Interview with Now We’ve Got Members
Now We’ve Got Members, concidered to be the flagship of the small Oslo-based CD/CD-R label, Metronomicon Audio, are celebrating ten years as a band by playing through big parts of their catalogue, starting at the beginning, before they’ll release a new album titled Repulsive Force sometime this fall.
In the beginning, the band didn’t have any members at all. Today, the band has ten members, and in some live situations they’re augmented by additional musicians, forming an ensemble of as many as fifteen members. They describe their music as a mixture of musical styles from near and distant hemispheres, all relative to which hemisphere the listener might be situated. The sound has elements of both balkan folk music and arabian funk, as well as progressive rock (without the rock), disco (without the mirrorballs) and free jazz (without the jazz) and it’s all neatly merged together in their complex yet hummable pop tunes.
They started up their celebration 18. september, playing songs from their two first albums, Curious Yellow and Le Jardin. That’s great, but to make it more interesting, they had been having reverse rehearsals to forget their newer songs and lose experience, so that they’d sound more scrawny and youthful. I was there and indeed, they did miss a string here and there, but held a level high enough to keep it from becoming an annoying gimmick. After all, even if you lose some skill and experience, it’ll still be plenty when there’s a whole lot there to begin with.
Anyways; we contacted the frontman of the band and founder of Metronomicon, Jørgen “Sissyfus” Skjulstad to get some comments on the new album.
Given the length of your previous albums (9 tracks, just above an hour long), how long can we expect this album to be?
Jørgen: Hmm, it was supposed to be a double album, based on the belief that we can do whatever we want concerning commercial suicides and still get away with it. But in the end we found out that two of the the songs that were supposed to be on the album should be on a seperate EP instead. Now the album is an hour long, with seven tracks.
Anything new you’ve been inspired from on this album?
Jørgen: We have such a vast pool of inspirational sources already that it’s hard to say, but this album is darker, slower and with more disharmony than the previous ones. The disharmonies are constant important factors in some of the songs, though not all of them. The other places I’ve heard this way of using disharmony is in ethiopian jazz and funk ala Mulatu Astatqe, some hardcore and black metal-bands, and Zeuhl-bands like Magma, Eskaton and Art Zoyd. In the future I think the band will be even more inspired by Zeuhl and the RIO-movement, and one of my ideas is to take some of the spooky energy of Zeuhl and convert it into a more danceable folk-music-context. Some of the songs though, particularly the one included on this blog is more straight forward folk-rock with some oriental influences.
The name of the album is said to be Repulsive Force, what’s behind that name?
Jørgen: The Repulsive Force is a term from cosmology. It is the opposite of gravity; a force that makes empty space repel empty space. The Repulsive force is a mysterious force that is supposed to make to universe expand faster and faster instead of slowing down.
How was the process of recording it? Did it take a long time and was it hard to coordinate all the members?
Jørgen: Yes, we started recording a long time ago, even before we relased our previous album. It takes a lot of time to record all the members, but what is even worse is to arrange the songs before recording and the process of mixing it afterwards.
Is there a specific theme on this album?
Jørgen: There is a specific scale and some specific chords that are supposed to induce a certain feeling.
Has it mostly been you who’s written and composed the material or is it something you do together?
Jørgen: I write all the songs, but the members contribute with arrangements and sometimes add or subtract whole parts.
Any new instruments or members on this one?
Jørgen: Yes, Daniel Meyer Grønvold has joined the band on the baglamas; a small miniature bouzouki mostly used in the archaic greek musical style rembetika. There is also a trumpet on one of the tracks played by Magnus Askim, and I play some electric saz in addition to the guitar.
When is the second part of the concert series going to take place and where?
3. october at Moloch in gøteborggata. It’s so underground that you have to send me a mail if you want to attend. This is supposed to reflect that we used to play a lot at half-legal parties when we released our third and fourth album. The third concert will be the releaseparty of Repulsive Force, and that’s going to be a little more official.
Can we get a date for the release?
Jørgen: No date, but we hope the release will be sometime in November.
As Jørgen said, the next show will be 3. october at Moloch and if you want to come, you have to send him a mail to sissyfus@gmail.com. They’ll play material from their third and fourth albums, Tiny Disasters On/Off and Then Is Just Another Kind Of Now.
We’ve also been lucky enough to get a little sneak preview from the upcoming album. Have a listen.
Now We’ve Got Members – Talking of the Future (short version)
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