matt
elliott [UK] -
version FR
2004 has been a successful year for Domino, with Franz
Ferdinand’s hit. But 2004 has also been the
year you left this renowned label [Hood, bonnie prince
billy, four tet, pavement…]. Can you tell us
about your relationship with Domino: what it brought
to you, why you left, and how you met with the French
label Ici d’ailleurs?
Yes Franz Ferdinand were a great success
for Domino. I am really happy for them because if
anyone deserves it, it’s Domino, & for a
pop band I at least think Franz Ferdinand are interesting
& can write a good pop tune. I’m still on
good terms with Domino. I have a lot to be thankful
to Domino for, they signed me when I was nothing &
helped me get to wherever it is I’m going. But
I had been with Domino for 8 years & I thought
I would try another label. I’ve been in contact
with Ici D’ailleurs since around 98 I think
& they’ve always been supportive even when
no one else was. I very much appreciate their attitude
to music & they are independant in attitude in
that they release music they love & in all sorts
of areas & genres so it made sense. I’d
been talking seriously with Stephane about signing
with Ici dailleurs/0101 since I think 2002 but it
came properly when they showed enthusiasm for Drinking
Songs without even hearing the demos (there were’nt
any). That on it’s own showed me they were a
label of trust & that can only be a good thing.
So far I’m very happy with Ici D’ailleurs,
I think they’ve done a great job with Drinking
Songs, throughout the production of it they made decisions
not with economics in mind but of how to try &
make the LP sound as good as it can & look as
good as it can & these things are all really important
“Drinking songs” takes the same path as
“The mess we made”. Again, we find here
your taste for voices and liturgical hymns. On your
album “The mess we made”, some titles
would even make us think of sea shanties. Where do
these influences come from?
I think I yearn for a more innocent time,
when things were’nt so inevitable, when there
were still decisions to be made & choices, I’m
talking about late 19th century erly 20th century.
I’m not saying it was good around then but I
believe people had more hope around then. Things were
happening, people were actually discussing the best
way for society to evolve (even though inevitably
in ended in nothing). But I like the idea of a choir
perhaps it makes me feel a bit less solitary in my
outlook.
More and more importance is given to singing
on your albums. Inevitably, you will have to pick
up the micro on stage, not so easy to perform when
one is of a shy and introvert nature. How do you apprehend
singing on stage and listening to your own voice?
Well I do pick up the mic on stage, I have
to admit the first time I did it it was terrifying
because I’d never even spoken down a mic in
front of people, but I think singing even if I’m
shit at it is a way to communicate directly &
in fact it moves me if someone else is singing &
can’t quite make the note or something. That
in it’s own way is a communication, along the
lines of ‘even though I’m trying really
hard & putting everything into trying to get the
note, I can’t quite make it’ & that
is a feeling or emotional state that most people can
relate to & it can sound really nice when someone
else does it. Listening to my own voice is terrible.
After making the mistake of listening to live stuff
I don’t anymore it’s too hard. Also thankfully
live stuff is more than just music. However bad it
sounds I do really try & in fact sometimes when
it goes horribly wrong people like that sometimes
even more because it’s kind of touching perhaps
seeing someone failing despite trying.
Drinking songs is the title of the album you just
released. Does it refer to the state in which these
new songs were composed? In what condition do you
usually write your songs? What would be the main theme
of this album?
Well I wanted to call it drinking songs because
sometimes it’s good to warp something in a way.
& they are kind of drinking songs, just not the
kind you sing at the top of your voice on the way
home, it’s more when you’ve had a drink
& it makes you go down instead of up. But the
songs themselves werent composed when I was drunk
except for The Guilty Party, the music was bastardised
over a few drunken evenings. Usually I just write
the songs while watching the news on TV usually it
makes a fitting soundtrack. But sometimes they are
just melodies in my head so I get the computer out
& start making sketches which either just sit
there to rot or I turn them into tunes. The main themem
I’m not sure I wanted to create a bar around
the turn of the centuiry filled with miserable cynical
realists who would sing songs about being a failure
& the failings of society.
Your albums sound like more peaceful. They convey
a sense of quiet and tranquility. This new trend in
your music coincides with your arrival in France.
It is the Country governed by Chirac, Sarkozy and
Raffarin that becomes you so well?!
Well I like France but like most of the French
I know, I hate the Government of this country but
to be honest as far as I can see France ended up with
a centre right govt not because socialism is dead
in this country as it pretty much is in the UK (or
more accurately was murdered by ‘new’
labour) but because the mainstream socialist party
was not socialist enough which is actually a good
thing in my opinion. Hopefully this will all be sorted
out next time round, but to be honest aside from Brazil
I don’t think any country has a great govt.
I quite like the fact that the Swiss people are actually
consulted about serious issues but to be honest I’m
very tired of capitalism & especially free market
capitalism & finding any country where these principals
aren't god is impossible. Getting back to Chirac I
think his stance against the war in Iraq was good
but I don’t believe he made the decision because
of compassion or any moral grounds, or because the
vast majority of French people were against it, it
was purely economic in that France could’nt
really afford to go to war & chiraq was dealing
with Saddam. If Chiraq was such a moralist why was
he kissing Chinas arse trying to get arms deals. Anyway
don’t get me started on politics. & besides
I survived 12 (arguably 25 years) years of Thatcherism
it’s just more of the same to me. In fact you
could say I loath the french government but I am consumed
with pure hatred for blair & his govt
We saw you playing with Encre and My jazzy child earlier
this year. Do you feel close to these artists, to
labels such as clapping music, to this ‘French
independent scene’ ?
Yes Yann is a very good friend of mine &
I get on with both bands & many others from the
label, it reminds me of the old planet days in a way.
Thankfully the ‘independant scene’ (as
far as music & small labels) is pretty healthy
here I think there is some really good stuff going
on.
Several bands from the 90s just formed up again [Pixies,
Slint]. We heard of a new edition of your first album,
Semtex. How do you judge this return to guitars and
instruments after 10 years during which electronic
music and machines were predominent?
Well I’m not sure what the talk of
a Semtex reissue are, but I kind of play the guitar
in a different way than the old semtex days but I
think classical instruments are a bit more expressive
than electronic ones, but technology is still a great
thing. Drinking songs was recorded on a computer &
it would have been very difficult to record it any
other way. Basically all my stuff is me just learning
about music slowly, there is so much to know &
understand that I could study it for the rest of my
life & still not covered 10% of all there is to
know. 3ef was me learning about samplers & sequencers
& now I’m trying to trying to teach myself
about acoustic & acoustic instruments which entails
a totall different understanding.
Do you happen to listen to the previous albums you
made? Insofar, how do you consider your carrier?
Well I have just been listening to my old
records & I always do this around the time of
release of a new record & to be honest I hate
pretty much everything I’ve done but I think
that is normal for anyone who does music & is
healthy in a way because if you get too into what
you’ve done before you can end up making the
same record again & again.
What happenend to the Third Eye Foundation project?
Is it definitively over?
Well I kind of use Third eye Foundation on
remix projects because Matt Elliott is specific to
writing more song based stuff than remixing. I’m
not going to say anything about 3ef because whenever
I say anything definitive about something I always
change my mind so I don’t know. There’s
a part of me that would love to make areally breakstep/ragga
thing but I’ve got other projects to think about
at the moment.
Your own experience of band has not really been very
conclusive, from a relational point of view [with
Flying Saucer Attack, Movietone…]. But do you
have any plan of contribution or forming a band, at
the moment?
Not really a band although I do really enjoy
playing with other people. For the Matt Elliott live
thing usually Chris Cole is there on cello & I
very much enjoy making music with him. To be honest
there were many reasons why I left the various bands.
The specific reason I left Movietone was because I
no longer had the time or energy to dedicate to other
peoples projects. It was just after You Guys Kill
Me & I had remixes to do & other things so
it was’nt really fair to half arsedly play with
Movietone. But saying that I don't really like being
in bands not if we’re trying to take it at all
seriously. I do very much enjoy working with other
bands but I have to kind of be in charge of whatever
I’m doing.
Did you get the opportunity to listen to “Outside
closer”, the latest album by Hood ?
Of course, I did their sound when they played
Paris & Dieppe recently.
Like them, you keep an ear to the ground concerning
the indie hip hop or “white hip hop” scene
: cLOUDDEAD, why ? who worked with hood on their previous
album, fog, or even prefuse 73 from whom they openly
drew inspiration on the recent title “we lost
you”.
I have literally just discovered properly
the whole of the hip hop underground, Bus Driver,
Dangermouse & all that. I used to work in record
shops so I was usually pretty up to speed with what
was going on, but here i’m kind of isolated
& it was actually Stephane (ici dailleurs) who
gave me a drunken tour of the state of underground
hip hop at 3 in the morning in Paris & thankfully
somewhere deep down beneath the commercial shit there
is some genuinly good hip hop stuff out there. just
sadly not on mtv. Fog’s ‘Ether teeth’
is a really great record, Prefuse aswell, I know Hood
are great fans but Hood i think arrived at similar
conclusions to prefuse around a similar time, who
knows? I cant really speak for hood.
Uncle Vania designed several of your albums’
covers, including drinking songs. Can your tell us
a bit more about this artist and how would you describe
his work?
Well I’ve always loved vanias work the best
way to describe it would be www.unclevaniart.com because
obviously you can see for yourself the scope of this
great artist. For me he is the most talented contemporary
artist around, & it is pure luck for me that we’ve
ended up together. I think he sees a similar vision
as me but can describe it more vividly. I really love
his work is all that I can say.
O:liv _ 07 mars 2005 _ interview by mail _ traduction
arianne dalimier.
links
matt
elliott
ici
d'ailleurs
uncle
vania
média
whats
wrong _ 4"08 [avec
l'aimable autorisation de ici d'ailleurs]
chroniques
drinking
songs [ici d'ailleurs_2005]
the
mess we made [domino_2003]
photos
01 septembre : matt
elliott @ glaz'art
gigs
09/03/2005 saint ouen [93] - mains d'oeuvres (+micro:mega
+ Manyfingers)
02/04/2005 fernelmont (B) - Rhâââ
Lovely Festival
07/04/2005 amiens [80]- la Lune des Pirates (+ Clair
Obscur)
09/04/2005 mulhouse [68] - Noumatrouf (+ Hood &
T.)
