Toby Kidd, Finnigan Kidd e David Claxton são os Hatcham Social, uma banda britânica oriunda da capital Londres e The Birthday Of The World o quarto trabalho do cardápio de um projeto cujas raízes remontam a 2006, altura em que com a benção de Tim Burgess, o líder dos Charlatans e de Alan McGee, patrão da Creation Records, os irmãos Kidd e Claxton, antigo baterista dos Klaxons, deram o pontapé de saída numa trip sonora que tem mergulhado, disco após disco, num universo sonoro recheado de novas experimentações e renovações e que soa sempre poderoso, jovial e inventivo.
Verdadeiramente desconcertante e com uma produção cuidada, que aposta numa elevada dose de reverb e no típico espírito lo fi, The Brithday Of The World é um disco que faz da sua audição um desafio constante, quer devido ao modo como coloca em causa, permanentemente e sem concessões, o típico formato canção, mas também pela amálgama heterogénea de arranjos,samples e sons que rodeiam e sustentam as suas composições.
Na sequência deste mais recente lançamento discográfico dos Hatcham Social, tive o privilégio de poder colocar algumas questões a Toby Kidd, quer sobre o historial e percurso discográfico da banda, quer sobre este espetacular The Birthday Of The World. Confere a nossa conversa...
1. Hello! First of all, thank you for letting me have this opportunity for an interview, which is very flattering for my blog. Throughout almost ten years, Hatcham Social have been experimenting a lot, without abandoning their powerful, jovial and inventive sound. How has it all started and what's the secret formula of your success?
Hi! We are pleased you find joy in the music.
Hatcham Social started as a reaction against the macho radio-indie that was happening around 2006. We wanted to make something that felt newer and was as female as it was male. We were inspired by the absurdity of things, by literature, art, and children's books. There is an imagination in Where The Wild Things Are or Alice's Adventures In Wonderland that, mixed with books like The Trial or Sartre's short stories creates an odd friction. These are the beginnings of Hatcham Social.
If we have kept any success, I think it is because we have always felt the need to try out new ideas. And because we believe in following our own instincts and finding something unusual, not in making something for the radio.
2. Tim Burgess and Faris Badwan are two fans of Hatcham Social and even produced your debut album, You Dig The Tunnel And I'll Hide The Soil. How was it to work with those two prominent figures of British indie rock?
We were always interested in collaboration and working with people who love the music we love and have an idea what we are about. It is always flattering when someone likes your music and wants to work with you. Especially people who you love their music. Faris has made some excellent records, in particular I love the Horrors first record, and Tim Burgess was someone me and Finn listened to growing up!
3. Your music has very particular characteristics and it sounds lustful, spiritual and hypnotic. How would you describe your sound?
Hard question! I think our sound varies. At times I think it is very postmodern and pop and at other times reaching to the sublime dream. I think it is quite introverted and talks a lot about what is inside. I guess we are interested in the idea of beauty, which can feel like a unfashionable idea these days, but for us it means finding something that makes you feel something.
For us we are trying to make good songs, that mean something to us, that don't feel like we have ever heard them before, that feel new and exciting.
4. You have a very diverse list of instruments in your songs (keyboard, synthesizers, guitars, acoustic guitars and other percussion instruments). How is a typical day of Hatcham Social in a recording studio?There is not one! Each time we record an album it is totally different. We are very interested in process and how that can develop a sound. Each record will have a method. With The Birthday Of The World we all had ideas we wanted to develop with sounds. A lot were put on across different times, slowly building up the intricacies.
5. In your new record, The Birthday Of The World, you can go from pure psychedelic chaos (in songs like Wondrous Place) to blues rock (Find A Way To Let In Your Sins [Hit Red Cut A Right]) or a more melancholic pop (Darling). Are you happy with this final result and does it match your initial expectations or did you change your formula as songs were being recorded?
We don't believe in genre, it is dead. We wanted to express ideas as they come, and make them feel something how best they need. An album should have a journey. We wanted the album to fullfill that. So, yeah we have made the album we set out to. But did we plan how it would sound exactly? No, chance comes in and gives you many new places to go when making and many of them you take. Making a record to us is an exploration.
6. Can we say that in 2015, with Birthday Of The World, Hatcham Social are at the peak of their career? Where do you want to go with this record?
We would love for it to be heard by everyone in the world and them to play it once a day in celebration of the birthday of the world!
7. And now, to finish, what can we expect from your discography in the future?
I think we have made something that has taken us a lot of work and time and we will let it breath, where we go to next is anyone's guess, we are not in a hurry to make another album.
We have lots of songs getting written and other projects. There is a lyric book with illustrations and extra narrative for the songs, that is planned for next year. And we have an exhibition that should happen with that.
Finn's other band Beds In Parks will be making a record in the new year as well.
Maybe some collaborative stuff. Maybe an EP next year...
Whatever takes our fancy :)
Thanks, Toby