Semifinalism
With a string of new shows and a second album looming Semifinalists are back after a disappearing act that left us wondering whether they’d given up the ghost. Their first album became nothing short of a soundtrack to our lives and to play it now brings us floods of fond memories. We managed to get their attention long enough to delve into their world and try to pick apart what makes them tick. Can their new album of 80s pop-twinged ‘love songs’ follow in the shoes of their anthemic debut?
Be there No Pain In Pop: You've been gone for a while working on the second album. How do you feel the first album was received? Do you feel it achieved, both critically and artistically, what you wanted?
Ferry: Artistically it was everything that I could’ve done at the time, and with Chris and Adriana in the brew I felt that I was involved in something that was beyond what I could even imagine achieving. I remember it being received well critically. I don’t think it’s a factor that we dwell upon for too long. Feels nice though.
Adriana: It’s always a surprise when you put something you’ve made out there for people to take in and react to. I think because this was the first band I was in, I had no expectations. I was much more enthralled at the collaboration within the band, understanding a language we were creating as we went along making the first record. Artistically it was a foundation for us, not from which to adhere, but one from which to grow.
NPIP: How has the band evolved during this time? F: We always aim to try out new things, explore new grounds, and between us we listen to a whole bunch of different stuff. So the natural reaction was to move into something new and see where we stand, how we respond to it. To me it sounds harder and tighter, darker.
Chris: For me the concept was to put the band in a new, unfamiliar aesthetic territory and see if we could find our way home. Hopefully that process provokes certain questions which will be answered during the making of the next record.
A: We were still in school when we made the first record, so I think since graduating and leaving that space, we’ve spent a lot more time living in the real world frame of mind. Personally, a lot has happened since the first record, a lot which has pushed us to constantly take stock of where we are and where we’re going, logistically and artistically.
NPIP: The music industry has changed a lot over the last 2 years what with Myspace and downloads in the charts. Where do Semifinalists now stand with regards to these changes?
F: Myspace, just like anything else, could be the best or worst medium for putting your music out there. It definitely gives us a direct channel to people who want to listen to our stuff, something that the industry is always slow to adapt to. But sometimes the music becomes so instant it’s almost over before the song ends. A part of me misses the culture of exploring an album, which is hardly the focal point in today’s industry. Sounds cliché but I don’t know much about the charts.
C: Myspace may have changed the music industry in the way it conceives a marketing strategy, but from our standpoint it doesn't change anything essential about music.
A: Music has always been one of the most easily accessible art forms. But now it just feels like music, along with so many other things, is literally just a click away from you. I totally appreciate Myspace in terms of finding out about bands and stuff, but I still haven’t personally downloaded a song yet, it’s true. There is something so special about physically searching for music; going through CD and record bins, looking for new things, old things, bargains. And then the afterglow of enjoying the album these artists have made; the artwork, the lyrics, even reading the ‘special thanks’. That’s all bypassed by this need for an instant gratification these days, which is sad, I think.
NPIP: What do you think of the British music scene right now?
F: I only know people around me and whoever a friend recommends. There’s a whole bunch of good stuff: Macc Mello’s my favourite rapper at the mo, Tapedeck (holla), our friend Tom James makes the most beautiful minimalist guitar folk. There’s Graffiti Island who I just found out about, Lightspeed Champ obviously and Hands on Heads are pretty sick. I don’t know if they are in a scene, and I don’t pay enough attention to comment on anything that I don’t like.
C: I've been in the states all this time, but got hold of Tom James' CD and it is lovely. Lightspeed Champion is doing it awesomely. Naturally.
A: I’m not sure about what the ‘scene’ is right now. I think I’m out of the loop in terms of what’s going on over here in the UK, to be honest. From the little I know, there seems to be a lot more electro stuff happening, some of it’s pretty neat, some of it isn’t.
NPIP: Any contemporaries either within the music world or in the larger world of the arts and pop culture that you rate right now?
F: See above for music. Picasso’s been pretty good. Early Tony Oursler videos are way cool. Humphrey Bogart’s not bad. Oh, right, contemporaries. Matt Damon’s a completely underrated actor, in my view. Dunno who else. Clipse? Al Columbia’s comics, Ted May’s comics (funniest guy alive), Johnny Ryan, the now sadly defunct Fort Thunder collective.
C: At the moment been into John Cassavetes, Yasujirō Ozu and Bruce Springsteen.
A: Lately I’ve been listening to lots of American bands, not sure if it’s because I was back home for a lot of this year. West Coast stuff like Abe Vigoda and Pharmacy, stuff out of Baltimore like Videohippos. And Bark Bark Bark and Telepathy are amazing! This band from Japan, Escalade is so gentle good. I’m really into this magazine that’s out now called ‘Good’. And I’m a big ‘Flight of the Conchords’ fan.
NPIP: Your band has oft been linked to Test-Icicles due to the personal relationships and how the two bands started. Would you care to shed some light on the links there? What do think Of Dev Hynes’ Lightspeed Champion project?
F: I was friends with Tim (Damn Arms) when he was living in London, and Sam knew Tim had just come over from the States all by himself. I knew Rory from a long time ago. Dev was a member of the “Rival Gang” that we always wanted to adopt as our own. Between us (and Chris, Tom, etc, etc) we were just forming/dismantling new bands every week. Matty had just started old skool White Heat at Infinity, and would let us play as any band we wanted.
But yeah, Lightspeed Champion’s awesome. It’s obviously something that’s very dear and personal to Dev, and it stems a lot more from things that he genuinely loves; he’s pouring into it things that are sincere. So yeah, it’s cool.
C: I really love what Dev has done with Lightspeed Champ. It's beautiful, honest song writing.
A: I’m loving Lightspeed Champion’s stuff. The orchestrations are amazing.
NPIP: Your live performances have a cinematic quality to them, not least the projections of images drawn from the natural world. Does the live performance inform the writing process or are they two separate entities that are married after the songs are written? Has the live performance evolved with this new album?
F: I don’t think the projections informed the writing, but the images definitely came from the same place that the songs came from, so they’re related in that way. We’re trying to build a bigger live sound; involve more people, rock out more, and make it even more fun.
C: We were in film school when we worked on the first record, so it came together naturally.
NPIP: How was working on the new album, was it an easy process? The songs on the Myspace have an almost eighties pop feel to them in an expansive simple minds sort of way…
F: Working on the album was an awesome experience. If working on an album could be easy I don’t think the album would sound that good. But it was rewarding, emotional, and fun. We’ve always loved 80’s pop unabashedly. It’s a natural progression (regression?) really, to use that medium as a valid form of expression as opposed to easy novelty value.
C: I had lots of fun working on the record. Yeah, we got together some 80's synth sounds and went for it.
A: Yeah, making this record was a lot less organic than the first one, which I suppose helped the overall aesthetic. I don’t think we ever went into it thinking that we’d have this flavour to this next record, it just came about during recording. The ‘80s pop medium’- it’s so weird to call it that. But I think we did what we always do, which is start from small moments, be it lyrics or a melody that feels true and right, and then build from that.
NPIP: Thematically, what is the new album about?
F: It’s pretty different for everyone, I think. But it’s a lot more direct, a lot more first person narrative, some kind of cruel analysis. I don’t know if there’s a general overriding theme.
C: No lyrical theme was put up at the outset as something to move towards, but the way the record was recorded and the sounds we used created an aesthetic through line.
A: I guess you could say it’s filled with lots of different kinds of ‘love’ songs. Lots of songs also seem to start out in these, almost cinematic, scenes that then get dissected through lyrics and music.
NPIP: Semifinalists have always had a very strong aesthetic. The last album spawned some rather beautiful seven inches. Has your aesthetic developed, and will we have more beautiful seven inches?!
F: I hope the aesthetic has developed. It comes naturally so far, but it also responds to the changes in the music. It’s still a little early to tell how it will all pan out once it’s ready to be put out.
C: Yes, check out our myspace for more evidence.
www.myspace.com/semifinalists
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