1 post tagged “absent elk”
Hello,
So the festival season is in full swing, I'm sure many of you braved Glastonbury. Did you remember to take wellies? I've already been sent a lot of stories regarding the festival, none of which I can publish. Though keep sending them and I'll be sure to link to them or republish here if they're not too bad. Been sent a few horrific ones involving Potaloo pranks, ugh. There are a few posts from our lot regarding the festival, have a look at this one and this one. I'm sure there are other's floating about out there.
Ok, got an oddly named band here 'Absent Elk' and they're not even Candian.
Every track I've heard sounds really polished and has a great sense of contrast and texture in the production. But I'm not going to waffle too much this time. Have a listen to:
Let's start with the most obvious question (I'm not very imaginative), what influences are within your band?
"All 5 members have very different taste in music, but we still tend to agree when it comes to creating our own. Somehow the different styles just seem to slot together. We like to think we have a dynamic/varied style, and these differences in music taste are probably the main reason that we often end up heading such contrasting directions within a track. As a collective rule though, we are probably influenced by anything which moves us, physically or mentally."
What's been the best gig so far?
"Every new show feels better than the last, so long as the sound system/engineer is decent. We are quite particular about the big sound we aim for. A bad engineer can really destroy the vibe in the music, and remove a lot of impact."
I've seen a few badly engineered gigs recently, it can really destroy the gig. How do you write new material? Is it the work of one songwriter or do you work through ideas collectively for example?
"A track can appear from anywhere and anyone. Usually a member will bring one small part (eg. a riff, a bassline, a beat, a vocal etc), which the rest of us then build on layer-by-layer, until we have a song … by improvisation. Sometimes Kjetil (our frontman) will just arrive at a jam with an almost complete acoustic song, and we just work on band arrangement, writing additionaly instrument parts, filling gaps, making gaps, building dynamics, chopping and changing etc. We’ve also been known to write entire pieces of music instrumentally when Kjetil hasn’t been around, or before he joined the band, that he has then written a vocal to later. It all just happens naturally really, and almost subconciously"
How do you promote yourselves?
"Like everybody these days, we have a myspace. It’s a pretty handy tool. We also have a mailing list. The most powerful thing still though, is word of mouth …making music that appeals to people. That way it can promote itself, to a certain extent. That’s the theory anyway!"
Hopefully this post may aid the word of mouth theory. :-). What do you think a lot of bands should do, but don't?
*"Concentrate on writing a song. Lots of bands seem to focuse on the style, rather than the song that lays beneath all the current scratchy production fads and funny outfits. There seems to be a real ‘form over function’ thing going on right now. People usually master their wardrobe and ‘attitude’ a long time before they master their craft."
I'm seeing a lot of comments on the blogs along those lines actually. I'm thinking now people are more empowered than ever to distribute themselves, some people may loose sight of the artistic side to a degree.
(Many thanks to the band for contributing on here, I will be posting more interviews soon.)
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*What do you think out there on this? Are we experiencing one of the biggest artistic melting pots as regards expression in music and other media, or is the internet being swamped with wannabe's with funny hair?
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I don't know the names of all the band members but apparently the band found Kjetil (singer) at a local beer festival in Brighton.
Hopefully they'll read this and leave a comment telling us their names.
So lets hear what you think. Sounds like they're promoting themselves in the way most bands are these days, do you think they could do more?
Keep the good stuff coming in, this week has been a good week for submissions and I've been forwarding a lot on to A&R which is a relief after a dry spell last week.
Be sure to say hello to the band, chat about their music maybe ask them about yours?
RCAD
