I N T E R V I E W The Return of Beat Rhythm Fashion with Ian Duggan ‘Beat Rhythm Fashion’ were active in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, releasing three excellent singles in '81 and '82 before disbanding. Later, in 2007, ‘Bring Real Freedom’ was released – an album containing the singles, their b-sides, as well as a series of live recordings. In 2018 the band are back again, with a soon to be released album of new recordings. We talked to Nino Birch and Rob Mayes about Beat Rhythm Fashion being back together, albeit with members in different counties, and the new album. HUP: Firstly, you have a new album due out soon. What is it called, and when is it set to be released? Nino: The album is called ‘Tenterhook’ and we aim to release in the next couple of months… HUP: What has been your motivation for recording again as Beat Rhythm Fashion? Nino: I had intended to do this with [my brother] Dan, but sadly he ran out of resilience, so it was a natural development that took shape when I set up my home studio. The other motivation of course is to speak to these challenging and interesting times and that is what this material does. Even though there are few of the early BRF songs reactivated, these songs have retained their relevance I feel. This re-emergence has been wholeheartedly encouraged and supported by Rob Mayes. Rob: We talked about new material after the ‘Bring Real Freedom’ album landed in 2007, and the impact it had. People all over the world and people in New Zealand rediscovering and recognising the bands work. For me personally, I wanted that album to be the album the band would have made after the singles, with those fantastic live tracks fully realised, but of course we only had my live recordings to represent them. I always wanted to hear where the band would have gone next from that start point of majestic, beautiful, yet intelligently political and socio-political, songs. The band were peaceful anarchists at the time and they didn't sell songs about girlfriends, etc. The songs were always more poetic and deeper than that. This new album started out of some new songs Nino sent me. They had the same seeds as the BRF sound but with 30 years of travel in them. So as producer I tried to take Nino back to the leaving point of BRF, which was 1982-3, when they left for Australia and did different things. We picked a handful of songs from the live material that didn't get a proper studio outing and rebuilt them, then took them forward production-wise to what we can do now. Layered guitars and vocals. etc. The way we've done it has been very organic, in that we've let the songs grow naturally from the starting point of where BRF left off. It's like a time machine took the band forward to the present day and the music continued. HUP: Nino, your brother Dan, who was the other central, constant figure in the band, died in 2011 (since the release of 2007s ‘Bring Real Freedom’). How has being without him affected what you are doing with Beat Rhythm Fashion now? Was it a difficult decision to record again under this name because of his passing? Nino: This is Dan’s legacy. He is constantly in my thoughts throughout the creative process. I miss him each day. Dan and I remained extremely close ‘til he passed. His plan was to call our new band ‘Tenterhook’. I like the word and its meaning, in so far as the common consideration that our current global situation is well and truly on ‘tenterhooks’. I have done what I think he would have done had he been here and called the album ‘Tenterhook’. HUP: The music you released in the early ‘80s had an atmospheric and somewhat haunting quality to it, particularly the magnificent singles ‘Turn of the Century’ and ‘Beings Rest Finally’. Your sound has been likened to Gang of Four, Joy Division and early The Cure, among others, though these are comparisons that I personally don’t think describe your sound particularly well. Are the new recordings of older songs revisited, or new compositions altogether? And does the material sound similar in style to your ‘80s songs, or is this a departure from what we might expect? Nino: So yes, we have revisited four old BRF tunes: Optimism, Hard as Hell, Freezing Mr Precedent and Property. These have been fully rebuilt while by default BRF. You will hear a marked leap from the old tunes you can hear on the live disk, ‘Bring Real Freedom’. We have intentionally produced a ‘90s kinda sound here… [we] wanted plenty of edge and bite in beautiful clothes. The new material is all very BRF because it is me…. can’t do much else. [continued below] HUP: Your videos and lyrics in ‘Turn of the Century’ and ‘Beings Rest Finally’ featured apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic imagery, perhaps as a result of being written during the Cold War. What are some themes that run through the new recordings? Is your outlook brighter today? Nino: This new work is a natural thematic progression from early BRF. I am still writing about the same stuff though my style has evolved perhaps. I am still hammering people to question the landscape we are presented with and right now I feel there is an urgency for us all to step up and get activated with something that is contributing to bringing down the current model because it is fully broken. It is obscenely unjust and resistance to this is almost a duty now in my view. This is what BRF is about today.… more so than before. My future material will be shouting out to this current focus of our time. I wouldn’t say my material is brighter. However, I have grown up a little, as one would hope, so I am addressing the dialogue a little differently now. I still like to tell stories so each song I hope also does this in a way. HUP: I know the recordings feature Caroline Easther on drums, who was the bands drummer before the bands break up. Who else are you working with now, and what are their roles? Are the songs written by you, or written with the other members? Nino: All songs are written by me. And Dan of course, re: earlier songs and one of the new songs, Nothing Damaged, which is Dan’s lyric. Rob Mayes has stepped up to play bass and this is a major boon. Rob has become BRF family and has for me been like a patron saint… ha ha. I love Rob’s bass style and he has slotted in sweet. I have placed some grand piano, as I know Dan would have, and a few of the tunes have string sections in them. Core line-up: me, Rob and Caroline. The plan is to bring in a keyboardist for the gigs. HUP: What has Failsafe Records Rob Mayes’ role been in this? Nino: Rob has been integral and a driving force throughout the last few years. It was Rob who suggested the project when I started to send him some tunes just over two years ago. Now Rob is in truth core BRF; bass, production, creative shaping, and by default sharing my musical zone. I feel damn blessed to have struck this solid creative partnership. Rob: My role in the project was as producer to channel the soul of the BRF sound and to keep the recordings focused on that sound, or what I perceived that sound to be. It is inherently what Nino, Dan and Caroline did and do. But from an outside perspective, it has a certain colour and shape to it that Nino says he can't always see as he is part of it. Nino and Caroline have been involved in quite a few different styles of music. Nino is presently working with Salmonella Dub as vocalist, and has done all sorts of music in the 35 years since the last BRF recordings, and Caroline has been in some of the most iconic bands in New Zealand; The Chills, Verlaines, Spines, Let's Planet, Circus Block 4, Hobnail, and Barry Saunders Band. When you're playing and loving all different kinds of music it's difficult to keep them separate, so that was part of my job; to filter and focus the sound and keep it true to the original intent of the band. Not that there was necessarily a conscious concept at the time, but there was an aesthetic. And artistic approach, a vibe in the political climate then, and earnestness and honesty to the delivery, and a world-weary cynicism and distrust, the anarchist post-punk of the time. It wasn't as simple as “make it sound '80s”, although I don't think BRF did sound '80s exactly. That wasn't it, and I don't think they were limited to that decades production styles. Their song writing was much, much more than just post-punk, or proto-shogazer/dream pop. There was something timeless about their music and it does stand up well to listen to today. With the new songs I helped take some folk and bouncy pop elements out, and with the refocusing through working on those four original songs we managed to get right back in the zone and deliver a consistent sound across the album. I consciously stayed out of the song-writing process as much as I could and instead tried to set it up for Nino to be BRF; help him get in touch with that direction of music and channel those ideas down to tape. Nino really ran with that, and over the two years we've been recording it he's been sculpting and refining the ideas and delivering heartfelt performances. It's been great to see the songs develop and morph beyond their original three-piece bones into textured melodic works of beauty. Bass-wise, although I would have been honoured to lay the bass parts down, I was trying to not take on too much alongside all the other projects I'm presently working on (25 albums scheduled for releases this year on Failsafe Records). We were initially working with guide tracks from Nino, and we wanted to stay true to Dan's original style as he was an integral part of the sound. The difficulty for us there is that Dan was a really good bass player with a definite style. It was fluid, punctuated, rolling. We started on the songs from the original set so we knew what Dan was playing already off the live recordings. It was a bit above our individual levels of playing so I contacted the most versatile bass player I knew who could do Dan's style; Greig Bainbridge, who was with Bill Direen's Builders. He was building his own home studio, so that was going to work with our writing and recording method for this project. Unfortunately, he didn't manage to get his studio up and running, so that slowed things. The songs took off and got quite demanding, so we needed to redo the bass lines and then new songs came into the set. I originally wanted to keep my role to ‘Producer’, but I ended up biting the bullet and learning Dan's parts and his style, and since I was working on it every day with Nino. We kind of became a unit, and all the bass is now me. I've really upped my playing with the challenge of staying true to Dan's style, which funnily enough was a big influence on me and my own musical output in my bands Dolphin, Throw, Springloader, and Kimo. I even found an old cassette recording in my recent archive to digital dubbing of me playing the bass line to ‘Beings Rest Finally’ as a teenager. It's quite the honour to be able to play and make music with your music favourites, and participate in the music you love and that shaped your own taste. Eventually I've become part of the process, and from the standing of “what would Dan do”, I've brought in what would Dan do next, which coincides with my own style in some ways. Melodic bass chords on the song 'Whatever', lead melodic lines, etc - all stuff Dan did in the original line up, which influenced my personal style as a youth, and I could bring back into the process. With that said I keep it in support of what Nino's laying down, keeping it focused on channelling his creative process. [continued below] HUP: Caroline, Rob and yourself are all in different countries. How are you going about recording the songs under these circumstances?
Nino: We have recorded the album by sending stems between my studio, Rob's in Japan and Caroline at Surgery Studios with Andrew Downes. This has taken a little time of course but it has been a lot of fun and a fairly simple process. I have recorded most of my work in single takes. It is the way I like to work rather than dropping in. In truth, it’s all I had the recording smarts for! Rob: Nino records in whole takes, partly because he works in the studio by himself and drop-ins and editing are difficult, but also because his deliveries are emotively driven and he gets himself into a zone that is contextual with the song, channels what the song is about and lays that down in a whole take start to finish. It's help get some really moving performances for the album, especially on songs like Dan, about losing his brother, and songs about the state of the world which Nino dedicates a large part of his life to working for. The honesty in the recording process and the content of the songs is very apparent in the material he's captured, which he sends to me and I mix into the sessions. That happens most days of the week. New parts come through and I blend them into what we've got and give suggestions on what we need and feedback on what we've got. Nino: Rob whacked down bass and templates were sent to Caroline in Wellington. Once this core structure was strong I put ‘a little more clothes’ on the songs, and that’s where we are at now - just about to master and finalise artwork etc. Rob: We've been working on it for a little over two years. Nino in his home studio in Bellingen [Australia] and me in my studio in Tokyo [Japan]. We are in contact every day, and talk about the songs, and do work on them almost every day. We would have loved to have recorded it all in one place together, but this is the next best thing on offer and helped three people in different cities combine musical forces to make one whole work. HUP: How is the album being released? Nino: The album will be released on all the standard media portals and the disc will be available online through Failsafe Records. HUP: I understand you are going to play a limited number of shows. Where and when will these be? Nino: We have no confirmed dates for New Zealand shows yet. It will happen later in the year and we will keep you posted…. we’ll do our best to sound the horn about it. I look forward New Zealand BRF live a great deal…it’s gonna be a blast. We would aim to do a handful of shows between both islands… External Links: * Beat Rhythm Fashion on BandCamp * Beat Rhythm Fashion on Facebook
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A R T I C L E ‘Lots and Lots of Hell’: A Q & A with Deathnir By Ian Duggan Deathnir are set to release their second album, Second Sin, on 25 May. We caught up with Andrew Carter (lead guitar, vocal) and Adam Johnson (bass) to talk about the upcoming release and video. HUP: It has been two and a half years since ‘Die By The Axe’. How has the band’s style or the sound on ‘Second Sin’ changed from that album? Andrew: We have been working hard on writing songs for the last couple of years with the intent of making an album that was pure metal. No ballads. More speed. More attitude. The songs on ‘Die By The Axe’ are good in their own right, but we wanted to pursue more of a thrash sound for ‘Second Sin’. Our style has also changed a bit since Brad Ion (lead guitar) and Luke Elliot (drums) joined Deathnir. Brad’s playing style is quite different from my own and he has a very distinctive guitar tone. Luke’s drumming is also a bit different from our previous drummers’ styles and so he brings that extra diversity into the backbone of our songs. HUP: Since we last talked to you your friends in Alien Weaponry – who would commonly be seen wearing Deathnir t-shirts – have gone on to have some pretty big successes. Has their success altered your view of what you might achieve with Deathnir? Andrew: Alien Weaponry are good friends of ours and it’s good to see them doing well taking NZ metal to the next level. I don’t think it has altered our view of what we will achieve “with Deathnir”. I have always believed that to succeed you need to work harder than everyone else around you and I think Alien Weaponry have achieved that. Right now Deathnir is working pretty damn hard too and we have big plans for the (not too distant) future. Adam: It’s very encouraging and exciting to see what kind of progress can be made in a fairly short time when all the stars align. So while I wouldn’t say it “alters my view”, it is encouraging. HUP: What are your plans for promoting this album? Have your ideas regarding how to promote an album changed since the last one? Andrew: We want to get ‘Second Sin’ publicised really well. Right now our plans are still developing, but we have been doing pre-order sales which give fans the chance to get a $10 discount from the full price when the album is officially released on May 25th. After that the album will be released on iTunes, Spotify, Google Music, Pandora and all the other good digital stores. We are going to do promotion campaigns on social media websites and our own website (www.deathnir.org). We also intend to print loads of posters advertising the album and sticking them up wherever we can. On top of that we have several more music videos in the works, so fans can get a bit more engaged with the album, and finally we will do a tour which we are aiming for later in the year. HUP: You are playing on the 25th at Nivara Lounge, the day the album is being released. Is this a release gig for the album? Andrew: Not officially. The 25th is a continuation of the Garden Place show we performed at in March, for the bands that didn’t get to perform because of the thunderstorm that hit that day. However it is the first show we are playing that the album will be available at, and the last show where it will only be $10 to celebrate its release; so if anyone wants a copy for cheap then May the 25th is your chance to get it and also see it performed live. The album will be available on all good digital stores from that day and we will be planning a tour in support of it later this year. [continued below] HUP: Tell us about your new video, ‘Bringer of Evil’.
Andrew: Our video for Bringer of Evil was produced by Saroj (Sarj) Gundiga and myself. It is the first video to be featured off this upcoming album and was a lot of fun to make. We wanted to do a video which had more cinematic stuff going on rather than a band playing and we went with the idea of an occult blood offering. Basically in the video there is a pentagram made out of candles with five cloaked men on each point of the pentagram. They pass around a sword and slice their palms, pouring their blood into a chalice, and when they have all done it ‘the appointed one’ drinks the blood and is possessed by a demon. Obviously this is a very dark theme, and we wanted that to be replicated in the shots, so we filmed it in a black room with only the candles lighting the room. I think maybe a couple of the shots were a little too dark, but all in all it came out pretty much how I envisioned it. HUP: What are the lyrical themes of the new album? Andrew: Hell. Lots and lots of Hell. One way or another, haha. We have a couple songs about war, a couple songs about the devil, we have a song about a crazy doctor abducting people and cutting them open while they watch. It’s a very dark album. Adam: War, Death, Pain, Chinese food….. all the fun essentials. R E V I E W 'Acromaticia: Twentieth Anniversary Edition' by Disjecta Membra Formed in Hamilton in 1993, Disjecta Membra is commonly considered New Zealand’s premier goth band. Active in Hamilton until 1996, they moved to Wellington in 1997, and released their debut album ‘Achromaticia’ in that year. While Achromaticia has been out of print for many years, interest in the band, and the album, has grown. To meet demand, the band have recently released ‘Achromaticia: Twentieth Anniversary Edition’, which features three CDs. The first disc features the album, Achromaticia. From the opening (church) bell, this album is classic ‘90s Goth rock, much of which more than adequately stands the test of time. Highlights for me are the more upbeat songs; ‘Skin Trade’, in particular, sounds like it could have been pulled from the Headless Chickens debut Stunt Clown, while the cover of (Hamilton band) The Haunting’s song ‘Rats’ is also (still) superb. Other strong songs include ‘Cathedral (Deus ex Machina Mix)’ and ‘Danse Macabre’. It is difficult not to make comparisons with the sound of this album, from 20 years ago, with more recent releases. The production quality of the newer releases has of course advanced greatly, the band’s sound has diversified, and singer Michel’s voice has become stronger and deeper through time. But I think anyone buying this album will know what they are getting. Classic. ‘90s. Goth. In the second and third discs, containing over 40 songs, we can see how the music on Achromaticia has its roots firmly set in Hamilton. Included are demos of tracks from the album, as well as of many unreleased songs written by the band at the time, recorded in the garages, basements, and probably living rooms of houses in Fairview Downs, St Andrews and Hamilton East. Further, songs are included from performances at Hamilton venues The Wailing Bongo, The Exchange and The Meteor. An interview is included, split over several parts, with Adam Hyde from Contact 89FM’s Urban Jangle show, which certainly makes me feel nostalgic for Hamilton of the 1990s. And all of this is before you even get into the bonus download material! A beautifully produced booklet is hidden in the 4th CD slot, that you might miss if you don’t go looking for it, which includes detailed information on where each of these songs was recorded.
Overall, this is a must-have for lovers of Hamilton music, and for listeners of classic New Zealand goth. If you want a copy, the album is can be ordered through their Bandcamp: http://disjectamembra.bandcamp.com/album/achromaticia - Ian Duggan I N T E R V I E W Keish of Hard-Ons Pic O'Neill caught up with Keish of Aussie punks Hard-Ons, for a Q and A ahead of their Raglan show on 19th May with 5 Girls, Illicit Wah Wahs and amazingly, Mobile Stud Unit! Keish (drums/vox) founded the band along with Blackie (guitar/vox) from their bedroom aged around 14 yrs old, after Blackie first saw the Sex Pistols on TV, and declared "We're gonna make a band like this!". Initially on guitar, within a year Ray Ahn (bass) had joined and Keish took on drums and singing. Hard-ons roared into life with over 17 consecutive no1 singles on the Australian alternative charts between 1985 and 1993! Dozens of tours of Europe, Australia, Japan, US and New Zealand ensued, where the band sharing stages with Butthole Surfers, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, The Ramones, and Cosmic Psychos. Pic: What are you listening to at the moment? Keish: I've been revisiting Are We Not Men, we are" Devo " lately, and our bass player Ray put me onto Dungen, from Switzerland, I just downloaded their 2017 album so. They are a psychedelic rock band , they sound good in the car so that's good man. What's on the radar for 2018? We are putting out a new album, and we want it to be something special, something that people really stop and go 'WOW!' as we've never done an album as a 4 piece before. It's well underway, the last few weeks have been jamming new ideas and growing the album really. We've been busy with gigs , so it's nice to be jamming for a different purpose other than getting ready for a show, it's been a lot of fun. Hard-ons are also returning for their 19th European tour... Yeah, I think that's about right, We are playing a huge festival "HELLFEST" in France with ahh, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden headlining I think...Joan Jett, Hellacopters, also...it should be fantastic. I haven't played any festivals for a long time so really looking forward to that. Europe is such a good time for us, the people are so accommodating, the promoters all look after us well. You know touring can be really hard if you haven't got good people helping you out so it's great they look after bands so well over there and the crowds are really cool. Fun times! Going back to the new album...what is the songwriting process for The Hard-Ons like? Well Blackie is very prolific in creating material, (yes he is, solo he put out a studio song a day for the entire 2016 year! Plus (Psychedelic punkers) Nunchukka Superfly, so he comes in with plenty of songs and ideas. Over a coffee, Blackie said to me we that need a new record as a 4 piece with you back in the band . So it's fresh for everyone in The Hard-Ons ya know...we have a formula for our sound, it will be some power pop, with punk n metal and melody in there as well. I've got some songs also so it's a new collaboration on an old formula, We won't stray to far, I remember "too far gone" kinda went over people's heads, we wanna keep our fans happy but also force 'em to take notice and be like 'WOW!; with the new material, take it to another level aye. It's a winning formula... Yeah mate ha ha I like it...hopefully it should keep us going for another 10-15 years. You're back in NZ and Raglan within a year of your last visit...it had been quite some years between previous visits... We just really enjoyed ourselves so much last time, the tour management and the Y.O.T club looked after us so well and the gigs were great with great bands Contenders & Illicit Wah-WahZ. The Y.O.T club was an absolute blast to play, a real loose party atmosphere, your'e very lucky there with such a great venue and owner. We met some great people and are amping to come back and deliver some new tracks for them and everyone who wants to get along for a piece of power pop/punk paradise! |
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