segunda-feira, 22 de abril de 2019

Decadent Sprinter with Ice Baths - An Interview

Pós punk primitivo, metalizado, cru e doloridamente estridente.

Muitas bandas atuais que se alimentam do que, a meu ver, foi o período mais fértil para a música contemporânea, o pós punk, bebem principalmente em ambientes cinzentos, melancólicos e afins, mas os ingleses do Ice Baths seguem o lado inverso, ou, se preferir o mais caótico possível.

Claro que existem momentos que os caras navegam por terrenos menos audaciosos, como "Simulation", uma das música do novo trabalho que vem ao mundo em Maio, intitulado "Decadent Sprinter", mas, outro aperitivo do disco, "Auster", segue o que os caras conceberam no ano passado com o debute homônimo.

Muitos vem celebrando uma certa crescente cena onde Shame, Fontaines D.C. vem chamando extrema atenção, ok, são boas bandas que merecem ser conferidas, mas como sempre, o submundo dos bons sons pode ofertar algo mais perturbador, é só querer experimentar.


***** Interview with Ice Baths *****

Q. When did Ice Baths begin? Tell us about the history...
April 8th 2013…thats the first time Alex & Tom ever spoke. They were both looking to start new bands and began recording demos on Tom’s old Tascam 414 tape machine. We wrote a lot of the first album between Alex’s bedroom and a little space in Deptford (South London) before Jack & Ed joined.

Jack was a long time friend of Alex and they had been playing together in another band for a few years prior. Ed was a guy we all knew and played in a bloody great band called Aathens (now label mates of ours) and when Alex reached out to him if he knew any other guitar players that might wanna join, he put himself forward…which was the secretly what we were hoping would happen!

Special mention has to go to Dan, Mo & Lori who all played in Ice Baths over the initial years and had a real impact into how we ended up today, with Dan & Mo writing and recording on the first album.

Q: Who are your influences?
Too many to answer comprehensively but artists and bands we are listening too and enjoying right now are:

Housewives
Chino Amobi
Leyland Kirby
Puce Mary
Klein
US Maple
Mhysa
Ben Vince
Sukitoa O Namau
H Grimace

Q. Make a list of 5 albums of all time…
It’s impossible to pick just 5 albums, but with that in mind:

ED
1. john coltrane - a love supreme
2. wu tang clan - 36 chambers
3. sonic youth - EVOL
4. gang of four - entertainment
5. neil young - everyone knows this is nowhere

ALEX
1. Shabazz Palaces - Black Up
2. Lawrence English - The Peregrine
3. Miles Davis - Kind Of Blue
4. Women - Public Strain
5. Christina Vantzou - No. 1


Q. How do you feel playing live?
A mixture of nervous, excited, confused, nervous, confused & excited.

Q. How do you describe Ice Baths´ sounds?
Too pop to be weird, too weird to be pop…probably not gonna make mum & dad proud but we are having fun.

Q: Tell us about the process of recording the songs ?
Hah, somewhat patchwork for the album. It was a mixture of recording the instruments in 1 studio on tape and then taking the stems back with us & Alex mixed them and recorded vocals with tom on the old cassette deck they used for demoing. For that first record we had such a specific sound in our heads & got that from the tape machine we decided to record the vocals on that specific machine with cheap mics etc. Mixing was not initially the plan to do ourselves, but again as we had such a specific idea of what we wanted and are terrible sometimes at communicating that, it just proved easier.

Since that record we have done a few sessions in a new studio in South London with Euan Hinshelwood, we got a tip off from our friends in the band JC Flowers of this cool little tape studio…no computers or screens and a really great engineer! Euan totally gets what we have been shooting for with the last few sessions & the point about not having computers or screens is something we particularly like, not as a rejection of technology, but because we tend to find that with screens and computers there is often a habit of “watching the sound waves” looking for the errors & edits and not fully engaging our ears. This process has been so much fun and basically a more professional reproduction of how Tom & Alex used to demo tracks back in the early days.

Q. Which new bands do you recommend?
Pretty much everything listed in the influences section

Q: Which band would you love to made a cover version of?
ALEX: ELO - ‘Evil Woman’ (one for the haters who can’t accept ELO rip - but i’d change the lyrics from Evil Woman to something else like…Magic Woman…I need to work on that)

Q: What are your plans for the future?
We have a new 12” EP coming out on May 31st via Blank Editions!

Q: Any parting words?
Thanks for reaching out and being interested in the band, it’s so nice to speak to people from places we haven’t even visited ourselves x
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Thanks

https://icebaths.bandcamp.com/album/ice-baths
https://blankeditions.bandcamp.com/album/decadent-sprinter
https://www.facebook.com/icebaths/