Last week we posted a link to a stream of the new Them Crooked Vultures album. This week we've got another supergroup on the docket. Githead is the brainchild of Colin Newman (Wire), Robin Rimbaud (Scanner), and Minimal Compact's Malka Spigel and Max Franken, but with a decidedly poppier tone than their collective resumes. While their new album, Landing, is reminiscent of the shoegaze glory of groups like Ride, their entire catalog runs of the gamut of styles, from spacerock jaunts to quirky pop. Colin, Robin, and Malka talked to us about the new record, and how their reputations tend to proceed them a little more than they'd like.
The time it's taken to create the three previous Githead records—starting with Headgit and ending with Art Pop—has increased little by little, allowing the sound to branch out and get a bit more spacious with each release. How much time, both in the writing and recording, did you give yourselves for Landing?
Colin Newman: Headgit was done pretty quickly, but then it’s only an EP. The others took longer, but it’s less an issue of time and more of an issue of the band and the expertise about how to make the records both growing.
Malka Spigel: It’s a very hard question to answer, as the process is more spread out. There’s no set time [that] we sit and write or go in the studio and record. For instance, there may be a track which is recorded very quickly and returned to later, and during that latter time can go from sketch to finished item in a matter of days. The track “Landing” was like that.
Colin Newman: What became “Take Off” was first recorded in October 2006, but not even listened to again until early this year. We’ve always worked like this. Githead recording has to fit around other activities, like Wire recording and touring.
Robin Rimbaud: It’s also an issue of all our other commitments, factoring in international travel for our independent projects and so on. The actual writing process is usually remarkably fast, but the production and development of the songs themselves takes so much more exploratory work.
How important is it to maintain a sense of spontaneity in the recording process? The band was brought together rather quickly, and that rare, off-the-cuff chemistry is something that really bolsters the music you make.
Colin Newman: Githead can be pretty spontaneous in its innovation. We don't just come up with stuff in a collaborative situation. We can also take that material and mould it to structure quickly. It was one of the steps we wanted to take forward from Art Pop—which had a couple of more obviously “constructed” songs—to have an album that somehow came wholly from the collaborative mindset. To use Malka’s words, something more “organic.”
Robin Rimbaud: Everything is scripted! We planned this all as teenagers and finally found reason to meet some years later. (Laughs) I think it’s become of more value than ever that the recordings maintain this very real sensibility of innate connection; a vital connection to the source and not lost in translation as can happen in over production of any work.
When I first head about Githead, I saw the band's line-up before hearing the music, and I must say was very pleasantly surprised to hear such a melodic pop sound in many of the tracks. I remember the old magazine I used to work for, Raygun, wrote a few features on both Wire and Scanner, and the Githead sound is quite removed from what one might expect from a band featuring these artists. What do you feel being in this band (and recording tracks) has unlocked in its members?
Malka Spigel: First of all, thank you for saying that! We get so bored with being endlessly compared to Wire (mainly) from people who have no imagination to hear Githead for what it is. I can’t speak on Colin and Robin’s behalf, but my feeling is that the “obvious” Newman or Scanner influences are subtle because the of way we work. Nobody does anything in isolation. It’s all about responding to what the others do. So everyone in Githead sounds and works like they do in Githead, not how they are in other situations.
Colin Newman: Well mainly what she said. (Laughs) We try to really make the point whenever we can that Githead is a real band. This is not to the detriment of any other project we as individuals work on, but more to say that we have discovered a chemistry between us that produces something which is not what you might expect from the collaboration as seen on paper only.
Robin Rimbaud: It's also about a shared responsibility in a group, and we are happy to produce work that reflects our mutual interests. I don’t personally sit at home listening to “difficult” electronica all day long, but have always adored pop and rock music. My guitar playing stems from teaching myself when I was 16 years old. Having said that, I’m always challenging myself to develop new player positions on the guitar neck, searching out new ways to play familiar structures and make it harder on myself! I do use a Line 6 Variax guitar that emulates countless other guitars too, so the explorations don’t stop at the guitar strings!
“Craft Is Dead” is one of the first songs Githead wrote, back in 2004. So much has changed in technology and music since then. Do you think the current technological climate (as it relates to the way in which people make and are exposed to new music) signals the death or the resurgence of craft?
Colin Newman: One thing about “Craft Is Dead” is that it’s one of the most original pieces of Githead ever! It’s very deep Githead to know that Headgit is the foundation of the whole project. (Laughs) In terms of actual craft, ultimately there’s not a lot of difference in my mind between a non-digital craft and a digital one. To be any good at anything takes firstly having an idea about what you want to achieve, and then the acquiring of relevant skills. Skillfully produced crap is still crap.
Malka Spigel: For me, everything is always about spontaneity, so I don’t pay that much attention to conventional “craft.” However, it’s not for no reason that people really want to see bands playing live. People really want performance, seeing it in front of them rather than always seeing “finished product.”
Colin Newman: In some ways the “craft” of making records has regressed because so many bands that can make money on the road don’t really make so much from records—neither them or their record companies—so there's not so much incentive to invest in making albums. Sometimes a limited budget works, like for The xx, but very few have the time, energy and resources that we are bringing to our albums, and at our level.
Robin Rimbaud: This is a massive discussion, really. This weekend I was at Palazzo Madama in Turin, a 15th Century castle, marveling at Portrait of a Man by Antonello da Messina, a Renaissance painting that retains such a lifelike quality and rich intricate intimacy that the craft has transcended time and place. If it’s transparent and one can connect emotionally to a work, that’s enough for me. I’m concerned that so much contemporary work is so reflective of its time, especially in visual arts, that in 100 years time, it will be extremely hard for people to respond to it in any way but with humorous nostalgia.
Landing has a very cohesive feel, both sonically and in terms of the travel motifs in its cover art and song titles. What was the band trying to communicate with these themes? Perhaps lots of travel between London and Rotterdam?
Colin Newman: Is it a concept album? Well, it is and it isn’t. With this, album we did something quite unusual in that we had titles first. Malka took a bunch of titles from her Flickr photo titles, which we randomly assigned to embryonic pieces. These were only ever meant to be temporary, but most stuck. It’s kind of magical the way that the pieces coalesced around those titles, which somehow gained in power as the album evolved. In some cases, lyrics evolved from the titles, and in others, in opposition to the titles. Some say one thing on the surface but something different underneath. Travel is an obvious theme, we all move around a lot. It gives a certain mental freedom.
Robin Rimbaud: Naturally one can read this as a moment of confirmation, that we have finally dropped anchor and accepted what we are, which in some ways we have, but at the same time the layers hidden with Githead are like an onion that reaps new rewards at each layer peeled away.
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