Think ya know Lemon Jelly? Most punters will no doubt associate the Jelly dudes with the chilled, quirky, magical ambience of dinner party friendly 'Lost Horizons'. This time around though, don’t go expecting a carbon copy: ''64-'95' is harder and edgier. Each track has been built around core samples taken from music that Fred Deakin and Nick Franglen adore. And there's not a quack in sight! The musical threads here include departed metallers Masters of Reality, Scottish punks The Scars, as well as popsters Gallagher and Lyle, R&B vocalist Terri Walker, and William Shatner (aka Captain James T. Kirk). And the whole shebang kick starts with the incendiary, rolling majesty of 'Come Down On Me'. PLUS - proving the pair still like to make life hard for themselves by keeping their fingers in every aspect of their presentation – there's a DVD version of the album produced by Fred's design company, Airside. It's a hypnotic cauldron of unfolding concepts. We caught up with the amiable and chatty duo at their label's South London bunker.
When the dust had settled from 'Lost Horizons', what was going through your heads about what you wanted to achieve next?
Fred: The first thought was that we didn’t want to repeat ourselves and do ‘Lost Horizons Two’.
Nick: Not because we didn't like it but because we'd done it, and keeping things fresh for ourselves has always been very important. We've always reinvented our processes as we’ve gone along to keep it interesting for us. There were people who were expecting a Lost Horizons Two', but it never appealed.
Fred: We had to think of a way of making it happen though, so we came up with the sample idea.
Many use sampling as an excuse for laziness. Presumably you set yourself ground rules about using samples in a creative way? Nick: It was much harder than we thought to make something new of them. We must have tried out fifty or sixty tracks. It was incredible how some things would get really close to being just right, but it didn't feel like we had brought anything new to it. We had to feel we were developing it (the sample) and making something sound like us.
Fred: Some people have this idea that sampling is some kind of inferior cop-out, and it’s not the case at all.
There are elements of '64-'95 that feel darker and edgier than many would have expected.
Nick: Loads of our stuff has different emotions going on at the same time. Some people see the darkness.
Fred: It's a totally fair observation to make, but at the same time, if you look back at the first two albums, they do have quite a dark side to them... 'Page One' on the first album, 'Experiment Number Six' on the second album; they're both quite warped and nightmarish tracks. But yeah, there was a conscious decision that we didn't want this to be a dinner party album.
Yeah, you said exactly that in a recent Guardian interview. Had ‘Lost Horizons’ become a dinner party album?
Fred: I think the first one ('lemonjelly.ky') probably did more than 'Lost Horizons'. If anyone enjoys our music that's great, and once it's out there in the world it's really up to people how they enjoy it. But at the same time there is something about having your music listened to as a background thing rather than listening to it properly; given the choice, we'd rather people sit down and listened to it.
With tracks like 'The Shouty Track', I don't think there's much danger of this album being too 'dinner party'. You sample The Scars on that - were you fans?
Fred: I think it's a homage. We both love that kind of music. The Scars were a Scottish punk band. The NME raved about them in the same issue as they raved about the Birthday Party. The Scars are probably selling double-glazing now, and Nick Cave is revered as a god, so things can go either way really.
Nick: The vocal delivery on that is unique.
You also said recently that, "if you're worried about your audience not liking it, then that's why you should go and do it right now." Is that because if the audience doesn't like it, it's probably because you've done something original?
Fred: "No, I think it's more about not getting too paranoid about trying to second guess your audience. People who work creatively, on the whole, are not driven by looking at the market place.
Despite the edgier feel, tracks like 'The Slow Train', with its kitsch choo-chooing vocal momentum, indicate you've not ditched your more playful side. Do you think so-called 'serious' music circles see anything that's overtly happy or comical as naff?
Fred: Yeah that's very astute. We've always been very conscious to not be too cool for school. I actually think that it's quite fascistic and easy to be moody, dark and macho about it. It's much more risky to step out of that comfort zone and do something that's more off the wall and user friendly maybe.
In all manner of ways, you're very careful to project a public image of your own choosing. Is the part of the music industry that's all about promoting an album, something you feel uneasy about? Because suddenly it's out of your hands!
Fred: It's hard. It's like watching your kids go off to school. Your babes go out into the world and they have a life of their own. You have to let go. It's not that we like to keep control... it's just that we like playing with all the other stuff that goes around it. We were just downstairs looking at the promotional images - most bands wouldn't bother doing that. I just think there's more fun to be had. The way music interacts with the public is changing so much. There's a lot more areas where an artist can be creative, so why not get involved?
Nick: There's something to be said for having that capability and heavy duty control. We've kept that all the way through, and it's been harder work because of it. We've had to be involved with all sorts of things that other people don't, because that's what we've always done. We do care about so many different aspects. When it gets bigger, then of course you have to hand some responsibility to other people because you can't physically do it all. We can't print off tens of thousand of sleeves, and so on. But we are particular enough to pay attention to it and make changes etc, be it merchandising or whatever.
And presumably that same desire for control is why on single releases, you'd rather write extra tracks than have a collection of record company commissioned remixes?
Fred: The same attention to detail obviously goes into the music. We don't have remixes because we think.. well, we don't want someone else to play with our toys! We'd rather do it ourselves. Nick does all the production obviously, in his studio. There's no reason why we'd let go of any of it.
You have one foot in the dance camp. How do you see the mainstream dance community at the moment?
Fred: There's a big schism. Dance music seems to be fragmented massively and obviously everyone's running a bit scared at the moment.
You've got a tour coming up. How will you be presenting the music this time around? Any surprises?
Fred: Hmmm, slightly work in progress.
Nick: Hurting the audience is the main thing!! Violating them with violence and violins. The three V's.
Last year's Somerset House bash seemed like a family day out. It wasn't cheesy entertainment, but on the other hand, you weren't posturing around a serious, 'authentic' mood. It was about as unpretentious as you can get. Is that something you've had to carefully think about?
Fred: That's kind of what we're after, yeah. It's a delicate balance because you've got to have a bit of both. You've got to be reasonably authentic because otherwise it's just the Vengaboys, but on the other side of the coin, if it's too moody it all gets a bit too chin strokey and no one has any fun.
Nick: We really do respect our audience and our fans. We don't think we're super-gods gazing down on the mortals beneath us.
Fred: We're still flabbergasted when they even come. It's a bizarre experience for both of us being on a stage. We feel kind of privileged.
GAL DETOURN
*Lemon Jelly's '64-'95 is out on XL, January 31.
Lemon Jelly will then be calling at Belfast Mandela Hall (February 27), Newcastle Sage Arena (28), Isle of St Kilda Village Hall (29), Manchester Academy (March 2), Sheffield Octagon (3), Cambridge Corn Exchange (4), Edinburgh Usher Hall (5), Brighton Dome (7), Birmingham Academy (8), Bristol Academy (9), London Forum (12).*
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