“I really appreciate seeing someone up the front…where you just know that person is going somewhere inside their head. I know it because I do it,” Kim McConchie, vocalist for Drowning Horse.
Head down. Eyes closed. Deep thought. This is the way Drowning Horse reflect.
Borne out of a curiosity to toe-the-line between the misanthropic and philanthropy, this Perth-based doom collective have garnered an enviable following in the Australian scene over the past few years. With members linking from Extortion to Warthreat, Suffer and the now defunct Negative Reply – these musicians took the chance to step away from their more aggressively-honed pasts to explore the intensity of slow-burning animosity.
Recently releasing a live split with Japanese dronepop duo Sarry, the sextet plan to deliver their debut LP later this year. Talking to vocalist Kim McConchie and guitarist Brendan McGrath, CVLT Nation reveals an extract from the upcoming album.
CVLT: Considering the band formed out of a mutual obsession with outfits like Corrupted/Grief/Neurosis ect. How do you think Drowning Horse have been able to make these traits their own?
B: “How have we made heavy and depressing music our own? I don’t think we have. We’ve just borrowed those aspects from other bands. I guess we just try and write songs that have that mood, or feeling. I guess it’s just what we like.”
K: “It’s raw and, while sometimes it can get kind of pretentious in this field of music, I think there can be honesty and intensity involved that you maybe don’t get elsewhere. We don’t think about it, the songs evolve to where they are without trying to replicate a moment or style. It really is about the mood of the initial riffs. Some of our non-doom influences are Neil Young and Robbie Basho. Both kings of riffs in their own right.”
CVLT: What do you think prompted the shift in musical landscape for the musicians in the band?
B: “To begin with, a lack of fast drummers in Perth at the time forced us to play slow. But we’ve been into the slower side of stuff for a long time too. Even the fast bands that influenced our earlier projects still have slow ‘doomy’ parts. I don’t really see it as a drastic shift, maybe just a shift in emphasis.”
K: “For me it was a natural extension of Defeat, although I didn’t know it. Slowing it down and pushing the envelope sonically rather than trying to keep pushing for speed or brutality is just more mature for me and where I am at in my life.”
CVLT: Sonically, how have you been able to manifest this ‘mutual obsession’ in Drowning Horse?
B: “Loud amps and good pedals are probably as important as song writing haha. It sounds stupid but it makes a world of difference. You can’t sound like Corrupted if you’re playing through a Samick.”
K: “Vocally, it was just a matter of slowing it down, minimalising the lyrics and letting all the ego go. I’m an instrument, just like all the other. And while I have something to say, it’s more about getting the sonics and feeling right – stepping back and letting the song play out naturally – rather than imposing my will and sing over the top of everything. That would honestly ruin the songs.”
CVLT: The band has a self-professed love for playing smaller venues e.g. house shows and rehearsal studios. Can you describe the experience you want to relay in these intimate performances?
B: “I think that our love for playing smaller venues has been a little misinterpreted – we are not opposed to playing to a larger crowd. The benefit in playing smaller venues is that you have the ability to control the sound. When you play larger venues, you hand a lot of that control to a sound guy who is not always, in fact hardly ever, on the same page. Playing smaller shows also has the added bonus of making it virtually impossible to escape the sound. I guess our point is that we like to be in control of the sound.”
K: “ It’s probably less about small shows and more about the people, who are willing to put us on. We have friends across the scenes and we aren’t threatening or exclusive guys in any way, so we have played all these smaller gigs for good people. Personally I’d prefer big sound systems because I know it’s a crushing sound. But an engaged audience does trump that any day of the week, which is why the intimate performances can be so rewarding.”
CVLT: Many have described the impact of these smaller shows as overwhelming and, at times, evoking physical and emotional responses like nausea and anxiety. Is this intended?
B: “The music is supposed to be overwhelming. It’s supposed to be inescapable and uncomfortable. But I don’t think we necessarily set out to make people feel ill. I’ve never seen or heard about anyone nauseous or anxious after seeing us play. I don’t know how I’d feel about it.”
K: “In terms of the response emotionally or physically… as long as we aren’t making you chronically deaf I’m happy for you to respond as you do, it means you’re feeling something and that’s great. Even if you’re going inwards and connecting the dots about something else entirely, if we somehow facilitated that then job done for me.”
CVLT: The band released a split with Melbourne-based noise artist Ivens, ahead of a recent interesting live collaboration. It seems a creative relationship has formed between you two. How was that forged?
B: “Ivens played a couple of shows over here in 2008 that were booked through a mutual friend. We supported him at one of the shows. Personally, I was really blown away by his set. He seemed to like us too and said he’d like to do a split. We said yes. We recorded our side with Max Ducker at Cellar Sessions who now lives in Melbourne.
“The recent collaboration set was fairly spur of the moment. We had two practices together. There wasn’t really an idea behind it, it just so happened that Ivens would be in Perth. It seemed silly not to do it. Some of the earlier Drowning Horse stuff had a big more power electronics/noise added to it, like what was on the live tape, so it wasn’t a new idea to us as such. It makes more sense to have someone who is only doing noise rather than me or Micky trying to play guitar and tweak pedals at the same time.”
CVLT: The band also recently recorded four tracks with Perth-based producer Al Smith, with the intention of releasing a double LP. Is this still hopeful for release before the end of the year?
B: “At this stage the record still isn’t finished, we have a day or so in the studio to go, so we haven’t really got that far. Marijn, from Awesome Mountain is doing the artwork for the record. The songs on the record are very, very different to the split. It’s been at least three years and we’ve changed a lot in that time, including line up. The songs are a lot longer on this record and I’d say heavier. There’s even a trombone.”
K: “I agree, it’s been a steady progression and it will show on the record. These songs are fully realised now, it takes us a while but we build our songs steadily.”
CVLT: Lyrically, where does the upcoming LP take the band?
K: “The LP is for me a reflection on experiences, a few key ones really. With what I have written, it’s all connected to me. But I’m being as honest as I can be without using too much of a thick brush to paint it on. I just want to make it honest to me and the listener can take it where they like. I’m still a novice at using the written word and feel like I always will be, so hopefully I can keep taking it to places that make me work and explore.”
CVLT: Do the band see your music as a ‘ritual experience’?
B: “I don’t see it as ritualistic because when I’m playing I’m trying hard not to fuck up. But I do really enjoy playing loud and I guess that’s about as close to a ritual experience as I’d get.”
K: “Well, sometimes it is but I don’t know that its deliberate, I really appreciate seeing someone up the front, head down, eyes closed, where you just know that person is going somewhere inside their head. I know it because I do it. Several times I’ve been surprised to find I’m on stage because for ten minutes I’ve had my eyes closed listening to our music, going somewhere in my head. Creating that for others is my definite goal as a vocalist. To see if we can push or facilitate the audience going deeper. Hopefully people forget where they are for a time and we create the environment for that. In the end, maybe our approach to playing lends itself to the ritual experience in that we don’t give you anything else, we only communicate with you as an audience through the music.”
The Drowning Horse live split with Sarry is available now from Dada Records.
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