Halcyon Nights: Stereoboard Talks Lyrics, Cohabiting And House Shows With Glitches
Tuesday, 18 June 2013
Written by Huw Baines
Glitches will soon be demanding plenty of your attention. The Whitechapel-based trio make dreamy pop music that straddles the worlds of indie and electronica, and have been generating plenty of buzz in the last few months.
With their new single, Only Time Will Tell, out on July 22 through Kissability, we caught up with the 'enigmatic music collective' to discuss their influences, lyrics, cohabiting and holding kick ass gigs at your house.
Listening to Only Time Will Tell, it's obvious that you don't lack for ambition. How close did you get to realising your initial idea for the song?
We are all really happy with the way that Only Time Will Tell came together. When we started on the initial idea for the song it was clear to us what the feel of it should be and we rapidly made progress on developing it into the finished article. As we recorded it, the embellishments that we added in the studio helped bring out that initial idea, and rather than moving the song away from what we started with they helped hone its directness. So all in all, we feel that we not only realised our initial idea, but also managed to go beyond it.
The song has a foot in guitar music, a foot in electronica and a thick groove. What influences were particularly apparent during the writing process?
Well, we would certainly agree with that description of where the track sits with regards to today's music. We think that Only Time Will Tell represents our own mantra of 'Organic Imperial Grooves' and that this in itself is probably the biggest influence on the single. In terms of specific influences it is quite hard to pinpoint examples since as a band we all have fairly divergent tastes in what we listen to and it's from that mixture of interests that the inspiration for our own direction develops, which we believe that Only Time Will Tell highlights.
Talk us through the song's lyrics – what message are you trying to get across to listeners?
That you have to just keep your head down and live in the present. The future isn't written. The past is done. Now is all you've got. It's also about admitting to yourself and people around you that you need help. Sometimes you hate having to be fished out of trouble. But, a lot of the time, it's a very constructive thing to be involved in. No one is an island, as they say. It's about the realisation that we'd all go mad if we lived and strived alone.
You seem to be a very cohesive group – how does the fact that you live together influence you in terms of writing and recording?
It's a huge influence on the writing process since the direction and feeling of any one of our songs comes from all three of us working on it together. Being in near constant contact with each other means that as songwriters, we are all pretty in tune with one another (no pun intended), which has allowed us to really focus on developing our sound as Glitches. In turn, this carried over into how we record. At the moment we are developing an album and we all like to be in the studio, even if it is a day that is solely about vocals or guitar or drums.
In a live setting, what should fans expect from the band?
In general, we try to draw in the audience with us so that they feel part of the show and give them something a bit different. We have just started working with visuals and lights in order to create a more holistic experience for the people watching and this is something that we'll be developing more and more in the near future. At our single launch for Only Time Will Tell at St Pancras Old Church (July 17) we are going to be playing with strings and brass sections, something that we have always wanted to do and which will really complement the setting of the venue.
Tell us a bit about Halcyon Nights – they've been billed as 'chaos within reason'.
Well that pretty much sums it up! They are our own nights which we hold in our studio/flat where we put on bands that we're into at the moment. Recently we have had Maxixe and Rhoysn and NZCA/Lines are playing the next one in July. It's a great experience since it's a way for us, and the other bands, to really engage with the people who enjoy the music and vice versa. Our space isn't huge either so it can be quite intimate, which all adds to atmosphere of the night and means that that unlike other 'normal' venues we can avoid it from becoming just another sterile gig. Also, it means that after a few drinks, and a bit of sweaty dancing, you're likely to have met a whole new group of interesting people that enjoy the music that you do.
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