The Memory Band
Last addition to the alt-folk pieces of the last few days is a repost of a Memory Band interview we did a while back - Stephen Cracknell was good enough to answer a few of our inane questions last July. If you're intrigued by this then go check out The Accidental as well. It's a band Cracknell formed with Sam Genders from Tunng and their album from earlier this year, There Were Wolves is a great record.
The Memory Band are a ragged collective grouped around the elusive figure of Stephen Cracknell - once of Badly Drawn Boy's band and the experimental folk of Gorodisch. At one time or another the band has featured Jennymay Logan, Adem, Polly Paulusmaand Alexis Taylor. As that diverse rabble might suggest they play what is ostensibly traditionally English, or British folk music but with a subtle electronic sensibility bubbling just beneath the surface. The first album kind of caught me by surprise in that it seemed underdone, slightly shambolic even; but over time I found myself listening to it more and more and I became if anything, beguiled by its simplicity. And Apron Strings has had a similar effect: it comes unadorned, unapologetic and it's a record that implicitly understands the participatory space of folk music: it's easy to feel welcomed inside where all those uneasy ghosts are having way much more fun than you are...
Thanks to the band for some cracking music and to Stephen Cracknell for taking the time to answer these questions.
Download: The Memory Band - I Wish I Wish
Listen: The Memory Band - I Wish I Wish
The Memory Band
mountain*7: You’re quite an eclectic bunch - can you give us a potted history of the band and how you got together?
stephen: The band started with me writing some things at home and recording using my computer and releasing it on a 7" single. After a while I realised it was music to be played by a band so I did some gigs with Adem, Polly Paulusma and Jennymay Logan helping out. When Adem and Polly signed solo deals I looked for more collaborators and we did our first gig with a full band at the very first Green Man festival, Nancy, Rob Spriggs and Alexis from Hot Chip played that day. as time has gone on the line up has changed with people coming in and out, there is a core group who play regularly but it stays pretty flexible.
mountain*7: How has this year been for you guys? How has the reaction to Apron Strings been?
stephen: It's been great fun we've played some lovely gigs in great locations and enjoyed ourselves immensely. the reaction to the album was good particularly in the US where it was our first proper release. Now I am about to start work on the third album so will be taking a break from live shows for a while.
mountain*7: I noticed various good reviews and quotes from the US including Spin magazine and Pitchfork. It's quite a 'British' sound you've got (whatever that might mean) - what sort of response has their been in the US?
stephen: The response has been very positive, being on Dicristina Stairbuilders [mountain*7: home to Vetiver and Vashti Bunyan amongst others] helps, they have a great little roster and it was our first US release. US writers seem to really like tracks like 'I Wish I Wish'. I think we stand apart from a lot of the psych-folk stuff thats very prevalent over there and that helps us the US media. Although on the surface our music is very British underneath there are a lot more global influences.
mountain*7: My initial reaction to Apron Strings was that it was a lot more structured than The Memory Band, which contained a lot of looser, almost jam-led material, – was this a conscious decision?
stephen: Not really, it was probably a result of playing more live shows and developing the songwriting. I don't tend to make conscious decisions in music, just follow where the notes take me. At the moment I think the next album will draw more upon the idea of jamming around loops and sketches, but you never know until you're into the process how it will sound.
Artist: The Memory Band
Album: The Memory Band
Label: Hungry Hill
mountain*7: How do you approach your material? I’ve read somewhere that you ‘had in mind drawing upon the vast "memory band" of music created since time began’ – that’s a daunting prospect!
stephen: It doesn't feel daunting, it's just freedom to take influence from everywhere without restrictions which feels liberating to me. I write in different ways with no particular method. Although we've always been described as a folky band, in truth the influences come from a much broader spectrum. I don't really understand the idea of musicians being influenced by other artists and trying to sound like them. I have no desire to sound like the people who inspire me, I more interested in using their ideas in new ways to create new sounds.
mountain*7: The traditional folk song, ‘I Wish I Wish’ has been collected numerous times (most famously by John Clare) – does the weight of all that history become cumbersome? Or is there a kind of freedom with genuine folk music?
stephen: Not at all. Our version isn't really an arrangement of a trad tune, the music is wholly original and the words just appealed to me and fitted with what I had, it just seemed to work. I don't really think about types of music, history or such weighty matters. the great thing about making music is the freedom to do what you want. Obviously folk music is a form where history and tradition has often been given a lot of emphasis but that feels quite alien to me. When I make music I feel free to do whatever I want.
Artist: The Memory Band
Album: Apron Strings
Label: Peacefrog
mountain*7: Does the same ideal of freedom lie behind the covers of such disparate songs as Ronnie Lane's 'The Poacher' and the Carly Simon/Natasha Thomas track 'Why (Does Your Love Hurt So Much'?)?
stephen: Yes, I like doing covers, as with the Arthur Russell track on the first album and its great fun doing them and trying to put our own spin on the tunes, which I think we do manage to pull off. I'd like to think we aren't intimidated with what others have done with the songs before.
mountain*7: What have you got planned for the summer? I see you had a slot at Glastonbury – any other festival plans, The Green Man maybe?
stephen: The plan is to get on with making the third album. I'm just finishing another project I've been producing in conjunction with Sam Genders from Tunng, which has yet doesn't have a name, we used the Glastonbury slot to try out some of that material - it wasn't really a Memory Band gig. When that is done it will be back to The Memory Band, which I'm really looking forward to. I've spent the last few years doing loads of music festivals, it will be good to take a break this year.
mountain*7: There seemed to be a nucleus of a 'scene' there for a while with the likes of yourself, Four Tet, Tunng and the whole Homefires thing etc, all melding various styles to varying degrees. Was that, and the godawful folktronica label, just something dreamt up by the music press or was it more than that?
stephen: Well I've known Kieran quite a while and the gang from Tunng are now good friends of mine. Along with the Fence Collective and others we have played a lot of the same festivals and got to know each other. I suppose that constitutes a scene, although I think there is far more diversity and variation in the acts than the media ever recognised. It wasn't just a media creation but the constraints of journalism often mean these things get simplified for a sound-bite culture and important factors are overlooked. What has been funny is seeing a lot of young acts following on who definitely call themselves "twisted folk" acts and very much focus on following in the footsteps of 60s artists which the media have identified as "heroes". I feel quite distant from that and that the earlier artists you mentioned are far more forward looking and less stuck on replicating what has gone before. That's not to say the younger acts aren't good, because many of them are, but that their emphasis seems quite different.
mountain*7: I read somewhere that you're originally from Hale in Surrey, near Hindhead. It's odd because I was reading some William Cobbett recently and he used to frequently crisscross that area of the country on his Rural Rides and there was a strange aura about Hindhead - almost as if it were treacherous or a place to be avoided. What was it like to grow up there, has it affected the way you make or approach music at all?
Hindhead
stephen: That's true I am from Hale and my family have lived in and around Aldershot for a several generations (Hindhead about ten miles south near the Sussex border). I have read some Willliam Cobbett but am not really a fan, he was a bit of a tory. That area of the World is very prosperous now and in truth I couldn't wait to leave, although it was a very beautiful area it was a bit of a cultural desert. My memories of it are that if you went towards London you headed into suburbia but if you headed West you came into a very English countryside, a few miles down the road they still talked with a real Hampshire burr, although the landscape is much transformed now, its part of one of the largest conurbations in the country. As for it affecting my music, I really couldn't say, I suppose it has to really maybe my music still looks in both directions. The story of Fanny Adams which inspired a song on the first album comes from Alton about ten miles further West, but I don't think there is anymore of a dark underbelly to the area than anywhere else, these things are universal. All the gang who started Trunk Records come from that part of the World too.
mountain*7: Trunk Records still seems to be going strong (I love the search engine description: Music - Nostalgia – Sex) – It seems to fit well with the overall aesthetic of The Memory Band, the idea of dipping into all that abandoned cultural memory and retrieving it…what’s happening with that right now? How do you source the material for it?
stephen: I haven't been involved with Trunk Records for a long time now, although I keep in regular touch with Jonny who is still a very close friend and am very proud that what we started is still going strong. Its had some great releases, the new release by Michael Garrick is spellbinding and I adore the Basil Kirchin stuff. As you say there is a strong aesthetic link with what The Memory Band does, its all connected in some strange way.
mountain*7: What are you listening to/reading/watching at the moment? Any recommendations for us?
stephen: I've been enjoying the Gruff Rhys album a lot and also the Fennesz/Ryuchi Sakamoto collaboration. There's an album coming out on Static Caravan by a harpist called Serafina Steer which is wonderful (she plays on the project I mentioned above). She covers a Brian Eno song which has led me to go back and listen to albums of his like Before And After Science. I listen to radio 3 a lot. The one thing I haven't been listening to is folk music....