09-2003
/ worldsofpossibility.blogspot.com / Stephen Pastel
interview by Jon Dale
# posted by jon : 6:50 PM
Part One of the Stephen Pastel interview. Originally
conducted for an article in Careless Talk Costs
Lives which was then unceremoniously pulled from
the contents page by Everett while I was half-way
through writing the damn thing. I love talking
to Stephen: it feels like we share similar approaches
to thinking about and talking about music. A comment
which I hope people won't mistake for me thinking
I'm as talented as or on the same level as Stephen.
Not true! I'm just a little flea...
-----
Worlds of Possibility: Can you tell me a bit about
the new Maher Shalal Hash Baz album?
Stephen Pastel: It was recorded at the time of
their last visit to the UK to play, and we booked
out East Kilbride Arts Centre, which is a really
nice little studio. The person who runs it, David
Scott, is an excellent engineer and a really good
person to be around. He just creates an environment
where good things happen. When they did Maher
on Water we found that the studio costs were quite
expensive in Japan, and we just took the decision
to record the new album here. It was mostly recorded
in one long session in May of last year, and then
Tori came over in January to mix it. We recorded
one of the songs again, which will be the main
song on their new EP, which is going to be called
Open Field. I think the music’s very...
It’s very delicate, and friends we have
in Japan say it’s the warmest music that
Tori’s ever made in terms of lyrics and
melody. I just think it will be a very affecting
record for people, and we’re really longing
to bring it out now.
Worlds of Possibility: There’s been a strain
in his work for a long time now which has hinted
at that, I think.
Stephen Pastel: Tori’s always very conceptual.
His approach to music is the most conceptual of
anyone I know. He’ll establish an intellectual
framework for something and then try to make something
work within that. But I think he’s started
to develop a more naturalistic approach, and it’s
really... I’m really sure that this is some
of Maher’s best ever music.
Worlds of Possibility: I think anything he touches
is pretty amazing.
Stephen Pastel: It’s always interesting,
and they’re such a unique presence, there’s
no-one really like Maher. They definitely occupy
their own space.
Worlds of Possibility: Which is, I think maybe,
the most important thing for a band to do.
Stephen Pastel: I think so, I think there’s
so much generic music, sub-sections of things,
and it’s really rare that... Although with
Maher Shalal Hash Baz, you can make comparisons
because of clues that Tori has given us into his
music, then you do start to see those things,
but I feel it’s, really, music without precedent.
Worlds of Possibility: There’s a continuum
of music which The Pastels hook into, maybe. I
was talking to a friend of mine earlier today
actually, and we were bemoaning the lot of music
these days. because, when James and I talk we
get grumpy and cynical, as we so often do. But,
the sense was that we’re in a bit of a fallow
period generally. The one thing that we concluded
is that that does throw up... There are people
who are on, for want of a better and less clichéd
term, ‘their own path’, it shows them
in a brighter light. I think that’s one
thing that’s happening with Maher Shalal
Hash Baz, maybe. I get this sense with them, and
maybe it’s why I respond to them so much,
that they really do hook into this weird continuum
of acts that are completely their own selves and
have their own presence. I guess I would say Galaxie
500 are one of those, My Bloody Valentine, The
Pastels. Do you feel that you hook into that as
a band?
Stephen Pastel: Yes, I mean... Maybe on an emotional
level, a lot of the music that you tend to really
like is music that you feel some connection with
and, of course, when you express your own music
you know that’s the deepest connection with
your own idea of how music should be. To think
of a group like My Bloody Valentine, or Beat Happening,
well obviously they’re far apart in terms
of their aesthetic, but there is something within
them that you respond to and so we always try
to make those connections to make sense of ourselves
in the world. And we find that other people make
those kinds of connections too. Even though I
think groups like The Pastels and Galaxie 500
and My Bloody Valentine don’t necessarily
approach music in a similar way, because there
are a sizeable number of people that like those
groups, there must be a connection of some kind.
With Geographic [Stephen and Katrina's record
label], we definitely... It’s a very different
kind of music, if Geographic had existed in the
1980s it’s possible we would have tried
to sign a group like My Bloody Valentine, and
I don’t think on the label there is anyone
with a My Bloody Valentine sound at all. It’s
probably a reflection of the times.
One thing about a lot of the music that we represent
now, is that people have become very open to the
idea of leaving mistakes in the records, and to
just not strive towards some impossible to achieve
kind of perfectionist thing, and you know, with
Bill Wells and Maher Shalal Hash Baz, they just
laugh at a mistake and really enjoy it, and make
it part of the music. I think it’s a reaction
towards the tendency in modern music for everyone
to attain a certain acceptability in terms of
auto-tuning, and the way that music’s made
now, you hardly need to play a single note, and
I think there’s currently a reaction against
that by certain artists, and I think that’s
quite interesting.
Worlds of Possibility: The people we’re
talking about seem really fiercely individualistic
about their work, and it’s very much about
not pandering. One of the most important things
about being yourself is the ability to make mistakes
and admit your faults and revel in them in some
way. Not in a really childish way, but acknowledging
that that’s a really important way to move
on, aesthetically or personally or whatever.
Stephen Pastel: Yes, and even to... Too much choice
is sometimes a bad thing and sometimes if an accidental
thing happens that does create something that’s
really new. If this were to become a really influential
tendency no doubt some people would be trying
to deliberately make mistakes. And that would
be terrible. (laughs) But now it seems like a
shaft of light, or something, to just be a bit
more raw or something. To strive towards making
something beautiful but also allow your vision
to be slightly disturbed in that process.
Worlds of Possibility: And also ultimately for
the art to be more personal, more benign...
Stephen Pastel: Definitely.
Worlds of Possibility: More of a benign presence.
I imagine you would agree that a lot of modern
music is rather cynical in its approach.
Stephen Pastel: Yes, it’s very... I mean
I don’t, you know, I don’t really
hold with the idea of there being real golden
ages when there was no cynicism, and I think that
it’s important that people need to be really
rigorous in what they do, and probably a degree
of cynicism is not a bad thing within that. But
it’s when the whole design becomes part
of a marketing strategy. It’s just so far
removed from art that it shouldn’t be discussed
in that way. I think there’s a lot of terrible
music around just now, I think the whole new rock’n’roll
thing is very depressing to be honest.
Worlds of Possibility: It’s a strange time.
I’m kind of puzzled as to why, of all the
things that people could hook on to, that was
the thing. But it does seem unendingly drab doesn’t
it?
Stephen Pastel: It just seems impossible that...
It slightly reminds me of the 1980s in London
when there were a lot of garage bands. And I suppose
that, maybe, groups like My Bloody Valentine would
go and see those bands and then take something
from it and expand it. I like a lot of psychedelic
and garage punk but I just think that there’s
so much music now that people are just playing
very within their limits, and the whole kind of
garage punk rock thing is really... It’s
just not challenging, I don’t think, at
all. I just find the whole thing depressing really.
Worlds of Possibility: I wonder about the distorting
lens of how, for example, we in Australia see
the English music press, I know the NME always
has these bands on the cover it seems, and they’re
a tired and old organ, but it does appear to be
the new hegemony. Is it that all-encompassing?
Stephen Pastel: In Glasgow it doesn’t really.
I don’t think there are many groups playing
in that style in Glasgow and I think there’s
some really interesting things going on, there’s
quite an interesting improvisational scene going
on in Glasgow, a group like Scatter is very good.
I think there’s a lot of really good untypical
music taking place in Glasgow, or at least untypical
in terms of what the NME would write about. But
really the NME has become very uninfluential over
the past five or six years, and I think that maybe
it’s influential to the industry or something,
but the NME could give 10 out of 10 to a record
and I don’t think one person in Glasgow
would buy it. Maybe one person would, who’s
living in a cave or something and somehow came
upon the NME (laughter), but it’s not influential
at all. That’s healthy because, for years,
we were always very against the idea of a music
paper having the kind of influence that they used
to have. So it’s really healthy that they’ve
lost that. It’s nice to think of everyone
out there digging into The Wire or Careless Talk
Costs Lives who have more interesting things.
There is a bit of that, but it still feels quite
minority, to be honest.
Worlds of Possibility: It’s interesting
to observe the ebb and flow of the English music
press over the last fifteen years. Maybe through
the distorting lens of being over here in Australia,
more interesting than being in England and dealing
with it. Their take on The Pastels, with the exception
of Everett True in Melody Maker or Bob Stanley
or something, their take on The Pastels seemed
very at odds with how I received what The Pastels
were about, and there’s always felt like
that kind of distortion happening. I was thinking
about this idea of, at a certain point, being
a Pastels fan you became defensive. Which was
good, because you were crusading for something
you loved...
Stephen Pastel: I suppose at some point it dawns
on you that you’re actually a lot hipper
than they are, and that’s part of the problem.
I think they like to... It’s wrong to over-generalise,
because I think, despite how it might seem to
you, there really were really good pockets of
support for The Pastels in the NME and the Melody
Maker, more than just Everett True and... You
know sometimes felt that they were making, maybe
the consensus was that we weren’t part of
the NME’s agenda, although we probably were
in the mid 1980s. So from time to time people
would rally around, and then maybe they would
feel that... Maybe we would do a show in London
and it wouldn’t be good, or we would make
a record and it would be disappointing or something.
You know I don’t think The Pastels has always
been brilliant, I think we have had some brilliant
moments, but from my perspective I can see reasons
why we would not have been fully embraced. Actually
that’s turned out good in the end, I think
more and more we started to see ourselves as outsiders
rather than trying to infiltrate or something
or being players, I have had phases of that, and
it’s really a complete waste of time, because
in the end the most important thing is playing,
you know. It’s the music, and so the people
that write about us, I think we’ve been
very fortunate actually, we’ve had a lot
of really good support through the years, and
I certainly have absolutely no bitterness about
the way we’ve been treated by the NME or
anything like that. We’ve just got two different
agendas. They’re IPC and we’re The
Pastels. (laughs) It’s like capitalism against
communism, it’s so different, it’s
like the arts and crafts movement versus IBM or
something. It’s just miles apart. You’ll
never reconcile those things.
I guess the good thing about where The Pastels
are now is that you do seem to be attracting a
really good community of like-minded souls as
well.
Yes, I think so, we feel that a lot. It’s
always been the case, you know. In the 1980s,
a lot of the really smart kids were doing fanzines.
People like Bob Stanley and Jerry and everyone,
their first move wasn’t to try to join with
IPC, they went and made their own thing. In a
way I find that far more exciting, that we inspired
that kind of activity, than the NME gave us, we
probably had five or six features in the NME,
so I can not be critical of what they were. The
idea that we would now fit in with them is just
absolutely impossible, they just don’t cover
interesting music.
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Part Two coming up soon...
# posted by jon : 1:44 PM
Sunday, September 21, 2003
Part the second (and the final) of the Stephen
Pastel interview:
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Worlds of Possibility: One thing I was going to
coax you into talking about more was this whole
idea of community. There’s this nice, almost
a gift economy about what The Pastels does, and
the people who seem to have rallied around this
set of ideas, I mean... I’ve always, correct
me if I’m wrong, I’ve always seen
The Pastels as more than just the music itself,
that’s the most important part, but there
also sort of feels like a belief system that isn’t
overarching, it doesn’t force you into anything,
but there’s definitely a set of ideas that
you and Katrina and other folks have that seemed
to resonate with the way your fans think, the
way I would approach writing about or making music
or something like that.
Stephen Pastel: I think that’s really true.
I think especially when the group core became
myself and Annabel and Katrina, I think to an
extent we were really self-critical in a way The
Pastels had never been before. I think we tried
just to achieve a real consistency through what
we did in terms of music and in terms of how the
sleeves were, in terms of how we met people, in
terms of how we promoted other musics. I think
that The Pastels has always been about being inclusive,
it’s not about... It’s very anti-elitist,
for me. I think it’s really, I don’t
think groups should over-estimate their importance,
but I think we’ve definitely been a dot
in the map, and we’ve been lit up at some
points.
Worlds of Possibility: Absolutely, and within
Glasgow as well, not having been there myself,
but The Pastels do seem central to a particular
kind of way of living in Glasgow. The sense that
I get of how people write about it and speak about
it. And Glasgow conversely seems to be very important
to the music you make, tracks like “G12
Nights” and “Attic Plan”.
Stephen Pastel: Yeah, I think we decided that
it was important... I think when we became more
honest, then it became important to document our
lives, and so then we became aware of our geography.
Worlds of Possibility: Do you think there’s
a real romance to Glasgow?
Stephen Pastel: I think a lot of people who don’t
live in Glasgow feel that. We did an interview
with Mixing It, the radio programme the other
week, and he said he thought we had a really romantic
sound and he thought a lot of Glasgow music does.
So I think that it must be a tendency, you know,
I can see that a group like Orange Juice is an
incredibly romantic sound and probably... So I
think it is a very important part of things, just
to, something about Glasgow that there is, it
never becomes too honeyed or something, it’s
always, for me, there’s just enough darkness
that infects everything, there is room to pursue
a slightly romantic vision which will come across
in the sound.
Worlds of Possibility: I've always liked that
idea of records mapping a psychogeography of the
city as seen by the artist in question, I think
you folks did it on Mobile Safari. David [Keenan],
maybe with one of the Telstars records, In the
Space of A Few Minutes, you can hear it resonating
through a bunch of other records, like the International
Airport 7” as well. There seems to be a
very pronounced folkish lilt to a lot of Glasgow
music as well. We may have discussed this before
even.
Stephen Pastel: Yeah, I think there is. I personally
don’t think of myself as very interested
in traditional music, but then when I hear some
of that music I can hear certain connections and
I think, maybe there is something folky, but I
don’t feel a strong quest for authenticity
really. It’s very different, even, from
the kind of folkiness you’d get on a Will
Oldham record or something, it’s not really
like that.
Worlds of Possibility: Even the most pronounced
folk act from Glasgow, Appendix Out, or Alasdair’s
solo stuff, is really different to Will. No matter
how much he gets compared to Will. (laughs)
Stephen Pastel: I think so, I think it’s
very different to... They’re probably the
closest to the folk tradition of the groups I
would consider part of the music community that
we’re part of.
Worlds of Possibility: Your 1997 album Illumination
has struck me as a central moment for The Pastels.
It seemed to be a record where everything fell
together in a really beautiful manner.
Stephen Pastel: It was a really ambitious record
for us. I’m not sure it all came off...
Well, there’s two or three things that I
think were really fantastic on that record, that
I’m really really proud of. The track “Cycle”
that Annabel sings, I just think is such a fantastic
lyric, and I didn’t know what she was doing,
we just had the whole piece evolving, and that
was incredible. And then Bill [Wells] did the
flute arrangement at the end. I’m really
really proud of that piece of music. Maybe with
that record there’s an awareness that we
can... Mobile Safari feels like our first record
or something, and it’s very raw, and Illumination
is really... I think, yeah, with Illumination
we achieved some real moments that were very close
to our intention. Tracks like “G12 Nights”
and things are very... With Illumination I realised
what our sound should be. I think we can make
a better record than that, but we all felt very
proud of that record, the three of us, and also
a lot of people that had played on it. Jonathan
[Kilgour] made some fantastic contributions to
that record, and Gerard [Love]. It was a good
time, because we’d just met... It wasn’t
that long after we’d met Bill, so it was
really good to be working with someone like Bill
on a couple of the tracks, it was just really...
You know in a way it was a pretty over the top
production in terms of the amount of people involved
in it, and maybe we would never use so many people
again, I think we’ll use fewer people. Yeah,
it’s a record we’re proud of.
Worlds of Possibility: It seems like a really
special record, and one that wasn’t at all
restricted by its time, or its place, when it
came out. I look at that record and Loveless as
the two records that are really going to take
off outside of being a part of the 90s and take
on a life, have a future of their own as well.
I don’t know about as a template, but as
a set of loosely defined ideas or approaches.
I don’t know if you feel it’s your
place to make that call, but can you see Illumination
opened some portals...
Stephen Pastel: Well, I feel that Loveless is
a masterpiece and I feel that Illumination isn’t.
But... I think there’s something very inspiring
about Illumination and probably a lot of people
think of us as non-musicians even though that’s
really far from true. But you know, maybe... We
weren’t maestros and still are far from,
but I think it indicated the possibilites that
exist for people who are not the most gifted musicians
to do things like that, in the way that the Brian
Eno records in the 1970s, you listen to those
records and you think of someone who considers
himself a non-musician. Well, I consider myself
a musician, but you know, I would happily consider
myself a non-musician if I’d made some of
the music Brian Eno has made.
Worlds of Possibility: I guess it’s that
thing of a good idea will always out.
Stephen Pastel: Exactly. A good idea badly executed
is always better than a bad idea brilliantly executed.
Worlds of Possibility: That seems to be the hinge
of not just The Pastels, but the things that you
love, the things that we rally around, maybe.
Stephen Pastel: Yes, yes, I think you have a sense
that it’s moving along the right lines and
then, really when something... You’re so
aware of the journey with this kind of music,
of arriving, but when you do arrive... You know,
that Bill track that he did for the compilation,
I was so proud to have actually almost forced
Bill to get his Octet together and... If that
is the only ever studio recording for the Octet,
then I think that’s a fantastic legacy they’ve
left behind.
Worlds of Possibility: The other thing that interests
me about Illumination is tracks like “The
Hits Hurt” and “Unfair Kind of Fame”.
I imagine “The Hits Hurt” is in part
about Albert Ayler, or that idea of the outside
musician maybe, and “Unfair Kind of Fame”
is the Ed Wood thing. There’s this idea
of Pastels music as commentary, as meta-music,
music that talks about music, not in a cloyingly
intellectual way, but in the sense that it acknowledges
certain avenues.
Stephen Pastel: It’s music that loves music,
in the way that a Godard film is a film by someone
who loves film, and Truffaut. But I... Yeah, I
think when you hear our new music, it’ll
be different from that again. There’s going
to be such a long gap between that music and our
new record. I don’t know... I think it’s
going to be different. But yeah, I did want to
try to acknowledge someone like Albert Ayler,
and Katrina’s really, the Ed Wood thing
was great.
Worlds of Possibility: And there’s “Thomson
Colour”, which is a film processing...
Stephen Pastel: Yeah, a post-war early European
colour film. But my parents stay in Thomson Drive,
so it was about that as well.
Worlds of Possibility: I’m guessing that
film affects your approach to music as much as
music, or influences how you work quite a bit.
Stephen Pastel: I don’t really have much
interest in how other musicians work. I’m
very interested in the end result, and I try to
stay open to everything. But I’m much more
interested in... I’m really interested in
the ideas of Truffaut, the ideas of Hitchcock
and the ideas of Godard, much much more than I
am in the ideas of musicians really.
Worlds of Possibility: What about the ideas of
film makers in particular draws you to them?
Stephen Pastel: I just think they’re just
much more rigorous, and I like that. I really
like the way that Truffaut writes about film,
I find that really inspiring. It just made me
think that I had more to learn from that than
from what musicians were saying about their music.
So it’s not about identifying with a particular
concept like auterism, but it’s more about
applying those kinds of rigours to your own art
form.
Worlds of Possibility: That level of self-criticism
does tend to be a lot higher in film; a real awareness
of what you are doing, the art you are making,
the effects that it may have.
Stephen Pastel: And also, I think... With so much
outside your music, there’s something that’s
slightly depressing, and that is that people just
retreat into this point that they’re only
making music for themselves. With film, I think
you are trying to reach people, and with our music
it’s always about reaching people.
Worlds of Possibility: There’s an appeal
to that hermeticism of the outsider musician,
but I don’t know, I sense you’d agree
that a work of art has to be affecting in some
way to someone other than the person who produced
it, who is so involved in it. There’s also
something nice about the new perspective that’s
engendered from when someone encounters your work
as well.
Stephen Pastel: Yeah. I agree completely. I think
that... I think everyone has the right just to,
of course they do, to make art for themselves
and to make music for themselves, but that’s
never been quite the thing with The Pastels.
Worlds of Possibility: Is there anything else
that you want to talk about Stephen? Because I
have just been throwing all of this stuff at you
...
Stephen Pastel: Is there anything you feel I haven’t
dealt with very well?
Worlds of Possibility: Not at all.
Stephen Pastel: Well, I suppose that the main
thing... With The Pastels, to think of an album
like Illumination, it’s very flattering
for us to know it has affected someone like yourself,
and other people, and you’ve got so much
out of it, and I suppose that between that record
and The Last Great Wilderness and the music we’re
doing now, I hope to be able to achieve the same
thing but by doing less, almost, you know in a
way it’s not about minimalism, that isn’t
The Pastels, but I often hear something that’s
so small and in a way I really, that piece of
music by Nuno Canavarro is so important to me
now, and I’m trying to find out how you
can do something that’s so small and so
affecting, and that’s probably almost exactly
where The Pastels is just now.
Worlds of Possibility: Perhaps it’s about
a piece of music working by inference, which is
a beautiful thing, when a piece of music doesn’t
walk up to you and blindside you with its ‘it-ness’,
I guess.
Stephen Pastel: I think so, I think that you do...
Most of the music I’ve really loved in my
life, I’ve felt immediately in some way
challenged by it, things like Television Personalities
and Beat Happening and My Bloody Valentine, to
know if it was even good or not on the first listen.
And that, I think, you know, I think to always
be... For music like ours, I think a lot of people
will always probably feel in some way challenged
by it, not feel up to the challenge, but maybe
by moving towards something that’s a bit
more neutral or something, maybe there’s
a way of just, you can have your colour but it’s,
people, you know... People maybe don’t...
I’m not really sure of what I’m trying
to say, I think I’m becoming a bit lost.
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