Metronomy’s musical output is the definition of eclectic. Listening to Joseph Mount’s first album, Pip Paine (Pay the £500You Owe)—an instrumental record rooted in bedroom beats, abrasive guitars, and skewed glitch-tronics—it’d be nigh on impossible to predict that four albums in, Mount would be serving up a collection steeped in the 60s and recorded 100 percent analogue. After Pip Paine there was Nights Out and everyone was shocked that Joseph could sing at all, let alone in weird falsetto. After that came The English Riviera, a record of glossy grooves and Mount’s expanded live line up. It’s pop that’s still left of center, songs that make the most of shivery synths and sinuous basslines. And thanks to the blissed out, disco-funk bounce of “The Bay” (12 million plus views and rising), Metronomy was suddenly a mainstream contender, a Mercury Award nominee. Perhaps the closest stylistic bridge between The English Riviera and the newly released Love Letters is the honeyed boy-girl duet of “Everything Goes My Way.”
Where so many male solo artists seems to be retreating further into their computers, their skin turning translucent from too much time composing in their mom’s attic, Mount is striding down the street in the opposite direction. But if you dig beyond Metronomy—back to when the now 31-year-old was just a skater boy from Devon, you’ll find his musical roots are much more traditional: in his teens and early 20s he played drums in bands that could best be described as Beatles-esque pop (The Upsides) and lo-fi indie-folk (The Customers). (Learn a little bit more about Mount’s musical past here.) When you look at it that way the girl group shimmies of “A Month of Sundays” and the Bowie-like quaver that characterizes “The Upsetter” don’t seem so much of a stretch, or an arc, but rather, a full circle.
Videos by VICE
With this in mind, when Mr. Mount stopped into NYC recently, we got nerdy with him and broke down the DNA of Love Letters.
The Rules
“The rules were it has to be finished before the baby was born [last March]—it was useful to have the baby as a deadline—and the record cannot touch a computer from conception to release. If you willfully go and record something onto eight-track at a place like Toe Rag it’s like of course it’s so easy to transfer it onto a computer but it would have felt like such a cop-out. I wanted it to be computer free, not because I’m a douche, but because I thought if you’re gonna do a record like that, you have to do it so completely. It’s like that Daft Punk record. I’m not being rude, I think some of it’s really good, but I think some of it you can hear has been made on a computer and I feel like their intention was kind of the same as mine but at a point they decided they needed to sort it out on a computer. It’s a nice achievement that some people will care about and others will not give a shit!”
The Theme:
“I didn’t want to do another record where I had to talk about concept. I feel like if you’re going to do that you really have to go for it. The English Riviera in name and everything was about Devon or at least alluding to it. Essentially I’m quite nostalgic. The lyrics on this album are much better, I think. They’re not about touring because that would be such a stupid thing to write about, but it was all inspired by traveling and being away from family. It was a starting point but I’m not miserable. If you’re gonna write lyrics you should write about something you know about.”
The Story Behind The Song: “I’m Aquarius.”
Joe says one thing, but the album’s lead single is 100 percent not inspired by a real situation.
“Having said all of the above I wrote “I’m Aquarius” and originally offered it to Nicola Roberts [a member of British girl band Girls Aloud, whose solo album Mount worked on in 2011]. With that song I liked the idea of a lyrically dense song about an arrogant boy and a girlfriend who has an excuse to break up with him and the real reason is that he’s an idiot but she’s a bit of a hippy, I guess. The thing I’m only now beginning to enjoy about songs is that you can do whatever the fuck you want. It’s a contradiction really – me saying it helps to write about something you know about but on the other hand it’s not something you have to do. With this song everyone was like, “Oh is everything okay?” I quite enjoy that really. It’s nice because then people don’t really know which parts of the record are me.”
Toe Rag studios.
The Studio: Toe Rag, East London
“People consider bands who record there ‘authentic.’ Part of the reason why I wanted to do it there was kind of because to a lot of people Metronomy appears inauthentic. Like, people call it a ‘project’ or say it’s like electropop. That’s only a small part of it—this idea of using a studio like that and it being: ‘Who’s authentic now?!’ I would never do things just because of that, but I always feel like there’s always part of me, which feels like part of my job is trying to convince people that this is interesting. Without wanting to sound big headed, but I think I’m more interesting than some people give me credit for. Also I just like the idea of successfully recording a record there and it sounding good and it being a good record.Also it shows that you can do something within different parameter. But what outwardly looks like a much more restrictive setup can be a very interesting. Giving ourselves a limit is quite fun in a way.”
The Field Recording
During “The Most Immaculate Haircut”there’s a lovely moment where the music fades away to the sounds of splashing water and chirruping cicadas. Hello Tuscany!
Remember that Björk song where she leaves the music, she opens the door and she goes outside and you can hear the music suddenly go down. I remember listening to that and thinking, ‘Oh this is really cool,’ and if you’re listening with headphones it’s a bit of a trip. So my girlfriend and I went on a family holiday to Tuscany and had like a really amazing time. Everyone was quiet, no one was there and I had this tape recorder—not even a digital tape recorder—and I was getting [my girlfriend] to dive into the pool again and again. I remember lying there with the microphone and [the baby is] there, [my girlfriend’s] over there and now every time I listen to it, it reminds me of that moment.”
Conan’s golden swoop.
Hair
While we’re on the subject…
“The song is about Conan Mockasin. I was going to maybe a duet with him, but I was writing the song that line “He has the most immaculate haircut,” and I immediately thought of him. He’s let his hair go a bit recently, but when toured with him, he had really beautiful blonde gold hair. And there’s this thing that I’ve never had the hair that can really make an iconic haircut. It’s a very valuable tool if you’re a musician to have a really good recognizable haircut—like The Ramones. Okay it’s a song about being jealous about people like him really.”
The Recording Ritual
“We recorded 11-7pm every day. There weren’t rituals as such apart from maybe taking stuff away on a Discman and listening to it! They only had a CD burner. It does get to a point where you say, ‘Oh fuck this. Pain in the ass.’ We went through a lot of CDs—makes you realize how wasteful the olden days were.”
The Food
The record was fueled by jalepenos:“They’ve basically remodeled Chatsworth Road [in East London] on Williamsburg and there’s a creperie and I would go eat their Mexican crepe—avocado, chicken, some cheese, and some salad. A burrito but like in a crepe. And jalepenos.”
The Influence of the 60s
“The record’s fucking riddled with it. It was partly decided to record the record as it was recorded which means you have to be a songwriter in a more traditional sense and I haven’t done that before. I wanted to get better at the writing like that. Sixties music for so many people I know, is the music which you used to kind of get into music. When I started playing in bands, it was always like The Beatles, and The Kinks, and The Who, and then The Zombies.”
Lights thanks to the genius of Ed Warren a.k.a. Next Level Lights.
The Look
When Metronomy first started they wore all black and taped emergency lights bought from the local Pound Shop [the UK’s one dollar store equivalent] to their chest. The then trio choreographed rudimentary dance moves, simultaneously playing their instruments, singing and smacking their chests so the lights flashed on and off—to the beat of course. It was janky, lovable and brilliantly DIY and audiences loved it. Circa The English Riviera, Metronomy started stepping up their thread count. French label APC kitted them out in matching attire. For Love Letters it’s next level again. It’s not just the clothes—Beggars Run, shoes by Repetto—which have a certain 60s airplane crew chic, but each aspect of the stage set up and light show has been perfected.
“For the beginning me and Oscar have always wanted to make the staging look cool. The boring truth is it costs money and you either can’t afford to do it or you don’t have the space to do it. This time we thought, let’s just do it and make the stage set like a television review. And to go with that, there’s the outfits. You know how you watch old films of The Beatles and they’re playing, and they’re wearing suits, and it’s like, ‘That must be really fucking hot.’ We just thought, ‘Why not? We can wear suits. Fuck it!’
Related:
Behind The Lens: A look on the set of Metronomy’s “I’m Aquarius”
The DNA of Settle by Disclosure
The DNA of Oxymoron by Schoolboy Q
