(This feature first appeared in issue #67 of Shindig! magazine. For the full unedited Q&A, click over the jump at the bottom of the post.)
The Wirral quintet come of age with new LP Cut The Master. Duncan Fletcher gets caught up in its lush majesty.
It's no surprise that an album as fully realised as Cut The Master results from deep, encyclopedic musical listening and a love of cult horror films. Though references are many, the band's sound is unique. Lead guitarist Alf Skelly explains their influences - “ I was listening to a lot of Rotary Connection, Radiohead and I've always been obsessed with Scott Walker, Axelrod, DJ Shadow. 'Great Beauty', the first track we recorded was inspired by the film The Great Beauty and Scott Walker's 'The Plague'. The whole album references a lot of music we love - Jane Weaver, Townes Van Zandt, Nancy Priddy, Wendy & Bonnie, Common People, Can, Christine Harwood, Martin Denny, United States of America, Mammas and Papas, The Yardbirds, Gainsbourg's Melody Nelson and an underrated band who have inspired us from the start - Shocking Blue.”
The heart of the record however lies in the dual female harmonies of Niamh Rowe and Fiona Skelly. Niamh expands on how two voices are better than one - “I really love Simon and Garfunkel's arrangements for harmonies, they're not obvious at all, I have no idea how Art thinks of them, they just weave so beautifully with each other. Another heartfelt pairing I love that is Emmylou and Dylan on Desire, she can sing with anyone and it will sound amazing but there's something so emotional and endearing of their voices together.”
Unlike their self-titled debut LP which was shaped by three years of touring, Cut The Master was written and arranged in the rehearsal room then recorded at Liverpool's Parr Street Studios. Alf is keen to recognise the input of elder brothers James and Ian (The Coral) - “We had taken the recordings as far as we could and James came in and breathed new life into it, he took out a lot of layers, back to how we'd do it live... James is a really great producer, he gets straight to the point, he works so well alongside Ian and Rich Turvey who both go above and beyond for us, we wouldn't be where we are without any of them.”
Finders Keepers supremo Andy Votel also co-produced a couple of tracks and provided short cinematic interludes between the tracks. Alf explains how their friendship developed after playing the Finders Keepers stage at Festival No.6 last year - “We got up and performed Can's Monster Movie with Malcolm Mooney who is the real deal. We'd rehearsed in Hoylake playing 'Mary, Mary So Contrary' and 'Yoo Doo Right' with him in our backward seaside town! He couldn't get his head around a bacon butty so he signed it for me haha! I still have it! It was one of the best gigs I've been involved in... Andy made the album for us, he brought the edge we wanted with his instrumentals, there's no plug-in or pedal that can do that. The way he is about music he's a one off - he told Niamh "I don't polish a turd, I turd a polish" which cracked us up! We're working on a few more bits with him this summer that we'll be announcing soon.”
Cut The Master is out now on Skeleton Key
(Click over the jump for the full Q&A)
