Interpol – Performing Turn On the Bright Lights In Its Entirety

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Interpol was created in New York City in 1998. The original line-up of the band was Greg Drudy on drums, Daniel Kessler on guitar, Paul Banks on vox and guitar, and Carlos Dengler on bass (he left the band in May 2010). 

Between '98 and 2000, the four lads forged a unique sound in a variety of the city's decrepit and shady rental rehearsal rooms. Paying by the hour, they cultivated a unique aesthetic and developed their notoriously delicate and complicated creative process. In 2000, Greg and the band split leaving Daniel, Paul, and Carlos with a significant and reflective hiatus. It soon came about that Interpol would try out Samuel Fogarino, whom Daniel knew through the record store where Sam worked. Sam was perfect for the band as he gave Interpol a healthy shot of punk aggression and rhythmic backbone. 

Now with the line-up revitalized, Interpol resumed gigging at venues like Brownies, Mercury Lounge, and The Bowery Ballroom. Throughout 2000 and 2001 they opened for bands like ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, Arab Strap, and The Delgados. Then came Interpol's first release, at the end of 2000, in the form of the third installment of the FukdID EP series on Scottish label Chemikal Underground. Around the same time, the band also contributed an unreleased track, "Song Seven," to the Fierce Panda Records compilation Clooney Tunes. 

Popularity abroad increased as a result of regular rotation on London's XFM. In April 2001 Interpol played in Glasgow, Manchester, and London, capping off their visit with a session for the famed John Peel. Later on in August and November, the group visited France with appearances at festivals La Route du Rock (St. Malo) and Festival Off (Paris) respectively. In November of 2001, the band tucked themselves away in Connecticut at Tarquin Studios to record their debut full-length. The album was recorded and mixed by Peter Katis (Mercury Rev, Clem Snide) and Gareth Jones (Depeche Mode, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Clinic.) 

In February 2011, Dave Pajo (new bassist since Dengler left) decided to leave the band. He is replaced by Brad Truax.

From Atlanta, Georgia, the origins of Deerhunter can be traced back to when frontman Bradford Cox first met guitarist Lockett Pundt at high school. Years later Bradford met Moses Archuleta and started jamming together. Other contributors to Deerhunter since its establishment in 2001 include Josh Fauver, Colin Mee and Whitney Petty. The current incarnation consists of Cox, Pundt and Archuleta plus bassist Josh Mckay and guitarist Frankie Broyles.

Deerhunter’s first album was a lo-fi experiment not initially intended for the wider world, but appeared in 2005 on a local Atlanta label, Stickfigure. Although officially untitled, it has since become known as Turn It Up, Faggot; a phrase that doesn’t actually appear on the sleeve but is an insult that Cox claimed was often thrown at the band during their early gigs. Their next album, Cryptograms (2006), was generally considered to be their real debut and as such things started to get serious for the band. They had moved to fêted Chicago indie, Kranky (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Low, Stars Of The Lid), and the world outside was starting to pay attention.

Then in mid-2008, Deerhunter and Kranky signed a deal with 4AD, allowing them to finally release music outside the US and the band’s next move was to prove epic in more than just musical terms.?? Recorded over the course of a week at the Rare Book Studios in Brooklyn, NY, the Can and Wire-inspired Microcastle (2008) was to propel them to further heights. However, the album leaked four months before release, leading the band back to the studio to record Weird Era Cont., an album in its own right added as a bonus disc to make Microcastle a 25-track colossus. Not content with such prolificacy, the band announced a new five track EP, Rainwater Cassette Exchange, in 2009 and that its release would coincide with the band’s extensive European, Japanese and Australian tour in May and June.??

Displaying few signs of slowing down, Halcyon Digest, the band’s fourth studio album was released in September 2010. Remaining in their native Georgia to piece together the album, Halcyon Digest took just a few weeks to complete. The recording sessions took place at Chase Park Transduction in Athens with Ben H. Allen helping to co-produce the album, while final track, ‘He Would Have Laughed’, was recorded separately by Bradford Cox at NOTOWN SOUND in Marietta. To announce the release, the band fully embraced the DIY mindset of their New Wave heroes from the 70’s and 80’s with a Cox-designed, cut-and-paste Xeroxed flyer. It’s with these kind of approaches that Deerhunter continue to widen their sphere of influence and impress with each subsequent release.

After a brief hiatus, during which time Bradford Cox and Lockett Pundt released their own albums as Atlas Sound and Lotus Plaza respectively, a new Deerhunter line-up (with additions of bassist Josh Mckay and guitarist Frankie Broyles) reconvened in January 2013 at Rare Book Studio in Brooklyn, New York. Produced by Nicholas Vernhes and Bradford Cox and recorded in the dead of night, Deerhunter’s new longplayer Monomania will be released in May. Monomania finds the group recalling its scrappy punk aesthetic; a perfect nocturnal garage rock album full of the layered and hazy vintage guitar sounds that define them.

Battles are the Networked Band, or perhaps the-band-as-network. An island chain linked by a unique combination of artistry, experimentation, technology and singular focus. A band that holds computerized loops in their brains, leaves sweat on their machines and whose sonic heartbeat is almost brutally human. 

Dave Konopka, Ian Williams and John Stanier have turned the tables on themselves this time, confronted their own ideas of what Battles is – and here on their third album (out September 18), have willed an answer to that question into existence. As the name might imply, La Di Da Di is a mushrooming monolith of repetition. Here is an organic techno thrum of nearly infinite loops that refuse to remain consistent. The rhythmic genus of Battles is here as ever; full frontal, heightened and unforgiving – the gauntlet through which melody and harmony must pass, assailed at every turn.