“Johann Sebastian Bach Rescue Remedies.” Dan O’Sullivan imparts this information in a deadpan manner, consuming drops from a mysterious yellow-labelled bottle. Being the curious type, I’m prone to these queries, but his reaction indicates I’m perhaps showing a more than strictly necessary interest in his medicinal habits. Any awkwardness is averted almost immediately, however, by the other half of Grumbling Fur, Alexander Tucker, who bursts out laughing, “It’s not SEBASTIAN Bach!” And so, before we launch ourselves into a heady conversation about the mysteries of sight and sound, I get a brief introduction to homeopathy: rock rose, impatiens (“I’ve got enough of that already,” pipes up Alexander again), cherry plumb and star of Bethlehem (“for trauma and shock,” apparently). Grumbling Fur also reassure me that one of their power amulets, the rabbit, will be presiding ‘as The Witness’ over tonight’s performance.
All is well, and we settle in the sunny Green Room tent of Liverpool Psych Fest, talking about psych, working with a Turner prize nominee Mark Titchner and how their latest psych-pop album Preternaturals came into being. They grumble at times but pretty much everything they say highlights their intense creative and personal connection, and their lovely strange imagination.
GIITV: In the past you mentioned you didn’t think of yourselves as a band. Can you elaborate on that?
Alexander Tucker: We were trying to initially not state it as such. The band comes out of our friendship really… And the extension of that. And when you kind of officially say something is a band, a lot more problems arise, more pressure and things like that. The thing is, it also rests between a band and an arts project… We’ve never just been a band that plays songs, you know.
Daniel O’Sullivan: It’s a bit of a snare to call yourself a band, ‘cos immediately you’re just associated with nomenclature and the institution of being a band – playing gigs, all that tedious stuff… Whereas, you know, we wanna do interesting things!
You’re certainly doing interesting things and getting a lot of very positive press. You’ve got a new label, you’re playing very special events like Liverpool Psych Fest. Do you think it’s possible to reconcile your creative ethos with inevitable commercial pressures that come at a certain level of success?
AT: Yeah, yeah…
DOS: Of course! (Emphatically). As soon as it ceases to be creative we’ll just stop doing it. Let it die. And then come back with something else. Resurrect. Everything you do in your life is a process of birth, death and resurrection in some form. So even this project is undergoing some kind of changes. And it’s doing so constantly, you know… The point is not to attach yourself to any particular goal or fear of it going wrong. Just to enjoy it while it’s happening.
Your latest album, Preternaturals, is definitely a very different kind of album. It’s a peculiar being. To me it sounded like each and every song had a certain personality.
(Both agree and nod enthusiastically.)
How did you approach writing of the album? How it did come about?
AT: It came out as very much a process. One of us would lay down something like an improvised sound and from that we might build a song… Or sometimes we’d come with finished parts and deliver those to the other person, and then from that we’d kind of build on that process…
DOS: …a process of suggestion really. One of us would suggest something and the other one would respond. And, you know, we’d just kind of bounce off each other until we’ve assembled something.
AT:…response as a kind of collage, in a way… Think of the sound more as physical object… kind of throwing something in, rushing it back or bringing it forward…
Suggestions of sound rather than conceptual suggestions.
AT: Yeah, exactly, sound rather than music-y things… Well, we love sounds but melody is strong in both of our solo work as well. Even when I’m improvising with quite noisy things I’d still be trying to pull out some melodious kind of element.
DOS: You can do that even with the most abstract sound sources. You can hear something that’s indeterminable like a wren’s song or a magpie clacking. The more you listen to it, the more you can extrapolate a song. They’re all motifs, you know. And you’re there to grab it, bring it down and make it into something real.
But to me it also seemed there were certain conceptual ideas and elements floating through your album.
AT: They kind of arrive, emerge in front of us in the context of making the work… We don’t decide on a concept of anything. When I was at art college it was always ‘You’ve got to get your theory worked out before you make the work.’ And that never worked for me. I was stressed out and never happy with the end result. I’ve always been and Dan’s always been a maker first and foremost. From that we’ll take ideas, build on them… Then maybe they become more conceptual. But the work has to come first.
DOS: But in terms of concepts, I think it sorts itself out the more you engage with your intuition as an artist or a songwriter, or whatever you’re doing… The more you relax and not try to be too cerebral or laden your work with too many references… That’s when surprising things happen and they’re all a result of the unconscious.
I guess that echoes the idea of preternatural phenomena as something suspended between the everyday and the magical worlds, something that can only reveal, manifest itself.
(Both agree, with a resounding chorus of ‘yeah, yeah’.)
So now that the album is out, what have you got lined up till the end of the year?
DOS: We’ve got a UK tour. We’re playing a lot of shows – Chester, Ramsgate, Manchester, Glasgow, Cardiff… We’re playing the DRILL:Festival which is curated by the band Wire.
AT: Although we’re on at the same time as Swans there so, you know…
DOS: But Swans are playing in a 300 capacity room so…
AT:…so we’re going to have people who’re mourning Swans, sad ‘cos they’re not watching Swans. (Making funny crying noises. Laughing.)
DOS: We open for The Charlatans in a few weeks time.
AT: We’ve just remixed their new 7’’ and done the artwork for that. And then we’ve got this Mark Titchner collaboration at the Roundhouse.
That’s the Illuminations Festival, right? Tell us a bit more about this project.
AT: We’ve done this piece with Mark before, showing at Southwark Gallery in a deconsecrated church called Dalston Grove. It was an AV surround sound piece initially, so it’s four screens: two screens facing each other. And the imagery is aphorisms, like ‘You ARE….’ – ‘You ARE revered’, ‘You ARE courageous’… And it mutates through into a sort of loop and eventually it ends up at ‘You are NOT’ – ‘You ARE NOT despised’, ‘You ARE NOT weak’, etc… The background to these videos is incredibly psychedelic – layered colours, and layers upon layer of imagery… Flickering, strobing… a bit like Stan Brakhage’s celluloid pieces with very attached sort of insects and leaves. And words sort of peering out of this and coming towards you… There’s this motif like the sun as well, a red dot constantly pulsing through the sections of the film…
AC: Of course, you (AT) have a background in visual arts.
AT: Yeah, I met Mark Titchner through someone I went to Slade with. He was a fan of my work, and he said he would like to meet me and collaborate. We collaborated on a piece called Knots. Then I introduced Mark to Dan and we started working on this Rose piece together.
Visual aspect is hugely important in psychedelia. How important is it to you given that sound is your starting point?
DOS: Not really that important. It’s important in the case of the collaboration with Mark.
AT: ‘Cos we use all sorts of different imagery, not just psych per say. I mean, the new album cover is quite psych, I’d say, but the one before is more of a collage. But we do enjoy that kind of imagery, sort of a sensory overload…
They work really well together with the whole intuitive aspect of your approach.
AT: Yeah, yeah. Definitely.
DOS: Yeah, but the thing about getting really immersed in psychedelic imageries can be a bit of distraction. It is a sensory overload and it is essentially just about the senses, whereas there’s a whole world of sensation behind that as well. So imagery when it comes to collaborating with visual artists is very important, but when it comes to making sound it’s about the sound.
It struck me with Preternaturals that beautiful as it was, there was a kind of a sinister aspect to it.
AT: Yeah, yeah…
DOS: It’s a bit worrying when people say that. I think there’s always an air of disquiet to our things. I think we’re people of extremes in a way: either extremely ecstatic or extremely depressed.
AT: I’m actually trying to be a bit moderate. I don’t know. It’s really difficult. Once the doors have flung open it’s hard to go back out… You just basically have to manage your life the best you can. The thing is music is the best platform to release all those emotions, all those conflicting feelings you have about yourself and the world around you.
It is also definitely very intense.
DOS: Well, we’re both from sort of hardcore punk backgrounds. And metal.
I think you mentioned somewhere you were in a church choir.
AT: Yeah, and I was in school plays as well.
DOS: We were in the same play and the same character: Charley Bates in Oliver, one of the urchins.
Hah, that’s kind of odd! What would you say is the oddest thing about Grumbling Fur?
AT: We don’t care or think about whether we’re bringing in influences, or genres, or whatever… It doesn’t come into our thought processes. The track we were working on last night’s got this really mutant kind of beat, mutant baseline. But then the guitar’s got this very pretty Penguin Cafe Orchestra element. And the vocals are very calm and peaceful, very melancholic. And there’s a very kind of scratchy sound and the keys as well. So there’s all these melodies clashing, swirling around but at the time we weren’t really thinking about it. You can go to all these different instruments and different parts and really view them; and then also view the piece as a whole.
DOS: The thing is you couldn’t really plan a piece like this in a composed intellectual way.
AT: No. You were saying last night,’ I wish this was on grid’. We use electronic beats a lot of the time so some of the time they’re made on grid but a hell of a lot of the time they’re not made on grid.
DOS:…which makes them harder to edit and put together. But when they’re harder to edit and less refined you can draw on a character of a piece, which is somehow quite incongruous but it keeps it sort of special. It’s that sort of hinterland between everything being pitch perfect, on the dot and not quite refined. But there’s some very regular tuning going on in this new piece…
AT: Yeah, yeah…
DOS: The thing is it doesn’t sound odd and it doesn’t feel odd or peculiar in any way, except that the mixing of all the ingredients smashed up together is probably quite peculiar. But the end result is about song-craft.
So are you saying the unusual, ‘odd’ aspect is the process?
DOS: Yeah, yeah…
AT: Yeah, but at the core, like Dan says, is the song. Always. Whether it’s minimal or it’s incredibly stacked and orchestral.
DOS:…or it’s incredibly desolate even.The idea is a sort of a linear song idea, almost like a story…
You’ve mentioned working on new material. Can you tell us more about it?
AT: Next record is a collaboration with Charlemagne Palestine. It’s called Charlemagne Palestine and Grumbling Fur Time Orchestra. And this is our kind of drone element. It’s similar to what we’ll be doing with Rose, the Mark Titchner piece.
DOS: The Time Machine Orchestra has become our pseudonym, our nom de plume. We’re going to play a little bit of that tonight. We’ll do some drone stuff, we’ll do some songs and then we’ll wig out. This is a Psych Fest after all. (Smiles)
AT: Wait till Dream Weapon comes. There’s a Spaceman 3 album called Dream Weapon. It’s like a drone kind of piece…We like it.(Laughs)
So when should we expect the new album?
DOS: We’re working on it now.
AT: Maybe next year.
DOS: Not necessarily. We’re still working on it.
AT: That’s the logistics basically. Nothing else.
Are you releasing it on The Quietus (Photographic Corporation)?
AT: No, I don’t know.
DOS: No, we’re not releasing it on the Quietus. That much we do know.
AT: Oh, no, we’re not. (Laughs) We just don’t know what we’re doing… We’ve just finished the release of one record. We’ve got Charlemagne coming out and we’re working on the next, so we’re a bit…We’re always working on new stuff. We’re basically just always working and then we cherry pick all the good stuff.
DOS: One of the things is to generate material. Once you’ve got a bit of an archive you can start assembling it.
AT: Everything else is a bit…a bit stressful. (Laughs)
Well, you’re incredibly productive ‘cos the album’s only been out for just over a month.
AT: Yeah, yeah…
DOS: Yeah, we’d already started on another album just before Preternaturals, so we’re picking up again where we left off…
Any musical recommendations, new or not-so-new, for us?
AT: Oooh…Astral Social Club – why aren’t they here? Vibracathedral Orchestra – Leeds based improvisors who should be here actually. Skullflower as well. Ashtray Navigations – they should be here! Sonic Boom.
DOS: He was here last year.
AT: He should be here every year.
Were you here last year?
DOS: No, no… I don’t think we go to festivals unless we’re playing.
AT: We’re getting a bit too long in the tooth. (Laughs)
DOS: Yeah, yeah…
AT: To be honest, the only ones I used to go to was ATP. But I was on the label so, you know, it was free. (Laughs)
DOS: But what else should people be listening to?
AT: What else is awesome? Orchestra of Spheres from New Zealand. Who else? Hmmm…
DOS: Fleetwood Mac. We could be here for a very long time…Trying to think who else I’ve been listening at home recently…
AT: Lifetones album will be reissued soon. It’s Charles Bullen from This Heat. His project after This Heat. Everyone knows This Heat. If you don’t, you should. Lifetones is more afro-centric, kind of reggae. It’s very good. Who else? Bridget Hayden. She’s also in the Vibracathedral Orchestra. She’s amazing! But some things we don’t really have time for…
What things? Anything you hate?
AT: We do moan about things. Hmmm… There’s a lot of electronic things which are very bland but they’re being touted as the opposite. With a lot of electronic music, some things recede to the back and other things are pulled to the fore. And I don’t really understand how that is inventive and new. I think it’s just shifting sound around rather than structurally looking at what you could do with electronic music. But anyway… people don’t always want to be challenged. They want to just enjoy something, and fit that into their lives… Who are we to judge?!
DOS: There’s no right and wrong.
AT: Exactly! There’s no good or bad. Good and bad doesn’t exist. Art world realised this a lot time ago but music world is still waiting to catch up. Everyone’s just going round and round and round in circles, which is a shame. (Smiles)
Buy Preternaturals via Rough Trade, iTunes or Norman Records.
Grumbling Fur UK tour dates:
October 18 – DimSwn Festival, Cardiff
October 20 – The Garage, London with the Charlatans
November 6 – Illuminations Festival, Camden Roundhouse, London
November 13 – Heaven, London with East India Youth
November 15 – Music Hall, Ramsgate
November 20 – The Custard Factory, Birmingham
November 21 – The Compass, Chester
November 22 – Wintersong Festival, Glasgow
November 23 – Soup Kitchen, Manchester
December 7 – Brighton Komedia Theatre Bar, Wire’s DRILL Festival
Buy tickets here.
For our review of Grumbling Fur’s album Preternaturals click here.
For our review of Liverpool Psych Fest click here.
