This record feels like a big progression anyway – what sort of new ideas are you talking about?

John: “The new album was absolutely a big progression, however, the public sees us move at a very different rate than we see ourselves move on a day to day basis. We’ve acquired a lot of new equipment, and we keep getting more and more. With synthesizers the possibilities start to multiply the more you have with respect to functionality. We have new ideas to bring more complex rhythms forward as well as incorporating other new instruments we may have not used in Emeralds before.”

Mark: “Things happen all the time that start the ball rolling toward something newer and bigger than before. Our ideas always breed new concepts and ways of approaching playing, and our new stuff is giving us lots of things to think over.”

The track ‘Candy Shoppe’ has a real euphoric moment; you can almost imagine some tracks from the new album being played in clubs. Do you listen to much contemporary electronic dance music?

Mark: “I think the title track has more potential to be played in dance clubs than ‘Candy Shoppe’, although that would be totally weird! It would be cool though. I love to dance and listen to a lot of danceable music, but generally older stuff, not much contemporary stuff really. My personal taste just leans more towards the older sounds. Some of our friends in Belgium like Hungry Soul and Sickboy Milkplus are making killer new dance music, and I know there’s other good stuff out there, it’s just not really our zone at the moment.”

“With synthesizers the possibilities start to multiply the more you have with respect to functionality. We have new ideas to bring more complex rhythms forward as well as incorporating other new instruments we may have not used in Emeralds before.”

John: “I am honestly afraid of a lot of the contemporary electronic music because of the sheer volume and – in my perspective – the low quality and rehash factor, so I don’t listen to too much of it. I do enjoy Monolake and the work of Robert Henke, Thomas Brinkmann, the Raster-Noton label, the Imbalance Computer Music label…so it does get leaked in there. My neighbor runs The Bent Crayon. which is a world-class electronic music distributor and store front, so it does rub off from time to time.”

Steve: “In Europe they have a much more established history of dance music and I’ve gone to a number of clubs there, but we recorded ‘Candy Shoppe’ before Mark and I went on sabbatical in Belgium – so I don’t think the newer dance music we were exposed to had much of an influence on that track or anything on the new record.”

As well as the group material, you’ve all recently released really well-received solo records – from Steve’s Critique Of The Beautiful album, to John’s Imaginary Softwoods and Outer Space projects, to Mark’s Solo Acoustic guitar record. What do you all have planned for the rest of 2010?

John: “Mark and Steve both have incredible solo works! My debut album as Outer Space will be ready for the summer, hopefully in June. That’s been in the works since 2008. Then an Outer Space 12″/CD EP for the winter. Also another issue of the Imaginary Softwoods double LP, this time in a gatefold with a D+M [Berlin mastering studio Dubplates + Mastering] cut. That will be great!

Steve: “I’m not sure if my first record for Kranky will come out in 2010 but it is in the works right now despite a nearly non-existent recording situation. There will be a reissue of Critique Of The Beautiful on vinyl on Digitalis/Boomkat, as well as a new 12″ on Nashazphone and a one-sided 12″ etching on Root Strata.”

Mark: “My first ‘full-length’ LP will be out on Plastic Records this year, entitled, Living With Yourself. I spent most of last year recording it, and it’s been in my head for years. Really excited for it to come out, it should be any time now! Weird Forest is re-issuing two of my favorite old tapes, Tidings and Amethyst Waves, which should also be out soon. I have a collaborative LP with percussionist Nate Scheible coming out on Music Fellowship, re-issue LPs on Cylindrical Habitat Modules and Arbor, and am starting to put together ideas for a release on Mego. I’ll also be continuing to work on various cassette albums and CDR releases.”

“I think we use our solo projects to accent our individual voices in the band, and to introduce ideas that may not fall into place with the vision we have of Emeralds at that time.”

What is it about these pieces of work which makes them solo releases as opposed to things which you’d want to bring to the table to work on for an Emeralds album?

John: “With something like Outer Space, it’s really a lot of discovering the instrument and getting better, then bringing something to the table for Emeralds. A track like ‘Memory Bomb’ from my self-titled LP has a lot of parallels to the track ‘Genetic’, which is an Emeralds track, as I literally worked on my parts for both of them at the same time so they ended up somewhat similar in construction. Outer Space has less musical qualities (hooks, melodies, rhythms) and focusses more on abstract properties of synthesis. I am very interested in unusual random sounds that cannot be repeated.

Mark: “I think we use our solo projects to accent our individual voices in the band, and to introduce ideas that may not fall into place with the vision we have of Emeralds at that time. To me, our sound is like when a child is born. Two people made it, but once it’s alive it exists on its own. All we can do is try to help it grow naturally; sometimes our ideas don’t directly relate what we’re trying to do with Emeralds, and sometimes the ideas just make more sense on as solo pieces.”

You talked earlier on about how you were focusing on developing your live set. For those of us who haven’t seen you play live, how do you approach your gigs? In particular, how improvised are they?

Mark: “Up until pretty recently, a lot of our live shows were mostly improvised, sometimes completely! We wanted to do something different every time for a while, always trying to surprise everyone with something different. We still do that to an extent, but now we are more focussed on working out recorded pieces to be played live. There is still a lot of room for improvising, and even if we try really hard it’s impossible to do something exactly the same twice, but now we have really solid foundations to work on.”

Will we get a chance to see Emeralds live for ourselves first-hand in Europe this year?

Mark: “We’ll have a number of festival one-off performances in the second half of the year.”

Scott Mcmillan

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 16th, 2010 at 1:33 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.