REVIEWS
ai aqui vai er uma explicacao enorme sobre o assunto etc
Music writings
These are the things I wrote about music.
Come On and Slam by Sledding with Tigers
Trust issues are a common thing nowadays, given that we, humans, are way too fragile and our tiny little hearts can be easily broken by anyone. Each individual finds its own way to deal with it and find out who’s worthy of their time and affection: some people don’t trust those who don’t like dogs; others, don’t trust those who don’t say good morning to the barista on their favourite coffee shops. I, myself, don’t trust those who don’t like Space Jam.
Now imagine that Sledding with Tigers, a band coming straight out of San Diego, is back with their usual carefree lyrics and bluegrassy rhythms, but now in a concept album about Space Jam.
Yes, a concept album about Space Jam. It’s unbelievable.
Come On and Slam begins with Retirement, a track written from the perspective of Michael Jordan, talking about his journey of leaving basketball to go play professional baseball as his father did. All of this is bathed in the feeling of eternal summer that Sledding with Tigers seems to be able to create very easily — a cheery opening to a stupefying twenty minutes of seven tracks that progress along with the script of the movie.
Their smoothly built hybrid of loud vocals and pretty strings works well but, in addition to the unserious matter behind the music, ends up making even the saddest songs in the album, Aliens Exist 2 (Swackhammer’s Lament) and The Ballad of Charles Barkley not that profoundly moving. But as Come On and Slam goes on, you end up getting more and more involved with it. The versatility of their references – calling Wayne Knight of “Newman from Seinfeld”, for God’s sake – is magnificent, and the band has a special talent for writing amusing, lively music. Which, I guess, makes a lot of sense when you’re writing about what’s probably Warner Bros. Animation’s most iconic work. Yes, I’m going to reiterate this: it’s an concept album written entirely based on and about Space Jam.
Bugs Bunny, Michael Jordan, Bill Murray, Danny DeVito, the crème de la crème of everything the 90s offered to us, reunited in a folk-ish album. Although the band themselves describe their album as “silly”, it’s nice to see how much their sound matured in relation to their previous works.
The sleazy chorused vocals, adorable violins, and upbeat guitars all come together to build a harmlessly joyful album. The band may appear to not take themselves very seriously, but they’re still one of the most promising things the North American folk-punk scene has to offer these days: Come On and Slam is a fun listen and lemony fresh.
6/10
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Exílioby Regular Boat Driver
Dense. Utterly dense. That’s what I would say if I had to describe Regular Boat Driver using only an adverb- I couldn’t ever live without them - and an adjective, in what would probably turn out to be the second smallest review ever (the first place would certainly be snatched by this one, of course). The Rio de Janeiro-based stoner/doom quartet released their first EP, Exílio — which means “exile” in Portuguese — in April 2015. It consists of only three tracks and lasts for no longer than 15 minutes, but Exílio is insane. It’s four guys behind the wheel of the disgruntled vehicle their band is, making music that’s so thick that it’s hard to believe that there were only eight hands working into composing and playing these tracks. Exílio opens with “Sister Chance”, named after a quote from the 1981 movie Possession, from which samples were taken and are played throughout the entire song. This track is astonishingly heavy. The lack of vocals turns the song into sonic desperation – it makes you anxious, frantic, feeling as if you were drowning in an ocean of liquid osmium. The impenetrable web of sound overflows from your ears, the husky guitars scratches your eardrums, the bass deeply penetrates you (in a horny way, too): everything assembled to sound like impending doom. For six minutes, I felt like the Rapture was near and nothing I could do would stop me from going directly to whichever hellhole I’d go. It’s hard to review this EP objectively because it leaves me in a complete lack of words, for I am wholly taken away by whatever the fuck is it that this song makes me feel. Is it anxiety? Is it a seizure aura? It is the fucking Armageddon, really. "Sister Chance" is viscous, and it drips and spills viciously; I wouldn’t have to think for a millisecond before saying that it is the best track on the EP. You could listen to it ten times in a row and still feel haunted by Isabelle Adjani’s voice in the end. The second track, “Lizard Queen”, is much lighter; definitely not light, but much lighter. It’s the first contact you get with the bands’ screamed vocals, and it fits in well within the angry mob of the instruments. It’s almost like a meta-song: its lyrics say “blow my head so the brains can breathe”, and after the Sister-Chance-Experience, this song is the air your brains probably need to breathe. It’s an oasis, a haven in the midst of the desert this recording is. “Cactaceae” is the third and final song. Cactaceae is the given name of the family of the lovely cacti; but don’t be fooled into thinking it’s a prickly-green, cute little house plant. The song describes a surreal mescaline trip, and it’s as harsh, thorny and untouchable as the desert species. This track encapsulates Exílio: it is a journey, a berserk one, and you can never be sure if you managed to leave the allegorical desert or if you’re stuck in it forever. Whether the band left or not, it’s certain that Regular Boat Driver started off their trip with their right feet and that we should really, really keep our eyes open to see what else this odyssey has to offer.
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Fake World Wonderland (フェイクワールドワンダーランド) by Kinoko Teikoku
The Japanese shoegaze scene is endlessly impressive. Personally, I’ve been avidly digging it for a few years now, and somewhere along 2013, I crossed paths with Kinoko Teikoku (で きのこ帝国). Coming straight from Tokyo, the quartet’s softly sung vocals have an ethereal, almost heavenly feel to it. The band has very clear shoegaze and post-rock influences to their music, although they’re certainly not afraid to do throw their own ingredients into the stew and stir the pot thoroughly.
Kinoko Teikoku has the outstandingly ability to sound like a billion different bands in a single album, and that becomes exceptionally clearer when you have listened to their other records.
There’s a noticeable gap between how the band sounded on their previous records, when compared to Fake World Wonderland. The latter is much less atmospheric and dark than Long Goodbye, and ever-tinged with emo revival/pop-punk qualities here and there. But not everything is that different: Chiaki Satou’s voice still sounds sweet as ever, and their muffled, confused instrumental backgrounds are still there, a testament to their Cocteau Twins-esque essence.
It was impossible for me to go through one single track from Fake World Wonderland without thinking it reminded me of a specific song or band, and paradoxically, that made me realize how original they are. And it’s not only a question of originality and every member being able to really bring their own individual talents and tastes: there’s an almost unbelievable versatility to them that leaves you wondering whether they are confused about what kind of band they are, or if they’re so absurdly certain of their own capabilities that they just let all their creativity flow freely, taking each and every track on divergent paths – all of them smooth.
This versatility might get clearer and be even better exemplified if you listen to あるゆえ (Ayu, yue) and to フェイクワールドワンダーランド (Fake World Wonderland) right after. While the former is a mix between Weezer’s “The Sweater Song” and The Bends-era Radiohead, the latter is an acoustic, half Pretty. Odd. by Panic! at the Disco (yes, really), half the Magnetic Fields most astonishingly sweet tracks; it could have been on the soundtrack to King’s Quest VII, and it could have just simply been the soundtrack to the feeling of the Sun caressing your skin while you walk towards the house of your loved one, the butterflies taking over your stomach.
”東京” (Tokyo) is an excellent and energetic headstart to this album, with all its early 10’s pop-punk nuances; it basically screams something that would most definitely be signed to Fueled by Ramen if it was Japanese and more open to shoegaze-influenced artists. “You Outside My Window”, the fourth track, also has the same feeling to it. The tirelessness emanating from both of these tracks left my legs uncontrolably shaking along to the fast drumming and plucked guitars – if you’d ask me to, I’d dance to them anytime.
One of the highest points on Fake World Wonderland – if not the highest - “ヴァージン・スーサイド” (The Virgin Suicides) couldn’t be more appropriately named: it definitely sounds like it could go along with Air’s original soundtrack to the movie. It’s one of the most transparently shoegaze-sounding songs in this recording, with a heavy atmosphere created by the dense, though faint guitars, and Satou’s voice gracefully floating above this thick sea of pedals; it’s hauntingly beautiful, no less.
Sailing smoothly through its ups and downs, Fake World Wonderland is one of the most interesting albums to come out in the Japanese shoegaze scene these last few years. It is, above anything, absolutely thrilling, showing us, mere mortals, how extraordinarily flexible and talented the members of Kinoko Teikoku are - and they will hopefully keep on impressing us with their restlessness.
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Le Voyageur Imprudent by Shizune
Italian quintet Shizune released their debut self-titled EP in 2012, and since then they've already proved themselves as one ferocious, outstanding band, even landing shows with the likes of La Dispute and Raein. Their new record, Le Voyageur Imprudent, contains 10 tracks and lasts for no longer than twenty minutes — but it's more than enough to leave an impression. It starts with the unleashing of extremely fast and intense drums in “Aestheticism”, and they outshines the other instruments — the bass and guitar lines dissolve completely on the background. All you can clearly hear are the beats and the screams, and this melodic structure of blended, homogeneously played instruments is rather common throughout the album. The songs can somehow become even soothing to the ears; since you can't focus on a single instrument, you can listen to the Whole instead of trying to overanalyse, to break it into small pieces. And that works exceptionally well: it fuses all of its flaws and all of its virtues into an exquisite amalgam of exhilarating lyrics, almost-liquid instruments, and powerful vocals. There's a kind of tangible disbelief and desperation in each of these songs, as if every note was saturated with the passion and the raw emotion discharged by the musicians. The very conception of the album’s theme leads to an an awful feeling of hopelessness that leads the album, like you were running from your own fate but suddenly realized that there was absolutely no way out; you just accept it as it is. The future of which this album talks is a somewhat desolate one; at times it seems like it is not even a future per se, but a time-purgatory where you're stagnant, stuck in an allegorical moment you'd rather not be. Perhaps this desperating foresight is the journey the imprudent traveller is going through. It should be noted how the album itself contains lyrics in Italian, English, Japanese and French. And to Shizune’s merit, they seem to be capable of creating great, touching and thought-provoking lyrics in that many languages. The track named "Difficile da cappire, impossible da spiegare" says it all: it's hard to understand and impossible to explain. The different languages, the delicate guitars and unsettling vocals, it all blurs the lines between musical genres. There’s even some hints of third wave post-rock in tracks such as "Vesper" and "Sputnik! nostalgia". "Orienteering in Aokigahara 青木ヶ原", the only instrumental track on the album, is the most literal representation of the helpless feeling emanated by this album, musically and simbolically: Aokigahara, also known as the "Sea of Trees", is a forest located in the base of Mount Fuji, known for its high rate of suicides. It's a peaceful song, really. It's common knowledge that in Aokigahara you can't listen to anything besides the forest's own sounds, because of its dense foliage - and while listening to "Orienteering..." I felt like there wasn't any noise in the world besides this song; Shizune left me lost in its woods.
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New Amsterdam/Saturday Night by Talude
Talude is a experimental band from Natal, northeastern Brazil. With Jônatas Barbalho in the drums, Victor Romero and Felipe Beniz on the guitars, and João Victor Lima on the bass, they cite influences that range from John Frusciante's solo career to My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive. They are just finishing recording their first album, which is planned to be released on July 2015. Prior to the release of the album, they've revealed two songs, New Amsterdam and Saturday Night - the latter, along with a music video.
"New Amsterdam" begins with a very dense bass/guitar line that repeats throughout most of the song, and which unsurprisingly almost immediately made me think of Interpol's debut album Turn On The Bright Lights. It contains that feeling of walking onto the streets after dusk, and then suddenly the cold wind hits you in the eyes, and you have to get re-used to the bright yellowish lights of the night.
I was left wondering if the song title is "New Amsterdam" because it actually makes you feel like you're walking into a city at night, or if I just felt like that way because its name drifted me towards this whole idea of walking on the streets of Amsterdam. It's a song that lingers on your mind for much longer than its mere 6 minutes. It's heavy and sullen, a song that makes you want to wait for a rainy day to be able to enjoy its' full potential.
The second track, "Saturday Night", is much lighter. The guitar/bass lines are nice, but it feels like something is missing; perhaps, the texture the band was able to create on New Amsterdam? This is especially noticeeable towards the end of the track, when it gets more noisy than before. The mix between the chorused, faded-out vocals and the sharp guitar is interesting, but when the song gets heavier near the 2-minute mark, the vocals begin to sound like they just don't belong. It's anti-climatic and just a hard song to listen to, overall.
It’s pretty easy to point out which bands influenced Talude the most just by listening to these two tracks. It's like "oh, they've got the sharp guitars which sound like this band right here, and the vocals of this one, and the drums…"... it doesn’t sound unoriginal, but it isn’t anything necessarily new.
The thing is that it's all about a balance they could only achieve on the first track of this double single, and that’s alright - they're only beginning, we can only hope that they will do that even better on their next releases.
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Três Elefantes com Ereção em Comma by Ereção de Elefante & Tricomma
Some bands are better live, and other bands are better in the studio. This standard dichotomy has probably been around for as long as studio recordings have. Try to recall a single concert you’ve been to after which no one said anything, good or bad, about the gap between the live and recorded quality of the band. You probably can’t – people are always going to ramble about how better off they were when they saw them live at Primavera Sound or how the band’s muffled guitars can be heard soooo much better on their recorded albums, or how his voice fills up an entire room. And so, I must say beforehand that watching Ereção de Elefante (ExDxEx) live is an absolutely cathartic experience. They are absolutely fucking brutal - my unsurprisingly doped body was caught by surprise in the middle of a small crowd on a Saturday afternoon. It felt like my members didn’t want to answer to my brain any longer, but to what the sound waves had to say. Even if you’re not an avid goer of punk/grind concerts, it’s remarkably different how they sound on their studio recordings and live gigs; watching these kinds of bands live is savage, and though their viciousness is inhuman, all the sweat, all the screams and all the quivering on your skin makes you deliciously conscious about every single bit of organic matter on you — yours or not. This anecdote is to say that Três Elefantes Com Ereção em Coma, a split EP, doesn’t let this band reveal itself in its full glory. It’s a DIY recording by crustpunk duo ExDxEx and Tricomma, a rap trio, both from Belo Horizonte. The album itself is cleverly organized, intercalating tracks by both bands, creating an oddly harmonious split. It’s far from what you’d encounter in splits created by bands which sound even slightly alike, simply because Ereção de Elefante and Tricomma have nothing in common. It’s soothing to have a 3-minute-long chill rap track after all the bloodthirstiness of the violent but brief crustpunk songs. When you put them in perspective, the inherent eccentricity of both bands gets evident; the Muzak like instrumental backgrounds in Tricomma’s tracks gracefully contrast against the assertive, though laidback rap flows; these, in turn, are in opposition to the truculence cascading off ExDxEx. On Tricomma's side, "Pizza" is the most remarkable track. It’s well-crafted, and everything sounds right; it’s a mix between new age-like soothing instrumentals, faint beats, and mellow vocals, and it's as delightfully done as "Extrato". Now, “Ando Tão Cabeça Aberta Que Tô Até Bebendo Água Com Gás”, by ExDxEx, is the centerpiece of this thing. The name says it all: I’ve been so open-minded lately that I’ve even been drinking sparkling water. This title is already a masterpiece by itself, but the song is also the highest point of the record – only twenty-five seconds of screams and noise and fury and passion and rage and, well, aren’t all of us violence enthusiasts (feel free to take this any way you want). It’s short and incredibly aggressive. Watching this band live was a one-of-a-kind experience. Dope rushing through my body, my best friend dancing and headbanging along with me, people scattered throughout the plaza — all sharing the same bewilderment, plastered on their faces. A few doses of turmoil and complete disorientation in our daily routines can be good. Music can shake the leaves off of your mind, and this is a good one to start your cleansing with.
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INTERVIEW
ai aqui vai er uma explicacao enorme sobre o assunto etc
E A Terra Nunca Me Pareceu Tão Distante
E A Terra Nunca Me Pareceu Tão Distante is a brazilian instrumental quartet, based in São Paulo. Composed by guitarists Luden Viana and Lucas Theodoro, bassist Luccas Villela and drummer Rafael Jonke, E A Terra... sounds like they could be the missing puzzle piece of the second wave of post-rock - even though they would rather not identify themselves as being a post-rock band. All in all, the only thing we know is that they make absolutely wonderful music. Their name, meaning "and Earth never seemed so far away", makes a lot of sense when you listen to their space-ish, ethereal songs. They have released five records up to date, including their latest extended play Vazio (Emptiness, in portuguese), and left us wanting so much more. CALLIOPE MAG: In renowned post-rock/instrumental bands, as with Godspeed You! Black Emperor, there aren’t lyrics - and when there’s any kind of verbal expression in their songs, it’s usually spoken word. How does the creative process work when there are no lyrics to work with? Are the songs created based on jams or is there a kind of melody developed in the first place? Luden Viana: It rarely comes from something random, it’s usually done over an already-created melody on our guitars and then we just create based on it. Lucas Theodoro: It’s kinda crazy, because sometimes even when we have something that’s close to being fully written, Luden and I come with something new for the guitar lines. Then, when the bass lines and the other guitar comes in, sometimes a song that was already structured gets pretty different, because we’re putting new stuff onto it. Rafael Jonke: Usually, the guitars bring a previously developed idea, so we take them to the studio and jam over them, working so we can build something. There were songs which took us almost a year to complete. We play them and we try new things and then see in which way it sounds better, constantly adding new ideas. CM: The brazilian post-rock and related instrumental genres scene is pretty small. Does the band usually get positive reactions from the public of other genres and play gigs with other non-instrumental artists? Lucas T: We usually play with bands that aren’t instrumental. We sometimes play with instrumental bands, like Huey. We don’t identify as much sonically with bands that have lyrics, but we prefer playing with them, because otherwise it might get pretty dull. The instrumental bands usually help each other in gigs like that, but I wouldn’t define it as a scene per se. We never had someone coming to us and saying that we needed to get a singer and lyrics. It’s a pretty common thing to be said to instrumental bands, but we never had this happen to us. Luccas Villela: There’s always gonna be half a dozen people who would rather have three instrumental bands playing one after another and fuck it, but it really depends on where we’re playing. Rafael: I wouldn’t define it exactly as a “scene” because I think that in the punk scene, for example, the bands usually create collectives for their gigs. The instrumental ones are more individualistic, so sometimes we partner up with a few bands, but nothing too relevant. Luden: We also don’t have that one discursive element that would put us on a “scene” box. We don’t walk around with the Anarchist manifesto under our arms. And incredibly, people from other scenes really support our style. We never had people leaving our concerts because we were clearly a different vibe, played a different kind of music. It’s funny, because I think we don’t see ourselves as a post-rock band. It’s more of an instrumental-only band to us, although the likeness and proximity are undeniable. CM: What happens frequently is "E A Terra..." being compared with Explosions in the Sky. Luden: Yes. But in many levels, at least in the beginning of the band, I identified so much more with emo bands rather than post-rock ones. I listen to some bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Swans, which are pretty different from Explosions in the Sky. They’re from another post-rock era. I listen to Explosions pretty rarely nowadays, even though I’ve been getting into Tortoise once again. Even though we like them a lot, they’re definitely not the band who influenced us the most. The influences we got from Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Silver Mt Zion, and basically everything Efrim Manuel Menuck does, to me, were infinitely bigger than from Explosions. Rafael: To be honest, I don’t listen that much to post-rock. Lucas T: Instrumental bands usually listen more to math rock than post-rock. I also think that comparing us to Explosions and other bands is kind of clinging on to what you already know. That’s good and bad at the same time, but it was never something that stopped us on our tracks. CM: Something i find really interesting about E A Terra... is that everything that you guys have done up to date are in Portuguese. All of the song names, the name of the band, the extended plays titles even - and I think it’s very rare to see a band that values so much the Portuguese language in Brazil. There are many bands who name themselves and sing in English, mostly, to get more visibility. Do you guys do that with some kind of purpose? What do you think about the Lusophone erasure within Brazilian music? Luden: We’re from Brazil. We play to Brazilian people and we like being Brazilian. Lucas T: I think it’s very awkward to sing in English and then, in between the songs you play, just speak to the crowd in Portuguese. We have to speak to what we live in, even though we don’t have lyrics. We’ve got feedback from people saying “oh, we like this song’s name, it’s relatable”, and it’s always because of the name. It’s interesting. All the names are honest. We're honest to ourselves. Luden: Song titles are one of the few non-musical resources we have to pass any kind of message and situation to which the person will relate to before listening, whether they like it or not. So I think it would be kind of dumb if we went towards a path we’re not sure of how to walk on. We can name our songs in English, but what I feel in Portuguese might not be exactly what the person feels in English with the same words. Rafael: It’s more of a personal thing of ours, to do that - because we’re from Brazil. We relate so much to the songs we produce and to the names and I think that’s what we want to our listeners to feel. CM: What I find great about that is that in few words you describe the feelings of the entire song. You listen to the song thinking about its title. Lucas T: Which is something that wouldn’t happen if it was in another language. Luden: It’s kind of a subconscious thing, the songs aren’t always that much thought about, like, “today I’m going to sit down and make music”. No, sometimes you’re feeling like crap and then you go and write a song. It’s not like an advertising agency, we don’t have a deadline to release our songs. Rafael: It’s because the process of making music is very natural, the name comes naturally and so do the things we make. But we discuss what the song sounds like to us, what it relates to – and then comes the final title. Luden: Even though it’s natural, almost all of the names are discussed in between us. It’s rare, but at times someone says “I don’t like this name, it sucks”. (laughs) CM: There goes a very simple question: why Paulo Mendes da Rocha? (referring to PMR, a song by E A Terra) Lucas T: Why not Paulo Mendes da Rocha? Luden: So, this song was written long before the band even began, actually. I used to work in a documentary production company in São Paulo and that company was doing services for those within the architecture field, so we went off to interview a few of those architects. One of them was Paulo Mendes da Rocha. And it was an interview that was basically about chairs, benches, armchairs. And then suddenly it became something about life and creation. And it was very relevant to me at that time, so when I got home I created the main riff of the song – not necessarily thinking, but in a way doing it, about everything that was said. And I don’t have much contact with Paulo Mendes da Rocha because I don’t know anything about architecture, it’s not part of my routine. But that interview was great, so that’s the reason behind it. He’s a fucking great guy. It would be very weird sitting through that interview, right in front of him, with the guy monologuing for two hours, and not feeling something. It’s not normal. The guy’s a genius. Lucas T: I researched Paulo Mendes afterwards, and we identified with the fact that architecture says nothing to you in words. It's just like, he perceives his work in such a great way, he sees architecture as something far beyond just a chair or a building. We feel the same way about music. We don’t need to be just a band, we can speak about what we think about the world, the way we deal with people. It kind of relieves the pain of working. And it’s the idea that everything you do is a political attitude. CM: About the musical influences you’ve had throughout your career: is there anything that’s really unexpected, that you really enjoy but that doesn’t sound anything like the music you play? Luden: I think Racionais is a very good example of that (laughs). I think the most surprising stuff is rap, actually. Lucas (Theodoro) likes MC Livinho. Lucas T: I love funk. I like Livinho a lot! (laughs) Rafael: I mostly listen to hip hop and rap. It’s what I listen to the most, all the time. But what I like to play is this, instrumental music. I feel like I have much more freedom to compose. I don’t have any influence like “ah, that one post-rock band...”. Luccas V: I don’t know, I’m new to this shit. Luden: He likes jazz, he likes drinking his wine. (laughs) Everyone likes jazz a lot, but I think that the influence jazz has on our songs is at the same time very distant and very close. Luccas V: It’s distant, but if you look deeply into it, it’s there. Lucas T: When the band started, I was totally into Fugazi, and now I’m listening to a lot of electronic music. I’m all over the place. It’s good because since we listen to plenty of different things, we’ve got a lot of different ideas. And so, we’re bringing more diverse stuff into the new things we’re currently writing. Luden: Yeah, he’s been listening to noise, a lot. Sunn o)))), all things drone. Lucas T: But it’s crazy, because we end up consuming very little of instrumental music. The things that come onto our songs are mostly what we listen to throughout the whole week. Because of that, it's totally different each time. I think it will get more noticeable, these experimentations we’re doing with our music. Luden: My things get more distant every time from what Lucas composes, and Lucas is also a main composer on our band, so it does vary a lot. It’s crazy and it’s going to be great. CM: All of your album covers are shots of the horizon; infinite photos, almost. At least to me, it has always seemed to me like they were infinite. Is it intentional or do you guys pick those pictures only because they’re pretty? Lucas T: The covers of our two singles are kind of sub-covers of the EPs. The one off of “HIP 13044b” is the negative image of “E A Terra Nunca Me Pareceu Tão Distante”, and the second one [Luz Acesa] is from the same photoshoot as "Vazio". I think it’s more of a coincidence, really. We did all of our EPs too close together. Luden: But I think that at the same time it’s not just a coincidence. At some level, we wanted that, but we didn’t put it necessarily into words. We didn’t get together and discussed it, like “yeah, I think there's a concept of infinity here”, but unconsciously we knew what we wanted to say when we chose those images. The one by Camila Svenson [Luz Acesa] was something like that: she released the photo shoot when we released our first EP, then I turned to Lucas and said “this one is going to be the cover of our next album”. And then it was done, we spoke to her and it really became the new cover. Rafael: The first one is a picture Lucas took. So after this one we fully adopted the idea, but the visual identity grows alongside our music and our band. I think the album covers have the dimension that our songs have in our heads. CM: To finish up, in which moment did you look at your lives and thought “this is it: I need to make music”. When did that “click” happen? Luden: When I heard "Bandwagonesque" by Teenage Fanclub, being brutally honest. I thought it was so fucking great. I learnt how to play the guitar and stopped cutting my hair just so I would look like those 90’s dudes. Basically that. The modus operandi came much later. The first impulse definitely came from Teenage Fanclub. Another moment when I saw what I wanted to do musically, what I needed to play, was when my old band with Rafael broke up. I barely made music at all after that, not even at home. And then I started getting really upset and thought, “I need to create another band”. You start to feel kind of sick. We know we won’t get rich with this, we won’t get money. But for us, playing is already rewarding enough. Lucas T: To me, there were a lot of different “clicks”. When I was a youngster, it was Kurt Cobain who did it for me. But then there’s another time of your life when you start actually having a band and playing, and you start to understand what you’re really doing. When I was older it was definitely Fugazi that made me think that it would be great to make music like them. But I already had a band by then, I was already playing. Rafael: I think it’s a natural thing. I’ve listened to music since forever, I was always interested in it and then I decided to start playing – with Luden, actually, as he said before. That was almost ten years go. We grew up, we had another band before that didn’t work out and so we decided to start this one. It’s more than wanting, it’s needing to create, to be able to do things. Luden: And Lucas was playing for ten years with Marcelo [the band's previous bass player] until he left the band. It was a long time ago. It definitely doesn’t come from today. Luccas V: You start it when you’re a kid. When you’re in your teen years you start a band with those who really want to play. But there’s always that one sucker who gives up, who fucks it all up and you’re going to have to break up this band and start another one. Or there’s the guy who’s going to college and will want to play with the college band, and then will give up yours. Finally you’ll work out, somehow, how to find the right people to do the right things. When you start listening to music, from the moment you buy your first acoustic guitar until now... Since my first guitar I was sure that it was what I would do with my life. And when I listened to the bands, I said, yeah, I definitely want this. Luden: My siblings played at the church. It’s another kind of relation with music, but it’s pretty crazy. (laughs) At the same time that I had people who had a connection with music in my family, it was like it didn’t matter at all: he plays in the church, and that’s it. Luccas V: At my household and at Lucas’ there isn’t anyone who makes music. I’ve gotten a guitar as a gift from my great grandfather, but he didn’t actually play it. There’s no one who had a band, no one in my family knows how to play anything. There are some things that come from nowhere. Rafael: I think it’s pretty weird not having that musical involvement. Because in my life it’s something natural, something inherent. Luden: I got that click like the one you get in the first time when you listen to something and you’re in total awe, you know? The first time you listened to All Delighted People by Sufjan Stevens, to Kind of Blue [by Miles Davis]. You just want to bang your head into the wall several times. Luccas V: I just listened to One Armed Scissor [by At the Drive-In] and I listened to it on repeat. I thought, how is this real? How can it be? And then you see him live at David Letterman and you get absolutely ecstatic. It’s something that you say, I want to be like this, I just want to kick some asses. When I first heard At the Drive-In, I said, music is what I want to do with my life. Then The Mars Volta came along and I said “that’s it, now I get it”. That’s the deal. Those were the clicks.
under construction
Jordaan Mason
Jordaan Mason is a Canadian multi-talented artist: they're a musician, writer and filmmaker. Their debut album, "One Day The Horses Will Have Their Revenge", was released in 2004. Since then, Jordaan has released eight recordings, seven of them being full-length. Their lyrics are paradoxal: filled with beautiful metaphors which sound like they were meticulously constructed, but are harsh; and the ever-present honesty and emotion on them may sound terrifying at first, but it's very comforting at the same time because they're very relatable. Jordaan talks about the things no one talks about. In 2009, they released an album called "Divorce Lawyers, I Shaved My Head" along with a collective, composed of their friends, named The Horse Museum. They parted ways a year later, and since then, Jordaan has released three more records. Their most recent album, "The Decline of Stupid Fucking Western Civilization", was crowdfunded and came out in January. It is, as themselves describe, an "illiterate history" - and it's as beautiful as all of the stories Jordaan told us before. CALLIOPE MAG: "The Decline of Stupid Fucking Western Civilization", your latest record, was successfully crowdfunded and released without the help of a label. One of the rewards given to people who donated was the recording of a song of their choice. Was it more fun or more tiring, recording all these songs? And what's the entire process of putting the album together been like? JORDAAN: It's been a lot of fun working on the cover songs. There are a nice mix of ones I'm already familiar with and ones I've never heard before, so I've been coming back to some old favourites and hearing some new favourites, too. Some of the songs demand a little more than just me and one instrument so I've been asking friends of mine to collaborate with me on those ones to keep things interesting. The process of fundraising for the campaign was very anxiety-inducing and difficult but I'm very happy that we made our goal and were able to fund the album's physical release. I'm so grateful to everyone who donated and pre-ordered albums. At the time of writing this, the CDs have all been pressed and shipped to the folks who ordered them. The vinyl takes a lot longer to make and is still in the process of getting made, but will hopefully be done sometime in April or May. I'm still waiting for a confirmed date. The vinyl plant has been a bit backed up because of Record Store Day so it might be a little while still . CM: The Horse Museum collaborated with you for 3 years and you've also played concerts with friends who weren't necessarily members of the collective, which was already pretty big by itself. Have you ever toured with the entire band? Do you feel like it's easier to tour alone? J: The Horse Museum did a few very short tours as a large collective of about 10 members, way back in 2008, before "Divorce Lawyers I Shaved My Head" was even finished. We also toured in smaller sections a few times ranging from being a two-piece to a five-or-six piece band. It's definitely easier to tour alone because the logistics of bringing a band along are rather complicated. There are a lot more mouths to feed, more cars to put gas into it, more places required for people to sleep. Also all of us had day-jobs and school and different life-things that kept us at home and it was difficult to get everyone's schedules aligned to go on tour very often. It was really fun to do a few times and I'd definitely like to travel again with a band at some point because I like performing with other folks, but something as large as The Horse Museum was rather difficult to arrange and I'm not sure if or when something like that will ever happen again. CM: You've been compared a lot to Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel - I personally think you sound like a incredible mix of Mangum with Sean Bonette (of Andrew Jackson Jihad). Even with all these comparisons, I remember thinking that your songs were unlike anything I've ever heard before when I first listened to "Divorce Lawyers, I've Shaved my Head". How would you define your own music? And which artists influenced you the most - not only vocally, but lyrically? J: I don't really know how to define my own music because I'm not very good at categorizing music (I tried once to organize my digital music library by "genre" and it was a disaster). For a long time I said "folk music" because I think ultimately my songs tell stories and that's what folk music is about I think but this new album doesn't "sound" like a "folk record" and in general I have been branching out from that into other directions with the things I am making lately so I'm not sure anymore. I have participated in folk scenes but I have also participated in lots of other scenes too that have been very welcoming to me and what I'm doing. When someone asks me "what's your music like?" I usually just say "it's really gay" and make a face and leave it at that. I think it's sort of natural to avoid self-description when your identity in general is somewhat undefined. Some of my musical influences include Bjork, Holy Haunted Head, Joanna Newsom, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, and Diane Cluck, but I'm also very influenced by the artwork of Henry Darger, the plays of Sarah Kane, and the writings of Gertrude Stein, Jean Genet, Anne Carson, and Frank O'Hara, to name a few. CM: Your songs talk so much about feelings and thoughts in such a raw and honest way and as a person with bipolar disorder myself, I find them incredibly relatable. Do you think that the experience of dealing with the disorder somehow influenced your art in a way that goes further than simply writing about it? J: I think if you live with any kind of illness, it's often going to infect other parts of your life, including the things that you make. It's sometimes difficult to figure out where the illness starts and stops and where you stand within it. Which is to say that I'm not always sure how much of my identity is bound to my illness or not. I sometimes feel like the disorder makes me think a little differently and work a little differently than people who don't have it, and therefore that must have some implications on how I form some sense of "self" and how I interact with others and how I make what I make. But then again, I don't want to give the illness all the "power," so I'm not really sure. This is an ongoing question for me. Obviously there have been times in my life when my illness has overtaken me and then whatever work I am producing is the direct result of that. "He Could Have Been a Poet or He Could Have Been a Fool" is the most obvious example of this; I recorded the bulk of it in the midst of a very serious depression. But more often than not, when things are really bad, I generally can't get much done. I think I was able to finish that project because I was using other people's songs; I can't really write my own stuff when I'm in a depression like that. I am able to jot a lot of half-formed ideas down when things are bad but more often than not they can't be fully formed until I've made it through to the other side of the storm. CM: The whole idea of privacy and (not) keeping things to yourself is a common theme in your songs - like on "Stop Walking Start Swimming", when you say that "you don't want a private life". You're very honest when talking about your experiences and your feelings. Do you think that the fact that you speak openly about subjects people usually see as private and/or as taboos may help others to become more comfortable to speak about their own? J: This declaration of "I don't want a private life" is part of the kind of queer utopia I'm trying to gesture towards on this album: a world where people feel safe to talk about themselves and their lives and their experiences without worry of shame and humiliation. Which is not to say that I don't believe in "privacy," because obviously there are things that people want to keep to themselves, but the thing is I think often we are private about things because feel like we have to be. I think the only way we can destroy the shame that has been weighing us down is to create spaces where it's safe to be honest and share our stories. I can only hope that what I'm making is a small contribution to what is ultimately a larger ongoing dialogue and to be a part of a community that is working towards this. CM: Another recurring theme in your works is sex - you frequently say you "sing songs about sex and sickness". I think that gets very clear on "Divorce Lawyers I Shaved My Head": almost all the lyrics are heavily sexual. However, to me, some of those lyrics are much less about sexuality than they are about gender, like Bird's Nest and _____ is Water. Are they based on your personal experiences with gender issues and relationships? J: The short and simple answer to this question is "yes." The majority of my work is based on things that have happened to me and to the people that I love. Sometimes this is done very directly and other times it's more abstract. And when it's abstract it's only abstract because I'm trying to talk about several things all at once and things end up running together and then it's still "real" but it's not "real." For example, the songs on "Divorce Lawyers" are an amalgamation of details from various parts of my life, stitched together and presented as a single, linear narrative. All of those little details are real but the narrative of the album is a fictionalized story, even if a lot of where it comes from is still very true to what happened. Because so much of that album was about my relationships with other people, I didn't want to exploit their feelings or their experiences by presenting everything in finite order. And I think in a lot of ways I was also protecting myself because I was still coming to terms with my own identity at the time. I was really young and confused when I wrote "Divorce Lawyers" and still didn't have a lot of the language necessary to me to articulate clearly how I felt about being in my own body, so that album came out particularly abstract. To this day I have a complicated relationship with the topics on that album and how I articulated them at the time, but that being said it's been incredible to receive messages from lots of folks who have told me that "Divorce Lawyers" helped them come to terms with themselves and their own identities. That's huge to me. CM: Also on the subject of gender/sexuality, you've openly talked about having gender dysphoria. You've said on previous interviews that "Divorce Lawyers..." talks much about your own confusion and doubts about your gender identity. How has it been the process of dealing with and singing about it in a cis-dominated music industry? J: It has taken me a long time to come to terms with my own gender identity and it's still rather new for me to be speaking about it so openly and directly, to be asking people to use a particular set of pronouns, etc., even though I've been speaking about these kinds of things in my music for a long time. This new album has sort of forced me to speak up about it though, to be more direct. Partly because of the content of the songs and partly because of the fundraiser, which I wanted to make personal because I was asking people to put a lot of faith in me, and I didn't feel right about doing that without being completely honest, even if sometimes that made me feel a little embarrassed. It's sometimes very difficult to process it publicly, as it is in general to process anything publicly, to be in between things, to admit that, to say "I don't really know yet" out loud, which I feel like I did for a long time. What I mean is that it's weird to be a mess in public sometimes, and I often have doubts about why I am doing it. Being public about my life in the way that I am is something that often makes me very uncomfortable, but for now that discomfort sort of fuels what I'm doing. Since I've been more public about being non-binary, a lot of folks have been really supportive and awesome but not everyone has been supportive and awesome. That's both within the "industry" and within life in general. Being public about anything makes you vulnerable, and there are some really hateful folks in this world who like to go out of their way to tell you just how much they hate you and why. Sometimes I don't quite know what to do with that. It's still something I'm wrapping my head around because, of course, you can't listen to that sort of thing or it'll just consume you. Particularly if you're prone to depression logic where all the good stuff gets cut out and you only focus on the negative stuff, which is sometimes the case for me. As far as performing goes, I definitely feel awkward about being lumped into the category of "dudes with guitars singing songs about their feelings" because that's not what I am or how I think of myself or my body, but that's I guess what the music that I'm making sounds like, and so that's also sometimes the way people talk about it. I don't know. Non-binary people are kind of invisible and that sucks. I have some dysphoria around the sound of my voice because of that. I gather a lot of strength and inspiration to keep singing from other performers who use the things that make them uncomfortable about their voice as part of their performance. I try to do that myself. And thankfully I've been very lucky to work with lots of great bands and promoters and music writers who are doing everything they can to make the "industry," as it were, a safer space for those kinds of voices and in general the kinds of things I'm singing about. It's difficult to get up in front of people and talk about these things sometimes and I'm glad to have had the support that I've had. CM: To wrap this up: your songs are so passionate it seems like you're pouring your heart out in each and every single one of them. You take the roughest things and make them sound like they're very, very beautiful. You make art. How did you first get involved with music and why do you keep on making it? J: I learned how to play the piano when I was a child but I was terrible at practicing because I didn't like sitting still for very long. I never really thought I would end up being a musician to be honest. It's the writing part that's really most important to me, but I like singing and playing an instrument a lot because then you're using your body to express the words, and sometimes you can say a lot more with the way you say the words, or without any words at all. So I'm attracted to that aspect of it. And since so much of what I am doing is tied to my relationship with my body, it feels like the right thing to do, at least for now.
under construction
Regular Boat Driver
I spoke to the masterminds behind Exilio and, fortunately, they assured me that new recordings are on their way - and that they're kinda different from what we already heard! Those four are not only great, young musicians with a lot of potential, but they're also great people who see meaning behind everything they create. It's refreshing to know that there's always amazing artists on the making, and I'm pretty glad I found them. CALLIOPE MAG: “Exílio”s cover and your Bandcamp and Facebook pages are visually chaotic. To me, every image related and created by the band is pretty much a turmoil. Is it somewhat intentional, like, do you guys think beyond your songs and enter the visual realm, does it come naturally? What’s the relation between the music you play and the aesthetics present in the band’s visual identity? HAREL INÁCIO: João created our album cover. He’s been doing collage works for quite a while now, and they’re all pretty much chaotic. Also he’s been listening to a lot of power violence, so I believe our aesthetics are related not only to our own songs, but to our own musical preferences as well. JOÃO GIORNO: It’s deeply related to the way we sound and the things we listen to. Even though it’s a collage, I think my biggest inspiration to create those images were music and movies rather than collages and mosaics. YAEL TORRES: João was able to understand our musical characteristics and dismember our influences to then assemble them all together in a single art piece. That’s what collage is basically like: this mix between lots of references. The movies we watch usually have this chaos-like quality to them, the kind of music we listen to, so we’ve always tried to apply this to our own music. Nowadays it’s pretty hard to stick simply to some band’s music and not care at all about their looks; everyone has got to have some kind of image formed about everything. I think João did that perfectly: he grabbed small scrapes from each of our pictoric references and so was born this chimera of bits and fragments of everything. CM: You told me that “Exílio” was inspired by the film "Possession" and it's pretty clear, because of the samples used in the songs, “Sister Chance”’s name by itself, etc. Could you explain in which levels exactly the album relates to the movie? HI: The main riff on Sister Chance was the first thing we composed. After we inserted all the different musical elements in the recording, João added a chorus effect on its background. It got very noisy and chaotic, just like Possession is. We were able to fit the movie in the song, rather than the song in the music. João brought that restlessness to it with the chorus, the microphonics, and we tried to recreate the darker parts of Possession with the other instruments. YT: When we first listened to the complete song, we felt like João’s guitar line was kind of a play on Possession’s subway scene. It instantly struck us as a uncanny resemblance – and then we started to notice other similar things, like how "Sister Chance" got progressively more chaotic, just like the movie. It starts ordinarily and then suddenly it heads into a eerie, gruesome path you weren’t expecting at all. I think that’s the main reason why we were able to build this bridge between our song and the movie. GUSTAVO SANTOS: But all of that actually came later in the process of creating it: the song was already halfway done, and only after hearing it we were able to identify the similarity between them. The track grows on its desperation and it becomes tangled and twisted, just like the movie. CM: Exile is a very complex word, not only etymologically-wise but on its plethora of meanings – like political exile, ostracism, expatriation, individual isolation, etc. How does the name of the EP relate to the tracks, sonically and lyrically, and to your own personal experiences? YT: The idea of recording “Exílio” arose when a friend of ours listened to a demo recording and he said that we were going through a lot of different musical phases and no one was aware of that. We then realized that we were already on our third, fourth chapter as a band and people outside of our own microcosm never had any kind of contact with any of them. It was decided then that we would put the tracks that had any kind of affinity inbetween them together, and in the end we were able to put together three different extended-plays containing three songs each. The first one [Exílio] is the one with our newest songs, so we’re kind of releasing them backwards. To me, it’s more of a spiritual exile, in the middle of a desert – which relates to the third track, about mescaline. You’re entering a barren, desolate desert, and it comes along with an association of symbols and images linked to our aesthetic ideals. That was the main concept behind our EP. On the subject of our personal experiences relating to its recording, once we were completely isolated in a friend of ours’ house to create music, for four days. So, beyond the subjects on the songs, the concept behind “exile” has also a deeply-rooted personal connection to us. CM: You’ve previously mentioned Zach Hill as a huge influence for the Regular Boat Driver’s drums. To me, you guys sound much alike Earth and Boris. Where does your influences come from and how do you guys insert them on your songs? HI: I try to bring a lot of Elliott Smith to my vocal lines. I think that pop-ish influences sound great when you apply it into certain aspects, if it’s well-crafted and well-used. For the guitar, I try to reach a darker, more somber sound – kind of melancholic, really. There are four different artists who I’d like to name as the ones who inspire me the most: the Wytches’ guitarist, Kristian Bell, Elliot Smith, Jim Ward of At the Drive-In and Toni Iommi [Black Sabbath]. Toni is more of a inspiration rather than a direct influence, actually. And I have to mention Brian Molko [Placebo] and Jonny Greenwood [Radiohead] – I love them and I love their bands so, very very much. I actually used to style my hair to look like Brian’s. YT: I wasn’t the original drummer for the band. I started playing the bass and long, long ago I played the guitar, but I didn’t feel a strong connection with neither of them. So it was only another instrument to me – but that was only until I saw Zach Hill playing. He constructed, for the first time in my life, a solid reference of what’s it like to be a drummer. Brian Chipendale, of Lightning Bolt, also greatly influenced me. He plays in such a unique way that it leaves me absolutely speechless. It isn’t that easy to make your drums be inventive: you can’t add effects, equalize, amplify the bass and trebble as easily as you’d if you were playing a guitar. I admire Greg Saunier [Deerhoof] a lot as well, and Sleep’s Chris Haikus. I try to harmonize my inner voices with the outer influences, and mix them all up. JG: Dave Mustaine. It’s kind of weird because it doesn’t sound anything like the riffs I create, but when I’m composing them, I try to think of what Dave would do if I were him. At The Drive-In was also a huge inspiration for my guitar creations, and so was Sonny Sharrock. If I had to name a single influence, it would definitely be Sonny. and vocally, I have to mention The Police. When I listen to any of our songs and then I listen to something by The Police, I can notice a resemblance that might be all in my head, but for me it’s there and it’s pretty odd. Another vocalist who changed the way I sing is Andrea Zollo [Area 51]. I’ve been listening to a lot of power violence and Sonic Youth recently, so their impact on me might be noticeable on our next recordings. GS: I love Death From Above way too much, Jesse’s bass lines are absolutely wild. When I started playing bass, I tried a lot to come close to the way he sounds. We’ve actually had a little bit of trouble with that because on our rehearsals, I used to turn up the volume and it got complicated at times, because it kind of overshadowed the vocals and guitars. I did that because of Jesse, as on Death From Above it was only the bass and voice and it’s unbelievably loud. I like Black Lips’ and Fugazi very much, although they have a kind of pop-ness to their bass – and Harel brings that quality, and it fits perfectly on my heavier bass. Baklavaa’s bassist, who is incredible, also had a great deal of influence on how I play. I want my bass to pierce and penetrate our listeners’ ears when you hear it, I want it to be a bother. I try hard not to go towards a more soft, delicate sound. CM: We all know it’s pretty hard out here for an independent musician – especially when the stance taken by the artists is “we’re not selling out, ever!”. How do you guys feel about the current conjuncture of the music scene? Do you have any kind of opinions on “selling out” and trying to being true to your own ideals – politically and musically? HI: It’s pretty clear to me that all four of us try to be as honest as possible about what we’re trying to transmit as musicians. Yael tries hard to do that, in his kinda “fuck it” way of playing the drums. We don’t want to play the industry game, we don’t want to pay to play small gigs. We definitely wouldn’t accept this kind of thing. GS: We have a pretty well-shaped objective towards our studio recordings and our live recordings, we want them to be completely distinct experiences. We like to have more than only music to offer to our listeners, and we admire so much artists who sound different while on stage and on the studio, like Black Light Burns. YT: I think that maybe our posture is the only one that’s actually doable these days. You only get to play live if you know the right people or if you use a fifth wheel – you pay someone to set up a show somewhere, and this person isn’t a musician: he’s there only to get money. I’m aware that with the current status of the scene and with venues that don’t support independent musicians at all, it’s pretty hard for a band to set up a gig all by themselves, but I’m still pretty bothered by that pay-to-play system. It’s like a factory; I’m there working my ass off on the production line to assemble an entire car, and when that car I made is sold, the money goes straight to the pockets of my boss.
under construction
Viva Belgrado
Music has been a part of my life for as long as I remember. I don't hesitate when I say that it's the most important thing to me, because there are some feelings I can't get from anything besides music. Pain, anxiety, joy, it seems like I can almost touch it, at times. And when I Vlistened to "Flores, Carne" by Viva Belgrado for the first time, I was instantly struck by how palpable it songs felt to me. It ripped me apart and glued me and ripped me up again, left me yearning for something I wasn't sure of what it was - perhaps peace of mind. It's intensely heavy. It shook me much more than I expected. The Spanish screamo/post-rock quartet, made up of Álvaro Moreno in the drums, Ángel Madueño in the bass, Cándido Gálvez in the vocals/guitar and Pedro Ruiz in the guitars, got to their absolutely highest - to this day, of course - in this album. I'm not sure if I can live up to all its intensity in this review nor if the grade is even fitting. I'm a pretty sensitive person, so anything can touch me deeply, to be fair; but a things mess up my insides and take my breath away, and "Flores, Carne" did that so efortlessly. The guitar lines are so fragile you can almost break them, delicateness leaking out of them through your earphones. And it's a rollercoaster ride: it's light as a feather, then suddenly it's dense and harsh. This happens throughout the entirety of the album, and sooner or later, you get lost. The breaking point is "Los Olivos", the fifth track. It is a beautiful song, with absolutely no lyrics - which isn't saying much, butall the lyrics in this recording are poignant too. Viva Belgrado flawlessly did that with this track. The following song, "Cancer, Capricornio", has an unreal complexity, the utmost care in balancing the frail instruments and heartwrenching lyrics sang by wailed vocals. "Flores, Carne", show the band in all its pain and yearning - the concept of flower and flesh, in all their softness and beauty and fragility, couldn't be more suitable. It's quasi-human and agonizingly honest. It leaves a sweet honeysuckle taste in the mouth and pour salts in all of your open wounds. Since this album moved me way more than I expected, I got curious to hear of its' own creators what was all that about: the concept, the making, the finished product. I chatted for a bit with the band and they answered a few questions that were bubbling in my mind. CALLIOPE MAG: It seems to me like "Flores, Carne", as its own name says, orbits around these two concepts: flowers and flesh. They're both mentioned a few times throughout the lyrics, and even the album cover is filled with rosy and brownish-coloured flowers, which one might relate to human flesh - to me, the similarity can also be seen on the softness of both the petal and the skin. Is it intentional? And if so, what did you have in mind when formulating this idea? VIVA BELGRADO: To be honest for us it was much more simple. This record deals a lot with pain, letting go and transforming these feelings into something else. Therefor we wanted to create a duality for the idea of transforming those feelings into something else, in our case, songs. In one of the lyrics we wrote “everything is flesh and flower”, meaning that everything can be turned into something positive and we only need to find the way to refocus. About the cover, we just though it created a contrast with the aggressivity of the music and at the same time reflected the beauty we thought the concept of the album had. Also, we thought it was interesting to use this kind of cover for a screamo band instead of something darker or more violent as we are used to. CM: Something curious about Viva Belgrado is the fact that you write your songs in Spanish, your native language, in a English-speaking music scene and world. I've talked to other bands who take on a similar stance towards their mother languages and see that not only as an artistical, but as a political act. Is writing in Spanish rather than English a thought-of attitude? VB: Although it is also a way to fight against globalisation and express the universality of music, to be honest we didn’t make the choice as way of protesting. It is simply the way we best express ourselves honestly and naturally. Although we can speak English it would feel artificial for to write in a language. After a couple of years we are comfortable with the decision we made and it seems it had a good reception among people. Maybe (or maybe not) there would be more people from English speaking countries interested in us if we decided to do it the other way, but we would feel it unnatural. We have also realized that Spanish is more popular than we personally thought, these last tours we have spent most of the time in other countries and it’s surprising how easy you find people able to express themselves or at least know some words/sentences in Spanish no matter the country. CM: Your songs have a rather peculiar characteristic, which is the flawless, though unexpected, harmony between screamed vocals and delicate, almost dreamlike guitars. Is it hard to create a balance between these two elements, which are already pretty different by themselves, while composing? VB: All happens in a very natural way, following our instinct or what sounds fine for us while everything is being intentional, if that makes sense. In general, the first thing we make is a rough idea of the music, just instrumental or maybe with a vocal suggestion, but everything is open to change. While at a rehearsal or at home we try different things and then stick with a structure and some details we like and keep rehearsing until each one of us is comfortable and like what we are playing, as a whole and individually. The lyrics are the last thing we add and they are normally written and assembled at home. CM: The name "Viva Belgrado" intrigues me very much, and to be honest, it's one of the most interesting band names I've seen in a while. Why did you guys choose this name? Is there any kind of mutual interest/affection you all feel for Eastern Europe (or Serbia, specifically)? VB: That’s something many people ask and we think the answer is not as interesting as expected. For the moment none of us have been to Belgrade nor Serbia, but a few years ago some of us were involved in an acoustic band and several lyrics had Eastern European references. When we started this band (Viva Belgrado) we were 4 guys playing music without pretension, and sure we had some ideas but we didn’t really think about a name until we faced our first concert sooner than we expected. One of those Eastern European references was ‘Viva Belgrado’, we liked it and we decided to use it CM: I'd like to hear a bit about your biggest artistic influences - it's always nice to see what great musicians listen to and what inspires them! Is there any kind of HUGE "role model" (not necessarily a person - a band, a subculture, a label, anything, really!) that makes you inspired to go forward and make music? VB: Although nowadays we listen to many kinds of music, if we have to pick a band that inspired us I think Daïtro and La Dispute would be the ones. They were key for our motivation to start a band. I remember listening ‘Laissez vivre les squelettes’ for the first time and even though I didn’t like the vocals at the beginning I loved the music and thought to myself ‘I want to do that’. About a role model, we simply believe in DIY. I [Pedro] personally feel that I could not name a ‘role model’ per se, artistically speaking, that influences me because it changes over time and it doesn’t necessarily have to be artistic to have an influence. That’s why in my opinion the final result of everything you do change over time, but there are people who I admire. One of those who I ‘discovered’ recently is Franco Battiato, both as a person and as a musician who makes music first for himself. I found interesting that you can see the evolution process of a person that is constantly expanding his influences. Another big influence from a few years back has been The Whitest Boy Alive, they taught me about simplicity and how 4 instruments can be as great as super-produced bands. Other bands I’m listening to lately are Prawn, Shigeto and MeWithoutYou.
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