Misophone

We missed Misophone. Since the release of “Lost At Sea”, back in 2013, they disappeared without a trace. Now, finally, their infectious psych-pop music boxes are back, in a more ambitious form than ever: a double album of no less than 30 tracks, “A Floodplain Mind”. We asked M.A. Welsh, one half of the British duo (together with S. Herbert), to tell us what happened and what the future has in store for Misophone.

Let me start with a somewhat obvious question: it’s been about ten years since your last record (and our previous interview), a very long time for a band as prolific as yours. Can you tell us a little about what has happened in the Misophone universe in the meantime?
I lost contact with S. a while back. He’s always been an elusive, reclusive figure but he seemed to fall off the edge of the world. I think for a while that I thought the possibility of a new Misophone album was dead. Thought that was it. Then a parcel arrived on my doorstep. Nothing in it but a clipping from a newspaper and a memory stick with a little label stuck to it that said, ‘it begins…’. It was him! Then the digital files began to arrive and “A Floodplain Mind” began in earnest once more. We’ve been working on it for years.

“A Floodplain Mind” sounds both like a classic Misophone album and like something new, from the vocals to the overall mood of the songs. How different do you think it is from your previous records? Do you see it more as the end point of a journey or as a new starting point?
I don’t know if it’s different or not. We just wanted to make it right. Years have been spent tweaking each and every sound on it and I wanted to make sure that the words felt knitted together. Together we wanted to make something that maybe we felt we hadn’t before. Something to be proud of! Also, the more people who said they would play and sing with us on the record the more we thought we better pull out the stops. This isn’t an end point. This is the beginning of what we’ve always wanted to record. Although I can’t quite believe we’ve got it finished… can’t quite believe it’s entering the world as a fully formed thing…

How did the recording of the new record take place? Your creative process usually saw M. in charge of lyrics and vocals, while S. took care of the music. Has this balance changed in any way on “A Floodplain Mind”?
There is a file filled with hundreds if not thousands of songs. Not a digital file, a heavy box file with songs going back 20 years. I’m sure we are not alone in this. It gave (and gives) us a lot to draw from. These songs in most cases follow the pattern they always have. Words, music, singing, tinkering. There were a few more experiments on this one I suppose. The spoken word tracks played with sound manipulation in different ways. But mostly a familiar pattern has emerged but somehow it has felt better this time. S. has crafted something magical at times… to me at least - he has found great richness in the sound worlds of these songs that perhaps was not present before. He is a genius to me.

Right from the opening verses of “All The Ghosts Of Evening” (“These are the days I’ll remember/ Always with a hint of sadness”), there’s a nostalgic sense of the past in the whole record. Do you think your music can be compared to what Mark Fisher (quoting Jacques Derrida) called “hauntology” in “Ghosts Of My Life”, the “persistence of the no longer” that haunts our present?
“Hauntology” - we like this idea! We’ve always been drawn to the past. I think like a lot of people. It is a foolish, naïve and romantic fascination. Fictional but comforting and strange in equal measure. Some of these songs are really old and we found through the album’s evolution that we kept linking different things together. The album grew through these connections. For the few people who’ve listened to our other songs, we hope they appreciate these small moments.

With “William And Mary”, you decided to reinterpret a song from the English folk tradition. In your opinion, what makes these songs still able to speak to our heart today?
Old songs have gathered dust over the years but it’s in the dust that we leave our prints. That’s important.

Another recurring theme of the album is the image of nature (hills, moors, fallen leaves, snowy landscapes), which often reflects a sense of inner anguish. How important is it for you to rediscover the time needed to observe reality, to linger on the things around us?
I think the woods and hills and rivers and sea are the space where time seems less important in the short term but you feel the importance of time in ways the unconscious mind absorbs. They are places to feel alive. Spending time watching is a great privilege but not something anyone has enough of. I wish we had more time.

“Sky” is a spoken word track in Spanish with the voice of Zazil Yakín Xipé: how did you come up with this idea?
There were some words that I’d written that were too personal for me to sing but that I wanted to be on the album. Yakín Xipé has been listening to Misophone since the beginning but also writes very beautiful songs. We thought that her translation would allow these words to take on a new identity. We love what she has brought to the song - but also the album. It’s been a real pleasure to have her involved.

“A Floodplain Mind” is an album full of guests. What do you think is the secret to a fruitful collaboration?
When someone can bring some extra magic outside of your grasp - that is the secret!
This is probably the thing that has made us most happy about the album. People who we really admire have brought their curious talents to the mix. It’s glorious. Every person who has offered a contribution has made the songs something more. Something we couldn’t have made.
Chris Vibberts is an absolute craftsman and artist combined, bringing sitar, lapsteel. Khim, marxophone and melodica to the mix with such unbelievable generosity. A Misophone album with a marxophone on it feels very lovely to me.
Tom Rocton, an old friend, arranged and recorded a mini orchestra for “The Flood”, out of the kindness of his heart, but also brought his brilliant trombone playing in again. This is incredible to us. He’s amazing!
Maxence Danet-Fauvel brought his acting talents, talents we simply don’t have and brought alive an instrumental experiment. Robin Allender, someone whose playing we’ve admired for such a long time, sent use an amazing guitar part as did Boys Age. Maja Lena, Noa Mal, India Blue, Aubben Renee, Rachel Hayward all lent their beautiful voices, Satoko Takahashi, Noémie Akamatsu, Jeremy Lussiez, Florent Charpentier, Loris Martinez, Bastien Ponsart, Matthew de Roode, Lewis Jones all brought something that we never could.
We are beyond grateful for that. There were a few collaborations that almost happened on this one that fell through at the last minute. Pinch yourself collaborations that I hope we might return to on the next album.

If you could conjure up the ghost of an artist to record a song with, who would you choose (and why)?
Ivor Cutler. Because he was and is and will always be entirely magnificent.
Closely followed by Nicolae Neacșu. The great Romanian violinist, singer and storyteller. He felt like both a direct link to the distant past and a reminder of music’s fundamental role in the present. And when he played the violin with a single horsehair, it sounded (to paraphrase Garth Cartwright) like the sound of the Earth opening up.

The aesthetics of your records are often made up of sepia-toned photographs and postcards. Where did the choice of the autumnal artwork for the new record come from?
We’ve always loved those frozen images of the past. This time we wanted to try something different. I’ve been painting since I was a child. This is the first time my paintings have been used in Misophone’s world. I hope they work. They seemed to fit with the themes of the music.

A certain reticence to appear has always been one of the characteristics of the Misophone project (there’s also a song on the new record that has something to do with hiding from the outside world, “Curse The Crows”). A few years ago, Hamja Ahsan wrote a sort of (ironic) manifesto for the introverts (“Shy Radicals: The Antisystemic Politics of the Militant Introvert”), claiming the contemplative value of introversion against a social system based on forced extroversion. Do you recognize yourself in this kind of contrast?
It doesn’t really make sense, does it? We hide from the world but yet allow these songs into it. I think that introverts will often hold the greatest insight but seldom the most prestigious of roles. Prestige isn’t everything. A kingmaker often holds the crown for longer than the king but in rooms unseen… I’m not sure whether we are introverts or not.

In addition to the CD edition by the French label Another Record, you also released a cassette version of “A Floodplain Mind” on the Japanese label Galaxy Train. What is it about cassette tapes that fascinates you, compared to other audio formats?
It’s funny. Like so many people, we grew up with the almost holy reverence of the passed around mixtape. Sharing compilations, taped straight from the radio, or tape to tape (for this I remember we would go to one friend’s house that had the tape to tape facility and obsess over the perfect mix). So for me for a long time it was vinyl that had that ghostly appeal of something lost. Particularly 78s. But tape has taken on that strange melancholy beauty. It’s funny to think of our music being on tape with this album but it is very lovely too. Galaxy Train have put out some really interesting music over the years and we’ve been fans of their output for a long time. It’s great they wanted to help get this album to a new audience. We were hoping for a vinyl release but we are our own worst enemies in that regard. At over two hours long that’s a lot of wax!

After Bandcamp's recent acquisition by Songtradr, there has been a lot of talk about the risk that even one of the most artist-friendly streaming platforms might change for the worse. What do you think about the possibilities offered to artists by streaming services today?
I don’t use Spotify to listen to music. It’s a world I don't really understand. Clearly people are worried and that is a sad thing. The internet seems to have both democratised and disempowered music/musicians in a curious paradox. Bandcamp was a platform for a lot of creative, imaginative people and for some a window into a brighter future. I hope it can continue to be that and, if not Bandcamp, that something else can become that. The world is an incomprehensible and increasingly terrifying place but music and art and creating have to be the pin to tie our hope to.

What would you recommend to people who fell in love with “A Floodplain Mind” to listen to (and why)?
Too many… but these are some old friends we often return to: “Nothing Important” by Richard Dawson, “Groung” by Zabelle Panosian, “Les ‘Haïdouks’ D’Autrefois” (by Taraf de Haïdouks, editor’s note), “Bagpuss”, the incidental music of “Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased)”, “I Lost Something In The Hills” (by Sibylle Baier, editor’s note), rain, “Kalimanku Denku”, “Gena’s Birthday Song” (from the soviet animated film “Cheburashka”, editor’s note), “Ivor Cutler: Looking For Truth With A Pin”, “(Tumble) In The Wind” by Jackson C. Frank, the early tapes of Daniel Johnston.

You have already anticipated that you are working on a new record (you talked about “damp leaves in a tired old wood” and “the edges of a circus tent”…). What can we expect from Misophone in the near future?
We have a new album written. We are hoping to record it soon. It’s set in a very particular place. A real place but also a place in our mind. It’s different from “A Floodplain Mind”. It’s a set of songs but also one song. A long song! We are looking forward to getting started on it. And then the next one… It is good to be back.

(10/12/2023)