MAPPING YOUR OWN DREAMS
YOUR HAND IN MINE Explosions In The Sky are in the enviable position to create evocative, otherworldly music that creates a narrative that is both allencompassing and yet bound to the individual, with no one sharing the same experience. Such a strong instinctual notion inherent in their sound means that the band has touched others in a myriad of different, yet predominantly life-affirming ways. This means that the band hears about how their music has affected others in profound and often awe-inspiring ways, which never ceases to humble James.
TEXAN INSTRUMENTAL GODS EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY EVOKE POWERFULLY INTENSE SUITES OF SOUND WHOSE BEAUTY CAN IGNITE INTO CATHARTIC NOISE AT THE DROP OF A HAT. BUT AS MICHAEL JAMES TELLS DEVOUT ACOLYTE BRENDAN TELFORD, NOTHING IS LEFT TO CHANCE; EVERYTHING IS ON THE LINE; THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS GOODBYE.
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hilst the idea of instrumental rock is a beguiling one, it seems to be an incredibly difficult path to traverse if you want to create anything that can be deemed unique. The express individuality of the vocal chords can pitch a thousand similar-sounding acts into a thousand different directions. Yet there are many bands that have managed to forgo the vocalist and craft a musical plateau all of their own. Explosions In The Sky is one such band, wielding their brand of devastatingly beautiful sonic narratives for over a decade. The fourpiece is iconic in itself – three guitarists with a penchant for reverb-heavy intricacy and a drummer whose simple dynamism is the centrifugal force that keeps the cogs from flying off the wheel – yet the sound is untouchable, alternating between abject beauty and quaking fear, delicate layering and powerful, seismic shifts. These songs are spiritual, capable of stopping breath, or starting a heart. Their esteemed career has been understated due to the band’s quiet modesty, but the music speaks for itself, most recently culminating in their latest, the longwinded Take Care, Take Care, Take Care. Despite its repetitive nature, guitarist/bass player Michael James iterates that the title is indicative of the dual nature of saying goodbye. “We really liked the sentiment of the term ‘take care’. Especially in the US, it is used as a sort of goodbye, yet there is such an emotional component to any goodbye, you know, to say ‘take care’ to anyone is to bid goodbye for a while, or possible even forever; a definitive end to something. So the term seemed to fit with the sounds of the songs we were writing. Then we discovered that when you say the words over and over again, they seem to blend together into the term ‘caretake’, a term that is almost the inverse – a warmer, caring notion. That was such a sweet sentiment to us, the duality of it. It suited the music perfectly.” Rather than the album be a departure or a swansong, though, Take Care, Take Care, Take Care opens up new realms for the quartet to explore, with the most notable change being the track, Trembling Hands, both because of its brevity and the use of vocals (although heavily distorted by effects) as opposed to sampled dialogue as has been utilised in the past. Rather than alienate a hardcore fanbase, however, the band are inviting their fans along for the ride. “As far as writing for the album this time around it was much more about the experimentation,” James concedes. “We tried a lot of things that we hadn’t tried before – for example the vocals elements, different samples – but with the overarching idea of creating different sound textures. So we tried dozens of different ideas, all with the express purpose to find new ways to create the sounds we could hear in our own heads. The experiments that worked are the ones that made it onto the album, but there were so many more… they were called experiments for a reason!” Trembling Hands was the first cut off the album and for many it was confronting because of its punch and verve in such a short time-span, with the multi-layered slowburners of yore passed over for something more immediate. While this is not entirely new (their impromptu “concept album” The Return is made up of eight tracks of shorter duration), it creates an effect that at first glance would not be deemed a part of Explosions In The Sky’s modus operandi. The fact that this track is the only one of its kind on the album seemed like a deliberate ruse. “We feel that the track serves a definite purpose on the album, but it wasn’t 36 • THE DRUM MEDIA
always in such a form. It originally was a part of a much longer song composition and for some reason the whole thing just wasn’t working the way we felt it should. We feel that each and every song, regardless of its length, its trajectory, always has an end point, yet this one seemed to meander and never quite get there. We kinda stepped back from it and we realised that if we cut all the fat from it, whittled it down to half its size, the end result seemed to distil everything we intended to say, or wanted to express, in just that short space. It proved to be a controlled burst of energy, so the attempt to create this really short song is not true. We never thought like that; we never think like that.” Such admissions highlights the organic nature of the band, intimating that it isn’t just the music that coalesces into other spheres but that the entire process is driven by searching realms hitherto unexplored in order to discover what lies on the other side. Again this is underlined by another first, an official music video for Last Known Surroundings; a decidedly weird, ethereal animated journey that, whilst it evokes many emotions, could wreck the delicate soundscapes that the music renders on its own. James concedes that while it was something they have always dreamt of doing, the prospect of actively altering people’s perceptions of what to take from their music has always been a daunting one. “We always hear from people that with our music they hear it and make up their own stories; their own movies in their head when listening to it. With that in mind we were always hesitant to go out and potentially wreck that magical experience in many ways. Eventually though we had to decide what was it that we wanted – and the truth
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lines because the music speaks for itself, yet we see it as our one chance to tell people what the songs mean to us. The difficulty lies in not making it too pointed, so that the listener can make up their own minds.” It would appear that the creation of all things Explosions In The Sky is democratic, yet James shirks from such a notion, intimating that there have been a lot of discarded soundscapes over the past decade. “I guess it could be referred to as democratic, but that’s not entirely true, because that would mean a majority rules and that’s just not the case for us. It has to be everybody voting the same way, it can’t be three out of four people liking something. We either all love a part or a song, or it goes away. That was something we established a long time ago – we wanted everyone to love and feel passionate about every aspect of the music. It can be incredibly frustrating – that’s for sure – and it happens all the time. Especially if there’s something you really love and wanna fight for and someone else doesn’t, then you have to let it go and that is a very hard thing to do. That said, despite the hard parts, I think [our process] really is the perfect example of quality control. We have thrown out way more material than we have put on tape. It is a great filter – nothing is left half-hearted, nothing is left to chance.” The gratitude for the band’s unique take on the instrumental rock sound filters through also, via the myriad acts attributing their own aspirations to their discovery of and immediate love for the band, to inspirational soundtracks for the likes of unlikely gridiron drama, Friday Night Lights. Yet this year the fans have taken it a step further, with Take Care, Take Care, Take
OUR MUSIC, FOR BETTER OR WORSE, IS SOMETHING YOU HAVE TO REALLY COMMIT TO AND INVEST IN TO GET THE MOST OUT OF IT.”
was we wanted to see it happen, see for ourselves what one of these stories or movies might look like. Last Known Surroundings seemed destined to have animation; it seems the best medium to go about ’experiencing’ the song.” While seeing their work interpreted from another’s perspective was exciting for James, it is a vastly different realisation when conceiving their own world. The creation process for any Explosions In The Sky track is one rather removed from most of their contemporaries. “We often have incredibly detailed narratives that go along with the music that can even inform the music after we’ve started writing. However there are moments where things prove to be a little more… ambiguous. The true beauty of what we do is that there is no blueprint. The only constant is that by the end of the writing process we as a group have a clearly defined notion of what a song means for us. It’s something that we discuss a lot in the writing process and sometimes the discussions will take longer than the writing of the song actually took. Being an instrumental band, though, there is one way to perfectly illustrate that before hearing the song, or to inform when you hear the song – and that is in the song titles. We get why some bands write throwaway
Care being the first Explosions album to make the top 20 of the US Billboard charts debuting at #16. For a band that fails to fit the demographic for almost all radio airwave templates, such an achievement says a lot about the band’s evolution. “It’s incredibly encouraging, because in the States you don’t hear us on the radio at all,” James attests. “To get radio play here you have to have short songs and spend a tonne of money and we clearly do not have either. Yet despite, or maybe because of this, we have managed to develop a pretty great fanbase that have been very supportive and loyal over the years. So to see these people voting with their hard earned to actually buy our record, especially in the first days after it came out, says so much about you guys, the fans. This isn’t about throwaway purchases either – our music, for better or worse, is something you have to really commit to and invest in to get the most out of it. We are blessed, that’s for sure.” WHO: Explosions In The Sky WHAT: Take Care, Take Care, Take Care (Spunk/EMI) WHEN & WHERE: Sunday, Metro Theatre
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Weddings – “The most common thing we hear is the wedding song, like the bridal waltz, the song chosen being one of our songs. And that is a moment that marks a massive step in two people’s lives; that point where you become one and the rest of your lives from that point forward, you have chosen to do it together. A lot of thought has gone into this selection. We have all gone on and have had similar experiences and choosing the songs for a wedding is a really big deal.” Sporting Events – “This has a natural run-on from [scoring] Friday Night Lights. We often hear about how athletes, coaches, teams will use aspects of our music to help them get into the right frame of mind before a really big game. Which to me is pretty great, because we are about positivity and about making a difference, yet it never gets old when someone comes up and says that our music inspires them, you know? It inspires them to go and do great things in their lives. To be a part of people’s lives in that way, even indirectly, is a huge compliment and a humbling one.” Birthing – “I think the most beautiful thing that I have ever heard in terms people will play our music while they are having a child. We have had women – and men – tell us that whilst the woman is giving birth to their child, they have had our music playing in the room in order to set the right atmosphere for that. For someone to want to score that beautiful moment of their lives with our music? That blows me away. Even now, just thinking about it, I get goosebumps.”