STACK J#165 Jul 2018

MUSIC

NEWS

TOURING 5/7 - 24/9

The climax in single Formaldehyde is a gorgeous cacophony of sounds; it’s kind of terrifying but beautiful. How did you go about arranging it? I wanted it to be as though the subject was just punching the wall. That feeling of being so angry, and there’s no one to tell off, there’s nothing to fix, it’s just like, ‘I’ve got to deal with this feeling.’ We tried really hard for a very long time to get that part right, and I think the two moments when we realised we’d done it were when I played a cello and I put it through a… distortion pedal, and that really made the dark hit home. And then we wanted it to feel epic but not in a cheesy timpani way, or a cymbal swell way. So, we recorded [AFL game] Essendon versus Richmond – the crowd sound. There’s this roar that’s really subtle in the background, and it just tipped it over the edge into, ‘This woman could take down the world with this anger right now.’ It’s not, but it totally [sounds like that]. It’s just the sound boarding in the studio. You know those Japanese room dividers, and they’ve got the slats? It kind of looks like that, on the wall. Me and the drummer were playing. It was a very funny moment. For a good half an hour we were standing there The Melbourne musician goes into detail about the kooky and clever methods he employed to seek his sounds, during the recording of beautiful debut EP Measurements . DIDIRRI Speaking of mystery sounds, is there a guiro on Bird Sounds ?

grand piano for a good hour to get the right sound. We had this bag of things to drop on a grand piano and a toilet roll was the perfect chalky, light, weird sound. And then we were like, ‘Nah, doesn’t work’ when we got to mixing. That sounds like the musician Hauschka, and his ‘prepared piano’ – he hurls random objects all over the piano’s exposed strings, as he’s playing. I did three years of jazz piano and [one module] was all about the whacky side of jazz, and the prepared piano stuff. I remember listening to my first ever prepared piano piece and just thinking, ‘What the hell is going on here?’ But I definitely use aspects of that in the studio all the time. On Worth The Wait in particular – I think it’s my favourite sound on the record – there’s a fidget spinner on a grand piano, [spinning against] the strings. You mention painter Frida Kahlo as an enormous influence (specifically for the themes behind Formaldehyde ).Which other kinds of artists and their struggles to you admire, or have learned from? I have a lot of respect for how hard the job of comedian would be, as an artist. But I think they’re a real staple of what it is to be an artist... Their job is to see where the boundary is, and people don’t get that. They

trying to get the right beat on the wall. This is what recording with me is like; it’s just finding sounds rather than making them. How did that approach begin, and how do you attack the process of assembling these sounds together? These six songs were from a

freak out. They’re like, 'They went too far.' I’m like, 'That’s their job. Now you know where "too far" is. We all worked it out, isn’t that cool?' Tig Notaro is huge for me. She’s just one of those insanely good artists. Look up the Conan interview with Tig about staying present. It’s amazing; she basically ignores Conan for the whole interview while she’s on her phone. It’s just hilarious. ZKR

very specific time in my life, that [I spent] in a shed in Northcote, living on the dole and just creating songs. There’s so many sounds that don’t make [it]. Hayden [Calnin, producer and engineer] and I just create too much, and then the mixing process is removing stuff. Especially being really brutal about it – stuff we spent hours on. Like, we dropped a toilet roll on a

Measurements EP by Didirri is out July 6 via Sony.

GORILLAZ

W hen Gorillaz began recording their sixth studio album, it really wasn’t the best time for bassist Murdoc Niccals to get himself thrown in the clink. If he’s to be believed, he was actually framed by criminal kingpin El Mierda, who’s also a shadow demon... but whatever the details, the event left a bass-sized hole in the band; 2-D, Noodle and Russel promptly filled it with ghoulish character Ace. The 37-year-old first came to pop culture’s attention in 1998 as the leader of the Gangreen Gang, a five-strong posse of teenaged thugs who spent their time bothering the super-powered sisterly trio The Powerpuff Girls with petty felonies (prank calls, vandalism). He clearly

The Now

Now by Gorillaz is out now via Warner.

had a difficult upbringing, spending his nights in the town dump and living with a terrible fear of water. A NewYorker of Italian descent, he may or may not still enjoy his favourite childhood snacks of pizza and chocolate milk. Hear his talents on the bangin' new Gorillaz record The Now Now , out right now (now). ZKR

055