Photo by Valerie Paschall

Los Angeles quartet HEALTH is quite possibly one of the noisiest bands to have emerged from the underground and garnered some success. Their live shows could hardly be called controlled chaos, because the control is barely noticeable amid the leaping guitarists, primal shrieks and multiple percussionists. Their performance energy is more engaging than repulsive, and they have obvious talent, but there aren’t exactly any “songs” easily picked out in a HEALTH set.

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.