Listen: Tequila Brainfreeze - You Ain’t Seen Nothin Yet Pt. 1

Tequila Brainfreeze was formed by our good pal Fluffy and some of his friends under a strange set of chemical induced circumstances. With a three-track EP titled The Early Days ready to drop, Fluffy has given us a wee sneak peek and filled us in on the project. Have a listen to the epic 'You Ain’t Seen Nothin Yet Pt. 1' and read the interview below...

First off can you tell us a bit about Tequila Brainfreeze, who is it and what kind of music you make?

So Tequila Brainfreeze is myself, Fluffy, on bass guitar, Heath, who also plays in Royal Falcon on the drum kit, Jeff, who drops fly lines in his spare time on synth duties and effects and Sarah, who is also a visual artist. Musically, we're a great mash up of influences. Personally I hear a lot of Om in my playing and the builds and lulls in dynamics remind me of This Will Destroy You and a grimier Explosions In The Sky. Sarah's voice reminds me of the ladies from CocoRosie and Portishead with more reverb and Jeff's playing varies from 60s psych style organ runs to 90s west coast hip hop melodies to sweet soothing pads. Heath has an amazing sense of dynamics and manages to traverse from quite ambience to super funk effortlessly. It's hard to place it in a box because there's this crazy crossroads of tastes going on but in a way that compliments each other. It can definitely get noise rock-esque at times, what with my crippling effect pedal addiction, and some times Jeff and I wont be able to differentiate exactly who is making which buzzy tones at any given time. One of the first jams we had Jeff described as "Some Skyrim soundtrack sounding sh*t".

Today you're coming forth with ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothin Yet Pt. 1’, how did this track come together?

So, both 'You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet Pt I' and 'Pt II' and 'The Early Days', which is also the title of our forthcoming EP, were recorded on a Sunday afternoon after seeing Wu-Tang Clan at Ragamuffin and then managing to dislocate my knee cap in the parking lot out the back of The Lucha Lounge. After spending all night in the ER, I hobbled home on crutches with no sleep, little pain relief and riding the rush of sleep deprived sassy smack talking to nurses all evening. I very badly wished to drink the pain away but alas, there were jams to be had and somehow this bizarre combination of brain chemistry induced some of our most creative and free tune making up until that point. It felt like a wonderful zeitgeist of exploring our musical capabilities. Sadly, the batteries on my field recorder ran out of juice and we were convinced the file was corrupted and our new tunes lost to the void. I managed to find some software that can somehow search drives a little deeper then just looking at the files regularly and successfully rescued the tracks from the dregs of cyberspace. I then used some beta-phase sound isolating software to try to bring out the detail in the bass guitar a little more; as much as I dig the 60s feel of just recording off of 2 mics, it was a little hard to tell what the bass was doing. At this stage, Jeff had yet to join the band but on the recommendation of my flatmate, I asked if he could add some synths to fill in the top end. He nailed the three 8-minute+ tracks on the EP in one fell swoop and it was decided that his talents would be a rad edition to our experimental endeavours.

The circumstances of The Early Days' conception made a great impact on us collectively. It seemed as though this EP willed itself back from brink of nothingness; that it's significance to us was so great there was no way that it could become merely another set of jams that were accidentally deleted or left on someone's hard drive forever more. Some might think it strange to think of a creative opus as it's own being of sorts but I've definitely formed a bond with it and have grown with completing it.

There’s an interesting tone to the vocals, where they are kind of dampened down, what were the sonic influences here?

This is a by-product of the (mostly) live feel. Sarah's vocals were recorded on the same takes as the bass and drums, in the same room, coming through a PA. Our thoughts on vocals are usually to treat them like another instrument or textural layer, rather then bring them to the forefront as they are in most styles of music. This also makes what Sarah is singing about sink in on a subconscious level. Sort of a musical equivalent to William Burroughs' cut and paste technique of rewriting his "prose". The aim with this is to not give the listener an exactly palpable platform which to grasp onto but to enjoy running their fingers through the changing textures of our musical mountain side.

What have you got up your sleeves for the future?

As the title suggests, The Early Days is a sort of musical prologue for our journey together; a formative period for us to become ourselves in. The plan for the not too distant future is to do a full length. We're thinking of doing two versions of this, one with shorter radio edits and one with the full extended versions for those more keen on losing themselves in the sonic mire. We're also playing our first show in our current formation at The Paddington on Wednesday night and hopefully collaborating with some visual artists in the future to provide the soundtracks for further sensory befuddlement.

You can catch Tequila Brainfreeze playing alongside Saskia and Taine Buchan at The Paddington tomorrow night, head over here for more information.