Mothlite - Interview - Summer 2008
By: Sam Crawford
Mothlite are one of Southern Records newest signings. They create intricate and inspiring compositions which are a real inspiration in an unconventional way. Their music, although spontaneous, holds a great deal of thoughtfulness and intricacies, and it's no surprise that when I meet up with the members Daniel and Antti that they are very intelligent; their album Flax of Reverie's extremely high standard could not have been made without musicians utterly serious about their work and having the brain power needed to pull it off.
RFB: What is it about Stan Brakhage's film Mothlight that made you think it worthy of calling your band after it?
Daniel: "It's more the process of that film and how it was made, the ideas of layering bound matter on celluloid and almost reanimating the life of the moth as a kind of homage that interested me. In terms of a band name, I think if you've got some sort of open premise, it's better than choosing something that you might regret. I've always liked that film and always liked that film maker, I've got an affinity with his work."
RFB: How much do you think the music you've written on The Flax Of Reverie is a reflection of your personal view on life, or are you conveying thoughts and emotions from a different standpoint?
Daniel: "I don't think any of it is looking at it from someone else's viewpoint. Influences sink in subconsciously, but I think primarily it's music with notions that either myself or Antti has, and that's pretty much how it works."
RFB: What do you think your music says about the way you think about life?
Antti: "It's a story, of the being at the time."
Daniel: "It's a very of the moment thing. The lyrics are assembled very quickly, almost while we're working on the material. Its more feeling inclined to create something on that particular day, like an automatic writing atmosphere. But then you find paths and trends that have commonalities and you don't know why. It's a mysterious thing. There are things that we keep coming back to that we're not necessarily aware of, and the purpose of that; it's not relevant; it's the process."
RFB: What experiences have you had which you brought you down the avenue of creating more unconventional music?
Daniel: "We both play and have played in avant garde bands for a long time, and it comes from growing up listening to metal and hardcore, then getting into things like jazz and noise, soundtrack music, and finding a path that way. It initially comes out of wanting to be distinctively different when you're young, but then you realise you're cultivating a path that's quite worthy of its own volition. You start to delve into these abstract worlds, and they're generally so much more interesting than the popular music world. But we find we're coming back now to popular music."
Antti: "A lot of things we do we feel are pop anyway, but subconsciously one way or another it still ends up in avant garde."
Daniel: "Yeah exactly, the gap between our definition of the band and the perception of the band is probably quite massive, but we see what we're doing as pop music."
RFB: I'd say the sounds in your music at times seems quite paradoxical in nature, would you agree with this, and if so, was this something you were aiming to create?
Daniel: "Yes definitely, but it's not something we try to create, going back to what you said earlier, it's more a natural inclination to create these musical oxymorons. I don't know why I do it but if something tends to be very linear, I always have a tendency to want to breaks its legs. This partially comes from some of the themes in the lyrics which are all about being a kid and having total dreamlike moments in your life. They seem like they can't possibly have happened and can't possibly be real, but they are real, and then experiencing reality, which is for the most part grim and disappointing; when you're a kid at least."
RFB: You're on Southern Records, what do you like about this label?
Daniel: "They've good people working for them and friends; people that I've known for quite a few years. We gave a copy of the album to a friend of ours Andrew Hartwell, who runs this great label called Aurora Borealis, he was working at Southern and passed it on to Allison and they were really serious about it, they love the record. There were a few other labels sniffing around but it just seemed like they were the most appreciative."
RFB: With your other band Guapo, you released you albums under many different labels, what made you change so much, and do you think this will be something you employ with Mothlite?
Daniel: "Well we've signed a contract with Southern which means will do another record, so we can't run just yet, but with Guapo it's more a case of we didn't really sign any deals, we just had so many good offers that we didn't want to decline any of them, so we ended up just saying "we'll work with you, we'll work with you." It doesn't really matter because you accumulate that label's demographic by doing a record for them and they have a record by you on their discography. Unless they're really anxious to lose money again I don't know why they would want to do another! (Laughter). It definitely helped us with Guapo; our audience has grown as a result of working with different labels. Working with Ipecac; all the Mike Patton kids got into it."
RFB: Did Mike Patton approach you for that then?
Daniel: "Yeah he approached us about Five Suns, which was a record we did on Cuneiform. It was quite surreal, switching on your computer and seeing Mike Patton in your inbox. It's an especially strange thing when he is gushing about your music. It's great, it felt really sort of privileged. He likes Mothlite too; we spoke initially about doing Mothlite on Ipecac; the thing about Mike is once you're part of the family he tends to stick with you, monitors your progress and wants to see what's going on with you."
RFB: Tell us a bit about the gear and instruments you've chosen to use, what you like about them, and the way you approached recording it?
Daniel: "The instruments were just the instruments that I could find my way around, even if I don't necessarily have an expert grasp on them. The core of the stuff on Mothlite tends to be piano which is my first instrument, and it's also a lot to do with Antti's manipulation of the music as and when it's being written. Antti's mind is just ingratiated in wires; he just understands technology; its second nature. I think a lot of the stuff on the Mothlite record is to do with treatment, like treating sounds. There's no one method, there's no Antti digital agenda and there's no pro analogue agenda, there are elements of both all over it. The world is too multifarious to behave that way.
RFB: It says on Southern's webpage that your words "are of the same bloodline as Lewis Carroll and Henry Williamson." What do you think connects these two writers to each other, and in turn, what connects you to them?
Daniel: "I suppose the emphasis on literature for young people, trying to get into that mindset and trying to understand the psychology of that transient mind you have when you're young. Generally it's just a love of words and word assembly. A lot of what we do, the seed is improvised, it's free. I don't think we ever talk about it and say "this is what we're going to do," we tend to just sit down and work, and the results vary."
RFB: Are you going to be touring with the new album, and what are your ideal venues to play at?
Daniel: "Venues that have enough space to accommodate us, it's quite a big band. It's always been my thing that just because you're from London doesn't mean you should necessarily play here all the time, so we're talking to a few booking agents in Europe about doing some stuff, and maybe the States as well, I think we're quite keen to play a fair bit, particularly after the gig we just did, we were really pleased with it. The live formation of it is better than we thought it would be, so it's exciting."
RFB: If we lived in a society turned on its head, where the music you create was considered the norm and mainstream, and commercial balladeers that dominate the charts now were a minority, what do you think this society would be like?
Daniel: "Paradise! It would be beautiful, in my eyes of course. If Mothlite's music was generally understood as the norm... you know it's almost that absurd anyway. Pop music to me is way more alien than what we're doing now, in some cases at least."
Antti: "A lot of today's pop music is a lot more advanced than today's alternative music."
Daniel: "If people could adjust to that type of frequency generally; it would be amazing. I think everyone would have to...smoke a lot of weed. If you legalise dope, then maybe bands like Mothlite would be accepted more. You think of the provincial families in Hampshire or Dorset, imagine a Mothlite CD in their collection. It's hard to imagine that I've got to say. It's not always comfortable listening, and I think that becomes your priority sometimes when you have children and family and when you move out to the sticks. Contentment can be dangerous for art."
· Mothlite's album The Flax of Reverie is out now via Southern Records.
Artists in this article: Mothlite