Barry Andrews

Reader's Voice aims to give people a few good reading tips. For this back issue (February, 2006) of readersvoice.com I caught up on what Barry Andrews from Shriekback had been reading, plus I asked him about the new Shriekback album Cormorant, on the Malicious Damage label.
Cormorant features Barry Andrews’ trademark taste, intensity, and sense of beauty.
He said the death of his father Bill Andrews in 2004 had a massive influence on the album, indicated by the image on the cover of the Cormorant CD. “The idea of the lone sea bird in a waste of water seemed like a good image to describe the feeling.”
But there’s light and humor in the album, too. And some songs, like Ronny, Sea Theory and Waterbaby, get stuck in your mind.

READERSVOICE: Could you list some of the things you’ve been reading of late, in particular any out of the way stuff people might not have heard of?

BARRY ANDREWS: Books wot I have read: Had a bit of a Vonnegut jag recently starting with a re-reading of Galapagos which is hugely entertaining and made me very excited about Natural Selection (the human race, a million years in the future, have evolved into furry seal-like creatures with minimal intelligence because our big brains just got us into trouble ie: were inimical to our survival - having invented nuclear war, pollution etc)
-which led me onto trying out the real thing as it were (tentatively, cos I've feared science since school): Richard Dawkins and his Ancestor's Tale - interesting certainly but not as much as I wanted it to be.
A Field Guide to Sprawl by Dolores Hayden - a great little book to read after a U.S. tour when you see all these new -mostly upsetting- landscape features first hand (though even we space-impaired Brits seem to be getting the hang of Sprawl now). Wonderful new locutions: Boomburb ; Alligator TOAD (Temporary, Obsolete, Abandoned or Derelict) Snout House, Pork Chop Lot. And the description of how these things come to be is delivered with a stone-cold, economic logic.
The Monumental Impulse by George Hersey. About how the impulse to build may be hardwired into humans in the same way as birds build nests or termites hills.
And never get tired of London Fields by Martin Amis. So very horrible and great.
Smoke -a magazine full of things about London (Matt Haynes and Jude Rogers) -hilarious (they have a website).

RV: I was wondering how you go about writing the lyrics for your songs. Do you sit down and let each song come out in one hit; or do you also use a diary full of interesting phrases you’ve heard or thought up, which you somehow add to the songs?

BA: It's a process akin to apple bobbing: you have to will the things into your mouth but not forcefully or they get away. It's a bit of a bastard mostly: sometimes -rarely- they do just appear, then it's a very sexy feeing. I remember Arthur Sullivan (yes, him) writing that a coal miner doesn't sit at the top of the mine waiting for the coal, he goes down and digs the motherfucker out (I paraphrase freely) and so I find it (except without the physical effort and the silicosis, obviously).

RV: You played keyboards on Brian Eno’s album Another Day on Earth (2004). What do you like about his approach to making music?

BA: I think he pushes you away from your usual tricks and that can be unnerving, but it can lead you to unprecedented places. Also, it may not. Last time I saw him he was playing an effects unit with his face. That's what it's all about.

RV:You also worked with Iggy Pop in 1979 on Soldier. How did that come about and what did you pick up from the way he went about writing and making music?

BA: He was in London looking to draft in a few of the 'punk' brigade, his people talked to my people etc. I guess the main feeling that album left me with was how clever and hard working XTC were in comparison for it was a very slack and rudderless project. Iggy's great but not quite firing on all cylinders at the time I would say.

RV: Where was the improvisation you performed recently with Andy Partridge and how did that go? Will that be released as a cd?

BA: Dont want to say too much about that yet. It was very creative though and may very well surface.

RV: Had you been in touch with Andy Partridge since your days in XTC, or was there some kind of reunion, with the Cormorant album, on which he played guitar?

BA: Only to occasionally eat curry and drink beer. And write sleeve notes for their retro compilation. It was all part of a slow recalibration of our relationship after the turbulence of youth.

RV: Cormorant is dedicated to your father Bill Andrews who died in 2004. I was wondering what influences he had on your character.

BA: Wow, there's a big question. He was extremely down to earth; never listened to music and rarely read anything except the paper. He liked objects though -buildings, structures, solid things. I guess I absorbed that side of him and reacted against the other side. He did have a great way with words though and a very dry wit which I admired and tried to copy.

READERSVOICE.COM: Time is a big theme on Cormorant. One of your lines in Ronny says “and you know what they say: nothing real’s ever lost/ throw the thing away every night hereafter…” and in Load the Boat: “Back there in ’85 – that whole scene”. Plus there’s the song Il Mystera del Tempo. How do you get your head around the world of the past, musically and personally? Or do you just discard it and keep moving?

BARRY ANDREWS: 'History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake'. I get temporal vertigo quite often. We're alone in an indifferent universe where the only certainty is death. Let the Good Times Roll.

RV: Was Waterbaby the first song written that appeared on Cormorant, performed in your live shows in early 2003?

BA: As a finished song, yes.

RV: What sort of logistics and arrangements are required to record an album like this? What were the first steps you took, and what choices did you have to make to get it organized?

BA: The New Machines make it possible for you to work more as a writer or a painter would work: do some sketches when you feel inspired; stick 'em in a pile; come back to them when you have some perspective; edit, transform, cross-breed. Some of the grooves for instance (Huytfi, True Passage,Troublemeat) were part of the Stic Basin recordings back in 03. People turn up sometimes; sometimes you have to ring them up. It was all dead organic.
And the record company, in the shape of Mike Coles, came along half way through. Which is rather cool I think- the thing gathering energy as it goes instead of all being predicated on a yes/no before anything can happen.

RV: Cormorant was recorded in the “on-the-hoof mobile in London and Swindon between April ’04 and September ‘05”. What’s the on-the-hoof mobile?

BA: It's a name for my laptop running some sequencing software and some virtual instruments, a mixing desk and a sound system. And a mike. That's it. Elegant, no?

RV: What instruments, electronic elements, and vocal effects are used in Cormorant that weren’t present in previous Shriekback albums?

BA: Well all of the above. Plus the strange synergy that happens when you plug everything into everything else: the stew effect. There's been much more time to fool around, explore tangents; poke around in God's broom cupboard.

RV: Did your recording methods with Cormorant differ from earlier Shriekback albums? One article kind of joked that Cormorant was you with a laptop in a home studio (the one you built in 2000-2001?).

BA: No joke (see above) but the next generation on from that studio (that one was rubbish).

RV: Why did you use other studios, too, like Panic Studios for Martyn Barker’s drums, and Alchemy Studios for mastering by Kenny Jones?

BA: Panic for drums because you need lots of mikes and quite a bit of room and it makes a big racket, Alchemy for mastering because a 2nd pair of ears (especially Kenny's) and some expensive plug-ins can make a big difference when you're sick to death of hearing your tunes and dont know what's good or crap anymore.

RV: What sort of things and directions do you want to try in future in your music?

BA: I'd like to try using other voices, to write a large scale piece to be sung by other people. Something with a narrative but not shit. Shouldn't be hard eh ...well you just try it.

RV: There are two ambient tracks on Cormorant, and electronic music plays a big part in the album. Also you’ve worked with Brian Eno. I was wondering if you could list some of your favorite ambience or electronic albums of all time, and which new releases of electronica or ambience you have liked.

BA: Well, there are 2 instrumental tracks which is not the same thing as 'ambient' I would suggest. I think 'ambient' means that nothing's foregrounded; that the music is content to serve as atmosphere. 'Huytfi' and 'Passage' have narratives, protagonists, and demand you get comfy, turn the lights off, maybe even order in a pizza, and give them your full attention. Recently: the Books, God Speed you Black Emperor.
Formatively in the past: Terry Riley dub reggae Aphex Twin; I saw Steve Beresford and Steve Noble with a trombonist at the 12 Bar a couple of years back. Very exciting. I had a phase of listening to late night pirate shows in London when Drum n'Bass was 'Hardcore' and found that kinda toxic but very interesting. Afrikaa Bambatta and all those NYC chaps.

RV: What happened after you finished recording Cormorant? What did you have to do then as far as getting the album up and running and marketing it?

BA: Had a bit of a lie down. Fought off feelings of self hatred and disappointment. Began a punishing drinking schedule. Started bugging Mike [Coles] about press and artwork. You know.

RV: What’s your daily routine these days?

BA: So unutterably mundane I can't express it.

RV: What are some of your plans with tours or future recordings, or any other activities?

BA: Firstly to get 'the Eggs' out: collectors edition 50 numbered polished resin cormorant eggs which have a memory stick in them unloading the album, 4 extra tracks and an interview. Coming at you with many extras in a nice cardboard box. I shall be undertaking a series of accompanying artworks called: '50 Ways of Looking at a Cormorant' featuring Vile Homunculus. And writing towards the next album -I have half a dozen really quite decent grooves bubbling up. I may be putting them up one a month for download. And, of course, seeing where the Andy and Mart thing goes.

- Cormorant by Shriekback is released by the Malicious Damage music label.

- copyright Simon Sandall.