It’s been five years since Little Joy, the absolutely breathtaking krautrock tinged post-punk release from the Melbourne’s MY DISCO and as a worthy follow up, the trio are about to unleash Severe their darkest effort yet.
After relentless touring the band recorded, mixed, and produced Severe in Melbourne by acclaimed film composer and producer, Cornel Wilczek. Engineered entirely in a digital domain, the recording process for effort was a huge change for MY DISCO, who had previously worked with renowned analog tape guru, Steve Albini.
As is evident in the album, the change in process allowed the band the freedom to explore enhanced audio effects, including programmed sine wave drones and heavily effected rhythms and vocals.
Dark and disturbing in its moments of silence as much as its slabs of unrelenting noise, Severe is potentially the most attention commanding and exciting releases we’ve heard from a local band this year.
To celebrate the release of the Severe (out this Friday via Temporary Residence), the band have given us an early stream of the LP to accompany our chat with the band’s Ben Andrews who took us inside the recording process and what they’ve been up to in the past few years.
The Making Of ‘Severe’
“We started writing for this album in April 2014, or thereabouts. It took less than three months to complete, which was always the goal as A) time is of the essence these days and B) I believe that a progressive full length record should be considered in as short a time as possible in order to make it a whole experience rather than just a collection of “songs.”
We wrote the record with Cornel Wilzcek in mind to always be the engineer / producer. He is so easy to work with, makes us feel very comfortable and everything happens at a pace that suits both him and the band. He is the best engineer for what we are currently doing musically without a doubt.
It took a long time to set specific recording dates that suited both his and our own hectic schedules, so we had to wait until Christmas time / into the New Year period to finalise the recording. Which was actually fine as giving space between tracking and mixing is super important to let the music breathe a little before making any commitments.”
The Time Between Records (5 Years)
“We toured Little Joy a lot – Japan, North America, Europe (twice) then went and did a few singles; one of which came out on Sub Pop as part of their anniversary release series.
Then we experimented in the studio with some wild ideas that included heavily processed sounds and computer based instruments. We had some time off. We lived in three separate Countries. Travel outside the rigour of touring became enjoyable again. I explored Islam a lot deeper than I ever thought possible. We kept busy, basically.”
Sonic Evolution
“It is very difficult for us to actively compare our Albums / music. For one, we rarely look to the past at what we have done. We tend to only look forward, towards attaining something that we have never achieved musically or otherwise.
It is more exciting that way. Severe is definetly the darkest record we have ever written. It has a sound, an aura, a depth to it that I for one am really happy with.
I don’t like to compare or differentiate our works, as I believe they are their own moments in time that signify a musical marker of where we stood at that specific period in our band’s career.”
Inspirations
“So many elements go in to making a record. The way we work might seem simple by definition. We don’t think or talk much about what we aim to create, we simply jam and see what happens and whether or not we like it / can use it for a specific purpose. This specific purpose this time was to create a very bleak collection of songs in as short a time as possible.
We all listen to very intense music. Dark techno, drone, noise, ambient, religious music, it all influences the band in one way or another but our end game is the same: alien music.”
Severe is released Friday October 30th through Temporary Residence, pre-order here.
Upcoming Shows
14 Nov | At First Sight Festival, Carriage Works | Sydney
21 Nov | The Shadow Electric | Melbourne
28 Nov | Paradise Music Festival | Lake Mountain, VIC
5 Dec | Crown & Anchor | Adelaide
13 Nov | ANU Bar | Canberra
20 Nov |Crowbar | Brisbane
11 Dec | The Rosemount | Perth
12 Dec | Mojos | Fremantle
