Crack

The album in its conventional form has taken a hammering. The attention span of those who prefer the quick fix mix tape solution, the podcast or the illegal download has made it far too easy to jump off the good ship LP. It leaves those collections of songs painstakingly recorded, ordered, mastered, inked and processed in serious danger.

Both of LCD Soundsystem’s albums to date have left little iconic marks on the album medium. It’s an odds on bet the third one will leave a similar indelible print. Any album with the proven brain of James Murphy behind the operation is on a solid footing. On previous albums, LCD have effortlessly harnessed such a myriad of genres with ease. Those who have painstakingly devoted their time to getting recognised in their chosen style must be spitting venom at the ease at which both LCD records to date have skipped in and out of genres with skilful fluidity.

Holding down punk, techno, disco and indie with a truly underrated song writing ability James Murphy has become a buzzword for multi-tasking on a grand scale. Fraternising with musical forms in such an expansive manner has seen LCD’s stock grow to an exceptional height among tastemakers and critics.
The other slice of utter brilliance in Murphy’s work is the soft underbelly of pure humanity skilfully engrained in his work. There are rough edges, but some of their most brilliant and beautiful pieces of work have been highly melodic and lyrically personal. This theme has continued on the new album. While not only showcasing a sensitivity far beyond the horrible ‘party-boy’ stereotype characterising those who rock and dance, having the ability to write pop songs skilfully alienates anyone who thinks dance music needs to be played at 180bpm to be decent.

For every Tribulations there is an All My Friends to ground you. For every 48-hour sleepless, drug fuelled session there is an evening hugging your girlfriend on a beanbag. When each offers the same amount of enjoyment you realise you have achieved a healthy equilibrium.

James Murphy epitomises someone who, despite his human misgivings about the effectiveness of his own talent, has seen the fruits of his labour receive praise from all the right quarters. During LCD Soundsystem’s existence he has put very few feet wrong and has reaped the rewards. From selective gig and festival appearances. Scoring hits and praise in polls that matter (Pitchfork, Drowned in Sound) and becoming a darling to both indie kids and dance heads in equal undulating measure, he has become an unlikely pin-up boy for many this side of the pond.

He is uncompromising yet easy to talk to, knowledgeable without listening to the radio, has a motherfucker of a record collection and owns DFA - one of the most groundbreaking New York record labels in recent times. It’s no fluke and a one-man lesson to every have-a-go East London hipster with an over-active ego due to signing a record deal. Getting it this decent takes time.

Crack’s conversation with James Murphy is fast, unrelenting and verbally generous. Each question is answered to the full with enthusiasm and refreshing level of detail. Not least when discussing LCD’s incarnation.

“We were never meant to be a professional band. I was never going to make an album. I was the head of a record company and my job was to help The Rapture. It wasn’t until The Rapture left that we were faced with crisis. I wanted them to go to EMI because I had good relationships with a bunch of people there. So I decided to do what The Rapture didn’t want to do, because I felt more comfortable taking a risk with my own band. It was an accident, we never actually wanted to be a fucking band. I think a lot of the way we market ourselves stems from the fact we didn’t want to be professional musicians and I still don’t.

“I don’t want to be any more professional than I already am. I like being unprofessional. I think politics could use some unprofessional politicians and music could use some unprofessional musicians. There is something fun or free about it, like if I fail it doesn’t really matter. I have great friends and I like DFA and I like producing and I like doing many other things. If you are young and it’s your career, it can make you crazy worrying about if it all goes wrong. It would probably be really crippling.”

If fucking with the processes of professionalism are inherent qualities underpinning the Murphy psyche, the decision to part-record the new album in a slightly unhinged Californian Mansion is typical of the man. Having posted a selection of accompanying videos on their website, you see what an odd and quirky environment Murphy has chosen.

He explains: “It’s great for me to be in the same place as my studio and not in my office. We looked at other studios and they were very expensive, so by the time I could house everybody I needed to have bedrooms, it became cheaper to rent a mansion. It was way crazier and more awesome, so we put the majority of my equipment in a truck and got it down there.

“It’s really beautiful, but also really fucked up and wonky. I always try and create an engineered space, like on the last record I painted the whole studio silver. It takes me a minute to get into a headspace where I’m functioning on my creative side and going somewhere a little far out certainly helps. I think it’s affected the sound on the new record, I’m not sure how, because it all feels like I made what I wanted to make, but recording in that place definitely makes you see things differently.

What makes the LCD machine even more of a astounding success is how much of it can be attributed to the skill of Murphy. From the studio environment, to the compiling and orchestration on all of LCD’s records, it really is his brainchild.

“I do everything myself and I do it all in the studio. I don’t write anything before I do it all in the studio. I just go in and play everything and if someone else is around to help that’s great. So typically if Tyler (Pope) or Pat (Mahoney) or Al (Doyle) play on things or sing on things it’s quite random. If they are around it’s great, but typically I do everything myself, because it’s easier to communicate with myself.”

“The other band members are my friends and the songs are in my head and they need to get out. They aid me with this process. Pat was instrumental in just listening, so if was having a freak out because I was getting outside of the zone of comfort I was used to having, I‘d tell him I needed him to come over and listen to what I’d been creating and tell me if I was out of my mind. It’s easier for me to just get it done alone and ask people for their opinions or perhaps play them something when they are around. I haven’t figured out a way to not be the way I am really.”

The nature of the creative process sounds something like Murphy torturing himself by wrenching the ideas from his head. The intensity level is mirrored by his enthusiasm. Like he says on one of the videos posted on LCD’s website: “I like to figure out the parameters and then fuck around with them.”

One of the things allowing Murphy to play around with the process is the level of autonomy he is afforded. Unlike most tin-pot bands signed into unruly contracts littered with deadlines that stifle and pressurise creative process, Murphy has removed himself from this kind of relationship. In doing so he has broken down one of the biggest factors that results in a shit record being produced.

Murphy is aware of the great position DFA leaves him and his band in: “Because of DFA I have a much stronger control than most other artists have. For that reason nobody hears anything 'til the record is done and I‘ve produced it. So basically they tell me to go make a record and then I just come back with a record and that’s it. They don’t go over anything. It was part of the deal in the beginning and EMI (their UK distributor) have been great about honouring it. It was how the deal had to be. I made the first record alone and it came to them completed and that’s how it’s been ever since.”

If any modern band were an example of how crucial the album is, LCD Soundsystem are it. With Murphy fully versed in vinyl and the importance of recording, there is little left to chance. Anyone who puts in the effort to take his studio with him across the breadth of America has faith in making a quality record and the importance of it.

So with DFA approaching a decade in the independent record game, the incarnation of LCD Soundsystem in conjunction with DFA, has always meant Murphy has kept a tight reign on things. Their debut in 2005 was a slow burning success helped by a number of solid gold anthems and remixes. Sound of Silver in 2007 was probably a fuller album and proved it was no fluke. Yet between breakthrough hit Losing My Edge (2002) and full debut album release (2005), LCD Soundsystem was still being conceived. Thus the three years between first release and album.

“We managed to make a pretty good career on the back of those first 12"s. The first record came out in 2005, but we’d been touring since 2002 on the back of releasing a few vinyl only 12"s. Losing My Edge, Give it Up and Yeah were the only things we had out and as a result of those being successful we were playing festivals.

LCD became a buzz band. The time frame between Losing My Edge and the first album release meant the daytime Radio 1 brigade didn’t rape them with overplays. They survived the hype machine by sneakily running round the outside of it. They were better for it.

So what of the LCD singles Daft Punk Is Playing At My House, and North American Scum certainly tickled the indie disco DJ’s sensitive spot and gained them enough exposure to bring them into the consciousness of many an indie aficionado. Murphy has other ideas about what constitutes a single.

“I’m not a good single person. I don’t listen to the radio. But I did grow up buying The Smiths singles and Joy Division and New Order singles. They weren’t singles in the sense that there were three songs on the 12” that cohered. More like an EP. They weren’t singles in the sense the radio loves this. I still like singles. Our tracks like Beat Connection or Yeah made great 12"s. That’s my idea of a single, rather than saying, ‘oh this is the one that’s going to get played on the radio’. I don’t know how to judge that because I don’t listen to that type of thing.

“I always think that singles or promotion and things that are about the music are a sail and the band is a boat and if the sails aren’t working you just fall over. It always has be in proportion, so if you become more hyped, then those things will push you over. I’ve always naturally chugged along I think.”

DFA keep this spirit alive with consistent vinyl releases. Rarely does a record label have such an exceptionally high collectability level among vinyl junkies. DFA is as much Murphy’s baby as LCD and he treats it as such. The time between LCD records has allowed him to nurture this other huge string to his bow and in effect, make sure that side of the business is a great position to receive a new LCD record.

Murphy explains: “I’ve been in New York for a lot so I’ve had a lot of time with DFA. We’ve decided to stop trying to be a successful indie label and just find a way to do what we do, which is put out records by our friends and find new things that will surprise new people. At the same time we also find a way to professionally take care of people who are on the label. It’s time to remember what we are. The Holy Ghost! stuff that is coming out is going to be awesome. The Planningtorock record is ridiculous. And The Shit Robot record is great.

“We are also talking about doing a weekly party in New York again and it’s going to be our tenth anniversary soon. So I’d like to do a party in London and a party in Paris. Our motto now is: ‘too old to be new, too new to be classic’. We are kind of old, but we aren’t like Trax or Planet E. It’s been nice that we do what we do and not change too much. We’ve been able to sign things and keep moving, but not in an overly expanding way.”

The new (currently untitled) LCD Soundsystem record is a superb collection of personal footnotes (Change), pulsating electronics (Dance Yourself Clean) and progressive beat concoctions (All I Want). Like previous LCD records, the aforementioned ability to drift in and out of style is still there, but there is a more assured tone. If Murphy has taken one thing from his slightly twisted, get out the house and away from it all process of recording, it’s the confidence of a man who in a short time has scaled the wall of credibility in a manner that separates himself from the chaff and many of his contemporaries. The latest LCD Soundsystem record carries this off with a swagger that doesn’t touch arrogance but looks at you with a knowing smile that it was never really going to disappoint.



Tune: Pow Pow

http://www.myspace.com/lcdsoundsystem

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