland have any creative input in anything. They truly love and respect every band that they release and they would not dare to meddle in artists' music or even album artwork, for that matter.
05. In terms of production and creative process (something that I’m really, really interested and curious about bands and artists) how ‘Doomed Forever’ was made? What were/are your expectations with it? The songs featured in the album were recorded specifically for it or is it a compilation of things you’ve been recording throughout the existence of the band?
ADAM: Most of the songs that are on the album have been made after Andrea moved from New Haven, Connecticut. A friend of ours began to lend us a helping hand and ear in the production and recording process. I normally would make an instrumental track at home in New Haven and send it back and forth until it was done.That way a song was made. Sometimes I would travel to New Jersey and we would all work together. Eventually, enough songs were made to make an album. So it was a compilation of few months of songwriting never really expecting Slumberland to release it.
Slumberland contacted us and promised to release the album. This was quite a surprise for us since we did not hear much from Slumberland since he complemented us on myspace nearly one year prior to that.
ANDREA: I'd been talking with Slumberland on friendly terms for a while...
06. Your single on Beko is a free release and your album is available to buy on Slumberland as LP or CD. Being on both sides of music distribution (free single released under a small label and an album with a known record label) , what’s your opinion on music distribution nowadays?
ADAM: I personally have a love/hate relationship with today's music distribution. We made 3 of our releases available for free to download. One on the Mexican label Scribble Kite, and one EP and one LP on Beko-dsl. It is good to make them available for free because I found that a lot of people who first buy our lp on Slumberland often go to download the free tracks to hear our full body of work and hopefully they come away admiring how prolific we have been :) Also, we love Beko's and scribblekite's layout and art work, and how nice, supportive and appreciative both of the labels have been to us. But sometimes I can't stop to wonder, what our sales would have been had it been year 1993 and file sharing was limited by a super slow modem. Perhaps I wouldn't have to work the jobs I don't want to do. I guess that's the price we must pay for the freedoms we have gained as a result of DIY music blowout in the recent times.
07. What can we expect next? More noise and chaos - as ‘Nautical Song’ – or maturity will take you to more polite and polished sounds - as in ‘Feel Sorry For Me’? Or am I being too rational and simplistic assuming that music creation is that Cartesian and predictable?
ADAM: There is nothing simplistic in assuming that we have some preconceived notion of what our next album is gonna be like. We often discuss it with Andrea and the idea is to kind of get back to the simplistic, chaotic, bass driven and drunken- mistake ridden rhythms. Kind of like what we think would happen if Slowdive took lots of speed, steroids and they got very, very drunk and decided to record. Kind of like one of our first songs: Awesome Animals. But who knows? When push comes to shove our ideas never come to fruition.
Usually when we're done recording, the result is surprising to us and we want to depart from the original intention. That, I think has been the healthiest approach to our music making: trial and error. Also, anything I will record must pass Andrea's test. Basically, if she feels like putting her voice on it, it has to be to her liking because she could not live with herself if she put out something that she would be embarrassed by. She is an excellent sound barometer. She just has an awesome taste in music and really good sense of humor about all of it.
08. Do you get to live off of your music?
ADAM: No, we're broke. i am almost unemployed and I'm currently in the process of taking freeloading to whole new levels. Andrea is in the grad school right now. That's why I keep fantasizing about 1993 and what it would be like to sell out actual physical CDs and records at record stores around the world. But who knows? I heard some horror stories of how bands got fucked over by record labels back in those times. There is much less of that going on right now.
09. Any song(s) you’d like to cover?
ADAM: Yann Tiersen's "rue de cascade"
ANDREA: I like to cover that song and make it sound violent.
10.Name the perfect place and time to hear your music.
American Apparel store while shopping for some spandex pants on a Sunday afternoon.
11. Recommend something you've been listening lately.
Candy Claws!! the most amazing band from Colorado we were lucky to share the stage with in December. The late Polish poet and the folk-post-romantic songwriter Marek Grechuta. Here is a video from 1969.
12. Anything else you feel like saying?
Obrigado.
Here's their latest release: a twelve song album released on Beko-dsl (second collaboration with the label) called 'The Salmon of Doubt'.
(download)
a1. seven days later
a2. life on earth
a3. art of ignoring
a4. between the eyes
a5. witches
a6. ed
b1. index finger
b2. andrea's drunk song
b3. walking (feat adam)
b4. snowy (feat. sore eros)
b5. indigineous
b6. dead rocks
Here's their latest release: a twelve song album released on Beko-dsl (second collaboration with the label) called 'The Salmon of Doubt'.
(download)
a1. seven days later
a2. life on earth
a3. art of ignoring
a4. between the eyes
a5. witches
a6. ed
b1. index finger
b2. andrea's drunk song
b3. walking (feat adam)
b4. snowy (feat. sore eros)
b5. indigineous
b6. dead rocks
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