Photography – sonny mccartney Writer – chal ravens
eading the mini-explosion of lo-fi scratchiness and cassette tape cool that started spreading through England’s cities three years ago was Mazes, the Manchester band who migrated south to Dalston before releasing a stack of curiously catchy, scuzzed-up songs in the vein of Guided by Voices, Pavement and any number of DIY melody makers of the early ‘90s. Singer and guitarist Jack Cooper, bassist Conan Roberts, drummer Neil Robinson and guitarist Jarin Tabata released their album ‘A Thousand Heys’, played about a thousand shows and even supported their heroes Sebadoh on a tour across America before the wheels started to come off. Reduced to a three-piece and sick of their own songs, they ploughed their next advance into recording equipment and set about making ‘Ores and Minerals’, the new album due February 18th that shows a rather more poised and precise side to this nowtrio of undernourished plaid shirt-wearers.‘A Thousand Heys’ sounded decidedly on-the-fly;‘Ore and Minerals’, is notably inspired by drone friends Hookworms and Brighton cyclical jammers Cold Pumas. Mazes now groove more than they fizz. Sitting on empty kegs in the bar of an east London brewery, Jack and Conan lament the commercialisation of DIY culture, celebrate the death of the music industry and reveal why they’re afraid of the taxman.
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www.loudandquiet.com
Chal Ravens: Mazes first broke out as part of a wave of
scruffy, lo-fi bands like Pens, Male Bonding and Spectrals, releasing cassettes on tiny labels and putting on their own shows. How did that scene emerge? Conan Roberts: We were influenced by what was going on in the States at the time. The way the Smell scene blew up [the Los Angeles all-ages bar home to bands like Health and No Age], I think a lot of people just got really influenced by that. Bands like Male Bonding and Pens started really small, doing cassettes, and went on to do albums with really cool labels in England and the States. At the same time, I think the ‘market’, so to speak, is way more flooded with that stuff now. CRa: Do you think some bands take the aesthetic of DIY without taking on the ethics? CR: Yeah, totally. Jack Cooper: The fact we were recording to tape was a reaction against everything that was going on at that time. The things we were listening to in mainstream indie music sounded so staid and so regimented. Nowadays lo-fi, or DIY, has become a selling point for some bands. CR: Yeah, it’s totally come full circle when bands like Palma Violets are on these massive labels, yet they have this DIY look about them. I don’t know much about them, but I hear the music and it’s like... awful. JC: Don’t say you’re DIY when you’re on Mega Records or whatever. I mean, we all like a lot of good music that’s on major labels, there’s not anything wrong with that at all, it’s awesome if someone wants to spend a load of money on you and take you around the world – but don’t lie to us. CRa: You’ve both had experience running your own labels – Jack with Suffering Jukebox and Conan with
Italian Beach Babes. JC: Oh no, I’ve stopped. I like the whole process of working with bands and putting out records, but I found doing press just soul-destroying. CR: I’ve done Italian Beach Babes for four, nearly five years now. I get really paranoid that it’s getting too big, ‘cos it’s literally a bedroom label, it doesn’t go through the taxman or anything. I have sleepless nights thinking I’m gonna get a letter asking for all my receipts, which I’ve not got any of! CRa: Why have so many bands been releasing on cassette over the past few years? Wouldn’t it be much cheaper for a DIY label to sell MP3s? CR: But that’s just really dull, it’s so throwaway. If you’re gonna call yourself a DIY label then there’s nothing that taxing about uploading five MP3s to the Internet. It’s not really a craft. I sit there at night with a pair of scissors cutting everything out, printing the tape stickers and sticking them on. I dub all my tapes at home as well, so I sit there for a whole day pressing record. It’s like a craft in a way. JC: I don’t feel romantic about it in any way, but it’s just nice to have a physical thing, ‘cos if the Internet blows up and all those 1s and 0s disappear, then you kind of need something physical. CRa: Your upcoming record ‘Ores and Minerals’ sounds much sharper and tidier than the lo-fi, Pavementindebted sounds on your debut.What’s changed? JC: For the first record we went to a studio, it’s called Lightship and it’s on the Thames, everyone records there... CR: Palma Violets record there! JC: ... but for this record we spent the advance on recording equipment, and we recorded it mainly at my flat.