Fabric, London’s leviathan of hedonism, is deadly quiet. The stillness is unnerving. But for a few maintenance chaps faintly beavering away, there is no sound. No beefy bass, no whooping gurners, no fizzing vibe snaking amongst the dungeon. Simply nothing.
Which, by the look of it, is a good thing. Especially for the members of Cut Copy. Whoever said we must suffer for our art probably wasn’t thinking of this trio of groggy looking Australians when they said it, but that doesn’t mean they don’t fit the description. It looks as though their art has given them a right good kicking. For a fortnight. Including the weekends.
The word ‘shattered’ springs to mind and not in a ‘town centre shop window come Friday night’ sort of way. These three lads sitting, nay lying, before me are the embodiment of tiredness. This is because they’ve existed only in a cerebral ether for the last 18 months, floating on clouds of sound and pure exploration. They were creating, producing and rendering their second album,
In Ghost Colours, but that, as I find out, was just the easy part.
Now comes the headfirst dive back towards reality; to where the atmosphere is more dense; to where the fruits of your innovation are put before judge and jury, scrutinised and toured and forced to thrill. The notion that rock and roll and dance and groove is all about glamour, style and large glistening teeth is not welcome in this realm, at this time. The night before the morning after the night before has worn thin the veil of zeal. The evidence speaks without speaking. Their woebegone physical forms have been beaten by the journey. Yet, despite this cycle of the never-ending tour, these lads wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Playing live is such an immediate thing. We always try to have great energy when we play” offers Tim Hoey, lethargically. He has the deepest voice in the band. Perhaps his torpor is the reason for that.
He’s also the skinniest. And the bassist. His first pet was a budgie called Mr T and his favourite album is Sonic Youth’s
Experimental Jet Set, Trash & No Star. He’s also a big Inflagranti fan, which is lucky for him, as they’re playing at Fabric tonight as well.
To his right is Dan Whitford, the tall one. He sings and plays guitar. The first record he ever bought was by Fine Young Cannibals and his three primary inspirations are Beck, Beck's friends and Beck's granddad.
“There’s been a bit of a renaissance in the last two or three years in dance music in Australia, particularly live dance music”, he mumbles. In my head I’m secretly calling him Sleepy because he was actually snoozing when I first arrived.
“That’s what separates Australia from other places that have a big dance culture - a real emphasis on the live show whereas not so historically here where people are happy to just see a DJ”.The live gig is Cut Copy’s lifeblood. Regardless of their current appearance, going live is what keeps them alive.
“We’ve been looking forward to this show and getting back to Fabric” - this is Mitch Scott, the drummer with two first names -
“It’s really cool for us. It’s something you don’t really see in Australia. The scale of things over here. Especially this club and the line up. It’d be a festival at home”. Scott is the hairiest member of the band and the first thing he ever stole as a youngster was some Crème de Menthe from his parents liquor cabinet.
Cut Copy know the feel of a big tour. In the past they’ve opened for Mylo, Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand and Daft Punk and the relentless jaunt they now find themselves on has been leaping between nations at an exponential rate.
“Travelling is a good way to discover new things and get inspired” says Whitford, slowly rejoining the land of the living.
“When you support someone it’s almost like a challenge to convert people. So you visualise how good the show is going to be. It’s almost like sport. Just go nuts and you’ll win people over. Generally, if the crowd is really responding that helps you do something exciting. It feeds off itself”.Whitford is capable of pushing this ideal. It was he that mixed the
FabricLive 29 album and, in an attempt to add depth to Cut Copy’s showcase material, both he and Hoey are set to DJ prior to this evening’s live performance.
“We figured that wherever we are on this tour it’s pretty epic. So why not seal the deal and throw in some more stuff”, mentions Scott, before jokingly offering to count them in if they attempt to mix both rooms together.
Many might assume that their bodies and their sanity cannot withstand the breaking point, so I inquire what they might do once it’s all done and dusted.
“Just get on with the next one” comes Whitford’s nonchalant reply.
“We’ve waited a while with this one so we feel like we’re due to be working on another. It’s one of those things that if you’re excited about what you’re doing then you probably want to just keep working on it. Although having said that, maybe in six months time we’ll be ready for a holiday”. A chorus of
“Yeh, yeh” ensues.
The band were clearly frustrated in their aim to release this record and Scott admits they
“were a little naive of learning about how long it actually takes to get a record out”. The promise for next time?
“We’ll be making much more of an effort to get on top of that and schedule the time a lot earlier”.There are advantages to an elongated timeframe, however, as Hoey is quick to point out.
“It’s been interesting because we’ve been sitting on this for a little while and we’ve been seeing all these other bands putting out records. It feels like we’ve steered away from everything else that is happening”.The creative process for
In Ghost Colours involved spending six cold weeks in New York at the beginning of 2007 tucked away in the Plantain Studio with Tim Goldsworthy, James Murphy’s co-pilot at DFA Records. Goldsworthy had a subtle, hands-off approach for the album but still remained integral to the development.
“The way he went about the record was a really enjoyable experience” Scott tells me, visible enamoured by the producer’s input.
“The way he would suggest or orchestrate things, there was definitely a rewarding process. It never felt like we were really at loggerheads. He wasn’t so much re-writing the songs or being a hitmaker. It was a lot more about how the instrumentation would go. Some of Tim’s suggestions were an educated guess. There was also a lot of screwing around and experimentation”. Goldsworthy and Whitford shared a mutual affinity for shoegazing heroes, My Bloody Valentine, which saw Cut Copy morph into a similar mould. The result is a soaring, atmospheric mosaic of pop that, although separated by mere titles, exists as a complete entity, almost comprising of one continuous track. Hoey is particularly proud of this achievement and is adamant that it was the goal right from the start.
“It’s a full, cohesive record not just singles or a compilation of 12 inches. It’s something we set out to do at the beginning”.The deliberate decision to cast away from track-gap regulatory was formulated around two annexed ideals: a dislike for current music consumption and the permeating influence of 70s prog and Krautrock.
The advent of file sharing and blogs is ubitquitous. Especially for bands like Cut Copy who slip repeatedly into the dance arena.
“It’s much more single orientated” believes Whitford,
“people don’t listen to whole records. Our record is a reaction, steering away from those easily-digestible little pieces and making more of an experience instead”. Whitford was also abundantly sedated by the influential music he was listening to at the time.
“Like Tangerine Dream - where a whole side is one song, things which people don’t do quite so much these days. I’m not saying our record is like that but there is continuity. You can listen to it without gaps and breaks. Most of the record continues through, not in a DJ mix way, more in a soundscape way. Like KLF’s Chill Out where it has sounds and atmospheric things that put you in a headspace. I like that on records. It gives you a bit more to think about”.This mural of sound and celestial detachment is immediately evident from the track titles alone – ‘Visions’, ‘Lights And Music’, ‘Far Away’, ‘Nobody Lost Nobody Found’, ‘Eternity One Night Only’ - to name but a few. There is also a dazzling richness to the naming process which hints at a glimmering, shimmering other-worldliness with tracks such as ‘We Fight For Diamonds’, ‘Voices In Quartz’ and ‘Silver Thoughts’.
In Ghost Colours’ blissed out, broken up, epic harmonisation also delves sharply into 80s disco pop and precise electronica. Time is irrelevant. The Human League, The Cure, New Order and Roxy Music jolly along with Daft Punk at their side. They teeter on a layered surface that is the soundtrack to a sci-fi movie which never existed.
So I mention the sci-fi element.
“I’m not sure I’d describe it as sci-fi” comes Whitford’s reply
“but, like I said, a lot of those prog records that I was listening to, the sorts of records that you put on and just lie down for a while, not like meditation music but really spacey stuff, when you zone out and travel to another dimension” - sounds oddly like the definition of sci-fi -
“But also My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth, even ELO” he adds,
“there’s a lot of records that have that atmospheric sound that tie them all together”.
Scott is more willing to heed my space opera proposal.
“At a first listen, there’ll be a few stylistic surprises. There’s a lot more recording for one so it’s a much more live sounding record than the last one. Spacey and psychedelic”.Ah-ha. Now we’re getting to the heart of the anti-matter. Hoey describes it simply as
“weirder pop music”. When I ask what he means by that he counters,
“texturally, it is kind of thicker. There’s still that Cut Copy sound, that underlying pop sensibility that we had with the first record”.That album,
Bright Like Neon Love, was the epitomy of a successful debut. Lauded by critics and fans of the genre alike (four stars in both
The Guardian and the
NME), it was given automatic headturning recognition thanks to the wrought-iron seal of approval from their Australian mothership, Modular Records.
Modular are known for blurring the lines between dance, rock and experience with a squad that includes The Avalanches, Wolfmother, The Presets and MSTRKRFT. Whitford had signed to the label long before Hoey and Scott joined the band in 2003.
“Modular’s involvement was really at a premilinary stage of Cut Copy” he admits,
“where I was just making demos in my bedroom and they heard something that they liked. It wasn’t anything fully formed or anything that was that close to what it sounds like now”.“Like DJ Shadow”, Hoey’s bowing suggestion.
Whitford’s acknowledgement is slightly more revealing.
“Yeh, it was. Probably the first track that I’d ever written was a more synth-based pop song. There was all sorts of different stuff. I guess the actual signing part was a while ago. Their reasons for signing Cut Copy back then are probably not even relevant to what we’re doing now”.Cut Copy are confident of their status but are none too willing to share the secret of success.
“The definition of success is so arbitrary” mentions Hoey, and his bandmates respond with equal aloofness.
“Success is a by-product of something else” believes Scott,
“If you’re doing good stuff then you’re probably not really motivated by success in the first place. When you see bands or people that are focused on image and clutching at trying to be successful, that’s when it’s not too appealing. So looking for success is probably a self-defeating thing anyway. So don’t aim for it”.The conversation quickly descends into an abstract game of wit and sarcasm, and goes along the lines of:
Whitford:
“Just do something good”Hoey:
“And people will like it. Be true to yourself”Whitford:
“Yeehhh, man”Scott:
“And keep it real”There’s laughter all round and I’m in on the joke. There’s the feeling that although these gents are prone to using
“kinda” and
“sorta” a lot (edited out for the purposes of easy reading), and despite their obvious fatigue, they do possess an eloquent grasp of the English language. They tell me they’re looking forward to a cheeky afternoon nap before showtime. What they don’t realise is that although our chat is at an end, there’s a lengthy photo shoot still to come. Chin up lads. Just lie back and think of Australia.
As published on Earplug
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