Add N To (X): loud like nature and as multifarious as an orgy

The best albums, in an ideal world, are the ones that cause an emotional and/or intellectual tumult. The rest is like a soap opera, a deja vu of art-imitating-life, badly. Greatest pieces of work do not only reflect but project, as well. Add N To (X) have been creative for a number of years but haven’t really seen return for their bravery, innovation, refusal to conform. One of the rare Brit bands to keep the spirit of adventure alive that is more than fittingly demonstrated on the new disc, ‘Loud Like Nature’.

Add N To (X) is a trio of musicians – Barry 7, Steve Claydon and Ann Shenton – who refuse to do things the con-way. The strangeness of the members is furthered by not only living in different cities but also on different continents: Barry runs a label in New York, Shenton resides near London and Claydon is up-Norff, in Sheffield. No surprise to discover that the members composed in solitude…

“Making this album was more than unusual, for us,” qualifies Ms Shenton attired in attractive Goth-like get-up, “because we all were in different places. I found myself in Idaho, horse-riding, hiking, biking, shooting, experiencing some things out of the city and it was very weird. It was beautiful until the 11th of September last year, when all the Americans went really strange and were waving flags and baying for a war, ‘Kill, kill, kill!’ I was urged to display a Confederate flag but I don’t do that, not only because I didn’t have one, but also because I don’t believe in extreme displaying of nationalism. ”

“I spent nine months there,” Shenton, who prefers cheese to “boring” drugs nowadays, explains, “had a couple of keyboards with me and that’s where I started writing the new album. Steve and Barry were doing it somewhere else and we embraced this new way of doing an album, a new way of writing, as there is no recipe to making a record. You don’t need to be ‘one-happy-family’, we wanted to create problems, some difficulty to get some fear into the situation and make the thing more interesting through it. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.”

Cyber tangram

The fourth album by this lot follows an uncompromising career that saw their debut album, ‘On The Wires of Our Nerves’, issued on the Satellite label, before signing to Mute. It is an ideal home for this outfit that has more artistic aspirations than all the TV-reality ‘stars’ quintuplied. The strange thing is that the albums sounds cohesive despite being written individually to simply re-state the great minds think alike.

“It was strange to realise that wherever we are,” Shenton smiles through ciggy-smoke, “there is this intangible thing called Add N To (X) that unites us, it is the master of us; we are not very religious but we have this thing called AN2X that is a recognition that there isn’t a utopia, there is no rule, there is no way of making anything in the correct way, nothing is ever right until… In Spain, for instance, they leave cheese until maggots infest it and then they eat it, believing it is the best only then, while Chinese find that repugnant.”

“It’s the same with culture, with making music, there is no method in anything. Apart from sex, maybe…”

Sorry to hear that about your lovemaking life that must lead to boredom; what’s more important is to have variety, more to explore, re-aim the gun of (aural) penetration… To what end in an undemanding world?

“Everything is so defined and targeted,” Shenton continues determinedly, “and I don’t believe in any of it. I hate making people feel they want to consume something by telling them I believe that something is better than the next thing. I’m too honest for that and we, as a band, don’t want to target anyone but simply change the direction of being constantly bombarded with adverts to buy, buy, buy.”

There is nothing else but dystopia and entropy leading to the final destination.

‘Glamtronic’ and black-balls

The band’s biography accurately (and that’s rarer in music than the Lotto’s £10 win) claims that this CD is like nothing you’ll hear in years to come; the nearest comparison is the sonic rush and sensual flood that recalls the glorious days of DAF (DeutschAmerikanische Freundschaft) by being electronic-cum-funky but still remaining cyber-rock. Or, more contemporary, The Young Gods in their less-industrial moments.

“We hate being put into this ‘electronica’ thing,” the lady moists her mouth with another swig of beer, “it is so limiting and we were very glad to discover that someone in Portugal has qualified our music as ‘Glamtronic’. It’s quite a good word because we are not so puritanical about our sound. Guitars used to be banned from our studio in the past but now we have Richard Hawley (of Pulp) on our album and by allowing guitar on our album we are being more experimental. That’s not trying to be commercial, it’s just discovering how we can push it further and which way…”

The other notable guest on the album is the legendary producer Kim Fawley who provided the spoken word piece to the chilling ‘Invasion Of The Polaroid People’.

“We need to have different outlets aside our music,” Shenton outlines the blueprint, “Steve has his art shows, Barry has this other record label, and I have a satirical newspaper… The first issue of ‘Deadworth Echo’ is just about to come out, Mute will print 10,000 copies; I could only afford to print 20 copies that I displayed at one of Steve’s exhibitions and they were all gone in seconds!”

“Making music is important but, if it is the only thing in your life, it is important but meaningless in the overall scheme of things. We don’t want music to be the only facet of the band, we see AN2X as this virus that tries to spread to other areas, we don’t just want to be a rock band because it seems to be insular, just like wanting to work for the same company all your life, or like owning your own bread-shop… You can’t put everything into one project, or one product. MTV ideology means nothing to us!”

Variety (of poses) is the spice of living.

“We don’t want to compete with any kind of diluted s**t that everyone is forced to listen to. Our fans are people of 75 on acid and some strange individuals: there was a woman recently who came over to me to take away black-balls (negativity) out of my brain.”

I walk out with balls of confusion but loving it.