Fall Electric launch their new album, Interior, this Friday, March 6, at the Rosemount Hotel with help from Slums, Lanark and Mt Mountain. ALEX GRIFFIN reports.
As Mercury Rev put it in Holes, bands are funny little plans that never work out right.
However, despite seven years and a lot of change since Fall Electric’s last album – the Ned Raggett acclaimed Measure And Step – they’ve returned with their best work yet. From the windy, plaintive weirdness of New York to the restraint of Crystallised, Interior is well worth the wait, but comes after significant upheaval around the core of songwriter Andrew Ryan and cellist Tristan Parr.
“We were playing with Stina Thomas for a while, and I was imagining going down a quite electronic path, but she left the band. Then Pete Guazzelli (drums) wasn’t able to play any more, which sincerely broke my heart.”
Reduced to a duo, Ryan and Parr went into the studio in 2013 with Dave Parkin for six days of recording that were unexpectedly transformative, as Ryan explains.
“We had six days, two three-day sessions, where we turned small ideas into whole songs with all three of us playing; Dave making beats, me digging up beats from Casios, all of us making octave saxophone cellos… weird, wonderful lands. In that period, that wonderful man joined the band.”
Despite the positive results, the trio were restless for more. “We loved the songs we’d made, but wanted to know how we could we really, really, really realise it.”
When it came to finding a way to translate this into reality, Kevin Parker unsurprisingly came to mind for post-production, or as Ryan refers to it, ‘undressing’ the tunes. They got in at the right time.
“At the time we paid Kev a couple hundred bucks, and he said back then it was the most he’d ever been paid to produce. I imagine since he’s had bigger options…”
It’s an eerily balanced album, pitched between the sedately careening Casio-kraut of Burning Flag and the Beck-cum-Beta Band bounciness of Over You, something that makes the lengthy gestation somewhat of a virtue.
“I generally slowly make things at random points over the year. I was pleased when I found out Thom York wrote the bassline to The National Anthem(from Radiohead’sKid A) at 16, because it showed me how these things eventually come back and you think, ‘hey! This might be alright!’”
Despite the storm and stress, the creative synergy between Ryan and Parr remains undiminished from when they began playing together well over a decade ago.
“We can’t evolve much more than what that developed over playing live as a duo for years; there’s this really detailed understanding of tempo and dynamic. We’re not like, there(Ryan indicates a level of absolute perfection with his left hand) but in terms of our ability to react to one another, we wouldn’t want it to get any better, otherwise it might involve having our clothes off! (laughs). It’s functional! Now it’s just up to me to come up with songs that instigate opportunities for us to do this kind of thing. Dave Parkin makes me believe in myself when singing, and when Tristan believes in something, he makes me want to do it more; it all comes from the dudes in my life!”
Interior isn’t just the breaking of the Fall Electric floodgates; the LP also marks the first release for Status Factory, Ryan and co’s newly christened boutique record label. Another big change has come in the form of Ivy, Ryan’s first child with musical and life partner Felicity Groom, and it seems like she’s already angling to become another new member of the band.
“Having a little kid is awesome. When making up something new, even I’m thinking, ‘oh no, this is just something weird again’, she’ll start dancing to it! If Ivy jigs, I know it must slightly make sense on like, the animal and children level. She’s my two-foot focus group. And that’s why everyone should have children!”
