First breath after coma is one of the Portuguese revelation bands of 2013 after three years and a new album these young men from Leiria continue to experience new sound rhythms filled of stories to tell.
Why you chose to title your first CD "the misadventures of Anthony Knivet" if it has nothing to do with Portugal?
João Gaspar: It has not directly to do with Portugal, but turns out to have, because it is an English adventurer who is captured by the Portuguese and says that was one of the first men to use a diving suit, to do some tests in the sea, to find treasures remains in sunken ships and almost died because of it. Then he went to Angola where he was eventually arrested by the Portuguese managed to escape and returned to England where he wrote the misadventures of Anthony Knivet.
But how do we go from an adventure of an English to an album?
JG: To be honest the album was almost finished, but we did the lyrics at the end of the songs and this time we knew this story and thought it was a good source of inspiration for the themes. The record spoke much of a spiritual journey, underwater, ocean and the diving suit in visual terms have always been in our imagination as an aesthetic. We felt it was well with our music, we were inspired and decided write about it, the issues are not about Anthony Knivet but are parallel to it.
I notice on the album a thematic linked to the sea, in any of your work.
JG: Yes, in this second record there is also music that speaks a little of that. We are inspired by the nature itself and the sea has a mystique, it's so great and mysterious because we cannot see the bottom. There is much that happens in the ocean that no one knows, it has a certain magic, as the sky, where we see a whole universe we do not know and it inspires us. Nature enters the rehearsal room through a lot, thru the river that passes there, rather than go to the city, we will always seek material in the natural world.
Tell me a little about the musical construction of the melodies, because you just say that the lyrics come at the end. You as a band, who have known each other since kids how do you build the sounds together?
JG: On the first album we jammed, still continued to do so in the second work, but the routine was to get to the rehearsal room andf turn off the instruments we played anything and made sounds of everything, was a scene that we liked, explored the idea until you reach a base structure, the voice is made the same as the instrumental, but never put lyrics on it. They are more vocal melodies, or say words at random and this is part of that process. Then when the themes are completed and was the same in both the first album and the second, heard and talked among all what the songs tell us, we tried not to very close on the sense of theme, because each song tells us different things, each person It has a diferent interpretation. At the end of it all, we had a lyric that portrays this theme, it is not a story that we tell, is something abstract, for example, a song convey the idea of someone submerged and the phrase will complement this picture.
And why in English? It was unexpected? Or was it on purpuse?
RG: I guess we never thought about it, we are together since the age of 13 and started with a cover band. We played Nirvana, Joy Division and whenever we played it was anglo-saxon bands and it's not because we did not like Portuguese music, always heard rock sung in English and never thought about it. Then when we started this project we never even discuss the idea it should be in English or Portuguese. It was natural.
Speaking of "Drifter" you have mentioned that there was a jump, but what are the main differences?
João Marquês: I think there was a great concern to seek new sounds, such as cups to beat, chairs, things that seem ridiculous, but we could mix to appear on the record, at least for us results in certain songs, explored certain abstract sounds and we can put it in music and was one of the biggest differences.
RG: It was like I was saying in the first album we were going to the studio and we started to play, this is different, because we were not playing, it was like João was saying, we bought a tape recorder at the time and we recorded sounds in the river, chairs, iron just for fun, we did not think we were going to make a record with that until we recorded the piano of a friend of ours and a tuner of this instrument, we were trying to capture sounds. Then we ended up using it, sometimes on the computer and there were ideas, the music did not start in a jam session, born of a recording of a piano, a loop that then, yes, we play all that together and tried to structure themes. The songs came over experiences, in this album, rather than play and see what pops out.
And what would be the emblematic theme that encompasses all this?
RG: I think the first album was a concept based on a character. I think sincerely that the "Drifter" tried to escape from that concept, which was important this album was the sound experiences and try to make good music with sounds, as we'd like the dynamic. When we added the lyrics, the songs gain a different meaning when you put words will direct to a feeling, or some story and in this respect all themes end up addressing that while're in a worse place in your life, is not exactly a moment bad, but when you recover for something better, it is about hope.
It also has collaborations on this record, how come these partnerships?
RG: It was naturally.
Already knew Noiserv?
JM: We met him in good sounds festival.
RG: He saw a concert of ours, before we released the first album. We went to Maxim, because we won a contest and we were playing there. Then we come across in many concerts and appeared in conversation a possible collaboration, he always liked post-rock and always identified with this genre. Because we very much enjoyed his work, we thought it would come up something cool and these arose the collaboration. André Barros appears first because we liked his work and he is an excellent pianist, he was hearing the tapes and we wanted to know his opinion, he offered us a piano track that he made for a campaign and told us that we use it, it has six minutes and we tried to use the sounds and build around it a song with our instruments, it was the last theme of the album and wasfrom all what I liked most. It was very different from what we had done so far.
JM: In this record we wanted always explore electronics and on this song we can show that a lot.
It is an experimentalist album?
RG: Even the colaboration with Andre Barros and Noiserv was an experience. We never had done before.
You are looking for a specific sound?
RG: No.
To define your style and the public to know which are the "first breath after coma"?
RG: I think this happens minimally, they are sounds that excite us and give us inspiration. If there a door creak and we felt that it is a brutal sound to make a song it happens, but can also be with a guitar. It is always looking for something new and never done, as a theme from a classical piano and like it, because for us it is more important to see what was the result and thus open doors to new sonorities. I think we'll always go looking and this is what is beautiful. I hate it, and I know that is a very strong word, be the same for 30 years. I prefer a band that makes a good first album, and then for years has bad records with different things, because they are trying to innovate and to take risks than if they have a constant line, you lose the enthusiasm there is nothing new and you do not learn anything.
In the "Drifter" There are two themes with the same melody, but one of them deals with a Japanese vessel.
RG: Telmo our guitarist made a trip to South America and read a book of Luis Sepúlveda, "the world of the end of the world" it talks about the "Nisshin Maru" a vessel that hunts whales illegally in the history these mammals join together against the boat and they hit it, the vessel sunks and all die there. When he came back he told us the story, got us the book and we all ended reading it.
JM: Although not everyone likes to read. (laughs)
RG: We read all of curiosity and again to be an experience, because we are not used to make music from a story in which case we did it. "Nisshin maru" is that moment when the Japanese realize that whales come against the boat and tried to recreate that in our imagination, in terms of sounds, the arrival of these animals and when they go against the vessel, maybe it is not so obvious, but it was what we tried to do.
This album took place thanks to a crowdfunding campaign. When you got the money had the notion that there was already a public and that encouraged your work?
JM: In the music not because we had all that work.
RG: We already had the tapes in our rehearsal room, we needed to record, mix, produce, mastering the record, anything that involves an album is a lot of money and our first work was more a friend did us a favor, another other and was very low cost, this time we wanted to invest some money and go to a good studio recording and work with some people, the only way to achieve it was through crowdfunding. At the beginning we thought we were going to get it, we had this hope and then the campaign stalled in the middle and we thought it was not going to work out and to have considered a cheaper alternative, then in the last week, people waited until the last moment, we got the money, even surpassed the amount, so, we recorded in Valetim de Carvalho and did everything as we wanted. We were very grateful to people, they received their respective rewards and it was a really cool experience for us, because we realize that fans support us and our work.
You intitulated your self as a post-rock sound, but it is very harmonious and complex at the same time, it is difficult to transpose all this to the stage?
RG: The first album was easy, because it was what we played at that time. This had some challenges, since, had sounds of rain, old pianos, we cannot take the rain, or an old piano on stage, but there is technology, we sample it and put it on the computer.
JM: They are the same that you hear on the record.
RG: It was perhaps one of the aspects that motivated fear when we were producing the album, now have a month to rehearse for the concert presentation and how we put it all together? How to show all this live? If the album has a particular sound you hear it on stage, I do not like listening to a reacord with perfect piano and then live is digital, we prefer to use digital in it, we sample the sound of the piano and it is the same that on the album.
At present, this year are you working in something new?
Pedro Marquês: We are still in that part of getting together and experiment in the rehearsal room.
RG: We are at the end of the concerts, we are not rehearsing so much and occasionally we go to the rehearsal room, but we're not at that point to close us and we will we should finish songs, we are still in a relaxed process, we recorded because we feel like it .
JM: For an hour or two do the same thing, but we do not know whether it will be a reacord, or may be a song.
RG: In the second album we had this process of playing alone in the rehearsal room for a while, but the first songs we did at the end of the first album, just not enter this second record because we were making more and more music and those early themes have become worse in our ears. I think it will happen now too, we do things until we get to a point that is more or less what we want for a third album and these are ideas that we want.
When you are working on theme there is an unison, or you discuss the songs before putting them on the album?
PM: There are also a lot of aggression (laughs)
RG: We discussed a lot not different ideas, sometimes it can happen, but what happens is that we discussed the same idea of the various points of view, the advantages and disadvantages, what you can do with it. In this second album was a song which did not enter, because we were thinking about it. We discussed all calmly and hear each other.
This is because you will know each other since you were kids?
JM: It also has to do with the way of being of each of us. We are almost like brothers.
PM: As brothers, lovers, a little of everything, we know each other for a long time. (laughs).
