Caliper Music: an experimental music blog: October 2017

Friday, October 27, 2017

POLLENS interview

The Brooklyn duo Pollens releases their latest EP today, mister Manufacture. It’s a quirky, percussive album with plenty of yell-singing, lo-fi production and catchy, minimal beats. Some parallels could be drawn to Tom Tom Club, LCD Soundsystem, and if you want a more obscure name to look up: Foot Village. An ethos is perhaps shared with Dada or pop art as well ("low art" as they refer to it in their press release). There’s a certain charm to their minimal set up: just some danceable electro beats with what sometimes sound like cheerleaders shouting ponderous lyrics at you. It’s a simple combo but it manages to be intriguing and entertaining at the same time. Most of this has been said elsewhere however, so rather than drone on about it, I interviewed Jeff, one half of the band.

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Caliper (C): The lyrics to the opening track, “Close,” seem to be about the unintentional incorporation of others’ style or “patterns.” Confusing the pronouns ‘I’ and ‘we,’ you seem to be getting at a sort of loss of self. I’m curious, how much stock do you put in the idea of originality?

Jeff (J): EMay might have a different answer, but I don’t personally spend any time thinking about ‘originality’... It’s not useful to me. It also doesn’t make sense... like, rewarding the newness of a work ignores all of its unremarkable features; banal, known, compulsory aspects of that work. The ‘most original rock-and-roll song’ would still somehow need to be rock-and-roll, right? So then obsession with ‘originality’ is a dual-obsession with ‘newness’ and ‘sameness’. That’s crazy, bonkers, absolute madness. OR, whatever, ‘This year’s most original sit-com!’ just means that it’s awesome.

In our band, I feel like we try not to worry about being awesome. Instead, we try to make the thing specific. Also, we’re paying attention to what specifically changes if I say something, or EMay says that thing instead: EMay has a body that already means and performs something different from what mine is already doing. And more often than not, we say the same things at the same time... so what’s up with presentation and representation? What specifically happens when we share pronouns or points of view? And probably two people talking at once is a little muddy, so we’re always asking ‘how can we tighten this up?’. Sub-question: ‘is this idea specific to us?’... or, as EMay puts it ‘is this dumb enough?’

C: In “Dinosaurs,” there’s sort of a comical, willful ignorance being described. The theme seems to be that progress/building on precedent isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, or that you just don’t “believe” in it. Is this with tongue in cheek? How much value do you place in this type of thinking (or non-thinking) when it comes to music, aesthetics, life in general?

J: Confirmation is a dead-end. Boom.

Pranksters, though, are playing with dynamics and pre-conditions... and bless them and their project. Problematize the site and situation! Not to be dark, or mean, but to win back the open question. Maybe I’m being stupid when we say we don’t believe in something we know exists... but also, the last line in any dialogue could be ‘OK, but are you sure?’

And forget progress. Progress is what’s holding us back. It’s a kind of stasis. It’s a wedding announcement from the status quo. It’s reptiles on a heat rock.

C: Ok, I won’t use the word “progressed” but has your approach to music changed at all on this album vs. previous releases?

J: For sure. right now, I think of songs as a vehicle for text (which is funny, because when I listen to music, I don’t listen to the words), and text a vehicle for performance. Musicality doesn’t interest me right now, and I think EMay agrees that the performative, antic material we’ve been doing is more fun than any of our material that’s pretty. Maybe its a function of moving to New York, or how old I am, or who cares, but I’m not very invested in beauty right now.

C: What are some of your non-musical sources of inspiration?

J: Curtain comes up on a theater-of-interests: The set, costumes, lights, sound are all advertising, commercials, logos, signs and symbols, special colors, regalia, and tarot cards... and the secondary characters are agents of those ideas (and news anchors). But then our lead actors and the action of the show are real humans who don’t know anything about that stuff or maybe they have no time for it. And alone or in groups, they say things; to themselves and to each other. And I think the title is like ‘Final Performance’ or ‘One Night Only’ but it runs indefinitely.

C: I have to ask, there’s a weird muted guitar sound that sounds not really guitar-like on a lot of your tracks. What is that?

J: Ya, forget guitars. For the melodic percussion, my primary instrument is a mash of tuned noise, and badly intonated pitches... depending on inflection, sometimes it sounds short and ceramic, sometimes its trashier and kind of woody.

C: Your Soundcloud bio says: “bogo beat music.” What is that? If I buy a beat do I get one free?

J: Totally! but the first one is free too. Hashtag value, hashtag salesevent, hashtag groupon.

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mister Manufacture is free through their bandcamp.

Matt Ackerman, Jeff Aaron Bryant