Wednesday 23 December 2009

Plastic Tides

A quick update on all things EA before we head off for the Christmas break. First of all, thanks again to everyone who came down to see a slightly slimmer EA than usual at the Wilmington Arms on 26 November. It was a pretty strange experience playing for the first time ever without Amos on the drums - but also great fun stretching ourselves and finding new ways of making music. The new tracks we played will definitely see the light of day some time soon.

We’ve had a few offers for gigs in the New Year and we’ll keep you posted when they become official. In the meantime, most of our focus is on finishing our next EP, which is due out around Feb/March next year.

In the meantime, here’s an unreleased track from the EA vaults. Plastic Tides is a studio outtake recorded in June 2007 - a track that just kind of came out of nowhere perfectly formed and then faded away, never to be played again…..

<a href="http://electricassembly.bandcamp.com/track/plastic-tides-221209">plastic tides [22.12.09] by electric assembly</a>

Thursday 12 November 2009

Interview with The Blog That Celebrates Itself

Our new friend in Sao Paulo, Renato from The Blog That Celebrates Itself, got in touch recently to ask us some questions for an interview.

Here's what we came up with:

Q. Why Electric Assembly?
Well, we came together through a shared love of similar music, films and sense of humour. All of us were already playing music in some capacity before the band started, but none of it was serious. As close friends, it just seemed like a natural progression to start a band together. The name 'Electric Assembly' came about after hundreds of other suggestions - but we just liked the way it looked on the page and how it sounded.

Q. When the bands start?
Electric Assembly was born on Halloween night of 2004 but our roots go back a little deeper. In a previous incarnation we had music released on the sadly now defunct Earworm records.



Q. Tell us about your influences...
While the more obvious influences would be Spacemen 3, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, early Mercury Rev, Harmonia - we also love music by Boards of Canada, Clark, Angelo Badalementi, Can, James Brown, Steve Reich...the list is endless. We would also have to include films by directors such as Werner Herzog, Monte Hellman, David Lynch, Gaspar Noé; books by Philip K. Dick, Bret Easton Ellis, William Burroughs, Haruki Murakami; art works by Yayoi Kusama, Adam Neate, Jackson Pollock and the relationships we have with our family and friends. We don't know if any of these examples can be clearly identified in the music we make, but we certainly would not be the same band without them.

Q. How Electric Assembly feels playing alive?
Maybe nervous euphoria? It's a bit like going on the scariest ride at a fair - you're not sure how safe it is, or if you're going to like it - but something compels you to do it anyway. Then once it's over you're on a real natural high and can't wait to get back on.

The best moments are always the ones that are spontaneous and unrehearsed – when something new and magical emerges from what we're playing. Live is often when songs we’ve been working on finally reach their peak.

Q. How was the shows?
Instead of just playing a bunch of separate songs thrown together, we generally try to make our gigs flow into one trip or 'soundtrack' if you like. Whilst we believe the songs work individually and in their own space - we like to make the gig experience a bit more special than that. We sometimes work with our friend and film maker Lux who does visual projections for the gigs - these have always been the most fun shows for us. But when we're playing without the visuals, we like to think people use their ears to experience the music and not their eyes.



Q. What´s your opinion about shoegazer classc era?
It was a time for beautiful and crazy guitar sounds, perhaps the final era in the electric guitar’s evolution. Certainly it was a time when digital combined with analogue technology bringing the electric guitar somewhere fresh and new.

Q. What´s your opinion about the new shoegazer era?
We're suspicious of anyone deliberately trying to sound exactly like they come from the past. Having said that there are many bands, artists and producers using the sounds of that time as inspiration for something exciting today. Boards of Canada’s Geogaddi was like this decade’s Loveless. To us it represents a similar approach to sound and mood. We're not so into bands who sound exactly like the old shoegaze bands, we would rather go back and listen to the early Ride/Slowdive/Swervedriver/Moose eps.

Q. Which bands you like actually?
Current acts we're into would include Animal Collective, My Bloody Valentine, Do Make Say Think, Deerhunter, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Jim O'Rourke, Magnolia Electric Company, Twilight Sad.



Q. Tell us about the eps? When the album is coming?
The first EP was recorded and put together over a really long period of time. As it was our first release we were all a bit apprehensive about making our first 'musical statement' as a band - so many bands seem to get boxed or labelled by their first release. So we took a lot of time recording and making sure the mastering by Kramer was as good as it could be. We realised that working in this overly cautious way wasn't much fun, so made a pact that we would never go down that route again.

There was quite a gap between that and our second EP 'White Splinter', but that was more to do with us spending time on writing new songs and just getting better as a band. The actual recording, choosing of songs and artwork all came together fairly quickly once we decided we wanted to release another EP and we think the music is much better for it.

We haven't really spoken about releasing an album yet as we're not even sure if that format is really relevant as an artform any more. A lot of albums that have been released over the past few years seem to dilute the aesthetic of the band. That's not to say there aren't albums that we all love or that we would never record one ourselves - we would just have to feel like the time was right. The EP format seems to work best for us at the moment.




You can read the interview on The Blog That Celebrates Itself here.

Saturday 31 October 2009

Happy Halloween

Untitled 1 from Lux on Vimeo.


Halloween night holds a special place in our hearts as we first performed as EA on this night back in 2004. We played on the anniversary of that gig every year up to 2007.

The last Halloween Special we played at was by far the best. Our friend Lux went to great effort to create films that were projected on a huge screen behind us as we played shrouded in smoke, our faces hidden beneath faceless masks. This video by Lux dates back to that performance. The audio is from the end section of Hiroshima from that night - a track we played each Halloween.

Sunday 25 October 2009

Worn Out Photos

November’s shaping up to be a busy month in EA land. We’re working on a bunch of new tunes for our forthcoming gig at the Wilmington Arms on 26 November. It’s also full steam ahead with our third EP. No release date yet, but stay tuned for more details when we get them.

In the meantime, here’s a demo of a tune that didn’t quite make the cut for the new EP, ‘Worn Out Photos’.

<a href="http://electricassembly.bandcamp.com/track/worn-out-photos-241009">worn out photos [24.10.09] by electric assembly</a>

Sunday 4 October 2009

EA at the Psychedelic Double Bubble II

Last weekend we had a trip to Brighton to play the Put It On Psychedelic Double Bubble II at the Lectern with Diagonal, The Yellow Moon Band, Esben and the Witch, and the beat musings of Ben Graham. The highlight of the night for us were the amazing visuals created by Innerstrings Lightshow. We felt like Pink Floyd at the UFO club. Pscychedelic indeed.




More photos from the night can be seen here.

Sunday 6 September 2009

Red Arrow Wander

Born from the use of mallets and loops amongst other things, this tune was recorded during a rehearsal in September of 2008. We had a set plan for that day, to practice songs that were going to be used to form the soundtrack for a friend's film idea. Unfortunately, the film was put on indefinite hold - but those sessions produced moments we are very proud of - and this is one of them. A blissed-out paean to commemorate the passing of another hazed summer...

<a href="http://electricassembly.bandcamp.com/track/red-arrow-wander">red arrow wander by electric assembly</a>

Saturday 5 September 2009

'White Splinter' EP available from Norman Records / Jim Dickinson / Do Make Say Think

The only place you can currently buy the remaining copies of our 'White Splinter' E.P. is from the fantastic Norman Records. They've got a stack of other awesome CD's waiting to be purchased, including Jim O'Rourke's bewitchingly tangled new release 'The Visitor'. So treat yourself to something you can hold as well as hear by visiting their on-line store.

It was very sad to hear that Jim Dickinson had passed away on the 15th August. His production work on Big Star's haunting and fractured 'Third/Sister Lovers' album is still some of the most inspiring I have ever heard - a pop record that is beautiful, joyous and disturbing in equal measures.

Happier news comes from the consistently outstanding Do Make Say Think - their new album 'Other Truths' is out on Constellation on 19/10/09. If this taster via Stereogum is anything to go by, my speakers are going to be very happy come October! Most exhilarating tune I've heard this year, so far...

Paul

Sunday 16 August 2009

Descent Pattern (live)

The following video was recorded at The Good Ship, Kilburn on 16th July 2009.

Electric Assembly - Descent Pattern (live) from Lux on Vimeo.

Friday 31 July 2009

Join The Dots / White Splinter reviewed

Here is another as-yet-unreleased track that we are really happy with, called 'Join The Dots'. We think it would be perfect as part of a soundtrack to a film...all we need to do now is find the perfect film to go with the tune! Hope you enjoy it...

<a href="http://electricassembly.bandcamp.com/track/join-the-dots-310709">join the dots [31.07.09] by electric assembly</a>

In other news, the lovely people from Losing Today have written a review of 'White Splinter'. Some of the nice things said include...

"A pristinely honed slice of glacial sculpturing, all at once mellow and detached yet forlornly set in an inescapable bitter sweet ache of faded hope"

"A beautifully consuming kaleidoscopic dream weave of feedback ruptures and raptures"

"A gorgeously opining gem of sun bleached effects pedal laden bliss out groove"

...but you can read the full review by clicking here. You may have to scroll down the page to find it, but keep going until you see the video for 'Broken' - it's all there!

Mark from Losing Today has also posted another quick piece about us here. Once again, scroll down to the 'Heading For A Fall' video. Sweet!

Alternatively, if you want to test your grasp of the Italian language, head over to Nerds Attack and check out this review.........."the trip has already begun"!

Tuesday 23 June 2009

White Splinter E.P.

The past few months we have been working hard on finishing our new EP - 'White Splinter'. There are a couple of tunes on there that some of you may recognise from our live sets, but there are also some new jams that we are really proud of. We hope you find it in some way meditative, transportive and beautiful.

The E.P. is available as a limited edition of 100 copies, featuring hand-printed sleeves. We set ourselves up in a tiny garage that had minimum air / maximum heat, and thermographed, spray painted, stenciled, glued and hand-numbered until all 100 sleeves were ready. Working in such close quarters with glues and paints resulted in several hallucinatory experiences and temporary numbness of hands. We'd urge everyone to work in similar conditions - particularly whilst the sun is out.

So if you would like your copy of the EP to arrive in a case coated in paint, smeared with glue and with a heavy aroma of aerosol - follow the link below. We advise you to play loud and inhale hard...


Alternatively, if you'd prefer to carry music around with you in your pockets - 'White Splinter' is available as a download from Amazon, Lala, ShockHound, iTunes, emusic, Rhapsody, Napster and imvu.

Our very good friend and ultra-talented film maker Lux has made the following video for 'Broken' which appears on the EP. Turn the lights off and drift...

Tuesday 19 May 2009

Post-atp


We've been doing some recording recently for tunes that should hopefully appear on our next release. We're really hyped with the results and looking forward to sharing the fruits soon!


David and myself have just got back from The Breeders ATP at Minehead over the weekend. We had a great time - it seemed much more relaxed than other ATP's - maybe due to an older fanbase or something. The highlights for me were Holy Fuck on the Saturday night and Deerhunter on the Sunday. Bradford Cox shows such infectious enthusiasm playing Deerhunter tunes (and one song by The Amps!), I find it pretty hard to fault a guy wearing such a big smile.

On another note, I recently read a couple of interviews I thought I would share. The first was an interview with Ben Chasny from Six Organs Of Admittance posted on The Quietus and the second was with Will Oldham that was posted on The A. V. Club website. Will/Bonnie always does cool interviews and his comments on movie soundtracks are particularly interesting. They both make for great reading if you've got some time to kill during your lunch break...

Paul

Sunday 3 May 2009

Since Floating

This is a new track we've just recorded. Since Floating was completed after we'd recorded the tracks for our new EP, so it's kind of in limbo at the moment, waiting for a future release to come along. In the meantime, here's an early mix of the track…

<a href="http://electricassembly.bandcamp.com/track/since-floating-030509">since floating [03.05.09] by electric assembly</a>

Falling Out, Fading Down

This is a previously unreleased track from 2006.

<a href="http://electricassembly.bandcamp.com/track/falling-out-fading-down-030509">falling out, fading down [03.05.09] by electric assembly</a>

Falling Out, Fading Down actually started life as a 30 minute jam, but in a move totally out of character for ea, we decided it worked better in a slightly edited form. The world isn't quite ready yet for the remaining 27 minutes. Maybe one day.....

Wednesday 18 March 2009

Base Station Repeater

This is the track we contributed to the 2007 OMSKBOOK cd, minus the introduction from Rob da Bank that features on the original recording.

<a href="http://electricassembly.bandcamp.com/track/base-station-repeater-180309">base station repeater [18.03.09] by electric assembly</a>

Base Station Repeater marks a departure from our usual way of writing – pretty much all the parts were written by each of us individually and only combined during mixing - kind of like a musical version of Chinese whispers…or maybe more accurately that game where a group of friends takes it in turns to draw a different part of a person’s body on a folded up piece of paper – one person draws a head and neck, folds the paper and passes it on to the next person, who attaches a body to the neck, folds the paper and passes it on again. And it's only when the feet are finished that you can unfold the paper to discover the strange and wonderful creation you’ve all conjured up from your collective unconscious. Base Station Repeater is our strange and wonderful creation. The writing process was way too much fun not to return to again in the future.

Wednesday 25 February 2009

Eyes on the Wall

Here's the secret track from our debut EP.

<a href="http://electricassembly.bandcamp.com/track/eyes-on-the-wall">eyes on the wall by electric assembly</a>

Eyes on the Wall is a live studio jam from 2005 that was captured for posterity on minidisc. It's not the most pristine recording we’ve ever made, but there's something about the ragged beauty of this first take that a thousand repeat plays and recordings would never quite recreate…

New Blog

Welcome to Electric Assembly's blog.

Unreleased tracks, sneak previews, new videos, half-formed ideas, previous releases, aborted projects, outtakes, excerpts, alternate versions, rough mixes, reviews, demos, obscurities, live tracks, random thoughts, news, links, stories, streams of consciousness, deluded ramblings – all now have a new home.

Lots of treats to follow, so watch this space...