terça-feira, 25 de agosto de 2015

New Low with LVPRK - An Interview


Pós punk com tons escuros e pesados, essa é a temática proposta pelos russos do LVPRK.

Baixo e bateria em primeira instância guitarras cortantes, clima a´la Joy Division com tons modernos e ruidosos o LVPRK, ainda sem registros oficiais, chamou a atenção do TBTCI imediatamente e deve ser acompanhado bem de perto.

Futuro promissor.

***** Interview with LVPRK *****


Q. When did LVPRK start? Tell us about the history...
Vlad (bass, vocals): «That's actually a pretty funny story, we're somewhat proud of it. I've been working as a web-cam model for several years now and I collect various sex toys. So a year ago or so I came across this weird device, and I had no idea what's that for, and neither my girlfriends nor boyfriends could tell. So I brought it to the sex shop I frequented, and the shop assistant – Pavel – identified it as an old version of the Fuzz Face pedal and invited me to come to a screamo band's rehearsal, where he played the bass. So I paid them a visit a few days later – with my elder brother Georg, because my parents insisted he'd chaperon me, because my problems with alcohol resulted in problems with getting home. Georg lives a (mostly) healthy lifestyle and is quite reliable. So. Pavel's band rehearsed at a semi-abandoned military factory which is now rented to local musicians. I had copious amounts of booze on me, but it turned out that the band was straight edge. I managed to get Pavel and Georg drunk anyway, but Pavel's friends stayed true to sXe and took offence – especially when we got so wasted we fell asleep. They left and locked us in – and Pavel didn't have the keys that day! And it's a basement, there's no signal, so once we woke up we could only wait for someone to come and let us out. Pavel suggested we play to pass the time somehow. He was the only one who had anything to do with music before, so he picked the guitar, and Georg and I randomly divided the drums and Pavel's bass between us. We've been jamming for nearly two days until the band who rented a room next from us came and freed us. They are a quite popular shoegaze team, and they liked what we've managed to do in these two days and invited us to play a show together – we thought that this was a finger of fate and started learning the instruments and composing properly. Pavel got fired from the sex shop anyway, because he missed two work shifts without any notice. And I switched from sex toys to guitar gear collecting, but keep them together in our rehearsal room, because I don't have enough space to keep this lovepark at mine anymore – and that's exactly why we're called LVPRK, it means “lovepark”».

Q: Who are your influences?
Pavel (guitar, vocals): «Outside of the rehearsal time we all listen to fairly different music, and no one comes to rehearsals with a ready material, all our songs were written as an improvisation, where everyone played whatever he had on his mind. So our influences are everything from Leadbelly to Lana Del Ray».

Q. Make a list of 5 albums of all time…
Pav
rage against the machine - battle of Los Angeles

Georg (drums):
health - get color;
viet cong - viet cong;
unknown mortal orchestra - multi-love;
the soft moon - deeper;
DIIV – oshin

Vlad: Rangers – Pan Am Stories
Pan American – Cloud Room-Glass Room
BRMC – Baby 81
Verve - A Storm In Heaven
The Horrors – Primary Colours

Q. How do you feel playing live?
Pavel: «Our best gigs were the ones where we forgot that we were on stage. The music and the whole atmosphere just send you in some sort of trance and it's an indescribable feeling. But then, there were times when we took our shows too seriously and on stage, if something went wrong, we'd start hating everything about us and around us, and that'd change the way we play - but, apparently, this added to the songs».

Q. How do you describe LVPRK sounds?
Pavel: «Emotional. All our songs were improvised and reflect the emotions that the band members brought to the rehearsal. So the emotions of that time are preserved while we play these songs. Naturally, some momentary changes are made during live shows, but the essence remains»


Q: Tell us about the process of recording the songs?
Vlad: «It was hectic. One of our friends has a cassette tape portastudio and we've been planning to meet and record for ages, but he's so busy, that we could only agree on a Sunday morning, We had a gig that Saturday, so everyone was hungover, and the recording process was somewhat painful. We decided to record our earliest songs, which were harsher and even darker that the stuff we write now. That might have been a good decision. At that moment we were in the right state for these songs».

Q. Which new bands do you recommended?
Georg:«There's an overload of information, you come across music of so many kinds, but you have no time to listen to it, and if you have, you can't tell whether it's something new, or old, and you just haven't heard of it before. But I'd name viet cong and badbadnotgood».

Vlad: «I like following well-known artists and seeing if they released any new stuff, such as Julian Casablancas + The Voidz; there are trust-worthy musicians and it's easy to keep up with their experiments, because they cut through the news clutter».

Pavel: «What's really great is that there're lots of new good artists in Russia, and, since they are friends or friends of friends, we instantly get to know about them. Unfortunately, it's not that easy for them to get noticed outside the country. Not least because their names are in Cyrillic».

Q: Which band would you love to made a cover version of?
Pavel: «We do play around Joy Division and Stone Roses and such at rehearsals, but that's just for fun. So far, we are more interested in composing and playing our own stuff».

Vlad: « When I listen to music, I often get these thoughts, that it would be interesting to play this song in a particular way. And I get these ideas on a regular basis, today it was concerning something by the Killers, Under the Gun, I think. But we really don't have enough time for our own songwriting, recording and playing shows».

Q: What are your plans for the future?
Georg: «We are invited to play at 2 fests in Saint Petersburg in the end of August, which is 2000 km away from out city, and it's our first experience of this kind. So we are getting ready for that. Once we are back we'll record the rest of our songs and write something new. Maybe we'll end up with an album or a few EPs, or maybe a few EP and an album, because we have plenty of material and we keep writing more, and we just don't have the time».

Q: Any parting words?
Pavel: «Try and go to gigs more often. This shit is so much better than MP3's».
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Thanks

https://soundcloud.com/lvprk
https://www.facebook.com/lvprk