Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts

Thursday, 22 April 2021

Pagan English folk music with Dan Capp of Wolcensmen

 







Dan Capp's Wolcensmen creates heathen hymns from the mists of England. He was originally known as a member of the Anglo-Saxon themed metal band Winterfylleth but his acoustic side project Wolcensmen is now the focus of his work. Dan’s music evokes the persistent paganism in the folk ways of the peasants of England, and breathes life into a natural expression of the English folk soul. In this interview we discuss a few of his songs and the meaning of the pagan themes in his lyrics. 

This podcast is also available on Apple podcasts, Spotify and the rest!

Wolcensmen website

Monday, 16 November 2020

Interview with Ian Read of Fire + Ice

 




Germanic pagan Ian Read is best known for his neofolk project 'Fire + Ice' which “takes the purity and philosophy of early music and melds it into a message redolent with powerful seeds of honour, truth, loyalty and the bond of true friendship.” Ian is also Drihten (lord) and Rune-Master in the Rune-Gild, an initiatory school devoted to the esoteric and exoteric study of the Germanic runes.

Learn more on his blog: https://runa-eormensyl.com/

Thursday, 15 October 2009

We Fell To Earth




FREE MP3: We Fell To Earth - Lights Out


So what the deal with the name? are you aliens or angels?


Richard: Do we have a choice?

You could be meteorites I suppose.

Richard: That’d be alright, you wanna make a mark don’t ya?

Nice big crater yeah. So is there any meaning behind the name then?

Richard: The man who fell to earth was around in both our lives at the time we were thinking of names and it was suggested.

I wouldn’t have thought Bowie was a major influence?

Richard: He’s certainly an inspiration, but not a major influence at this stage.
Wendy: There are some sounds of some Bowie records that we are inspired by.

You both love of krautrock, How do you respond to people who see you as more trip-hop than kraut rock?

Richard: Half time beats with double time percussion is something massive attack have done in the past but they are not the originators of that sound. Because we have female vocals people say we’re like Portishead or because there’s a half speed beat they say it’s like Massive attack. Sometimes it’s quite ambiguous. We’re not uncomfortable with those comparisons.
Wendy: Doesn’t trip hop rely on samples? That’s the difference, I think. We don’t use samples.

Do you think you think your experience working with bands like UNKLE and QOTSA has contributed to the fact that WFTE have gained so much attention so quickly? Or is it more to do with being played on TV programs like Gossip girl and CSI NY?

Richard: We haven’t been to America yet, but because of the fact we were used on Gossip girl, numb3rs, prisoner and CSI, we get an amazing amount of hits we get on a daily basis. The fact people respond that way is a blessing. It’s great to have that and be able to anticipate going there to play; it’s going to be interesting.
The sync thing is different here. There’s all these shows that sync a lot of interesting British music but most of them seem to be in America at the moment.

Are there any TV programs you wouldn’t like to be associated with?

Richard: I don’t watch TV. Neither does Wendy. We don’t need it. There’s a certain point where a line has to be drawn with TV programs and adverts. We’ll make that decision when it arises. But up to now we’ve been happy with what our music been used for, it’s great kids are finding out about us.

Why did you choose to base yourselves in grey old England, rather than California where you seem to have many ties?

Wendy: I’ve visited England twice before and I really liked it and I know several English people in the states and I get on really well with them. So when Rich called me about doing some work I said “shall I come over there?” And when it started going really well in the studio it got to the point where I had to be there all the time. We had already started working here and Rich has a great studio.
Richard: My studio was also an important factor. These facilities make it possible for us to actually do something. Over the years I’ve accumulated a bunch of stuff so it’s cheap for us to be in the studio everyday and just experiment with stuff.
Wendy: It’d be nice to go to the desert someday and do some writing. I found the idea of coming here really inspiring because it’s new and different to what I’m used to. There is so much going on in the music scene its exciting so I decided to come here.

I read that you guys have been influenced by the desert landscape, is the grey sky and ancient architecture of London also an influence?

Wendy: Yes. Those things you mentioned illicit a certain feeling which must come out in the music somehow because those feelings can manipulate your creativity. It must be a hybrid of what was going on there and what happens here.
What experiences from your day to day lives are incorporated into what you create and how you perform?
Rich: Everything really. It’s interesting how and when things come out as well. Really chance meetings with other human beings which are completely random but have a kind of important impact on your life. Just one meeting can change the course of how you do things in the future.

What is it about the current musical climate that you think has resulted in the kraut rock revival?

Wendy: I think it’s definitely begun.
Rich: It seems like it’s been going awhile. Bands like the horrors have been influenced by it and it’s exciting to feel like there are other bands we could play with and their fans will be really into our music and vice versa. All these bands coming together, it creates, I don’t wanna say scene, but its cool when different bands can share fans. If there had only been one rock and roll band then rock and roll wouldn’t be as big as it is today. It takes a few things coming together to take things beyond a certain level.
The new flaming lips record, which we’ve been lucky enough to hear, it’s kind of proto-punk but the rhythm section is kind of more constant…
W: repetitive, hypnotic.
R: It has kraut elements.

Like Neu?

Richard: Neu! Has the super straight beat. It’s like that but they are more offbeat. That record, I have no idea how they made it, but it sounds like they were jamming for fucking hours.
W: It’s unbelievable
R: It’s mind blowing, its so improvised but just sounds like the best fucking jam since can.
The kraut rock revival could be seen as part of a more vague resurgence of psychedelic music in general. It’s interesting that people are looking for music that makes you zone out.
W: without trying to sound too hippy dippy, I think a few people with really good taste in music have got hung up on the kraut thing recently and it just sends out a wave through the artistic community. Eveyone’s picking up on it and thank God, because it’s really good and intelligent and inspiring and has this hypnotic quality that gives you a break. Like a nice break from the chaos of everything that’s been going on in the world for the last year or two.(sigh) It’s kind if meditative, all these hypnotic grooves and stuff. I’m so happy about it.
R: Bands like Faust, Neu! Can and any others we can mention, they need as many props and as many mentions as they can get for the rest of time basically.

Yeah, even the sex pistols said that kraut rock was an influence.

Wendy: And P.I.L right?
Rich: And even pieces of Joy Division, you know the early stuff.
Wendy: It’s just like really simple, soulful, repetitive grooves with really small deviations from time to time.
Rich: That’s the hypnotic element, you can just get lost in its great that were back to that point in time.

There are ancient disciplines in many cultures such as Australian aborigines or Native Americans where they chant and induce a meditative mental state without the use of drugs.


Rich: We could get really deep here.
Wendy: You can get onto a level of stillness from the repetitive sounds. It’s a good place to be. It helps to quiet the mind.

It’s good that there is music that can have that almost spiritual effect.

Wendy: It’s like spirituality sneaking around the back way.

There seems to have been a significant change in the world of electronic music. In the past few years it’s moved from the energetic dance element to more introspective and perhaps less easily accessible psychedelic music. Do you think this element has always been there lying dormant?

Rich: I think there have always been pockets of everything. There are cycles in music when things become popular again and sometimes artists add something new to the cycle.

What do you want to add to the cycle?

Rich: First and foremost – ourselves. We want to communicate with people at a level which will inspire them to create something else and take it even further.

Tonight at the garage – what routines do you have in preparation for you performance?


Wendy: I like to put on Jefferson Airplane and sing along with Grace Slick.
Rich: I’ve learnt most of the words now haven’t I?
Wendy: yeah! Poor Rich, he’s forced to deal with it.
Don’t you like Jefferson Airplane?
Rich: Yeah I do but I can’t sing along with the force she does. It’s fun though; we’ll probably end up doing it live.
Wendy: Yeah, I want to.

How do you expect the listener to react to your music?


Wendy: maybe to get them in the moment, to make them aware that they are in the room with us. Usually, people come and they stand there and they don’t leave and they watch. They just watch and they don’t talk. I appreciate that. It’s cool. I know what’s it like, when I go to a show and I might be a bit bored, how I react. We get cheers in between songs and the other night there was one guy who was really having a good time, with his hands in the air and he may have been on another planet but that was cool. After all the work we put into it, it feels really good. We didn’t know what to expect, live. We were concerned with just pulling it off and making all the sounds happen. We’d never played together but when we played there it was like the icing on the cake to see people react to what we’re doing.
Rich: You never know what to expect. We’ve been building this over time.
Wendy: We just take things one step at a time and one song at a time. Just trying to create something that the both of us were satisfied with first, we’re kinda selfish that way. We had a feeling that we wanted to create, it’s very rewarding when you put it out there and see people like it.

Going back to your cultural influences, how do you think your very different backgrounds affect the different ways you approach music?

R: we come from polar opposites in a way. Wendy comes from the rock end of the spectrum whereas I’ve gone from djing and looping beats to learning to play guitar and singing. We meet in a place where it’s like Wendy has to play some cool guitar parts to impress me and I come in with the synth stuff, she calls this Simon says. We challenge each other and we have to keep each other excited about the opposite end of the spectrum. Sometimes we have to go beyond what feels natural.
W: we have to compromise but also push each other’s boundaries. We have to ask can we go beyond that? It’s painful at times.

Does it get quite heated in rehearsals?

W: uuuuuuuurm…yeah.
R; yeah definitely
W: we’ve had our moments in the studio but I’m so glad we persevere. When I met Rich I felt like it opened a doorway. Before, I had been doing the same thing for quite awhile. He pushes me and I’m doing things I didn’t know I had in me. I really appreciate that I always want to have that.
R: That works both ways.
W: I don’t know how solo artists can go and make all these records. My hats off to them but I would get bored I would be like I’m gonna go and do underwater basket-weaving now because I’ve done the same thing 8 times. With we fell to earth I’m constantly being pushed in new directions.

So that’s where Bowie comes into it then? The constant reinventions?

R: It’s funny you mention him because we were both listening to the low record and it has a spirit which is unbelievable. He’s given kraut his salute at an amazing time in his career. So yeah, he has helped us out along the way.
W: He’s been like a spiritual guide for us with the creation of this record.

He’s your guardian angel

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Wednesday, 19 August 2009

Tonstartssbandht

New York seems to have become a bottomless pit, from which an endless precession of awesome lo-fi bands emerge. The most recent of these to draw my attention is Tonstartssbandht. My ex put me on to them and if you watch this video I think you will agree, they are a bit special.




Tonstartssbandht are based between Montreal and New York. Is it tricky working together over long distances? How do you go about it?


EDWIN: We have to record most of our songs during summer holidays in either mtl or NYC, or when we visit family in Orlando. Most of the rock songs were recorded as a duo in Montreal in the summertime. During the year we are writing stuff by ourselves and emailing developing projects back and forth... we are always sharing ideas and making endless lists of songs to cover that we never get around to. A couple songs were made entirely by one guy, but I won't say which. It's usually a full on collaboration, started form one guy's idea.
ANDY: Lots of emails. Many songs are written and recorded entirely by one of the guys, and only later, when we're visiting each other or at home will we "flesh them out" if at all. Because we've been living away from each other essentially since the band started two years ago, working on music takes a real precedence when we are together (hence alot of our work will come in short bursts during visits (NYC, mtl), at home in Orlando, or on holiday (Toronto, Berlin).


Does the fact you are brothers aid the creative process or can it be a
hindrance?


EDWIN: It's the best thing about the process. I have so much fun with this band because it's almost automatically stress free, and it accomplishes exactly what I hope to get done in music. Andy is one of my favorite musicians. We share so much of the same mental references for music. We grew up listening to almost the exact sounds for 20 years. We share deep bonds to a billion bands, albums, songs and very specific sounds. I can reference something very abstractly, that I might not even be able to articulate well enough for me to understand, and Andy can very often pick up on exactly what I'm going for sonically. We just share an old and familiar connection, which is great for collaboration.
ANDY: I think I know Edwin better than anyone else because he is my brother, and we are very great friends who share an interest in writing music. that in itself should assist any creative process. even beyond that though, i do think there is a closely shared memory of influences from our family life; aural ideas and sonic play with our dad, and a special history of images, media, and environmental experiences from our mom, who does design work.


Why did you choose to leave sunny Florida?


EDWIN: I left Orlando to go to school in NYC. I had been planning to move there since I was 5 so it was inevitable. That was the best decision I've made so far.... but I did love growing up in Florida. And nostalgia for that lost Florida lifestyle has inspired many of our songs. We're very proud to be from the Sunshine State. Florida is a wild place!
ANDY: i enjoyed growing up Orlando a great deal. i still think that its an extremely fascinating place, just like the rest of the Floridian peninsula. but we spent every summer of our lives doing long road trips across the country, cuz our parents dig road tripping, and when we traveled being away, sensing myself in a new space, felt awesome. When i was choosing a school, Quebec seemed a good mix of familiar and foreign. Moving really really fucking far away from Florida has had mad ups and super downs, but its an experience I do not regret. I still get a very deep personal satisfaction from saying to myself "Whoa, what? i live in Canada now?"

The vocal harmonies on songs like Preston “great ass” imfat are incredibly stirring. Where did you learn to make sounds like that?

EDWIN: Andy is the man behind most of that song. It was his demo to begin with.... But I can tell you that the style of that song is more like Andy's old solo recordings from middle school, which are beautiful and intricate and folky. It's probably just stuff he picked up in choir as a kid and from being the musical sponge that he is.
ANDY: The Orlando Deanery Boy Choir. We toured the UK in 1999, and i still trace near-conscious memories, visions and dreams to my experiences from that trip. all those unreal, ornate houses of worship, ancient fortresses, crumbling cemeteries, and the wholly un-Floridian landscape has been a fantastic influence on every creative work I've ever realized.


Is there a conscious decision to balance the weird psychedelic elements of your sound with the more conventional pop or anthemic (in the case of midnight cobras) sounds?


EDWIN:There is a conscious decision to keep our recordings and live shows balanced between the sample and beat based choral pop stuff ("hard pop","psychedelic") and the guitar-and-drums balls out rock. We love both of these sides of our music and performance equally and don't want to have to give up one to appease a specific crowd. The audience has always been open to both sides, which is awesome. thanks guys.
ANDY: Its a conscious practice in so far as
1) "Psychedelic elements" are essentially technical FX and gear that tend to turn sounds into awesome (see Spacemen 3, Blues Control, Angus Maclise, etc)
2) But there is a point, in applying technical psychedelia, where you can't hear the melody that is haunting you and which you want to haunt others, so...
3) You use as much psychedelia as you care to get that "awesome" and then find a ground where awesome exists alongside the melodic vision you have.

Are you concerned that your music could be viewed simply as a part of the already bloated lo-fi music scene, rather than as music in its own
right?


EDWIN: I'm never sure what to call our music either, so I can handle the lo-fi tag to an extent. I wouldn't scold someone for having trouble finding the right term. And it's not an incorrect description either... We've been forced to learn recording as we go for years, so it's not often the highest quality. I can't claim to be a sound engineer.
On the other hand, it would suck if people avoided listening to our stuff cause they heard it's 'lo-fi'. I think it has more to offer than what the label presupposes. "Andy Summers" is on it's own.
ANDY: People as a group will call it whatever's convenient, myself included. I'm okay with that. what I'm interested in is the personal experiences individuals have with our songs and our live shows. "Black Country made me cry...", "Every time I come see you guys play, I get so excited that I have to pee..." "Your music harkens back to a pre-bicameral mind, when memories and ideas were ghosts and gods." It'd be difficult for groups of us to speak easily and quickly about all the bands we love if personal meanings came out like that. So I'll take those as they come and let stylistic labels stick as they will. I really don't follow music news outside of me, my friends, and local gossip anyways, so I've no reason not to be content with being considered part of a lo-fi wave.


Some bloggers have compared your music to science fiction film
soundtracks. Is this a reasonable comparison? If so what sci-fi films
or other things for that matter have inspired you?


EDWIN: That's rad, I like those bloggers then. If any sci-fi film has inspired me it would be Bladerunner. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that Vangelis did the music, and we're big Vangelis fans. L.A. is so fucking big in that movie. "Memories of Green" is a heartbreaker.
ANDY: I have always craved sci-fi depictions of unreal spaces and cities. Bladerunner, Brazil, Stalker, Akira, all present foreign lands where I have been able to replicate that high that still gives me hallucinations from roadtrips across the US, the UK, and Japan. The "I, this person, am somewhere else" drug. The visions of Tokyo in Akira and other, even non-sci-fi, films are present in alot of the work i do with Ed. I think he dreams as often as I do of living in an enormous ocean of contiguous human settlement and awe-inspiring infrastructure with a familiar and foreign culture, to give us that ungrounded, fresh high that contributes so much to creative visions.



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Monday, 26 November 2007

Constructing Identity through Music

Date

Subculture

Class Position

Style

Music

Shifts in post-war hegemony

1953-54

teds

Unskilled working class

drapes

Rock and roll

The construction of consensus Macmillanism

1955-56

teds

1958-61

Beats/CND

Middle class

Duffle coats, beards

Jazz/folk

1963

mods

Semi-skilled

scooter

R’n’b/ Tamla

The construction of consensus Social Democracy

1964

rockers

unskilled

Motor-bike

Rock and roll

1967-72

hippies

Middle class/student

Long hair/ hallucinogenic drugs

Progressive rock

Dissensus Protest and Revolution

1967

rude boys

Black

underclass

hustling

ska

1968-69

skinheads

unskilled

Boots ‘n’ Braces

ska

1970

glams

Working class

bisexuality

glam rock

The Law and Order Society

Authoritarianism

And working class resistance

1970

Rastas

Black underclass

dreadlocks

reggae

1976-8

punks

Working class?

absurdity

Punk rock

1978-81

Mod, Ted, Skinhead Revivals





Music and Identity

Thomas Rowsell

Chronology of Subcultures. Source: Middleton and Muncie (1981:90) Pop Culture, Pop Music and Post War Youth: countercultures. Unit 20, Popular Culture Milton Keynes: Open University Press

The table above illustrates how different cultures and social identities have been associated with different genres of music in Britain. The social and political landscape of an era create youth movements and counter cultures, each of which has its own particular style and music associated with it. The clothing and music of each subculture corresponds to the time of its conception and also to an extent the conventions of the subcultures which preceded it.

“Indeed, as much as the word ‘identification’ seems to imply a sense of belonging, perhaps more it describes a process of differentiation. As Laclau and Mouffe state, ‘all values are values of opposition and are defined only by their difference’.(1985,p.106) Senses of shared identity are alliances formed out of oppositional stances” Kruse (1993, page 34)

Rock and Roll comes from America, ska comes from Jamaica, but in the post war era, British youth identified heavily with each genre, and as subcultures emerged and associated themselves with the music, the music developed over time and became Anglicized. In this way the music assumes a new identity while still retaining recognisable elements of the genres original conventions.

“Reggae and ska had been popular with young white people in the late 1960s in Britain, and the more developed, politicized and Rasta-influenced reggae was popular in the late 1970s with the followers of punk. Early ska records were reinterpreted by the 2-tone bands in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a process which led to the blurring of the edges between punk and reggae.” Longhurst (page 143:1995)

Ska was reinterpreted with a far more British sound, through vocal style and lyrical content in the form of 2tone. The identity of ska fans therefore shifted from Black Jamaicans to British whites encouraging a revival of the 60’s skinhead movement, as skinheads were among the few white people who listened to Jamaican music in that time.

Other styles of music from foreign cultures have also been adapted in Britain so that they assume a new identity often in the form of cross-over genres. When this happens there is usually a new and separate image associated with the reinterpretation and also a unique variation of the original sound. This is the case in the 1980’s when 1950’s American Rockabilly was reinterpreted in Britain by being combined with punk and being renamed Psychobilly. Also more recently when the American hip-hop and rap movements have been reinterpreted in the forms of Grime and Garage, which feature variations in pace and style with the addition of a very English vocal style and lyrical subject matter.

“Laclau and Mouffe (1985) suggest that social identities are not fixed, but rather are articulated within a structure of social relations that causes every social agent to occupy multiple positions at once, through identifications of race, gender, class, ethnicity, occupation, educational level, tastes and so on.” Kruse (1993, page 34)

References:

Longhurst, B 1995 Popular Music and Society.Polity

Kruse, H 1993 ‘Subcultural Identity in alternative music culture’ Popular Music 12

Middleton and Muncie (1981:90) Pop Culture, Pop Music and Post War Youth: countercultures. Unit 20, Popular Culture Milton Keynes: Open University Press