EIC's 10Q's w/ Collarbones

"..a (pitch perfect produced) tale of teenage life.."

 

Collarbones

Aberrant-Adolescent Wi-Fi

Collarbones Bio:

Adelaide's Travis Cook and Sydney's Marcus Whale met on the Internet in 2007. Over the course of several years, and divided by 1150km, they pieced together a sound informed by geographical distance but basking in the warmth of digital proximity: the electronic hum, the LCD glow, the metallic sheen of laptop culture formed the unlikely basis for a sound that embraced its digital origins. This is music made with the Internet as much as music made with drum machines, vocoders and carefully distorted instrumentation.  Since the release of Iconography the duo has spent more time (physically) together than usual, supporting and playing with a slew of international and local outfits. Collarbones explored their sound and the dynamics of physical closeness over the past year, supporting Neon Indian and Daedelus and touring with label mates Oscar + Martin as well as Ghoul, Donny Benet and The Paper Scissors. The duo were handpicked to play triple j Unearthed's Parklife slot, the inaugural Sugar Mountain Festival in Melbourne, and FBi's Sydney Sounds Like, all tightly curated affairs. Their live shows and the release of Iconography has seen them nominated for a Sydney Music, Art & Culture (SMAC) Award as well as an AIR Award (Australian Independent Record Labels Association).

Hello, how are you?

Travis: I just ate some imported Cookie Crisp cereal but we were out of milk so that was a disappointment. Life sucks.

Marcus: I just ate some almonds, they're tastier than usual.

What are you currently listening to? 

Travis: A lot of Calvin Harris lately, specifically "Thinking About You". The new James Ferraro, the new Rihanna, the new Crystal Castles, the new Scott Walker, the new Mykki Blanco, the new Andy Stott.

Marcus: Pretty inspired by New York queer rap right now - Mykki Blanco and Le1f's mixtapes especially.

Whats with the band name?

Travis: What's with the blog name?

Touche Travis. ;]

Whom or what are your biggest influences when it comes to sculpting your sound?

Travis: Someone's Darude fan site from 2001. Someone's Molly Ringwald fan site from 2002. Someone's Someone's Marissa Cooper fan site from 2003. Someone's Death Cab for Cutie fan site from 2004.

Marcus: Someone's Collarbones fan site from 2016 that looks like it's from 1998.

Care to tell us a little bit about your latest LP 'Die Young', theme, favorite tracks, etc.?

Marcus: We spent a year dredging up teen angst and putting it into songs. It seems more real than our current, drab lives.

Travis: A lot of the album is trying to capture the feeling of being a teenager and everything feeling very amplified, every thing that goes wrong feeling like the end of the world. It's the beginning of a poppier direction for us I would say. "Hypothermia" is probably the track I feel I can relate to the most.

Any plans to tour the US for said release?

Travis: Always. I haven't been since 2010 and Marcus has never been. I for one have a bald eagle draped in an American flag on my mantlepiece.

Got any other projects we should know about?

Travis: Only my life which is an ongoing performance art project. Subscribe to me on YouTube for life coaching.

Marcus: I sometimes like to make R&B with my friends: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqXrG7ZZxqw  

What movie would work best on mute while listening to you music?

Travis: Heathers. If I was a funny guy I might say A Serbian Film.

Marcus: Mean Girls. A Cinderella Story. Freaky Friday.

You can only keep/listen to ONE album for the rest of your life ..which album would it be?

Travis: I'd run into the forest listening to 'Colour Green' by Sibylle Baier and never return.

Marcus: It's difficult to tell what I might like in the future but I suppose 'Saturday Night Wrist' by Deftones.

Are you living your dream?

Travis: Yes. Never say never. I've realised I'm stubborn when it comes to only ever doing what I want to do.

Marcus: It's been rather lovely to be able to play shows many weeks of the year.

Thanx Tom, Travis & Marcus!

Collarbones are currently playing a few live shows here and there and (hopefully/probably) prepping their next release...

Cool Video Funtime #352 - Epizootics!

Cool Video Funtime #281 - It's Raining Today

EIC'S10Q'S w/Bibio

"..the future of retro.."


Bibio
Perspicacious Nostalgia Frequency

Bibio Bio:
Bibio is the folk-meets-electronica project of self-taught producer/multi-instrumentalist Stephen Wilkinson, from England's Black Country (aka the West Midlands). As a student of sonic arts at London's Middlesex University, Wilkinson was first inspired by '90s electronic acts such as Aphex Twin, Autechre, and especially Boards of Canada, but became equally intrigued by mid-20th century British folk. He combined these sounds in his own music, along with found sounds and field recordings, for a unique mix of organic and synthetic atmospheres. Boards of Canada's Marcus Eoin handed Wilkinson's demos to Mush Records, which released Bibio's debut album, Fi, in 2004, and its more song-based follow-up, Hand Cranked, two years later. Wilkinson also released the limited-edition Sheila Sets Sail/Tribio on the Artist's Valley imprint, part of a collective Wilkinson has with producers Andy Harber and Richard Roberts. The Ovals and Emeralds EP, which featured organ instead of Bibio's usual acoustic guitars, arrived in 2008; Vignetting the Compost followed in 2009. That summer, Bibio moved to Warp for the eclectic Ambivalence Avenue, followed several months later by the release of a remix-heavy album, The Apple and the Tooth. For 2011's Mind Bokeh -- named after the term for the blurry area in a photograph -- Wilkinson moved further away from folktronica and deeper into the meticulously sampled, electro/hip-hop direction he began on Ambivalence Avenue.


Hello, how are you?
Good, thanks.

What are you currently listening to?
John Coltrane, Scott Walker, Django Reinhardt, Prince, Whitesnake, Strong Arm Steady, Johnny Hartman, The Ink Spots, The Four Freshmen, Letherette, Clark.

LOVE the new album "Mind Bokeh", how was the recording experience for it, have any issues? Did you know what sound/theme you were going for before you entered the studio?
The only issues I really have is being doubtful of myself, but I've always had that and I consider it a form of quality control. People who lack that self doubt have a kind of plastic confidence and it shows in their art. I believe Krishnamurti once said "A confident man is a dead human being", although that's in a different context altogether. I remember my art college tutors instilling in us a long time ago that a creative seed can be fed and watered and helped to grow into something grand, and in some ways this is a more productive method than starting with some grand idea you want to execute. But having grand ideas is also good, I don't believe in absolutes in art. A balance is usually good. I had some vague ideas of moving towards synth sounds more with this album, but not as an absolute rule, obviously. It's more liberating to not cling to ideas or ideals too hard. Honesty and creative flow is often more endearing. I admire people who can improvise well, not just in music, but in life.

I love the song's "Artists' Valley" & "Saint Christopher", do you have a particular song you are fond of?
I'm fond of all of them, that's why I released them. I listened to them all hundreds of times before deciding to put them on the album.

If you do any live tour dates for this release, in a dream world whom would that be with?
In a dream world it would be some kind of film/music/installation thing with Boards of Canada and Clark, perhaps in some strange derelict building or in a cave... or a forest. Even if nobody turned up, I'd still want to do it, for art's sake.

Have you ever considered doing soundtrack work?
Yes. I'd love to. If the film was right (and the fee), I'd start right away.

What was the last album you bought that let you down?
Expectation is a burden, not music. If you don't like something, get over it and listen to something you do like. People waste far too much time thinking their dislike for something is interesting enough to be shared, hence all of the complaining that goes on online.

You can only keep/listen to ONE album for the rest of your life ..which album would it be?
Arrogantly, it would have to be one of my own. Only because they're personal, like photographs. Surely you'd rescue your own photographs from a fire rather than someone else's?

Are you living your dream?
I'm living in a dream world, have done most of my life, I just happen to be getting paid for it now and that makes it easier to be in my dream world more constantly :) I'm grateful. I count my blessings often. I also know I've put the time and effort in, and it's taken years to get here, so it feels deserved to an extent. But I'm grateful to the people who have made my path easier, and if you were going to be thorough, these people would trace back generations. Anyone who thinks their success is all their own is blinkered by their own conceit. And I guess you even have to thank the people who made things harder.

Thanx Stephen & Josh!

Bibio recently released the "K Is For Kelson" EP look for that, and then look for everything else Bibio has done (You'll especially regret passing up "Ambivalence Avenue" (#10 of 2009) if you choose to do so)...

EIC'S10Q'S w/Zonotope™

"..soft, peculiar (very peculiar), and thick on rich/lush Sci-Fi accents.."


Zonotope™
Odyssey Oddity

Zonotope™ Bio:
Zonotope™ is a mystery waiting to be unraveled. Try to wrap your brain around all these sounds, I dare you. Here's what I do know; "A zonohedron is a convex polyhedron where every face is a polygon with point symmetry or, equivalently, symmetry under rotations through 180°. Any zonohedron may equivalently be described as the Minkowski sum of a set of line segments in three-dimensional space, or as the three-dimensional projection of a hypercube. More generally, in any dimension, the Minkowski sum of line segments forms a polytope known as a zonotope."..


Hello, how are you?
A-okay

What are you currently listening to?
A few things that have been on my turntable as of late: "Mose Allison Sings", "Chet Baker Sings", the Chic album with the two ladies in soft focus holding whistles, the Kinks' "Face to Face", the Main Ingredient's "Tasteful Soul", Inner Life II, Into Battle With the Art of Noise, a couple of Cowsills records, Pharoah Sanders' "Karma and Black Unity", Esbee Family's "Chics and Chicken", Tommy Roe's "It's Now Winter's Day", and Hematic Sunsets' "Aroma Club Paradox 4". I've also been really into that Laurie Spiegel record "The Expanding Universe", but I can't find an affordable vinyl copy which is a bummer.

Please indulge us, what's with the band name?
Basically I couldn't really come up with anything better at the time and now I'm just too lazy to change it. At the time I was thinking this would be a pretty multifaceted project, and zonotopes have a variety of differently shaped and sized sides so I thought it would reflect what I was trying to do well. I don't know if it really fits anymore though, I dunno, just don't want to have to come up with something else. I'm considering just officially shortening the name to Z™ or changing it to my alter ego Jerry Paper or just to my initials (LWN) at some point but who knows. Also, the trademark symbol is there because the project initially started with an idea for three albums called Seminar I, Seminar II, and Seminar III respectively, and Zonotope™ was like a product name. I ended up scrapping that idea though and putting the best of into Cruising Through the Hypersphere of Resonance.

Who/what were your main influences when you began writing for this project?
The project started basically because I was really obsessed with that Scott Walker song "Dealer" from Climate of Hunter. It's one of my favorite songs ever, just a perfect one-chord song with Scott's perfect voice, Evan Parker's sax, sustained wobbling synth, and just this unsettling, twinkly major chord. Hard to describe but it's perfect. I'm not really good at sticking to one thing though, and every time I try to do something it comes out completely different than I meant it to so I haven't even come close to making anything as good, but I'm still trying I guess. I was also listening to a lot of Iasos and other New Age stuff, as well as early Kevin Ayers albums like Joy of a Toy and Shooting at the Moon, so that stuff crept in there as well.

What song have you written that you think sums up your entire sound the best so far?
Have absolutely no idea. I don't really know what my "sound" is, never really thought about it, and my main focus is on the albums as a whole so the question is doubly-hard to answer.

Is there a full length on the way?
I hope so. I've been working on an album since November called "Human Unity that I'm making specifically for vinyl, although I've gotten no explicit interest from any record labels as of yet. Hopefully this'll change though, I'm more of a vinyl guy than a tape or mp3 guy anyway.

Do you prefer playing music in your studio or live?
"Studio" for sure, but my "studio" is just my apartment. Z™ started solely as a recording project and I never played any shows until February. I've only played two shows (this will be a different number by the time this hits the net) and I just get really nervous so it has a negative connotation in my mind, but I do enjoy it I guess. Also what sucks about playing live is I can't play any of my compositions live 'cause I don't have a band and I don't like the idea of just playing a recording of my music while I play over it, so right now the Z™ LIVE setup is still being worked out.

Any side projects we should know about?
Uhhh, I improvise with my friend Preston (who makes great music is Presstones, although nothing he's done in the past couple years is on the net) as Mind Island and I did a little self-indulgent self-released thing as the Diane Kensington Devotional Band that is available on my blog and bandcamp.

You can only keep/listen to ONE album for the rest of your life ..which album would it be?
This album: http://img19.picoodle.com/img/img19/3/11/22/f_graffitim_c8c0d42.jpg
It is indisputably the greatest album of all time. Simply impossible to get sick of.

Are you living your dream?
Not yet, although I am generally happy dude.

Thanx Lucas!

Zonotope™ is currently working on his next full length, hopefully vinyl release, look for that sometime in the future...