 |
| |
|
| |
Interview
by SashaS
14-2-2002
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
More on: Lo-Fidelity Allstars
|
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
| Lo-Fi's |
|
Operate with love
Lo-Fidelity Allstars return with an album full of funky love for all you lusty-people out there
In the world living to install and feed off celebrities for a brief interlude of lifetime before swiftly replacing them for updated issues, even the DJs – who should rightfully be known as decknitians – have been elevated to being stars in their own right. Lo-Fidelity Allstars refuse to join in such a mock-stellar coliseum and the Leeds-originated band simply decline to bow to the demands of the market forces by doing their own thing. Well, fate has something to do with it, as well.
Following the 1998 release of their debut album, ‘How To Operate With A Blown Mind’, the verge of their biggest tour to date witnessed them being deserted by their singer. The band decided not to cancel that tour and presented it as something between a DJing, a gig and a karaoke (with audience singing). With only two issues since, a mix-album ‘On The Floor At The Boutique’ (1999) and ‘Ghostmutt’ EP (a year later), the crew concentrated mainly on DJing. Until the current ‘Don’t Be Afraid Of Love’, an album that misses Valentine by four days.
“We’ve had no idea how people would react to our album,” confesses turntablist/vocalist Phil Ward, “and we only had first reactions when we started doing the promotion for it. They’ve been all good, people like what they are hearing… We really weren’t sure because it is not like anything else on the market but the few dates we’ve played were amazing, the reaction’s been incredible. We’ve DJed, we know what’s going on in the music world and our album doesn’t fit in.”
Feel the mist
‘Don’t Be Afraid Of Love’ is a surprise on two counts, its scope and its message. Musically it is daring to be different to the uniformed soundarama around us, diverse with the particular liking for funky beats, with a message that is directly opposite to the one projected at the beginning of their career. “The urban chaos hooligans”, as Ward termed it once, have matured and are brave enough to express their feelings and sexttitude. But, their idol is Marvin Gaye, the late legend who could be political one moment and downright lovey the next… Incidentally, a gigantic portrait of Gaye adorns a wall in their studio and he is referred to as ‘God’ at one point during our conversation.
“People had us pegged down as one thing,” keysman Dale Maloney theorises, “but I think this album is a reaction towards the way the old signer led us to sound. We were liberated to broaden our expression and encouraged to explore different bass lines and keyboarding phrases. We wanted to get all our ideas out and we enjoyed the freedom we found ourselves with.”
“Few people have pointed out that this album,” Ward gets analytical about the reasons to be cheerful, “sounds funkier and more soulful that the first one and the reason is that we got better and learnt how to express ourselves in a studio. Also, when you have such powerful guests on vocals, it pushes you and inspires you to try harder. Then, having lost almost all our royalties to the copyright owners of the sampled work… 2 seconds of a vocal can cost you 40% of the royalties! So, this time we’ve recreated and not sampled. Even that will disappear on our third album.”
Dark is Valentine
Without a vocalist in the lineup, the Lo-Fi’s employed a couple of name guests, the veteran funketeer Bootsy Collins (of Parlament Funkadelic) and Afghan Whigs’ Greg Dulli. The present members admit that they wanted to have D’Angelo and Rod Stewart (!), the latter’s pre-1980 version. Fortunately (for the Lo-Fi’s) Rod was busy with his latest blonde/nubile and the rest of vocals had to be shared by Martin Whiteman (keyboards/engineer), Andy Dickinson (bass) and Ward.
During their self-exile from the pop’s mainstreet their profile became more pronounced in the States and one of the reasons was that ‘Battleflag’ was used in ‘The Mod Squad’ flick.
“That song’s been very good for us,” Maloney explains, “and it was used about 15 times that lead to being offered to soundtrack ‘The Insider’; the director Michael Mann asked us to do eight songs, we worked for two months, and none was used! We’d love to have some music in movies despite of such a disappointing experience…”
Still, all their work abroad has broadened the band’s vision and this CD sounds far more global than the debut.
“Yes, you become more aware of the world, reflect it more,” Ward agrees, “and the reaction of the people from across the globe confirms it. It’s not something that we tried to achieve, it simply happened and seems to be heading out into the world. We really like it but I think it had a lot to do with us building own studio and not hurrying the creative process.”
Having left the grim-North and build a studio in the place where it’s become hard not to bump into a pop star – Brighton, the Lo-Fidelity Allstars reckon that all the possible fellow-star-smooching will not prevent them from having the next album in half the time ‘Don’t Be Afraid Of Love’ took.
SashaS
1-2-2002
Lo-Fidelity Allstars’ album ‘Don’t Be Afraid Of Love’ is released 18 February 2002 on Skint/SINE
|
|
|
