Wellington noise duo The Shocking and Stunning released their fourth EP We Will Fight You over the weekend. High time for a catch up, we put a few questions to sound-explorer Jack Hooker about their year and the new EP which he provides a track by track introduction to, complete with streams, below...
Tell us a bit about your year, what have been some of your highlights?
We did a three week tour of Australia at the beginning of the year with Sunken Seas, it was pretty manic few weeks, but it was a lot of fun. Since then we've taken most of the year out, except for one or two cool gigs. It was the right time to work on some new material and refresh the live set.
Have there been any bands or releases that you’ve found particularly inspiring?
We went to All Tomorrow's Parties when we were in Australia, which was amazing; got to see Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Swans, Ben Frost, My Bloody Valentine and a stack of others.In terms of local bands, we love The All Seeing Hand, Beastwars, Sunken Seas, Space Bats, Attack! HDSPNS and a bunch more.
You’ve just released your fourth EP, tell us about the writing and recording of this one...
We did some initial recordings in May, and got about three or four pieces down before discarding the entire thing. We started work on this EP in August, and the writing and everything came together pretty quickly. We had one gigantic setback, most of our gear stolen mid-way through the recording sessions, but we got it finished with the help of some awesome friends.
Like our other EP's, we recorded, mixed and mastered everything ourselves, with some help from friends. Joel Cosgrove from Big Rick helped us record the drums, then we overlayed all the synths/textures and went from there.
Was there anything you were looking to do differently and/or explore specifically with this EP?
With all the EP's its cool to try something a bit different while keeping a similar framework. We wanted to do something pretty abrasive with this EP. That said, we usually let the EP's take their own direction, trying to force things doesn't usually work out too well.
How do you see it relating to your past releases?
Compared to some of our previous EPs, this one is pretty raw. It's a bit more abrasive, and less 'spacey' than our previous EP's. The synths/textures, and even the drums are pretty harsh sounding. There's distortion on pretty much everything.
Can you take us through the tracks…
'Die Ghost, Die' - This is our introduction. It's a minute long and everything is distorted.
'Breakdance, Motherfucker' - I guess this is the EPs single. We've gone for that abrasive wall-of-sound vibe.
'Future Doom' - The only track which survived the original recordings from May. We almost tried to write a stoner-rock track, it's got a big distorted bass line.
'Narrow Freak' - This track basically came together the same day as 'Breakdance, Motherfucker'. It's the happiest track on the EP.
'The Worms Drink Blood' - This one came together after all our stuff got stolen. The melody line is a really old, cheap Casio keyboard run through mass distortion. It's funny where you can find the best sounds.
What have you got lined up for the summer and 2014 more generally?
We're about to head out around the country for a short tour. It'll be our only NZ tour this year, so we're looking forward to it. We have some more shows/festivals lined up over Summer. Next year we're planning a full length release, we're then touring Europe later in the year.
