Stalko launches the second album on Saturday, introducing a body of work that marks a distinct, multi-layered departure from the band’s previous sound. Tim Ellis tells Ramona Depares about A Long Wave Goodbye.
How has Stalko been spending the time since the release of debut album Grandiloquence?
When we weren’t busy signing autographs, we were playing very random and sparse live gigs. For the past year and a half, in our spare time, we recorded and finalised this second album.
The new album is called A Long Wave Goodbye. Is there a hidden message about Stalko’s future?
Each album is always the last, until the next one. There are many hidden messages in the title, but none about Stalko’s future I’m afraid (much to the dismay of our detractors).
Or is it more of a reflection on the decidedly more introspective/intimate nature of the new recording, compared to previous work?
The record is more introspective and intimate, true, but perhaps the title is more of a reflection of what is going on around us, rather than about us per se. We aren’t that self-centred, yet.
How do you describe the sound of the new recording? What were the inspirations with regard to theme and mood?
It’s always difficult to characterise your own music. You could say that we sing much less, the tempo is slower, but hopefully it will feel much more measured, in the good sense of the word. In your debut album, you want to put so many things on record that you can get a system overload. This time round we went for the less is more approach. If you can call it an inspiration, the band approach also reflected the pretty bleak world malaise. It’s going to hit you hard at some point. Unless you’re Kim Kardashian, I guess.
Would you say there is less of a focus on the nu-folk element and a more multi-layered approach?
For sure. It wasn’t a conscious decision, mind you. We just moved from strictly natural instruments in the first album to using a lot of electronic sounds and synths. In the first album, we took a very purist approach, getting many session players and spending most of our studio time actually recording rather than experimenting with sounds. This time around we had zero outside musicians and most of the studio time was spent tinkering with ‘feel’. Both albums are multi-layered but in a different way. We learnt from our mistakes the first-time around and tried to improve on them.
The sound in the new album is more understated than in Grandiloquence, which means the arrangements are even tighter than before. Was this a conscious direction you guys took?
There wasn’t that eureka moment where we said “yes, that’s the way to do it”. It was a natural consequence of growing up together musically, learning what we could do well and what would work better. The songs also lent themselves to more focused arrangements, so it was a mix of a number of elements. We gladly accept the complement that it sounds tighter, thank you very much.
We moved from strictly natural instruments in the first album to using a lot of electronic sounds and synths
The album includes long soundscapes that are very dreamy, asking for an intimate environment, almost. How will this affect their live rendition and what plans are there for the live performance?
We recorded the first album after having played all the songs live for quite a while, so that transition was easy. This time around, we wrote songs and by the time we finished recording, we had no idea how to play them live. In Stalko fashion, we will adapt the songs for very intimate settings, but for the album launch we plan a slightly bigger sound which will should be very faithful to the record. It might surprise or disappoint some, let’s hope no tomatoes will be wasted on us.
When did work on the album start?
We started writing the new songs in summer 2014 and we recorded the album in summer/autumn 2015.
What was the creative process like – as in, who did what?
This time around, the three of us sat before a laptop with no real experience in sound recording and began inputting all the sound bites we played and fancied. We experimented with sounds, drums and overdubs until they sounded decent. It’s a bit difficult to hone in on who does what, because although Chris did most of the violins/orchestration, Mike did most of the guitars and I did most of the piano/synths, we do tend to shift across borders. It’s a pretty good symbiosis and, when we don’t agree, we kind-of do the democratic thing. No abstentions are allowed, so it’s pretty lucky that we’re an odd number.
Given the multi-layered end result, an amount of precision must have been required in the studio. What was the experience like?
When we send our home recordings to producer David Vella we thought we would have to re-record everything at Temple Studios, but he liked our actual recordings so much that he insisted (to our dismay and relief, in equal measure) that we keep a really big portion of them.
Apart from polishing and adding, we really worked hard on the actual feel of the album and those small details which do really make a difference in the end. Usually, the recording phase takes up the most part of studio time and the tinkering phase takes up the last small part. This time, the recording phase was very short, so it was a real pleasure focussing on the final sound of the album. At the cost of sounding over-enthusiastic, we had a great time.
What was the biggest challenge in finalising the album?
Naming the tracks and the album.
A Long Wave Goodbye will be launched on Saturday wth a live performance at the Palace Theatre, Paola. Tickets are available online.
https://shop.trackagescheme.com/event/stalko-album-launch-palace-theatre-april-9/