monitor words // KARL MACDONALD
4RVJDL BOE &BTZ .FMKPBOO It’s difficult to believe that Meljoann’s impeccably produced, woozily electro-influenced R’n’B came from Dublin, but it did. TD tries to find out how it happened. So you were presented to the world by Nialler9 as influenced by the skweee genre, a mix of spare synth melodies and R’n’B rhythms. Is that fair? I don’t know if influenced is the word because I think a lot of people came up with a similar idea at the same time. There’s the skweee stuff in Scandinavia, there’s the Glasgow sound, aquacrunk, and then there’s post-Dilla stuff in America. The general idea is coming from hip hop and R ‘n’ B influences and pairing them with electronic or experimental influences.
You put your EP online for free with the option to donate. What was the thinking there? I’m always pretty broke myself, and I’d just prefer people to have it rather than not be able to afford it. I don’t mind about filesharing or any of that. I think people will support something they’re into at some stage, or most people will.
photo: Ronan McCall
It seems like the sound came from nowhere. There’s electronic music in Dublin, but not this. I think I was a bit odd in my tastes. I was into 80s and 90s R‘n’B, really dissecting it. A lot of my mates in Dublin are electronic music producers as well, and they laugh at me, the attention I pay to the exact frequencies in the snare in that track from Bobby Brown or something. It started out with Michael Jackson in the 80s, which is a fairly common thing to be into. There’s so many things you can extrapolate from that. And then doing my own research, and getting into old soul and other things like that.
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Minimalist is one thing, Thread Pulls are another. With only two members, typically playing bass and drums and embellishing them with textural loops, they craft austere but accessible post-punk of a curiously noir variety. TD spoke to drummer Peter Maybury. I heard a rumour that you’re the only Irish band ever to play ATP? Yeah, well for a long time we definitely were, but I think Gemma Hayes might have played one in America since. Basically what happened was that Vincent Gallo was given some of our music by a friend of ours, and it just happened that he really liked it, so he asked us to play. Was it conscious to leave out the traditional instrumentation? We were originally a three-piece, but someone left, so we decided to keep it going with the two of us. I started playing drums and synthesizers, and Gavin had just got a trumpet, so he was interested in using that and experimenting with those sounds. We just pared it all back. And once you do that, it just seems to heighten your awareness of all the little sounds and all the details that shape the track. Are you worried about sounding retro? The no-wave comparison pops up a lot. I don’t know, that’s what other people say. Largely that’s not my record collection. It’s not the kind of musical background I come from. It’s just the sound that’s evolved. We’ve had all sorts of extraordinary references given. A guy last night told us we sound like Faithless. I think it’s fun.
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