"If we didn't have a consistent lineup for the band, we would have been too distracted, too hurried, or too disconnected to further explore those ideas," admits Brian Borcherdt about the slowed down, confident groove and insistent melodiousness of Latin. The third album by his kraut- and psych-tinged electronica project known as Holy Fuck marks the first time in the band's six-year existence that they've recorded a consecutive release with the same lineup.
With an established lineup comes a new set of challenges. "We couldn't rely on [Latin] being dynamic by virtue of having different performers," Borcherdt explains. "It was going to be the same four people doing, stylistically, very much the same thing."
Holy Fuck decided to dig down, to go places that, musically speaking, they'd never been. "We experimented to see if we could do things to make for a more dynamic record." That meant allowing room in the band's cacophonous blend of rhythm and texture for melody, which, as it turns out, came easily. On Latin, the quartet slow things down and open their sound up, allowing their music room to breathe and, for the first time, to sing. Not vocally, of course - Latin maintains the outfit's staunchly instrumental sound - but melodically, and the result is a bolder and more confident Holy Fuck than ever heard on past records.
The way Borcherdt tells it, "we said 'Okay, we already have a bunch of songs that do this crowded, bludgeoning, drone-y thing. How about let's ease back a bit, let's try to pull the tempo back on this one, let's do something where there isn't a beat really, it's just a chiming of sounds. Let's try and make something a little bit melodic.'" Call it trial and success, I suppose.
With an established lineup comes a new set of challenges. "We couldn't rely on [Latin] being dynamic by virtue of having different performers," Borcherdt explains. "It was going to be the same four people doing, stylistically, very much the same thing."
Holy Fuck decided to dig down, to go places that, musically speaking, they'd never been. "We experimented to see if we could do things to make for a more dynamic record." That meant allowing room in the band's cacophonous blend of rhythm and texture for melody, which, as it turns out, came easily. On Latin, the quartet slow things down and open their sound up, allowing their music room to breathe and, for the first time, to sing. Not vocally, of course - Latin maintains the outfit's staunchly instrumental sound - but melodically, and the result is a bolder and more confident Holy Fuck than ever heard on past records.
The way Borcherdt tells it, "we said 'Okay, we already have a bunch of songs that do this crowded, bludgeoning, drone-y thing. How about let's ease back a bit, let's try to pull the tempo back on this one, let's do something where there isn't a beat really, it's just a chiming of sounds. Let's try and make something a little bit melodic.'" Call it trial and success, I suppose.
