Mid 30s Angst: Mastersystem's Scott Hutchison on Using The Past To Undersand The Present
Thursday, 05 April 2018
Written by Huw Baines
Sega started phasing out the Master System in the late ‘80s. That’s just how it goes with consoles. It’s always about what’s new and next. But you can still find them, knocking about under a film of dust in an attic or perched next to an ancient Nintendo on a completist’s shelf.
They’re a link to a time when we were younger — when we wanted different things, behaved in different ways — that we can still interact with. Mastersystem (no spacebar required) perform a similar function.
The band features Frightened Rabbit's Scott and Grant Hutchison, Editors’ Justin Lockey and his brother James, with whom he plays in Minor Victories: four musicians who have rediscovered thrashing guitars after years spent pushing alt-rock into more considered territory.
“It’s mid-30s angst,” Scott says. “The original working name for the band was Old Team, because we’re a little old to be doing this shit.” This shit is ‘Dance Music’, a debut LP that takes the sorrowful heart and widescreen melodies of Frightened Rabbit and melds them with fuck off slabs of noise that would have thrilled the band’s teenage selves.
The record arose from instrumental demos created entirely by the Lockeys, who waited out Frightened Rabbit’s touring schedule to add the missing piece of the puzzle: Hutchison’s voice. It was the only one they wanted for the project, and fortunately he was drawn to the idea. The songs became a short, sharp shock that set his creative cogs turning again, adding a melodic sheen to their brutish beginnings.
“Although I love what we do in Frightened Rabbit, it has become more complex and more detailed over the years,” Scott says. “I got these tracks fully formed, I didn’t play a single note of guitar on this, and I didn’t want to take very long in doing it. That was partly because I didn’t have the time, but also because everything about it seemed to point towards that kind of recklessness.
“If I had overthought it in the way I sometimes do with Frightened Rabbit songs, it would have lost something. I wrote the melodies and lyrics over a total of about a week and then recorded it in less time than that. That’s what I think keeps the energy. I’m excited about these songs.”
Musically, Mastersystem have a couple of beats in common with Justin Lockey’s old band, Yourcodenameis:milo, and a lot with the guitar squalls of Mogwai and the laser-guided riffage of Quicksand. But the words are all Scott Hutchison. They’re more hard-nosed than a lot of his writing with Frightened Rabbit, complementing brusque, often searingly heavy instrumentals.
“Some of them could be Frightened Rabbit songs,” he says. “They’re less delicate. There’d be a lot more poetic metaphors in an effort to be clever. Being clever with these was not the point. They’re bolder statements and they’re not as lyrically dense, but at the same time I’ve learned from that. You don’t need all that information. You can say a lot more with a key phrase. That’s a learning curve for me.”
Hutchison’s desire to get to the point laid bare a seam of self-analysis that was already bubbling close to the surface. What he terms “mid-30s angst” is a potent mix that will be familiar to those of a similar vintage who also feel they haven’t really got things figured out yet, despite appearances to the contrary. Mastersystem’s first single was a richly anthemic song called Portrait of a Life Not Quite Lived, and it’s not an outlier on the record.
“There wasn’t much of a problem teasing it out,” Hutchison says. “It just arrived. I prepare for writing by having a few whiskies and then smoking cigarettes out of my window, thinking about where I am right now and what that means. Hopefully it taps into what a lot of people our age feel. It is, unfortunately, the sort of self-analysis I do anyway. It’s been added to for dramatic effect, perhaps, but it is there. I’ve recently started going back to therapy and these things have been coming up a lot.
“It’s this sort of overriding self-deprecation in the face of general, moderate success. I can rarely appreciate the good things that happen. I can read a hundred comments saying that people really enjoy the music and one shitty one will keep me awake at night. That’s the one I’ll focus on. It’s definitely a thing for me. It’s not a problem or anything, but maybe there’s time to sit back and occasionally appreciate what I’ve done and what the band has done.”
Towards the end of the record you’ll find Must Try Harder and Waste of Daylight, a pair of songs that initially appear to be two sides of the same coin: reminders to get up and try. But both are more specific, and pointed, than those first impressions let on. They underline Hutchison’s feeling that working quickly, and without undue embellishment, has allowed for timely, honest writing on ‘Dance Music’. They are very much of this moment, on each side of his smoking window.
“Must Try Harder was written when a lot of the publicity was going towards the shit behaviour of men,” he says. “Every man should be considering their actual fucking behaviour. Waste of Daylight is about the days when I don’t even open the curtains. These are scenes that I think will resonate with most people. It’s hard to admit that you are, essentially, a fucking timewaster. Sometimes you feel like a waste of space even though things on the surface appear to be pretty good.
“It doesn’t really make a difference if your brain’s telling you you’re a shithead. It’s hard to counteract that. A lot of the things I do with Frightened Rabbit focus on that dark moment, but there has to be a hopeful element to everything I write. I’m trying. That’s the message. That’s all we can do: try harder. Especially men at this time, we need to be focusing on how we can be better.”
Mastersystem also allows for the sort of frenetic release that Frightened Rabbit, Editors and Minor Victories do not. As the band have grown older, and more accomplished, their output has reflected that.
While rehearsing for this year’s main undertaking in his day job - a 10 year anniversary tour for ‘The Midnight Organ Fight’ - Hutchison started to pick out that record’s rough edges and little mistakes. In them, he found a “human element” that doesn’t always get carried over into a band’s later work.
But Mastersystem are still in that space. Their music is loud, abrasive, and over the top. Live, their guitar lines will shake fillings loose. Hutchison is excited by that. “That’s why I started playing music in the first place,” he says.
'Dance Music' is out on April 6 through Physical Education.
Mastersystem Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Wed April 25 2018 - MANCHESTER Deaf Institute
Thu April 26 2018 - NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE Cluny
Fri April 27 2018 - GLASGOW Art School Glasgow
Sat April 28 2018 - LEEDS Brudenell Social Club
Mon April 30 2018 - BIRMINGHAM O2 Institute3
Tue May 01 2018 - LONDON Oslo
We don't run any advertising! Our editorial content is solely funded by lovely people like yourself using Stereoboard's listings when buying tickets for live events. To keep supporting us, next time you're looking for concert, festival, sport or theatre tickets, please search for "Stereoboard". It costs you nothing, you may find a better price than the usual outlets, and save yourself from waiting in an endless queue on Friday mornings as we list ALL available sellers!
