1) Bio
Born in 2008, somehow survived through 13 years and here we are. We never bothered to look for exposure till last year, then came across the guys from Mandrone Records and we thought we could do something different: let the world know we exist. We’ve done a lot of stuff all for music’s sake, we all have other projects and bands, this is where we do what we like and what we feel like.
2) Line up
Our strict policy has always been and still is “no names, no photos” so we can tell you that a lot of people has come and gone and more will come in the future. Some guests will have their name on the album, others won’t, it’s something we make clear from the start with everyone we work with.
3) We sound like
Both a lot of things and nothing in particular. One thing is sure, our music is rarely light or cheerful, we mostly dig into dark places, both musically and lyrically. Sometimes we can sound like a death metal band, other times we dive into electro-ambient stuff, we steal a lot from progressive rock/metal in terms of structure and rhythms, there’s a lot going on and it’s not easy to say what we sound like. That’s not a good or bad thing really, it’s just like that.
4) Discography
As we said, we’ve done a lot of stuff. On our Bandcamp page you can find most of it, around 25 albums, and you can see how we like to jump from one place to another. there’s the psych-instrumental stuff like ‘city islands’, the poppy prog-rock stuff on ‘atlas moth’, all the electronic albums like ‘1’1701’ or ‘hell is other robots’, then the smashing and bashing of ‘rope i’, ’33’, ‘pfnz live’ and such. on our website you can find a “guide” to all that.
5) Influences
Our lights in the dark have always been Today Is The Day, King Crimson, Prince, Nine Inch Nails, Neil Young, Neurosis, Ulver… we really listen to a lot of stuff from pop to jazz through electronica and grindcore and there’s a truckload of records and bands we love and who have influenced us through the years, that’s why we keep going from one genre to another with every album, we love a lot of music and want to try it all.
We definitely love those artists who have been able to evolve and go through different sounds and genres, that’s something we always admire.
6) What do you write about?
That depends too. We often deal with the end of things, that’s one thing we like to say. We mostly write about what we feel, or what one of us feels, that depends on who’s writing and how. Or we try to tell stories, sometimes with words like in the ‘rope’ saga, sometimes just with the music as we’ve done through the ‘we watched them devour’ chapters. We write about moving parts, things that are broken and in need of fixing, the whole ‘pfnz’ saga is about a man whose will to live has fled to new zealand and sends him postcards mocking him and reminding him about how much his life sucks.
7) Your favourite live performance so far
We don’t do live shows, we’re not interested, this is a studio project. Besides, it would get really complicated to keep our identities hidden and we all have other bands that satisfy our need for live music. We’ve only done one gig for our 10th anniversary so you could say that’s our favourite. It’s also the worst though.
8) Tell us a funny story that happened in the studio or on stage
We’re nerds and we have a lot of inside jokes going on, so what’s hilarious to us might be hard to get for all of you out there in the real world. We have lots of fun, constantly, but one time we laughed our assess off for an incorrect setting on a reverb we were using for vocals and it made everything sound like a 1986 record. That’s not really fun but we freaked out.
9) Your favourite records
’Sadness Will Prevail” by Today Is The Day, “The Fragile” by Nine Inch Nails, Prince’s ’1999’ and ‘Sign O’ The Times’, “In The Court Of The Crimson King” or “Red” or “Discipline” or anything from King Crimson really, “Exit: Stage Left” by Rush, “Blackwater Park” by Opeth, “Daydream Nation”, “Foxtrot”, “Gutter Ballet”…we love a lot of records and usually go through phases. In the last couple of years we’ve been listening a lot to Fever Ray and The Knife, we love their work, in particular the first Fever Ray album and “Shaking The Habitual” by The Knife.
10) A musician you would like to meet for a beer
Geddy Lee, Bob Weir, Trent Reznor, any of them, plus a whole fuckload of others.
11) What would you ask backstage if you were the most important band on earth
Orange juice and silence.
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Interviews