Wow, I love those two guys!WEIRD ERA are a two piece band based in Manchester, UK. So far they have one release out, called Side A as well as a bonus tape called Side A Extras. Everything was recorded by themselves and was given away around the city Manchester for free! Now these tracks are available for free download here and at their Myspace site.
WEIRD ERA's music could best be described as lo-fi shoegaze indie music. But asked how to label their music Adam answered "noisy dream pop" and that is in fact a pretty good description, I'd say.
Favourite tracks:
All the songs on Side A are brilliant, so it's very hard to single out any songs, but I guess Chill Blains IV and Smoke Screen will surely be on my playlist for quite some time....
Grab this monster – and play it loud!!!
Q: Where exactly are you from?
A: There are two of us who both live in Manchester, England. We're both raised in England but i'm half Malaysian (Adam).
Q: Do you want your real names mentioned? If so: What are your real names?
A: We are Adam Carless and Luke Chase.
Q: How recorded?
A: We have a practice space on my street that we share with a few local bands where we jam, mess about and record. Some songs I've done completely in my flat with minimal equipment and instruments i.e. drums with mouth, tambourines, DI'd guitar. - Equipment wise, in the practice space the other bands are much better equipped than us. There's loads of cool shit like a 24 track mixing desk, condensor mics, PA, various guitars and pedals. We don't own much so generally use whats lying around and work an idea and track around our limitations. We use adobe audition to record into. - Luke and I met at uni in Leeds doing a degree in Creative Sound Technology so we have some background in recording but we were always more interested in listening to/making music. I have a greater appreciation for that side now but that whole experience contributed to my disinterest of capturing a 'perfect recording'. In the real world there are no rules to recording, there are guidelines and skills to learn but I believe finding your own feet through trial and error will inevitably give a piece of music an original fidelity whether lo or hi-fi. I had the same attitude to guitar growing up, vowed never get any lessons or try and understand any theory with the youthful arrogance of striving to be original. I think I wanted to hone my own way of playing, hoping to let the music i listen to shape me naturally. I may technically be a bit shit but I still stand by this way of learning 100%.
Q: Who involved? Who played what?
A: Generally I play guitars and sing and Luke drums but there is no set approach, some songs Luke wrote and recorded entirely like 'Ghost' and some I did the same. There are no rules but our default set up is me on
guitar/vox and luke on drums/vox. Side B will feature a lot more collaborative vocals and interplay between the two of us.
Q: Any more releases? Any "official" releases?
A: There's no official releases in terms of labels. The whole idea of doing this was to be prolific and as an outlet whilst working mundane jobs. We didn't think about live or labels. The idea was to be as self sufficient as possible, not have to rely on anyone from making the music to distributing it and artwork. We've stuck to that so far. We have had interest from a few local labels but feel that all that we can be offered is better distribution. I like the whole DIY process though, from creating something to putting it out there, giving it to your friends. A label could take away the fun from it all.
Q: Influences?
A: Influences for me.... We listen to a lot of different music and try to incorporate a lot of things we're interested in... I'm a big Cure fan and big big Elliott Smith fan. I listen to a lot of old psych, garage
rock and folk like Wimple Winch, Skip Spence, 13 Floor Elevators, Comus, Pentangle, Big Star. There's this compilation called the Rubble Collection, the first 5 CDs on that mine the best underground psych gems from the 60s/70s. Amazing stuff. I have a thing for 80s synth pop like The Associates, The Teardrop Explodes, early Bunnymen. Darker tones have always appealed to us, Nirvana, Galaxie 500, Joy Division, Xiu Xiu. I am drawn to extreme metal and doom music, currently in love with Absu's self titled record of last year. We are both big into Hip Hop, MF Doom, early Wutang, The Roots, Anticon. The two of us unite over certain bands, ones that come to mind are Hella, Deerhunter, Caribou, The Lilys. Growing up we were both huge fans of Siamese Dream by the Smashing Pumpkins, sonically a good reference point for us. Recent bands we love and take influence from: Thee Oh Sees, Panda Bear, Women, Real Estate.
Q: How'd you "label" your music?
A: If I were to label us i'd say we make noisey dream pop.
Q: Website, myspace?
A: Our myspace is http://www.myspace.com/wierdera. Anyone can download our releases so far from there and if anyone wants a phyisical copy we'll make it and send it out, just ask me at {... email adress incl. in the info of the zip-file! m-f}. We are both in another band called Milk Maid with the bass player from Nine Black Alps (http://www.myspace.com/milkmaidmilkmaid). Luke used to be a band called Sycamore, a dark psychedelic rock band that were popular locally. I have just spent a long time recording in my bedroom and enjoying the process.
Q: Anything that you think is interesting, that you'd like to inform the blog readers about...
A: Luke and I also run a promotions company, occasionally DJ and put on nights in the city called 'Loveless'.
http://www.myspace.com/lovelessmanchester. - Only other thing is that we plan to put out a new EP every 2-3 months, keep the train of creativity going long as we can and hope some people enjoy.
(answered by Adam via email)
WEIRD ERA: Side A (tr. 1-7) +
Side A Extras (tr. 8-13) (UK 2009)
(mp3-zip, 13 tracks, 35 min, 31,8 MB)
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1 comment:
thank you so much for this post!
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