Artrocker Interview
Henri chatted to Artocker about writing and recording the new album as well as all the events surrounding its release. It’s a fairly in-depth interview, which you can read over on the their website or below here.
We’ve also had yet more radio play following all the action last week. “We Humans” is turning into a bit of an Art School Dancing-hit on Castle FM and “Boxes” was featured on the svelte selection on Purple Radio.
Finally, we were also featured on Tuna The Day as their Catch of the Day with “Next Addict”. As for the French For Cartridge Fun Fayre, tickets are almost sold out, so if you want a pair you’d better hurry up and pre-order the album now!
Pre-order the new French For Cartridge album, “We Humans”, from our shop now and guarantee entry to the record release party on July 14th or for immediate ownership download the first single from iTunes.
IN CONVERSATION: FRENCH FOR CARTRIDGE
www.artrocker.tv July 11th 2013 by Nathan Westley
French For Cartridge are a London-based band fronted by a male/female duo who formed as an attempt to create atonal pop music whilst at Goldsmiths. With the release of new album “We Humans” imminent, we checked in with Henri Växby for a brief chat.
First off, Hello and how are you today?
Hello! We’re very well, thank you. We’ve just come out in the sun after a whole day spent in a windowless room practising for the album launch party. It’s all sounding pretty OK, so now we can sit back and relax in the evening sun for a bit.
You’re just about to release your new album ‘We Humans’, how did you approach the writing process for this one?
Most of our songs are written separately by either myself (Henri) or Catherine up to a certain, almost finished, point. We then polish things together, throw some things around and also work on the arrangements with our rhythm section Akinori and Anssi. A lot of the album was written and recorded while Cat was pregnant and this did influence a lot of the lyrics, which are contemplations on the basics of human nature and the predictability of our behaviour.
You chose to record with S. Husky Höskulds (Tom Waits, Mike Patton, Meshell Ndegeocello, My Brightest Diamond) again, is it good to have a certain level of stability and / or familiarity when making art?
It’s definitely good when it’s someone like Husky! We thought the collaboration worked out really well on our first album, “Liquorice”, and it felt like we had only gotten started in terms of what we could do together. He brings another layer of creativity to the music and brings the songs alive with a mix that is a little bit different from what you would usually expect. This time it’s quite a dark and nicely murky, but warm sound that fits the songs perfectly. When you work on something for as long as we did with this album, it’s good to get someone else’s view on things as well. And he’s not afraid of breaking a few rules along the way, which suits us fine.
Did you feel like you were under any more pressure second time around? If so did the pressure come from internally or externally?
Strangely, in some ways it was actually easier to make the second album. It felt like we now know more what we’re doing and what sort of sound we’re after whereas the first time around we were still trying to figure out what a French For Cartridge album should sound like. Mind you, it can sound any way we want, so perhaps the third one will be completely different!
You are both classically trained composers who studied at Goldsmiths, how has this fed into you making music for French For Cartridge? When making music are you conscious about “who” you are making it for at the time?
In the first instance, we’re making this music for ourselves. It’s the sort of stuff we’d like to hear and also enjoy making, so we’re not really thinking about who else might or might not like it or where it fits in. Using guitars and drums automatically makes it more pop than some of the other stuff we do, but we did work with a brass quartet, a handbell trio and the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra on the album and it still sounds like a rock band. I guess if there is such a genre as Composer Rock, we’d fit right in with Dirty Projectors and The Chap, who all also have PhDs in composition…but we’re never trying to be clever just for the sake of it. This is pop music, just made the way we happen to like it!
The release of the new album is part of a 24 week campaign of music and non music events which relate to a certain song on the album, can you tell us a little about what you have planned and where the idea came from?
The main thing is the French For Cartridge Fun Fayre on July 14th. Everyone who pre-orders the album from us gets two tickets to an evening of organ grinders, fortune tellers, candy floss and the like - plus a set from us, of course - at a secret location in East London. Most of the tickets have now gone and there are only a few places left, but there’s lots of other stuff going on throughout summer for those who miss that. We have a bunch of talented filmmaker friends who have made a video for each song off the album and most of them are also tied in with another event of some sort. For example “Spiders” is about the fact that Antarctica is the only land mass where there are no spiders and therefore the perfect place to emigrate to if you suffer from arachnophobia, so we managed to get a group of German and Norwegian scientists to record an introduction to the video on their field trip on polar ice. For “Boxes”, which was inspired by a beach in Belgium, we went back to the beach and did a little performance of the song there. There will also be a French For Cartridge themed hot air balloon ride, a French For Cartridge walkabout, a kids’ version of the album, a gig at our local DIY store and all sorts of other stuff until end of October. Some the videos are already up on YouTube and the other events you can find out about on our website, Facebook, Twitter etc. If you go on to our website you can also take part in our We Humans Gallery where we collect people’s photos and life mottos in return for a free download.
Finally, what do you have planned for the rest of the year? Any burning desires?
We’ll do a tour of libraries October 16th - 27th to fit in with the last single/video off the album called “Old Books”. It’s our political protest song about the recent closures of so many libraries. There’s also a beautifully packaged 7" coming out on August 19th with a gig at the Dinner With Daisy Club Night at Jamboree in London the day before and we’re hoping to play a few other 'normal’ gigs as well during the Autumn, so look out for those. Any burning desires? Could someone please take us to Japan to play?