Interview with Figure.09

For the past few year or so I've been covering Crime and Punishment 2011 on this blog. The birmingham group make an eclectic mix of grime, electronica and heavy metal. one of the groups founder members Dan is going solo and releasing his solo début 'Casket' on September 1st. Much like his solo career this interview is a bit more serious than the often hilarious ramblings that made up my interviews with Crime and punishment 2011. 

Dan: I feel like I’ve proper calmed down, compared to when I first started Crime & Punishment 2011. I feel like I’ve progressed both musically and as a human. Which is nice. I feel like I’m definitely a lot calmer and not someone who’s making ridiculous statements anymore. Its nice to be a be a bit more chill and just be myself.

Me so is that what the album’s about? Being more chill being more yourself?

Dan: Not necessarily. A running theme of the album is believing in yourself and not really caring what other people think of you. I think it’s going to surprise a lot of people to be honest.  I think some people are going to listen to some of the songs and think is the same person who was spitting on FUBAR or rucksack or whatever. I think a lot of people are going to be surprised by the song Joe’s on Joe’s showed a side of him that I don’t think a lot of people knew he had.

Me: so it’s not just Joe screaming?

Dan: no, he’s doing more spoken word stuff. When I showed my other half the song we did she cried so that was sick. This is definitely my most honest work.

Me: I could tell when I saw you perform some of these songs At The Sunflower Lounge that these were more personal songs and that one of them was very specifically about your other half.

Dan: Well one of them was, each song is about a very specific subject. Like one song is just about love in general. Obviously I’ve got some songs that are just about me being a sick MC and then there are some songs that are just, like, dealing with darkness and stuff.

Me: Is it the same themes that you’d get with Crime and Punishment 2011?

Dan: To be honest no, not really. There are a couple of songs on there that could have been crime and punishment songs if Joe had been on them.  But that’s just because it’s the kind of music that I like to listen to. I’m trying to make each song on this as different as possible. Obviously, Salem Witch Trials came out 3 or 4 days ago and the response to that has been a lot better than I expected. But to be honest it hasn’t really set the tone for the whole album. I’ve tried to make it as much like a proper album as possible, like I’ve put a couple of skits in there. There’s three main themes on the album. Frustration at the world, not feeling like you can be yourself and appreciating what you’ve got around you. When I heard about Chester Bennington it made me feel that I needed to Put these songs on the album. Like one songs called Treehouse, that is a song I wrote but then didn’t want to record because I thought I might offend, well not offend but it does concern many opinions that people close to me have had about my musical endeavours and its kind of me just saying like ‘fuck you’ I’m not going to be offended by what people think of me. It doesn’t matter if you’re a cunt in some band, who I don’t like or if you’re my best friend. I think a lot of it’s going to really surprise people.  I’m trying to do this as properly as possible. Crime and Punishment is in no way dead, I think it’s good that were having this downtime because when we come back I think we will be stronger. If someone comes away from the album feeling an emotion then I feel I will have done my job.

After this we talked at length about Dan's new change to vegetarianism and about the music that inspires him. He admits to taking 'quite a bit of inspiration' from XXXTENTACION, and while he's not really into 'the soundcloud rap thing' he thinks it's good that 'people are being more open with themselves'. He cites other UK artists such as Manga St Hilare and Dave as being influences and while he isn't tying himself down to grime the next single off 'Casket' most likely be 'Dragon' which is the grimiest song on the record. The production has been mostly handled by Crime & Punishment 2011's Jason 'Pink Violence' Tyler and while the album will initially be released on Bandcamp he is later aiming to push it further and have it on major streaming platforms soon.


https://figure09.bandcamp.com/track/salem-witch-trials

Black Mekon - One In the Hate. Album review

Well this is a surprise. After the success of their brilliantly retro, and yet somehow very forward thinking '45 consortium' subscription service, each month you get a split 7" with Black Mekon and another band, recent ones have included Table Scraps and Bob Log the Third. They've bucked their own trend and released another whole album. Sometimes you know an album is going to be great just by looking at the track-list. 'One in the hate' features such gems as 'Janey was a klepto', 'Frank died hanging from an electric fence', 'hold on to your hate', and 'I just really wanna be your man'. Whatever fantastic stories 'Janey and Frank have might be a bit hard to make out as Black Mekon's vocals are distorted and scuzzy as everything else on the rest of this 26 minute long album. Black Mekon tap into the same mentality that made rock' n roll exciting in the first place. Nothing here extends beyond 2 and a half minutes and everything demands to be played as loud as humanly possible. That it sounds as if it was recorded on an old Nokia only makes it better. Every track is clearly performed live and put straight on the record. You can hear the buzz of the guitar strings, the smashes and clashes of the drums and the rumble of the bass. 'Roman Wonder' is the blues as it was meant to be played. The slide guitar sounds as if it's barely been tuned, and the other riffs just repeat over and over. Black Mekon take a pause for a few seconds breath on 'Salt Liquor' which only adds to the feeling that this album was finished in one take. 'Hold on to your hate' is so stripped back that it doesn't even have the drums and bass backing it. 'Rats out' is so stripped back it barely has vocals on it. 'Fresh Hell' features the inevitable harmonica, and the sound of the bands instruments falling apart under the stress of being thrashed over the past 20 minutes. If you like the blues pure and authentic then you'll probably hate this album. If you like rock n roll noisy, loud and off the chain then you'll love this to death.

Links:
http://www.blackmekon.com/
http://pnkslm.tictail.com/product/black-mekon-one-in-the-hate-deluxe-package
https://play.google.com/music/m/Bezymwhcu446kkqivowcvp2n634?t=One_in_the_Hate_-_Black_Mekon

Eat Me, Institutes + Fun Sponge. Live at Subside review (23/8/17)

Another free show at Subside on a Wednesday night began with an acoustic singer songwriter named James Leese, singing his heart out to the handful of present punters. I didn't catch much of his set but I was impressed by the passion of his performance. Next up was Fun Sponge (6/10). A delightfully ramshackle duo who describe themselves as 'rock music for kids who cry after sex'. Their music is mostly short sharp blasts of punk-ish rock 'n roll. With song titles such as 'Fuck you' and 'Cuckold' they clearly don't take themselves seriously, but they make a fuck load of noise and seem to have a lot of fun doing it. Which is what this whole rock 'n roll thing is about isn't it?
Despite the crap name Institutes (6.8) are one of the most interesting bands I've seen from Birmingham in a while. They remind me of some other Birmingham bands such as Peace or Editors, yet I still feel that they've crafted a sound of their own. Using an armada of effects pedals Institutes created a huge wall of sound and ended the show with screeching feedback. They've got a similar feel to some of Foals more recent material. They've got that same, murky, sweaty feel to some of their songs, which is only added to by the chiming tropical sounding guitars. It's rare that a new band will appear so fully formed.
Eat Me (8/10) are now probably one of my favourite bands. Which is why I was a bit disappointed to see that few people had come out to see them. This was a shame as Eat Me were on top form. They seemed pretty unfased at the lack of a crowd, and decided to have a good time anyway. At one point their singer said "thanks so much, you guys are all standing up, thats so cool!". He also had a description for almost every song and what it was about. For example, the song mumble is 'about when people can't understand what your saying'. Some other songs were described as being 'dedicated to all those who prefer less clothes', and 'for anyone who's too immature for the person they're in love with'. Despite the sarcasm and mock posh accents Eat Me are a genuinely great band. They have a complete disregard for convention, playing the relatively simple genre of slacker rock with carefree abandon. Their songs regularly change direction, pace and time signature's within their three minutes. It takes a special level of skill to sound as off the wall as Eat Me do. The more gigs like this they play the more attention they'll hopefully get. 


Links
www.facebook.com/pg/funspongesorrymum
https://www.facebook.com/institutesUK/
www.facebook.com/pg/eatmetheband