78 quotes found
"We began writing and playing music in a more serious way at some point around 1987 [...] At first, we experimented without setting ourselves any questions, with whatever means were available to us; then we worked a lot with other musicians and with real instruments, which brought more complexity into our music. Five years ago (1993), we sounded a lot more gothic, much closer to experimental rock, with the occasional vocal, though it was heading for electronic music; already we were sampling our own instruments. Then we went back to something closer to our original spirit, simple and instinctive, the only difference being that from then on, we could use all the wonders of digital technology, and so it was a lot easier to experiment and to get what we wanted."
"Of course we are massive fans of My Bloody Valentine. Loveless is probably one of my top five favorite albums of all time. I think that, even if we don't sound like them, there's a connection in terms of the approach to the music."
"The Beatles really became enthralling to us through their psychedelism."
"We love artists like Joni Mitchell and The Incredible String Band. There's a sort of purity of sound that they have, and I guess we are striving for that ourselves. [...] In fact, [String Band] come from the same place where we live now. We see them from time to time. So I guess our rural sensibilities are similar. Personally, I think they are one of the most important and underrated bands in the past forty years of music. They influenced so many other artists yet they never get due credit."
"A lot of the synthetic-sounding things you hear are actually recordings of us playing other instruments – pianos, flutes or twanging guitar strings – or field sounds we get from walking around with portable tape recorders, like electronic beeps in shops, or vehicles; then they are mangled beyond recognition. We have an arsenal of old hi-fi tricks up our sleeves and we basically destroy the sounds until they're really lovely and fucked up. So we're using sounds that are totally our own thing."
"It's important to leave a certain space there for the listener's imagination."
"The voices [in the music] are sometimes from old TV shows or tapes we've made. We have a lot of stuff we've collected, going back to the early '80s. But half of the time, it's things we've had friends record specially for us. We create tapes all the time. Practically everyone we know has been roped into recording something for us at some point. [...] We often get friends to sing things for us with the intention of building a melody around it."
"Every time we make a record we see it as an individual project, separate from what went before and what will happen afterwards."
"The idea of the perfect album is this amorphous thing that we're always aiming at. For us, it can mean something that's full of imperfection, because part of our aim has always been to destroy the sound in a beautiful way. It doesn't mean that we expect everyone would like it. I'm not sure that we will ever get there, to make the perfect record. But the whole point of making music is at least to aim at your own idea of perfection."
"I've always been fascinated by the connection between music and numbers. Psychedelic experiences lead in this direction; they help us to see things in terms of numbers and their forms, of structures, as if the music was made out of crystals."
"We've touched upon the theme of lost childhood a few times because it's something personal to me that gives me real inspiration through its sadness. I think sometimes the best way to get inspiration is to face up to the things that make you very sad in your life, and use them."
"[On the 2005 album, The Campfire Headphase] We usually imagine our music to have a visual element while we're writing it, so we were picturing this character losing his mind at the campfire and compressing weeks of events into a few hours, in that time-stretching way that acid fucks with your perception."
"We're not Satanists, or Christians, or Pagans. We're not religious at all. We just put symbols into our music sometimes, depending on what we're interested in at the time. We do care about people and the state of the world, and if we're spiritual at all it's purely in the sense of caring about art and inspiring people with ideas."
"I do actually believe that there are powers in music that are almost supernatural. I think you actually manipulate people with music, and that is definitely what we are trying to do. People go on about hypnotizing people with music, or subliminal messages, and we have dabbled in that intentionally. Sometimes that's just a bit of a private joke, just to see what we can sneak into the tracks."
"Make a whole new religion A falling star that you cannot live without And I'll feed your obsession There'll be nothing but this thing that you'll never doubt"
"I'm only happy when it rains I'm only happy when it's complicated And though I know you can't appreciate it I'm only happy when it rains"
"You know I love it when the news is bad And why it feels so good to feel so sad I'm only happy when it rains"
"Pour your misery down on me"
"I'm only happy when it rains I feel good when things are going wrong I only listen to the sad, sad songs I'm only happy when it rains"
"I only smile in the dark My only comfort is the night gone black I didn't accidentally tell you that I'm only happy when it rains"
"I'm riding high upon a deep depression I'm only happy when it rains"
"I wish I could fly As angels can fly"
"You say that you'll be there to catch me Or will you only try to trap me These are the rules I make Our chains were meant to break You'll never change me"
"I came around to tear your little world apart"
"You pretend you're high You pretend you're bored You pretend you're anything Just to be adored"
"Don't believe in fear Don't believe in faith Don't believe in anything That you can't break"
"A million lies to sell yourself Is all you ever had"
"Don't believe in love Don't believe in hate Don't believe in anything That you can't waste"
"Bury me above the clouds"
"Crashing silent broken down Falling into night"
"And I am cool Cool as the deep blue ocean"
"I will cry for you I will cry for you I will wash away your pain with all my tears And drown your fear"
"When I grow up I'll be stable When I grow up I'll turn the tables"
"I rip it up to shreds and let it go"
"I want to break your heart and give you mine"
"If I am silent then I am not real"
"Oh what a crazy time I've been a fool On a wild ride to oblivion I lost my mind"
"Come on, baby, be my bad boyfriend"
"Love's an elusive charm and it can be painful"
"You can keep it pure on the inside"
"You've got soul inside your shattered heart"
"A revolution Is the solution"
"I don't feel guilty no matter what they're telling me I won't feel dirty and buy into their misery I won't be shamed 'cause I believe that love is free It fuels the heart And sex is not my enemy"
"Love promises nothing and then your love dies"
"Let's take a torch To the past and the future"
"This could be the very minute I'm aware I'm alive All these places feel like home"
"Light up, light up As if you have a choice Even if you cannot hear my voice I'll be right beside you dear"
"Please keep your hands down And stop raising your voice It's hardly what I'd be doing if you gave me a choice It's a simple suggestion an you give me some time So just say yes or no Why can't you shoulder the blame? 'Cause both my shoulders are heavy From the weight of us both You're a big boy now so let's not talk about growth You've not heard a single word I have said Oh my god"
"Is it too late to remind you how we were But not our last days of silent, screaming, blur Most of what I remember makes me sure I should have stopped you from walking out the door"
"Kill The Old, Torture Their Young"
"Convex, Concave"
"Scary Mary"
"Hope For An Angel"
"Waiting For Green"
"Bodies In Flight"
"Liberate the Illiterate (A Mong Among Mingers)"
"Diary of Always"
"Questions And Answers"
"Toys, Toys Toys, Choke, Toys, Toys, Toys"
"Wave Upon Wave Upon Wave"
"Only One Word Comes To Mind"
"Tradition Feed"
"Living Is A Problem Because Everything Dies"
"Folding Stars"
"Saturday superhouse"
"Asexual Meat Kitchen"
"The Captain"
"God & Satan"
"Born On A Horse"
"Shock Shock"
"Cloud of Stink"
"Help Me Be Captain"
"Once an Empire"
"And I would walk 500 miles And I would walk 500 more Just to be the man who walks a thousand Miles to fall down at your door."
"When I'm lonely Well, you know I'm gonna be I'm gonna be the man who's lonely without you."
"The Scottish post rockers from Mogwai are today perhaps best known as masters of one of the movement's distinctive trends - abrupt successions of calm, meditative parts with roaring, all-out outbursts of sound."
"Mogwai's tracks are often built around huge guitar riffs and building arpeggios, but they also implement keys, vocals and other instruments. Mogwai helped establish some of the hallmarks of post-rock music, including striking dynamics, recurring phrases, and swelling tremolo picking. When combined with gain, delay, and reverb, rapid picking of single notes and slides up and down the fretboard can create epic glissando."
"Burn this whole madhouse down."