Fun Math Rockers Maps & Atlases Speak To Stereoboard About Their New Album & More (Interview)
Thursday, 10 May 2012
Written by Ben Bland
Math rock doesn’t have a reputation for being massively accessible to the average music fan off the street. Complex time signatures generally aren’t a recipe for creating danceable, catchy tunes but Maps & Atlases have been steadfastly ignoring that rule in recent times. They may be devoted to making music that frontman David Davison describes as “challenging” but new album ‘Beware & Be Grateful’ showcases a knack for writing songs more enjoyably immediate than your average commercial pop song.
“I think we have always been about melding accessibility with complexity” Davison says. “We have that desire to make something that is fun, enjoyable on a basic level and not over people’s heads but that is also complex and challenging for us as a band. That’s the common thread between both our EPs and our albums. The music is different in its own way but as accessible seeming as it can be”.
The new album definitely takes that melding process to a whole new level though, something Davison has noticed in the reaction from family and friends. “There are people I know who were perhaps a little alienated by our music in the past but they are really excited about this record. They enjoy it because they can sing along and dance to it more easily than our previous songs but there are also friends who want to learn the guitar parts, for example, because the music is still challenging”. In an era when accessibility is generally assumed to come hand in hand with generic song structures, the approach of Maps & Atlases is undoubtedly very refreshing.
Despite the differences between their previous work and the new, Davison still sees ‘Beware & Be Grateful’ as having grown out of their last album, ‘Perch Patchwork’. “The differences I suppose were largely in terms of how we went about the initial phases of making the album. The producer, Jason Cupp, and I spent a lot of time fiddling about with keyboards and synths this time but then in the end a lot of that didn’t get used and there was still a lot of just me playing guitar to a click track to get things going, as on ‘Perch Patchwork’”.
He freely admits that the touring behind the last album was a help to the creative process this time around as well. “I think we got better at jamming and improvising together within the style of Maps & Atlases, we got better at working out the things that we do well together. We figures out what we could do - things like including the guitar solo on ‘Silver Self’, which is something we would never have thought of doing before I don’t think”. It seems like the dedicated road campaign Maps & Atlases went on in support of their last album paid off in more ways than just getting their music out there to the masses.
Talking of touring, Maps & Atlases were on tour in the UK when the new album was released with Davison admitting that “We were really keen to come and tour the UK first this time around. When we toured ‘Perch Patchwork’ we didn’t come here until about six months after the release but we thought it would be great to be here as the album came out this time. We really love hanging out here. There are a lot of cool places to play and we have always had a really good reception when we have played in the UK so it is really great to be here now”.
No conversation with the Maps & Atlases singer would be complete without talking about the band’s varied and often disarmingly effective lyrics. “The thing about a few of the songs on the new album is that they have been around a long time” Davison tells me. “I mean ‘Vampires’, ‘Old Ash’, ‘Be Three Years Old’ and ‘Important’ have been around a while and the meanings now have developed from their old meanings so that has been interesting. I mean my lyric writing has always been born largely out of me just writing lines down and then re-contextualising them within other songs. It’s rarely a case of me just sitting down and writing whole sets of lyrics”.
About my favourite lyric on the album (“The sounds you put your faith in will only let you down”, from ‘Vampires’), Davison talks about the importance of moving forward. “Well that song is very much about progress and change and potential. That is one of those songs where I was trying to balance the original meaning of the song with what it means to me now but it still has that overall context to it, that idea about moving forward and getting on with things as they change”.
“I don’t know where this album will take us” Davison declares as our conversation draws to an end. “We all feel really lucky that we get to travel around and play to people and create music that we really enjoy. We just want to keep being creative and keep having fun, not focus on achieving specific goals. I think we are a better band than ever before and hopefully we will only continue to get better and touch more people with what we do”.
‘Beware and Be Grateful’, the new album by Maps & Atlases, is out now via FatCat.
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“I think we have always been about melding accessibility with complexity” Davison says. “We have that desire to make something that is fun, enjoyable on a basic level and not over people’s heads but that is also complex and challenging for us as a band. That’s the common thread between both our EPs and our albums. The music is different in its own way but as accessible seeming as it can be”.
