Sonic Circuits Interview: HEALTH
Photo by Valerie Paschall
Which is why it's slightly shocking that they've released one of the most haunting and beautiful songs this year. There's still a powerful, nihilistic aura about "Die Slow," but there's an almost dance-y synth sample in the background, and singer Jacob Duszik's vocals turn down the fear factor and sound rather dream-like. While this is the clear standout on this year's Get Color, the rest of the album also effectively channels a tug-of-war between the dreamy and the nightmarish. And it sounds fantastic.
We talked with bassist/percussionist John Famiglietti a week ago, in advance of HEALTH's Sonic Circuits performance this Sunday at Black Cat, to get some insight on the recording of Get Color and their thoughts on the greater acceptance of noise music. We also hit him with a surprise that he wasn't expecting.
Did having your self-titled album remixed change your approach when you recorded Get Color?
John: It probably did subconsciously, but there was never any real plan. So I would say no, but it probably definitely did somehow. We just aren’t conscious of it.
The vocals seemed higher in the mix on this one. Was that something you were conscious of doing?
John: Yeah, it definitely was. There’s definitely more focus on the vocals, more melodies, that was definitely intentional.
How long have the songs that you recorded for Get Color been around?
John: Two of them were actually written directly after the first album, so we’ve been playing those for years now. Over a year. I’d say most of them were written over that time, over our big year of touring in ’08. We were writing during the small breaks we had. Then, I’d say four of them were written in the two months leading up to recording. And those ones we hadn’t been playing live until we finished the album.
Is "Death +" one of the older songs? It sounds very familiar.
John: Yeah, definitely. We actually wrote that while recording the first album, but we hadn’t finished it until we were done with the first album.
It’s been well over a year since your last time in D.C. Did Sonic Circuits contact you recently or did you make contact on your last trip out here?
John: They contacted us. We had never heard of them before, actually. They were like, “Hey, do you want to play this thing in D.C.” And we were like, “Well, we haven’t played D.C. in a long time, should we play this sort of festival?” And it was like, “Well, it seems pretty fun and then we wouldn’t have to compete with the festival.” We like doing festival sort of things. It seems like it would be fun.
It seems like noise and experimental music has become more accepted over the past couple of years in places which may not have given it a second look before. Does it seem to you that this is going on? Is this exciting for you guys?
John: Yeah, it definitely is exciting. And I don’t know how much [more noise is being accepted], but I think that definitely is the case. It comes with other things though. I think tastes are just changing in a really strange way. That is one byproduct of it, though.
Do you have any thoughts about opening for Faust when you come here?
John: Wait, we’re opening for Faust?
Yeah, you didn’t know you were playing at the same show as Faust?
John: That’s fucking awesome! I didn’t know that! That’s cool! That’s really cool. I bought that record in high school. That’s fucking crazy. Yeah, nowadays we have this habit of not knowing what we’re doing. So, any surprise is kind of cool. But I had no idea we were playing with Faust. That’s fucking awesome.
HEALTH plays Sunday at Black Cat, as part of the 2009 Sonic Circuits Festival. Faust, Rat Bastard+Chris Grier+Ulrich Krieger, Pekka Airaksinen and Alexei Borisov & Anton Nikkilä will also perform. Tickets are $15. 8 p.m.