So with the Album now readily available for a hungry public to get their paws on how does it feel to be out of the studio and back on stage?

Milk: Scary, shocking, and really, really bloody good! The last two or three gigs have been incredible – we’re really in a state of shock. They’ve lest us a bit gobsmacked at how it all sounds. We’ve worked really hard this year to get the live mixes sounding clear and fat but because we’d only heard them in the studio we weren’t prepared for how they’d sound in a venue.

It’s been quite challenging for me because when Mekano Set first started I always took a back seat, and improvised quite a bit. I’ve got a lot more responsibility now. I have to remember riffs, and lyrics! But I’m getting a real thrill out of singing and playing now, and we’re really happy with the way it all sounds. And it’s nice to still have some songs where I can just stand back and enjoy the sound where Sahara does the vocals and Lee makes the noises. Love playing these songs.

Sahara: whenever I go on stage now I feel like I’m home!  In terms of how I always wanted us to sound, I can say that the last gig at Bush Hall was brilliant! And something really interesting happened to me when I was singing, I felt like everything was coming together in the most perfect way – the way the sounds all came together, all coming towards us, and the crowd, and I loved it! All the noises, the instruments, the beats, the mix, all really came together so well. And that makes me want to go on the stage more!

Playing live we understand is part of The Mekano Set’s passion, can you describe the ‘Live’ experience as performers?

Milk: we spend so much time working on the songs, we pretty much physically play every bar of every beat ourselves to get that extra bit of variety and change over time. And we obsess over all the drones and textures and getting the instruments to sound just right. But ultimately we make music so we can play it live, and some things always get left to chance. There’s always the element of surprise.

I really don’t know how we come across but we basically just make the kind of music we love to hear. Doing it live can be quite scary at times because what we do can seem pretty off-the-wall to some people. Again, it’s been pretty challenging to organize live, we’ve learned that we have to mix ourselves for the moment, until we can find a soundman (or woman) that really gets our sound. We’re a long way from your typical four boys with big amps and a drum kit… That can be a bit of a challenge, even for people who know – or think they know – dance music. But we’re obviously not a dance act, and I don’t really see what we do as really all that electronic, because we’re not stuck in a genre like that. We’ve got a load of influences, some obvious some maybe not, but ultimately this is our vibe. We’re really starting to get our own sound now I think.

Sahara: I think the live experience is literally that, a live – living experience! And it’s always different every time it happens. As a performer or singer when you’re spending more and more time playing and singing live, each time you play is a learning experience, and I love it! And I think it’s incredible when you’re playing something you made yourself and you are able to share it with people and they feel it the same way you felt it! That level of honesty, coming from us, it’s not always the same for every band. We’re not imitating, I don’t really think I have any obvious influences at all, not as a singer anyway. There’s no one I’m trying to copy.

Back to the studio…the album is excellently produced. How does technology influence or affect the creative process?

Milk: the way that music technology has progressed over the last ten years is incredible. It’s great for a band like us because you can pretty much produce yourself – you have that level of control over your sound. You can really explore the tone, timbre and sound of each instrument – really explore the detail.

It’s obviously easier to get close to the kind of sound you want, but it can lead people astray. Also I think working with computers is a much slower and inevitably trickier process than just recording straight to tape. You can spend a week just trying to get the kick drum right. Analogue recording does have that extra something, that rounded tone, but digital has its advantages. The way we record and mix is a combination of both digital and analogue.

The irony for us is that we use less equipment than your average rock band. We don’t use a lot of effects, no big amps or outboard gear. It’s just the basics – distortion and delay. I think because our tastes in music are so diverse it comes out sounding a bit more exotic.

Sahara: I am always surprised and intrigued by the sounds I hear and the sounds we make! It’s so great that we can combine all our different needs and tastes and it all comes together in our music! Sounds easy but it’s not easy! To get a specific sound or drum pattern, wobbly bass…etc. It’s a lot of hard work!

But once you find the sound you’re looking for, and you see it works, it gives you more energy to work and explore the song further. We really explore our songs and sounds. Get lost in them. I think it’s a matter of balance, a matter of combining skills, communication, between instruments and technology, and your own music language, your sounds. And it’s so nice, almost like a cup of Camomile tea before you get ready to bed.

Milk: or a bottle of Cava!

Mixing electronica and a darker rock sound definitely creates a more ambiguous composition. How do you approach creating balance within the music? Or is it more organic than that?

Milk: I don’t think we worry about it, although we used to. I struggled to get a balance between wanting to make something experimental, left-field, with the electronic and dance and Drum and Bass influences, and to combine that with a need to play a riff on a bass or guitar – the Post-Punk and Shoe Gaze stuff we’re equally obsessed with. It’s nothing new, but still unexplored, and still a bit of a shock to some people, especially musicians. It’s way too easy for musos to be that lazy, just imitate and never have to take a chance.

Sahara: this is something that we naturally do. I don’t want it to sound forced in any way. Now I think we just get on with it. I think there’s always been an earthy, organic, dirtyness about our sound, it’s a natural mix of rock and electronics.

Milk: in terms of our arrangements and song structures, we try to let the songs go where they need to, rather than tie them down to the same old song structures, the verse-chorus-verse-chorus thing. I just don’t think you need to do that anymore, not all the time anyway. Our songs are more like warped grooves… In terms of arrangement, because we have the bass, guitar and baritone guitar (think Twin Peaks, Joy Division and The Cure), we can approach things in a different way to your typical two guitars and a bass kind of thing. Although the baritone isn’t really that unusual these days, most metal bands tune down to what is basically baritone guitar tuning, it’s just that ours doesn’t have the same kind of dirt coating it.

‘And Now…’ is a deeply layered album and has a really tantalising complexity to it. We keep playing it louder and louder just to hear if there are anymore details we missed. What is it that drives that meshing of sound?

Milk: I’m glad you noticed! It’s funny because there really aren’t that many layers to our songs. They’re pretty straight forward musically. But we love to explore things like drone and feedback, using delay and fuzz to build a wall of noise. We also like to record things like street noises, stick a microphone out the window and stuff like that. Play around with those. So a location noise will come in instead of a guitar fill. There’s loads more fun to be had with that kind of thing.

Sahara: I enjoy the fact that each song has certain character in itself, and each song is different. In terms of sound, I love using the sounds that not many people really hear, or if they hear it they never really listen to it, and they think it’s ugly. For instance when they sit on a train they put their CD player on, and try not to listen to what’s happening around them. But you can use all those noises happening around you, conversations between people, natural and unnatural sounds, all at the same time. And sometimes you hear the nice harmonic tone of voices around you, and you can make a song out of it, and it’s something Mekano Set really enjoys, that’s a big part of the way we work.

The vocals distort, fade, blend in and out of each other which gives a sense of being in a dreamlike state. Would you say that stems from psychadelia or does it relate more to the subconcious state?

Milk: a lot of the music we like has that psychedelic thing, even the Post-Punk scene had a lot of psychedelia and experimentation going on. It’s not overtly psychedelic, but it’s important to have those elements. We’re not an ego-driven bunch so we’ve no fear of really messing up our sounds. You can create real tension and mood shifts with that kind of approach – we don’t like things to be too happy or too sad. We love a bit of reverse-reverb, using a Wah pedal more like a filter than an obvious ‘funky’ thing etc. The voice is an instrument too, it doesn’t have to always be the main focus of the mix.

Sahara: our vocals and the song structures are completely free of any kind of pressure. It is psychedelic / experimental for sure, our songs have those elements naturally. It’s completely pure and real, you can say some of it is coming from that dreamlike state, the dream land and I’m glad you noticed that… because some of my lyrics come straight out of my dreams in fact. I can say that I always wanted to do something with them, kept writing them down, it was almost like a mission, and I am so glad I keep doing it.

Milk: I never thoughts about it before but yes, totally, when I think about it there’s loads of things in our songs, words and ideas and sounds, that we’ve got from dreams or from being in a dream-like state. We never even discussed it, not once. And there’s been more than one occasion where we’ve sung about something and then it’s happened for real. Like Sahara goes off for a month and comes back with a picture of her sitting on the ledge of a cave in a mountain, and it’s something that she sang about six months ago. Some of our lyrics are deliberately about tempting fate too, but I don’t want to say too much because you break the spell that way. There’s a Kate Bush lyric I always subvert – “just saying it might make it never happen”.

What fuels your song writing? Where do you draw ideas from?

Milk: I think it’s a need to make music that we can’t find, or there’s not enough of it. We love the problem solving process of writing songs, and performing them is a great release. Get stuff off your chest. Not just about getting attention. Often something starts with a beat, and we work from there, building up things in sympathy to the beat or a certain location sound or drone. Not trying to force things to fit together.

Sahara: I always try to make notes from dreams and experiences I’ve had in the past. I think we’ve all lead quite unusual lives. In my life, since I was a little girl, dreaming of escape and adventure, dreaming of things and then eventually they really happen, it fascinates me, and I have lot to say! And now to be at the stage where I can explore and express these things at last!

Derive has been listening to the album non stop all day and the song we love the most is ‘Thirst’. Can you tell us a bit about the concept for this song?

Milk: I think Thirst came from one of the first ideas I had. I wanted to have that thing where the bass is moving around but there’s no guitar part following it. The guitar is doing the feedback – drone thing, almost turning into pure white noise. I love songs like that. And there was loads of space for Sahara to add ideas. It stayed kind of empty for a few years. When Sahara added her vocals it really took it to another level and we were determined to finish it for the album. The bit where it breaks down and Sahara really goes for it developed when we did it live a couple of times. And we added those bass chords. And we improvise live at that point, so it’s always a little bit different. Now it’s become this thing all unto itself. It’s great to do that one live. And pretty challenging if we have to share a mic. A lot of fun.

Sahara: When I first listened to Thirst, a very interesting thing happened, I suddenly remembered my dreams from the night before and I just sang about that, didn’t really think about it too much just did it, and couldn’t stop, I could see the images which I saw the night before with a nice melody in the air, the stuff about being in some kind of divine state, a moment of freedom, and then wondering and doubt coming between us, and that moment being totally destroyed by that doubt. It came together really naturally, and in that moment, I felt released, like it was resolved.

Milk: a lot of our stuff is like that, hopeful but tragic, you know it’s all messed up and hopeless, and the song – the vibe – can be pretty negative but there’s still a kind of strength – some hope – stuck inside you, inside the song. Heartache and confusion. I hope all this doesn’t make us sound like hippies. Cause that’s one thing we’re definitely not!

So what’s next for The Mekano Set?

Milk: God I don’t know. We’ve kind of suffered for doing this over the last couple of years, it’s funny because we actually accidentally had a day off last week, just sat by the sea, and it’s the first time I’ve felt properly relaxed for the whole year. It was so unfamiliar I didn’t know how to express it. And I was looking around at everyone and just feeling amazed that after everything we’ve been through we could just sit around and have fun. This weird thing happened where it was like everyone’s eyes were shining. I couldn’t say a word. I’d like a few more days like that!

We’ve certainly got loads more material we want to get out into the world. We want to get gigging a bit more regularly, we’ll see how it goes.

Sahara: as Milk said – we’ve got plenty of material which we haven’t really played live yet or put out to people. I would like to work on those and let people see the different sides of The Mekano Set. We’ve got some really out-there songs, some gentle things, some wild things. And for sure I want to start touring at some point, around Europe, and let people hear us and share the live moments with us.

http://www.mekanoset.net/

Posted in Music by Andy
Tags: London, Mekanoset, Music