Setting
aside the buzzy haphazardness and semantic dilution characterizing today’s use
of “psychedelic” as a descriptor for music, look no further for utterly
authentic, quintessential psychedelia—music that expresses and invokes
extraordinary states of mind and perception—than the powerful, inspired
rock of São Paulo, Brazil’s Firefriend.
This prolific project has been releasing albums and EPs for a decade and
consists of Julia Grassetti on bass, vocals, and keyboard; C. Amaral on drums
and various electronics; and Yury Hermuche on guitar and vocals. They’ve been
recording and producing in their own studio since 2016’s full-length, Negative
Sun. 2017 EP The Black Hole and this year’s long-player Sulfur have followed,
creating a stunning trilogy of self-recorded efforts, each one riveting from
start to finish. Elite Portland psych label Little Cloud Records has done us the
service of releasing The Black Hole and Sulfur in fine vinyl editions available
from Little Cloud itself as well as from Cardinal Fuzz, while Negative
Sun is available in
digital form.
The
songs are not without melodic and rhythmic hooks, but the real “hooks” in this
material, the qualities that grab and hold our attention so effectively, are
largely located elsewhere. The core of the music’s power lies instead in the
way Firefriend seems always to take us somewhere, to portray and draw us into
spaces and places—not literal
geographies, but, in the great tradition of
psychedelia, territories of mind and feeling. (The term “psychedelic”, coined
in 1956 by a research psychiatrist for the purpose of
bringing trip-inducing
drugs such as LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin together under their own
classifying rubric, has two Greek roots, “psyche”, meaning “mind”, and “delos”,
meaning “manifest”; its literal meaning, then, is mind-manifesting,
mind-revealing.) Extraterrestrial mindscapes shiver and unfold in the revealing
beam of Firefriend’s starcraft headlights. “We like to think,” Yury has told us
in our electronic correspondence, “that we are looking for new shapes and
places…Don’t you feel that some songs, some records, are entire universes?”
Sulfur
comes with a booklet insert titled “Operating Manual for Planet Earth.” It lays
out the bands entire discography while also, in accordance with the title,
providing handy travel tips for any entity finding herself “lost on Earth”.
Herein Firefriend advises, “Express yourself through any method you want.
That’s how you become a transmitter, generating waves that will open connections
with others vibrating on the same frequencies. That energy field will change
the game.” Now that is a truly psychedelic perspective if there ever was one.
Firefriend
has just finished putting visuals to Sulfur’s entire forty-two minutes. Stream
the result immediately below.
Deep
gratitude to Firefriend for taking time out for this interview and for
releasing such an awful lot of really good music. Thanks also to Little Cloud
for connecting us with Firefriend for the interview that follows.
"We take our ideas—sounds, riffs, chords progressions, whole songs—to rehearsals, where the band will then destroy them, and build a new thing out of their bits."
JULIA:
I didn’t know Yury very well back then, but he threw the best parties of 2006.
I knew he was playing guitar and recording some tracks. I knew I had to play
bass in that band. He invited me to record a cello. I jumped into it and also
recorded some bass and vox. It really ended very well I think.
C.AMARAL:
I joined the band back in 2011, to play some guitars. And then, at the
beginning of 2014, I got the drums.
YURY:
São Paulo is one of the largest, filthiest and most violent cities of the
world, you got to make things happen—fast—otherwise you may end up stuck in an
office you hate or in traffic or even getting killed. We started the band and
played and recorded with several musicians until C.Amaral arrived in 2011. All
these years! It's been a trip.
Can
you tell us what the band has been working on and what you've got forthcoming
in the near future (new releases, tour, etc.)?
YURY:
We’ll play in the UK on Sept 4th! Manchester’s Astral Elevator booked our
first gig there. We are also releasing a new album, it’s called Yellow Spider.
All its seven tracks were written simultaneously with finishing our last album,
Sulfur. The day we had the Sulfur masters done we were in the studio recording
the drums for Yellow Spider. Everything came together real fast. I
don't know if it's wise to release new material so soon, but I can't help it,
these new songs took over our minds so easily and I bet this new record will
add perfectly for everyone who's tripping with Sulfur. And anyway we are
addicted to recording and making albums.
C.AMARAL: We are playing, rehearsing and recording all the time.
C.AMARAL: We are playing, rehearsing and recording all the time.
JULIA: Yes we have this European tour coming, so now we are working on
the songs we want to play there.
Do
you consider your music to be part of the current shoegaze/dream pop scene, or
any scene? Defining one's sound by genre can be tiresome, but do you feel that
the band identifies closely with any genre? How do you feel about genres in
music, in a general sense?
JULIA:
I think we drink from several genres, since each one of us loves different
things. But the three of us are keen to psychedelia and all it has to
offer.
C.AMARAL:
I don’t know, I think we travel across genres, including shoegaze, so I can’t
put the band in one specific genre.
YURY:
We like to jump into new songs without a map—feeding them with whatever we have
on our hands and minds at the moment. We love to see how noise and melodies
collide, where their wreckage falls. Sometimes it goes in one direction, then
at the next second or song, we may end up in someplace else. Noise and melodies
are in this unstable balance with most of our fave records and artists, as in
life itself. Shoegaze and dream pop are different points of the same
thread—yes, we are there, somewhere.
What
do you think of modern shoegaze/dream pop/psychedelia artists, any favorites?
C.AMARAL:
It’s fucking good!
JULIA:
I think we are living a wonderful wave of these genres, there is a lot of good
stuff going on. I’m so grateful to this blog, Psychgazer, where I’ve gotten
to know amazing bands, like The Altered
Hours, Rancho
Relaxo and New Candys.
YURY:
Buried Feather
(Melbourne), Los Mundos
(Mexico). Darker My Love
(California) created insanely good music on their time. There is so much
wonderful music being created today. Everywhere.
What
is the most important piece of gear for your sound? Any particular
guitars/pedals/amps that you prefer?
C.AMARAL:
my bandmates—my friends playing with me.
How
do you feel about the state of the music industry today? There is no doubt a
massive change underway. How do you see it and do you feel it’s positive at
all?
C.AMARAL:
Sincerely I don’t know much about the music industry; the pace of technology is
so brutal I just can’t track where it goes.
YURY:
We are all trapped in this colossal digital revolution, and it’s liquefying
everything. While I enjoy the promises of universal access and global
connections, the flow of new music/images/information and how it could open our
eyes, minds, and ears, I’m also concerned about its downsides, and there are
many. That’s one hundred percent the liquid XXI century
mood.
 |
| Photo by Thiago Roma |
When
it comes to label releases versus DIY/Bandcamp and the like, what is your
stance, if any?
YURY:
We love how Little Cloud Records takes
care of our records. We share with those guys this love for music. We also
released several albums as unsigned artists, before Little Cloud, and it’s
amazing what one can do alone with the contemporary tools. I want every band
releasing their work anyway because there is so much to say and often it’s a
thousand times better than any blockbuster sequel or Netflix crap. Independent
music and labels are the virus our culture needs so badly.
C.AMARAL:
Hard to say. I like Bandcamp because there are no costs for musicians to post
their work, and the website is also very efficient in building up a community
around bands, inviting people to buy music from unknown artists.
Do
you prefer vinyl, CD, cassette tape or mp3 format when listening to music? Do
you have any strong feelings toward any of them?
JULIA:
Vinyl. I’ve always listened to vinyl, since I was a kid, without earphones,
that loud sound taking over the whole space, the low tones enveloping you. It’s
comforting.
C.AMARAL:
I like vinyl for its format and sound, but I listen to music in every format.
YURY:
I can’t really dig MP3. It’s like low-res JPGs.
What
artists (musicians or otherwise) have most influenced your work?
JULIA:
Black Sabbath is the band I’ve most listened to, since I was thirteen
years-old. Black Sabbath is always playing here at home.
YURY:
Velvet Underground, John Coltrane, Burroughs, Kerouac, Stooges, MC5.
C.AMARAL:
John Coltrane, Neil Young, Beatles, Spacemen 3, Can.
Can
you tell us a little about what you are currently into (books, films, art,
bands, etc.)?
C.AMARAL:
I’m reading Here, There and Everywhere, the memoir by [Beatles engineer and
McCartney producer] Geoff Emerick. And just watched D’après une histoire vraie
by Roman Polanski.
YURY:
Reality is my thing now. How it is distorted by media, corporations, and
governments. Democracy is under attack—and Brazil is this forever laboratory
for updating strategies and tools for massive brainwashing. Even before the
2016’s coup, the machine is working at its maximum here. The XXI century
is turning into this complex vortex, echoes of the 1930s mixing with
hyper-speed cables and environmental disasters. It’s fascinating and brutal.
If
you had to choose one track that was the ultimate definition of your sound,
which would it be and why?
C.AMARAL:
“Dreamscapes” - I think this song captures, somehow, the essence of this band.
YURY:
It can’t be defined by one track.
Can
you tell us a little about the band’s song writing process?
YURY:
We take our ideas—sounds, riffs, chords progressions, whole songs—to
rehearsals, where the band will then destroy them, and build a new thing out of
their bits. That’s an adventure we dig.
What
is your philosophy (on life), if any, that you live by?
C.AMARAL: My philosophy is…keep me in debt so I can buy records forever.
▲▲▲
▲▲▲
Fiction
writer Jack Beltane has given Firefriend
an apt and eloquent write up that you
can read here. Firefriend’s next album Yellow Spider drops on July 27th, 2018; pre-order the download here.
Official Site
Official Site
