Perth’s Grim Fandango will wrap up their ‘Flicker Noise‘ album launch tour this week with shows in Hobart, Adelaide and Melbourne. The new album is available now on Poison City Records. To find out a little more about it, the band took the time this week to answer our On The Record questions. Expand this post to take a read of their answers and re-cap those tour dates. Head on over to the Poison City E-Store [Here] if you want to grab a copy of the record.
Tell us about the release title.
Our new album is called ‘Flicker Noise’, it is about the colours of noise and trying to make sense of our lives through observation of the noisy patterns in the random / chaotic / harmonious world we live in.
Tell us about the artwork.
Our good friend Liam White took the photo and had the idea for the direction and Chris Cowburn put it together and designed the cover and the back, we are super happy with it!
What format/s will it be released on and how will it be packaged?
It is available on Vinyl and digital download.
Who will it be released through, and when?
It came out September 16th through Poison City Records.
Tell us about the studio and why you chose to record there?
We recorded half the record at CapitalSounds in Adelaide and half at our studio in Perth and it was mixed at CapitalSounds by James Balderston and I.
Tell us about the producer / engineer and why you chose to record with them?
We had worked with James Balderston on ‘Birthmark Blues’ and we have a good relationship with him and think he is an amazing producer/engineer/Legend and friend of the band. I engineered the Perth stuff we recorded and I was pretty stoked to have been able to work with him on this record.
Were you listening to anything in particular during the writing / recording process that influenced the songs at all?
We were listening to alot of Jesus Lizard and Ween in the studio, and Youtubes of Songify songs, i hope the latter didn’t come through too much.
Did you go into the writing process with a clear direction in mind?
We had the concept for the record and the 2 side and we spent a while figuring how to make the songs all flow together, I’m really happy with how it came together.
How long did you spend in the studio recording?
We probably spent a good month or so on it, but we crammed a good year or 2 into that time and took twice that amount off our own lives.
Were there any albums you were referencing to aim for a certain type of sound production wise?
We just really wanted to it to sound better than our other recordings and really just wanted it to sound like how we pictured it in our imagination.
Tell us a little about the recording process the band used?
We tried to keep it “real” as a recording and didn’t do too many modern things, no click tracks, and pretty much all the effects on the record were created naturally, without many digital aides, we tried to keep it hands on and did alot of things that seemed unusual or against regular protocol. Like playing guitars with weird object like a coin or a bit of metal, just doing whatever we had to to get the tone we wanted for that part.
Was this any different to previous processes you have used?
We spent more time making sure we had the right tone for each part/song and did everything a little more meticulously.
Any particular equipment outside your usual live gear used in the process?
There was alot haha, some of my favourites were 70s Strat, a crazy 50s Hofner, All the Vadis amps, The Tapeworm and the Space Echo and the 70s ludwig snares!
Any memorable studio moments?
There was too many hilarious / crazy / frustrating / great moments to account for in one answer.
Any guests involved? if so, who.. and what did they do?
Jimmy Madbillies did percussion and a funk guitar riff.
What track/s are you most looking forward to playing live?
I really like Your First Real Fight, i’m looking forward to playing that one live.
How would you compare the final product to previous releases?
I think it’s a bit more mature songwriting wise and I’m really happy with the production and the people that worked on the art did a great job and Poison City did an amazing job of putting it all together. It sounds super smooth and great on vinyl too.
Anything else you want to say or about the release?
We are really proud of this record and you can buy it from Poison City, iTunes, Bigcartel or come get a copy from us at our Flicker Noise launch shows in September/ October
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GRIM FANDANGO ‘Flicker Noise‘
Available now on Vinyl / iTunes via Poison City Records.
Order the vinyl [Here] or digitally [Here].
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