CONNAN MOCKASIN

Following the release of his second LP Caramel, We talk to the cosmic Kiwi who doesn’t listen to music and disdains major record labels

It is with great and grave expectations that a music careerist will strive for a level of celebrity and affluence unobtainable by conventional methods. The dilemma is one of artistic integrity versus the desire and necessity for financial and personal gain.

Participants of the centralised music economy are at the behest of major record labels, haters might say, and with good reason. But it’d be impertinent to suggest that all major labels are innately evil, corporate carrot danglers, regardless of which ideological mast your beliefs are bound to. To snub such lucrative means of career advancement would surely be counter intuitive to the cause. Unless of course, you’re Connan Mockasin.

New Zealand’s Connan Tant Hosford is most definitely not a careerist, nor does he harbour any aspiration to become a posturing celebrity. In truth, we’re not even certain he’s of this world. Formerly of Connan and The Mockasins – the now defunct blues-pop band which he fronted until 2007 – he departed his native Wellington to relocate to London in 2006, before returning shortly after following ill-fitting fraternisations with EMI’s mostly pig-fodder indie auxiliary Regal.

In spite of this false start, his relative eminence circa 2013 – which he meditatively rejects as a “happy accident” as he talks to Crack pre-gig in Belgium – can in part be attributed to his Andy Warholian yarns of peroxide blonde hair and an imitable style of submerged warbling awash with made up words borrowed from decadent dreams and far away galaxies. Oh yeah, his mum (who implored him to record his debut solo LP, Forever Dolphin Love) and Phantasy Sound label boss Erol Alkan (the producer of aforementioned debut LP, released in 2011) are deserved of props too.

Not to be reductive, but Forever Dolphin Love is redolent of an evening spent trapped in an underwater isolation tank with a heavily sedated Syd Barret. Immersive yet beset with a capricious incohesion, the anthemic psych-funk odyssey Please Turn Me Into the Snat is the bat-shit crazy opus that Floyd never penned. By virtue of him being bothered enough to write more songs, he’s recorded album number two. It’s called Caramel, and it’s a clusterfuck of derailed electronics and wah-wah jazz chords siphoned directly from Prince’s libido. It’s unnerving, albeit extremely sexy, like Jeremy Paxman’s beard or malformed fruit that resembles a woman’s shapely buttocks.

Lest he be beholden to a deeper understanding, what’s most otherworldly (the oft used adjective synonymous with his description) about Mockasin is that his actions seem to be dictated by an odd disposition for arbitration and enigma. This much we do know, as he purrs down the phone and imparts sage-like pearls of wisdom in his mercurial Kiwi brogue.

Having had a fleeting dalliance with EMI’s subsidiary label Regal during your previous incarnation as frontman of Connan And The Mockasins, what deterred you from working with the imprint for your solo endeavours?

When I first came to the UK, no one knew who I was, so no one was ever going to trust me to do my own thing. It’s nothing against EMI or anything, because there were other labels that were talking to me at the time, asking me to make this type of record, or write this type of song. Their motives were very corporate and business-driven. Basically, they just try and dangle loads of money in front of you and expect you to take it. It was very difficult for me when I first came to England. I had to sleep on a park bench for the first six weeks. Eventually I found somewhere to live, but still, it was a tough decision to make because all that baiting just seemed dumb to me. That depressed me quite a bit, so I returned home to move back in with my parents and didn’t really do anything for a bit.

How do you perceive the current business models of the industry and the role of major record labels in the UK?

What puts me off is the way some of the bigger labels try and assume control of the creative process. For me, it just feels like businessmen trying to make as much money as possible. As much as it’s about monetising music, I think [major labels] use their artists as puppets. That model dumbs the music industry down and patronises the audience, but I try not to be too negative about it. I think a lot of people involved in music are choosing to ignore industry giants, partly due to boredom with everything being so processed. It’s almost like they’re offering record deals out to people who just want to be famous, and that didn’t interest me at all. The people who want to be famous get to be famous, and then the businessmen makes stacks of money, which is what they want, so it keeps them happy. But it’s reductive of the music industry as a whole and it’s been happening for a long time.

We read somewhere that it wasn’t until the intervention of your mum that you decided to release your debut LP. Why were you so disinclined to release Forever Dolphin Love?

Once I got a tiny taste of what the industry was about, I immediately felt like I wanted to do something else instead. Like I said, I was trying to figure out what I wanted, so I’d just hang out at the beach and not do a great deal. This is until my mum suggested that I should make a record. At first, I was like, ‘bah, I don’t know about that, I wouldn’t have the first clue how to record a solo album’. So ultimately, it was my mum’s perseverance and Erol [Alkan] I have to thank for its release. My career is just one big happy mistake.

Can you explain your rationale behind signing to Erol Alkan’s primarily dance music oriented label Phantasy?

As soon as I met Erol, I felt like I could trust his direction because he has a genuine passion for music. He’s into all types of music y’know, so I wouldn’t read too much into that choice. He came across my record by chance, got in contact, invited me to his home, we hung out. It was an altogether more personable experience, and I’m really quite close with Erol now.

You’ve been quoted as saying you’re not an active listener of music, is it not indicative of a musician to consume as much music as possible in order to feed into your expressionism?

That’s true, I’m certainly very lazy at collecting music and I don’t embrace technology. I don’t have an iPod or an iPhone or anything like that; I tend to turn a blind eye to it. There’s just so much music out there that I can’t be bothered sifting through to find the stuff that I like. I do love music, and I do love hearing it, but no, I’m not an active listener. The last record that really excited me was [Andre 3000’s] The Love Below and that was released about a decade ago. I feel like I succumb to the creativity when I’m doing something completely separate to music as well. Like taking a walk on my own, or doing the dishes. I listen to Ricky Gervais, Karl Pilkington and Stephen Merchants’ podcast on YouTube every night before I go to bed, those guys put me to sleep. Then it happens – I write songs when I’m least expecting it.

If it’s not listening to music that compels your creativity then what did you draw inspiration from when writing Caramel?

The new record is evocative of the name; basically, I liked the name Caramel. I’m not sure if the name has been used before, but I wrote all the music as to what I thought a record called Caramel would sound like. To me it sounded saucy and simplistic; relaxed, y’know, just what I thought a record called Caramel would sound like. I couldn’t pinpoint any tangible inspirations, just the mental imagery of the title which is reflective of the tone of album.

Is it true you holed yourself up in a hotel room in Tokyo for a month with nothing but a tape recorder and a guitar?

I like working with small amounts of gear and I don’t like studios so much because they make me anxious, there’s just too many options. I just feel really flustered, it’s better when there’s a limited amount of options to choose from. I enjoyed making the new record, taking a month out and staying in a hotel in Tokyo. [The record] just came out of me; I can’t even remember much about making it now.

You’ve described Caramel as a quasi-concept album, involving the paraphilia of a dolphin by a fictional character by the name of the Boss. How does this concept tie in with your previous LP, and what’s with the dolphin fetish?

There’s a goodbye from the [characters involved in the] last record, and an introduction [from those characters] to the new record, I think. It’s really quite a flirty record, because I’m not very good at that stuff, I get very shy. I’m not very good at flirting in real life so it was quite enjoyable to vent my flirtation in the record. This record’s definitely a goodbye to the dolphin fetish though; the dolphin has swum off now.

Can you tell us more about your recent collaborations with Charlotte Gainsbourg and label bedfellow Sam Dust of Late of the Pier?

Charlotte and I have been doing some writing together recently, we wrote one song [Out Of Touch] and that’s how we met, but we’ve been talking about writing more. If we both find the time it’s possible we might make a record together. Next year I’ve got a record coming out with Sam, which is really exciting. We did some shows together and now we’ve become really close friends. It took us a long time to hit it off musically though, we were so shy of each other, but I’m really pleased with the way it’s turned out. The record’s called Soft Hair. A girl once told us that we both have soft hair so we thought: hold on, that’s our name right there.

You’ve expressed doubts over the longevity of your career as a musician, where do you see yourself in say two years’ time?

To be honest, I really don’t know. Right now I’m having fun, it just depends whether I have any more bright ideas. If I don’t, I’m not going to try and make a record because there’s demand for it, providing I’m lucky enough to have any. I’ll just play it by ear I think. There’s other things I’d like to try as well. If there was ever an opportunity, I’d like to make movie soundtracks, that excites me, I think, but we’ll see.

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Words: Joshua Nevett

Caramel is out now via Phantasy

Connan Mockasin plays Bristol’s The Fleece, January 20th