Death In Vegas : Festival Number Six

Death in Vegas play Festival Number Six in Portmeirion this weekend. I spoke to Richard Fearless earlier this year. Some of his words are below. There is also a mix he did for BBC6 and a video shoved into the middle of them.

MUSIC is on a nostalgia trip. While reunions have never been uncommon, glimpse at the bands currently doing the rounds and you would struggle to guess if it was any time between 1988 and 2012.
Perhaps it’s the recession. To paraphrase the MC5’s Wayne Kramer, is there a passage in the Rock and Roll Handbook that says band aren’t allowed to eat?
The re-emergence of Death In Vegas has more eyes on the future than most.
“I guess if you were to ask any band that has reformed if they want to be going through the hits or ballads, they’d say they want to be doing new things and want to be excited by it all,” says Richard Fearless. “I didn’t want this to be something retrospective, I wanted the record to look to the future.”
Death In Vegas’ latest album Trans-Love Energies, the first in eight years, is striking in how it stands apart from old glories.
“The new material has been a nightmare to put together with the new band.”
Fearless adds that it would have been easy to play them on his own, behind a mixing desk with a bit of trickery.
“[The band] is more made up of people I have recorded with in the past. It was hard to pick them but they’re all people with similar ideas, even the crew. But they’re people who work and fit together.
“That has benefits as a live performance, definitely. Working with these people you have an instant rapport that keeps things rolling.
“I’ve had to sit and see what works well together. There is probably more older material there than I would have wanted.
“It sounds bad, but in an ideal world I’d be able to throw away all of that. As an artist, what excites me is moving forward to the next record – where the magic is.”

 

Sessions in the studio of musician, DJ and producer Andrew Weatheral were the first time Fearless has contributed vocals to his work. Past collaborations have included the likes of Iggy Pop, Hope Sandoval, Liam Gallagher and Paul Weller.
“I didn’t want there to be much in the way of collaboration – I thought it could overshadow things,” says Fearless. “I started doing some scratch vocals. The management said: ‘It sounds great, who’s singing?’
“There was a part that Jamie Hince from The Kills wanted to sing... But then he had his marriage to sort and was busy. I had a feeling he wasn’t going to be ready in time so I just did it myself.
“Andrew [Weatherall] is someone I’ve known for years and someone I have a hell of a lot of respect for. There was no soundproofing at his studio so I knew his ears were the other side of the door. It was brilliant having him around. It was really encouraging that he seemed to love what he was hearing.”
One of the most infamous of Fearless’ collaborations was an ill-fated recording session with Oasis in 2004.
“We’d done no mixing but had recorded a whole album,” he recalls. “Basically we took a one week break and ended up just not mixing it or getting ‘round to it. “Not wanting to upset anyone but at that time Oasis were like this massive oil tanker, slowly steaming ahead, and the idea of changing the course – with the people behind it, management and the brothers’ relationship – wasn’t something that was really going to happen.
“We really wanted to change that course. It’s a shame that it never got made. I think it’s an album Oasis maybe should have released. I’ve heard from both since that they wish it had happened.”

To close, Fearless ponders briefly on the word that best describes Death in Vegas.
“I think the Death In Vegas sound is definitely very spacial. A lot of repetition. I think there’s a certain confidence [with the new record]. It’s brave to have space. If you listen to classical scores, they have a visual narrative and a lot of space. I’ve drawn on that."
He adds: “To label it psychedelia is weird, yeah. But it's one of those things where you get the idea. Probably 'electronic' is even worse. Titles like that have been a bit tarnished and widespread. Psychedelic now, probably just means bands that smoke a bit more pot."

Death in Vegas play the Saturday of the first ever Festival Number Six. 

Race Horses, Furniture review

Below is a review of Race Horses' thoroughly ace new record Furniture as it appeared in the Daily Post last Friday (Aug 31). The album is out on September 10. Buy it.

As is the precedent with Aberystwyth’s Race Horses it has become custom to expect sprawling masses of genre and style.
Although highly accomplished, 2010’s Goodbye Falkenburg was a bit of a gallimaufry. A mash of “everything [they] had listened to up to that point, all combined musically.”
The intervening years have evidently been spent grinding their pop edge until razor-sharp. Frontman Meilyr Jones has the Cocker-esque skill of injecting the everyday and the kitchen sink drama with glitz and glamour.
Pulp, in fact, are the most obvious of benchmarks. That is a Pulp flush with Sparks and glossy 80s pop balladry, making nods at Queen (see Nobody's Son), Spandau Ballet and Ultravox without the influences being contrived or too knowing.
Although the record stumbles early with the meandering What Am I To Do, elsewhere it is consistently well constructed and well realised. A trio of Furniture, Mates and Sisters is chrome-bright modern pop backed by ineffable art school pomp – a heady mix of audacity and depth.
True to the pop blueprint, the record closes with the ballad Old and New. It is a well-used formula and its results are often hackneyed. But, it is a formula for a reason and when pulled off so impeccably it is very difficult to argue with. Solid gold pop, no less.