This is an interview I did with Francois for an article I wrote about him for the upcoming edition of The Stool Pigeon. Francois makes his own beautiful music as well as playing in Camera Obscura occasionally. His new album, Plaine Inondable, is out on Fence very soon.
How did the album come to be released on Fence?
Well I recorded the album in France, I went back to France without any particular intention, partly to have a good rest, a nice rest. And we recorded without having a finished project in mind, and when it was all finished and listenable then I started playing it to a few people. Around that time I played a show supporting Rozi Plain and The Pictish Trail. He liked my show and said ‘I’d like to hear your recorded music’ and they liked it. ‘Talitres’ – releasing it in Europe.
When you were making the record was there a conscious attempt to change the nature of the songs?
I guess it was new influences that I’ve had, like all the African music that we’ve talked about, recordings from Africa in the 70s, I like the feeling of that.
Was the intention to make an album?
Well, a third of the songs were quite old, even going back to the time when I moved to Bristol in 2003. And some stuff was recorded in the month before we finished. I had an idea of going to Bulgaria to record with Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares, but it was too much of a big project, too expensive and too far to go, I didn’t feel like I had the musical skills. I’d got in touch with the director of the choir, and she’ wrote back, she was nice, gave a feeling I could do something anyway. And I started looking for some good vocalists, like polyphonic choirs; when I was in France my friend knew some girls from the Basque country who knew some traditional songs but as well they had the ability to sing like Bulgarian choirs, that kind of weird close harmony thing. Strange and very beautiful as well. So instead of going to Bulgaria I just went to the Basque country and met the girls, who were nice and very young and happy to take part in a musical project. So we recorded four songs with them and they came to play with me live, and it was really beautiful, amazing polyphonic sound.
What about that sound appealed to you?
I guess the feeling of purity in it, there’s nothing much to it, just vocals. Feels simple to listen to it because there’s not much to it.
Because I didn’t have to work or feel stressed about money because I was staying at my parents’. It wasn’t easy going back to my parents’ but it actually went well this time, it was nice. We had so much time, we could just experiment. It was a real luxury. I imagine, in my stereotyped vision of the 70s, I just imagine that people had more time, just playing and jamming and finding ideas. Instead of having to organise everything an having to organise everything in one afternoon.
When you live in a big British city it feels like you’re taking everybody’s time and you don’t want to ask too much of other musicians. Whereas in France it was just a bunch of kids who have nothing to do apart from hanging around and playing music, it was great.
Can you explain the title of the album?
Flood Plains, yeah. It’s because where my mum lives and where I lived as a teenager is by a river which in the winter floods all the plains around. It’s very beautiful because everything turns into a big lake. It happens every year actually, and every year people are like, ‘oh my god there’s a flood’. But some years are worse than others, and I remember my house being flooded as well when I was younger.
Did recording near the river have a big effect?
Yeah, totally. Being away from france for a while, and then coming back, I could see the landscapes around there with new eyes. I was really into painting at the time so it turned into some kind of impressionistic trip. The water as well, listening to Debussy and Satie, all that stuff. And the title, Flood Plains – it’s quite contemplative I guess, and at the same time a bit violent and out of the ordinary as well. The flood is this weird phenomenon that overtakes everything, it feels like the river is just quiet, and then all of a sudden it just overtakes everything. It was a good thing to look at, the phenomenon of the river raising…
What’s the relation between your painting and your music?
It’s very much two separate spaces, I use my drawings for my animations, so they meet but they’re not made at the same time. When I draw I don’t really have any music in my head and when I play music I don’t think of my drawings, it’s not visual at all. Drawing clears my mind of my musical occupation, and visa versa.
Now that yr signed to bigger labels, are you more open to delegating things to other people?
I think it’s very important to retain control and the more I hang out with well established musicians like Camera Obscura, I feel like I’m really enjoying having control over what I do. But as you said I’m really enjoying being able to delegate some sides of it that I’m not very good with dealing with like all the financial and legal aspects of publishing and stuff.
How has Bristol’s DIY scene shaped your view of making music?
I guess I’ll see better with time but I’ve really enjoyed all the past years in Bristol and I’ve learnt a lot from the DIY way of organising things, it’s really enthusiastic. I met a lot of people and it’s really incredible, so many ideas are being spread by everybody, it’s great. It feels like, when you put one foot inside the world of the industry, all the ideas are very compressed, to make them more manageable on a big scale I guess. But when you’re DIY you can experiment a lot and play with lots of musicians and it doesn’t matter if there’s certain people on stage because you don’t have to pay them. It’s just easier. More liberal, you have more freedom. I guess that shaped my music a lot in the sense that I had a taste of doing things the way I wanted to do them, and I want to carry on working in that way, even though I have help from labels now. It was very important to go through the DIY process.
Did the new album feel like a breakthrough?
No, it didn’t at all. Especially when I was recording it, I really didn’t care what would happen to it, even if it was for a few friends I would’ve been happy, because I just didn’t care at the time. I didn’t really think about carrying on doing music at the time, I really wanted to stop doing the whole touring thing. I don’t think it’s gonna be a breakthrough. With the help of these labels, more people will have access to it and I’ve already had good reviews and people discovering the world, the universe behind this one album and I think that’s what I hope that people see – just one piece in my collection of songs more than the album. I don’t see it as my most important album.
How did yr collaboration with Camera Obscura come about?
I met them when I was volunteering at the Cube, and then went to Glasgow a few weeks later and met them again and became friends. Throughout the years we kept in touch and then in 2006 they needed someone to play support so we did that. Then their trumpet player was having a baby so they asked me if I wanted to do it. And of course that was a good opportunity for me.
So what’s next for you?
There’s lots of ideas in terms of the next albums, and I don’t know what’s gonna happen next. I really wanna tour a lot; it’s funny because I used to be scared by the organisation thing, and now I feel like I’ve got better. I just want to be able to enjoy that. I’m really lucky to have the opportunity of people asking me to play, it’s quite good. The label in France wants to do more dates in Europe. So I wanna tour and to get used to playing live as much as I can, and maybe make an album out of that experience, so we’ll see. I guess my music’s focussed on whatever happens in the time around the music.
It’s late Friday night, so here are some musings by the great Allen Ginsberg on eternity.
This is the last poem Ginsberg wrote, days before he died:
Things I’ll Not Do (Nostalgias)
Never go to Bulgaria, had a booklet & invitation
Same Albania, invited last year, privately by Lottery scammers or
recovering alcoholics,
Or enlightened poets of the antique land of Hades Gates
Nor visit Lhasa live in Hilton or Ngawang Gelek’s household & weary
ascend Potala
Nor ever return to Kashi “oldest continuously habited city in the world”
bathe in Ganges & sit again at Manikarnika ghat with Peter,
visit Lord Jagganath again in Puri, never back to Bibhum take
notes tales of Khaki B Baba
Or hear music festivals in Madras with Philip
Or enter to have Chai with older Sunil & Young coffeeshop poets,
Tie my head on a block in the Chinatown opium den, pass by Moslem
Hotel, its rooftop Tinsmith Street Choudui Chowh Nimtallah
Burning ground nor smoke ganja on the Hooghly
Nor the alleyways of Achmed’s Fez, nevermore drink mint tea at Soco
Chico, visit Paul B. in Tangiers
Or see the Sphinx in Desert at Sunrise or sunset, morn & dusk in the
desert
Ancient sollapsed Beirut, sad bombed Babylon & Ur of old, Syria’s
grim mysteries all Araby & Saudi Deserts, Yemen’s sprightly
folk,
Old opium tribal Afghanistan, Tibet – Templed Beluchistan
See Shangha again, nor cares of Dunhuang
Nor climb E. 12th Street’s stairway 3 flights again,
Nor go to literary Argentina, accompany Glass to Sao Paolo & live a
month in a flat Rio’s beaches and favella boys, Bahia’s great
Carnival
Nor more daydream of Bali, too far Adelaide’s festival to get new scent
sticks
Not see the new slums of Jakarta, mysterious Borneo forests & painted
men and women
Nor mor Sunset Boulevard, Melrose Avenue, Oz on Ocean Way
Old cousin Danny Leegant, memories of Aunt Edith in Santa Monica
No mor sweet summers with lovers, teaching Blake at naropa,
Mind Writing Slogans, new modern American Poetics, Williams
Kerouac Reznikoff Rakosi Corso Creely Orlovsky
Any visits to B’nai Israel graves of Buda, Aunt Rose, Harry Meltzer and
Aunt Clara, Father Louis
Not myself except in an urn of ashes
March 30, 1997, A.M.
Here’s some pictures of backstage before our show at the ICA with Noah about ten days ago. Some tomfoolery with Francois occuring, no doubt.
Here is an article I wrote for The Shrieking Violet fanzine. You can find The Shrieking Violet blog on the link on the left, and pick up an actualy physical copy of the zine in Manchester when it comes out next month.
Something feels kind of wrong this August. As I write the football season is in full swing, and, on the one hand, everything seems reassuringly familiar. The crowds are full of bustling, stodgy middle-aged men. The Match of the Day sofa is as pert as ever, Shearer’s chest hair as engagingly visible, Lawrenson’s collars as provocatively large. But something feels wrong. Or rather, it all feels too right. There is too much familiarity, too much continuity. Premiership football should normally be about constant renewal, the cut-and-thrust of a business at the extreme sharp end of the capitalist knife-point, where every draw is a sackable offense, where every missed penalty could ultimately spell out million pound losses, relegation, trips to Doncaster, away.
Yet this summer, it all felt too familiar. The annual team slog to new or ‘emerging’ markets, desperate owners parading their team’s wares in front of potential American or Asian consumers like so many beauty queens, Rooney’s chops a main attraction on the Korean grass catwalk. The same declarations of loyalty, from players previously minutes away from moves to a higher plain of remuneration. The same blind statements of intent, gloriously shortsighted confidence, from managers weeks away from a new season, a clean slate. Only for it all it instantly evaporate upon contact with sad reality, a 1-7 defeat at home to Colchester, for instance.
Still, where were the new players? With the vainglorious exceptions of Manchester City and Real Madrid, there was a deathly silence across the summer plateau. The transfer window was open, the pie was on the sill, but no one dared take a piece. Not even a little sniff. Men were bought on pay-per-play deals, the value of ‘continuity’ exhorted by players once, and soon to be, heard pleading with their manger to spend BIG, unpluck the silk purse strings, aim for the sky. But still, no takers. Money is tight. The stock market has crashed. More importantly, so has the price of oil – that which now, as with so much else, greases the axels of the Premier League’s slick, shady self-perpetuation. The squads remained, more or less, the same.
And so, football fans had to turn their heads elsewhere for their shot of novelty; like drowning men, they trash around underwater, desperate for air, for sunlight. And where better to look than the football kit? The new strip, usually kept under wraps in a lead box until the moment of unveiling – the epitome of novelty, last season’s disappointments and frustrations forgotten at the first whiff of a polystyrene cuff. But yet again, were we left wanting. This seasons shirts are dismal – Chelsea’s a strange imitation of a breast plate, Everton’s sad little bib, Man Utd’s almost new-rave ‘Flying V’. Where, I wondered, where the shirts of old?
The Everton bib
Indeed, the more I thought about it, the more I realised that, as the decade draws to a close, that the last ten years have been a more or less relentless march of poorly conceived strips. Looking back on my youth, it seemed that somehow the art of shirt design had been lost somewhere, somehow, around the turn of the millennia. Though part of my nostalgia may be a sad fondness for the years of my boyhood, it still seemed to me that football strips peaked around 1996, and that everything since has been an approximation of decline.
The nineties were to football what the sixties were to pop music; a period of renewal, of hope rising from the ashes of despair. For the bleakness of the war and post-war rationing, read Hillsborough and Heysel. For Lennon and McCartney, read Gascoigne and Cantona. The moment often touted as the turning point for English football (still in the wilderness of a ban on entering European competition) is Gascoigne’s tears in 1990, the defining image of which being that of him wiping his red, sodden face on his white shirt. Perhaps at that moment the shirt became, more than ever, part of the iconography of the sport, something with which to carry a message and a spirit beyond the obligatory sponsor’s legend.
I look at the shirts of the nineties now, and I see nothing but greatness, a spirit of enterprise and optimism now lost in the dizzying money market of modern football. Often, there would be patterns within patterns, strange arrangements of shapes and shades creating wider movements and lines. Norwich’s famous home jersey from 1993 is a prime example. Just what are those almost Tetris-like blocks? Why are there so many of them? Why are they layered in front of an almost abstract swathe of green brush-strokes? In truth, there are no answers to these queries. The Norwich shirt, like the Platonic ideal, merely is, without any further relation to reality. It lives and breathes self-confidence and effortless charm, it dreams the impossible. It can beat Bayern Munich. It can do anything. Similarly with Man Utd’s home shirt from 1994-1996, there is almost no regard for decency. There is a picture of Old Trafford in the design. Or rather, the picture is the design.
This is a period secure in itself, in its history and prestige. Can you imagine Arsenal now proudly emblazoning their kit with a picture of the Emirates? Or see Joey Barton wear a shirt with a lace collar? No, these days are past. We now belong to a sporting period so in thrall to shares prices, to profit margins and bank loans, that risk is a luxury ill-afforded. Clubs need shirt sales so they play it safe. The same players – now little more than faceless thoroughbreds, elite, media-trained greyhounds – trot out in the same, non-descript kits. To paraphrase The Wave Pictures, ‘nothing’s different, nothing got changed’.
Yet still, sometimes, late at night, I squint at pictures of Stuart Pearce, after taking that penalty against Spain at Euro 1996, look at the beautiful sky-blue of the trim, see the muscular contortions of his passionate, human face, and dream of happier times.
Planet Earth can confirm that the rumours are true – we will be Djing at the Noah album launch party, alongside Daisy Lowe and Vampire Weekend. Expect to see pictures of us in the LondonLite the next day, with accompanying shot of a cheeky nipple-slip.
And yes, I will be playing this:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=134633468160
Planet Earth are now on the verge of finally becoming just a hanging cypher, a collection of simulacra. We’re on iTunes. Check: 
And here’s a drawing Francois did of us in the studio in Bristol
We got back from Bristol yesterday, where we’ve spent the last week recording the new single and other songs. We were lucky to have involved a whole heap of people we like. The first night we stayed with George, who has played in a whole heap of great Bristol bands, like The Atlas Mountains and Headfall. He has a lovely flat and an amazing record collection. We had just been admiring this great compilation of curtain hairstyles, and so, after a quick walk in the rain, he arranged his hair in homage.
We stayed the rest of the time with Steve, who runs Stitch-Stitch and who plays in Planet Earth whenever we’re in Bristol and he’s free. He has his own allotment, which we visited in between another biblical downpour.
On Monday we recorded the single at The Cube theatre. We were joined by Charlie and Tom from Noah, as well as Liam from Boxcar Aldous Huxley. We spread out inside the empty room to try and capture some of the atmosphere of the room. I think it worked quite well.
We were also joined by Anna from The Middle Ones on backing vocals.
That’s her on the left, nex to Kate, our trumpeteer/casiolady. Anna’s role was mainly to sit around while we recorded and/or tried to fix the tape machine. She had a great time.
The rest of the time we spent in the old firestation in Bristol, adding bits to the single and recording other songs. Hopefully we’ll be able to release these in some form soon. All the while we were assisted by Michael, who now plays in Sleeping States.
Note the ever-present bottle of cola. Michael is really great. He runs the Local Kid label, and once took The Gossip on tour around the UK.
On the last day of recording we were joined by Francois. He played trumpet on one of our songs. He also said he’d do the artwork again for the single, which is great news for us and for fans of watercolours everywhere.
All in all – thanks Bristol! You never disappont. Always a plentiful bounty.
I’ll try and post more photos when they surface, as well as anymore news on the single and the artwork and stuff.
Hey ho. I’m putting on this show at the Betsey Trotwood in Farringdon at the end of the month. I’m really psyched about it. Francois is a great inspiration for me, and painted the artwork for our single. I Know I Have No Collar are incredibly unique, and make wonderful lo-fi music. The Shrieking Violets are also playing wonderful outsider pop.
Tickets are here and are only £5: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/52697
Transmission over. x
