Wild Light Decade #17: Throwbacks (Patreon)

Short and sweet update this week, coming to you from a rain-soaked car park at the back of a giant arena on the outskirts of Paris.

We are parked here because the streets around the venue we are actually playing in are far too narrow for the bus to get in there. So instead we get to unload all the gear, load it into a small van, and then unload it again into the venue. And then do it in reverse later. The pouring rain really spices things up too.

Anyway. Throwbacks. A tight but very unfinished banger, based around an incendiary bass guitar riff.

Sometimes when making music, you can find a loop that just works. Something that is so satisfying to play and to listen to that it can just go round and round endlessly without getting boring. Sometimes, if the conditions are right, the loop can even lend itself to being able to make endless variations that can slot together easily and seamlessly. And this is sometimes all you need. If you’re making utilitarian minimal techno for example. You want the repetitive beats. You don’t want melody or narrative or ‘parts’ to get in the way. Horizontally sequence the song into infinity. Perfect.

On the other hand, if your loop is in 5/8 and you’re supposed to be trying to write ‘a post rock song’, or at the very least something in the vague shape of a song, then you really need be able to break out of it. To force entry and exit points into your neat mobius strip of sound.  But with Throwbacks… we just couldn’t. It's a solid loop. A solid collection of loops. No direction except back to the beginning. But 'loops' does not equal 'song'. And so, in the end, it was set aside, never to be returned to. Unlucky, Throwbacks. You've got something pretty cool going on. But sometimes that's just not enough.

In other news... If you saw us at any of the UK shows last week - THANK YOU SO MUCH. Each and every one was a whole lot of fun. If you saw us at any point after Manchester you might have noticed that we woefully underestimated the demand for our merch and our overall, apparently iconic importance in the fashion world. Most of it had sold out by the time we hit London.

Because of this, rather than wait until after the tour, we quickly got a pre-order for all the shirts (and hoodie) up on our Bandcamp. Which means that whether or not you are coming to see us in Europe this week, if you want t-shirts you can order them RIGHT NOW. They are getting printed as you're reading this and we will start shipping them week beginning 2nd October.

Alternatively, if you are planning to see us in Europe, or you saw us in Paris (which is tonight as this is getting typed but yesterday as you're reading this), then hopefully the merch re-up we are expecting to arrive this afternoon went smoothly and you were greeted with a fresh batch of slick threads.

That's it for this week. Oh, but also there's a 20 minute long, seamlessly looping version of Throwbacks at the bottom of this post for download, to test the 'a good loop doesn't make for a good song but also doesn't necessarily get boring even after going on for ages' hypothesis posed in this post. See how far you get.

See you next week/on the road, friends!

65.x