Primitive Motion Dance To The Beat Of Their Own Dreamy Drum

Their debut album Worlds Floating By dropped in late-2013 and barely 18 months later was followed by sophomore effort Pulsating Time Fibre, which sounds vastly different because - as they're about to explain - it was constructed in an entirely different manner and represents a whole different side of the Primitive Motion aesthetic. Ahead of their label Bedroom Suck's Brisbane showcase both Craig (LC) and Selig (SS) took the time out to tell The Music a little bit about the project, the new album and what they're planning moving forward:

Is there a Primitive Motion sound/aesthetic in your mind and if so how would you best describe it in words?
LC: It isn't anything premeditated, but I do think there is a Primitive Motion sound. There is nothing like the feeling in a band when you are driving it along with the windows down, breeze in your hair, and there's that moment when you know it's 'on'. That's the beauty of musical conversation - it's a kind of telepathy that ebbs and flows. I think of the PM sound as "dream-float" music, whether it's a propulsive two-note jam or something more expansive, there's a certain dreamy space it invariably inhabits. Probably assisted by the amount of echo we use on vocals and wind instruments.

Was there a shared musical interest that made the two of you join forces as Primitive Motion?
SS: We were both playing in The Deadnotes (with Eugene Carchesio and Stuart Busby) and also The Deadnotes with The Legend! (Everett True) at the time we started Primitive Motion and for a short time we also both played in Fig. (also with Eugene). So we had a lot of experience playing together. We decided to see what would happen (just for fun really) if we tried a jam together. Well you could say it clicked into place immediately, because we recorded our first jam in October 2010 and that became our first release, the Certain Materials 7 inch EP on US label Soft Abuse.

How does the creative process happen in Primitive Motion? Are there wild improv sessions involved?
SS: Yes... a bit of wild, but mostly silly, is necessary. We don't really discuss songs, or compose them, we just let them unravel... like heading off on a mystery drive. No maps. Sometimes our distant collaborator Edmund Xavier (aka Glenn Donaldson from San Francisco) sends us some great beats and that generates a feeling or suggests a shape... then lyrics are drawn randomly from either of our notebooks, or books, or our skulls. Leighton often brings keyboard riffs and melodies that we build on, or pull apart. I record all of our sessions and often we listen back and hear songs that we would have forgotten about otherwise and they become something later. Though, this can sometimes be a problem because there is too much material.
LC: The Deadnotes and Fig. were all about improvising. I also played in the Lost Domain for ten years, so the only way I've ever known how to interact in a band is to improvise. It's hard to imagine going over and over certain parts of a song. I remember being a bit shocked one night some years back jamming in a practice space at Northgate and hearing the band in the next room spend about an hour on one section of a song. I didn't realise bands did that. (Although we could possibly benefit from more practice time!)

Did you have an idea with what you were seeking from Pulsating Time Fibre before you started work or did you let the songs dictate the album's tone?
LC: A couple of years back we recorded a one minute song for a flexi-disc compilation on the LA label Goaty Tapes. We just kept going and recorded a bunch of really short songs that we thought would make a great 7" record. We then recorded a suite of pieces for broadcast on FBI radio in Sydney, including the 10 minute instrumental To Shape a Single Leaf and a slightly Silver Apples-inspired piece called Question D. That's when the thought occurred that we could actually have an album with short pop songs on one side complimented by these more exploratory works on the flip. It seemed an obvious match.

Pulsating Time Fibre has a vastly different feel to Worlds Floating By, was it important to evolve the band's sound or was it purely organic?
LC: Worlds Floating By was a case of capturing our favourite live songs as an album, recording with our friend Joel Stern in his lounge room studio, and then adding some overdubs. So it's mostly us playing live in a room, which is definitely our preferred modus operandi. Pulsating Time Fibre was a file share studio exercise, hence the difference in sound. The next album we'd like to return to playing live in a room. But to answer your question, I don't think it was an evolution so much as a different means of creating the work and recording it. More a step sideways than upward.
SS: Yes, Pulsating Time Fibre was made quite differently. We made the entire album by recording our parts separately in each of our own homes, building songs that way. It got us out of our usual habits and allowed us to shape the songs in a more detailed way. Apart from the final mastering, which was done by Lawrence English, we recorded and mixed everything ourselves, in separate home studios.

Do you feel that there's an onus on the listener to invest in the experience to get the most out of an album like Pulsating Time Fibre?
SS: I think that might be true of all albums that you really want to hear and take in. The shorter songs would be gone in a blink of an ear, if you weren't paying attention!

Combining forces, how many instruments would you guess you are 'proficient' at? Don't be modest.
SS: I would say I'm more proficient at hearing than playing. You never know when that accidental note or super-simple riff is going to be the best one you've ever heard.
LC: Sandra plays sax, euphonium, flute, drums, bass and whatever else she picks up on the day. I play keyboards, drums and occasional clarinet. We leave proficiency to other bands.

Does Brisbane play a role in the Primitive Motion sound? Do you enjoy being part of the local scene?
LC: Speaking for myself I'm very conscious of a rich legacy of great Brisbane bands, and being knocked over in the early-'90s when I discovered Small World Experience and the Invisible Empire (who became The Lost Domain), and heard the amazing DNE album 47 Songs Humans Shouldn't Sing. That was something of an epiphany for me. And obviously the great singles by Four Gods, the GBs and Out of Nowhere are timeless gems. For many years I felt in isolation making music in Brisbane, and it was probably only when Joel Stern started the weekly Audio Pollen gigs at the back of a fruit and veg shop in West End that I developed any sense of being part of a musical community. That was quite special in hindsight. PM has many good friends we like to play with - the recent Winter Solstice event at Real Bad was a bit of a showcase for our peeps. I like to think Brisbane bands are not beholden to a particular style or fashion, which leaves the door open to experimentation. Maybe I'm just a bit out of touch!

How have you found being part of the most excellent Bedroom Suck roster?
LC: Label head Joe Alexander is just a capital fellow who puts his heart into it. We probably don't have much interaction with other bands on the roster, other than our friends Superstar and Scraps. And Per Purpose. Oh and I guess Blank Realm, who are also fine young people.

What current bands/artists have been floating your boat?
LC: I was driving in the Gold Coast hinterland yesterday and Alex Cobb's Chantepleure was the perfect soundtrack on the road up to Springbrook. The new Pumice album Puddles is typically great, and I'm looking forward to the Flying Saucer Attack album later this month - his first in 15 years. But mostly I confess to being a bit lost in the past. I've been playing lots of Alice Coltrane recently and revisiting Ornette Coleman records following his recent passing. A great Laraaji cassette called Vision Songs with casio, zither and vocal jams has been on heavy rotation. That's in the PM top 20. Should also mention the amazing retrospective double LP of Ariel Kalma's early work An Evolutionary Music (Original Recordings 1972-79). That one is top of the PM playlist - get it!!
SS: Yeah, I'm loving Laraaji and Ariel Kalma too. Leighton is very good at finding these gems! I can't keep up, and so usually find them accidentally... most recently discovering Selvhenter from Copenhagen. They play two drum kits, trombone, sax and keys and the use of effects on the brass to transform them is really great. Also continually enjoying our Brisbane mates Cured Pink very much and just this morning I listened to an EP of Australian Bird and Mammal sounds that I got inside a book from Archives Books in Brisbane.

Do you have any impending tours on the horizon? Any other plans for 2015?
LC: No tour plans - we broke new ground by playing our Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne launch in the same evening in a small venue in Ashgrove (the Junk Bar). Hasn't been done before. That's what pulsating time fibre is all about. I think we need to get another album recorded by the end of the year - there are too many live songs we've got that are yet to be captured. But we are also in the process of assembling an album of quieter piano and flute works that incorporate the natural environment just outside the studio window. Anyone who home records in Brisbane knows it's hard to record a vocal without capturing the distant sound of crows and cicadas. We are embracing the world of birds and putting a microphone outside the studio window. Bringing the garden inside.

SS: I think this new suite of pieces would be nice to release on cassette. There is a warmth and fragility to tape that lends itself to certain works.