Piano Magic Diaries : Artists’ Rifles

We weren’t meant to be a band.

The original concept of Piano Magic was that of a revolving door, friends coming and going at will, invariably recording at our Camden flat, lo-fi, songs improvised. But reluctantly, we found ourselves on the gig treadmill. Initially, we felt obliged to actively promote our first EP on i/Che, ‘Wrong French,’ though our first show at the legendary Wag Club in Soho was actually the last of Piano Magic co-founder, Richard Rance. Clawing for a modicum of stability, there followed a rapid succession of unsuccessful line-up changes and by late 1998, Piano Magic was reduced to me and my trusty Tascam 4-track. I was close to giving up.

Ironically, this was the exact point when Maurice Woestenburg of VPRO radio broadcasting in the Netherlands, contacted me to ask if “we” would play a small festival his team were curating at the Het Patronaat club in Haarlem the following March. At first, given that I didn’t have an actual band, I politely declined but he was very persuasive. An all-expenses-paid trip to the Netherlands with a fee on top? I’d barely even left the UK at this point, so anything that wasn’t playing London again was enticing.

My first ports of call were my old friends, Paul Tornbohm and John Cheves. Both already had form with Piano Magic, on drums and guitar respectively, though Paul, a music teacher, was the only bona fide musician amongst us. They were up for it in principle but instinctively, we knew that a good drummer would be the glue to bind us. As was the way back then, I put an ad in the back of Melody Maker magazine to the tune of “London band seeks drummer, into Galaxie 500, Low, Codeine, etc.” As ever with these things, I fielded calls from a deluge of drummers who just wanted to be in a band, any band. But it was a meeting with a young, smiley Spaniard, Miguel Marin, at his Kentish Town flat, that convinced me we had our man. Somewhat surprised that anyone else knew of Codeine and deeply impressed by Piano Magic’s ‘Low Birth Weight’ album, despite an initial language barrier, he and I quickly bonded.

The Haarlem gig was a triumph, although, if I’m honest, I felt we were little more than our influences, particularly the American “post-rock” of the time (in execution, if not in technical ability). The VPRO radio session we recorded, rather worse for wear, the next morning – and which would later be released as part of Staalplaat’s ‘Mort Aux Vaches’ series – is undeniably without thrill. The fifth member of the band, a Korg digital 8-track providing contextual field recordings, evoked perhaps a pastoral setting but its coupling with the Codeine-esque sludge rock, made us sound somewhat directionless.

A direction didn’t reveal itself until we walked into John Rivers’ Woodbine St Studios that Winter, at Vinita of Rocketgirl’s request, to record a new, proper album. John and the studio were an obvious choice, for me, at least. He’d recorded albums by Felt and Dead Can Dance there – bands I held in ridiculously high esteem and yet the studio itself was oddly simple, functional. I just couldn’t picture Lawrence or Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard making their beautiful, otherworldly music in such a characterless place. I was later to realise that Woodbine, as with many other studios, was really just a blank canvas on which to paint. That we arrived with our brushes and next to no ideas was somewhat ironic. Rocketgirl’s modest budget afforded us a mere 5 days to record and mix an album – a mammoth task for any band that isn’t Hüsker Dü but we had a youthful bullishness on our side.

As I recall, we entered Woodbine with just one page of lyrics – actually a poem I’d written called, ‘No Closure.’ Beyond that, the skeletons of two or three instrumentals. ‘Birds’ from the ‘Mort Aux Vaches’ radio session eventually became ‘You & John Are Birds.’ ‘Trick’ had already been the basis of our Darla EP, ‘A Trick Of The Sea’ and recycling its cyclic guitar motif once again, we recorded ‘A Return To The Sea.’ All else, improvised, written there and then.

In the whole time we spent at Woodbine, I don’t recall ever once leaving the building. We slept upstairs on bunk beds and when not recording, I was hastily scribbling lyrics on scraps of paper. Miguel’s enthusiasm for the record was particularly contagious and though we’d later fall out with John Rivers (see ‘Writers Without Homes’), it’s an absolute credit to him that we came out of there with an album at all. He worked deftly and always with good humour, constantly suggesting new angles, new arrangements, new sounds we could try.

Although I’d happily done so in my former bands, I never wanted to sing in Piano Magic and from 1996 to the end of 1999, I’d gotten away with it. But once the spoken word verses to ‘No Closure’ were in place, the chorus (if it can be called that) had a very definite vacancy for a vocal melody. So, John Rivers, the guy who’d recorded the otherworldly, ethereal voices of Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard in this very building, set to work on making good of my mewling indie whine. Listening back to the album now, I barely recognise the softly-sung indie kid as being me. My lack of studio experience, confidence and identity is glaring.

To offset my ineptitude, I called upon my ex-flatmate, Caroline Potter, who’d sung several tracks on ‘Low Birth Weight.’ She gladly contributed to several songs and despite not being a consummate professional herself, did much to rescue ‘Artists’ Rifles’ from being just another post-rock album anchored to the time in which it was made. Although the songs may appear grave and poetic, off mic, Caroline perpetually broke into gigantic bursts of contagious laughter, much spurred on by Miguel who, deadly focused when making music, had a restless, clownish spirit otherwise.

Vinita arrived late on the last day to hear the playback and drive us all back to London. Exhausted and unsure of our achievements, we were uncharacteristically silent throughout. We needn’t have worried. ‘Artists’ Rifles’ opened a plethora of doors for us, particularly in Spain and Germany, where we toured the year of its release. In September 2000, Piano Magic played at dusk to a full capacity, beautiful Place Del Rei plaza in Barcelona, as part of the BAM Festival. It was our first and only concert with Caroline and all the more special for it. Its success paved the way for a rapturous performance at Benicassim Festival a year later.

Whilst we toured throughout 2001 – 2002, tracks from ‘Artists’ Rifles’ could be heard on Spanish national radio and television and there was no shortage of interview and concert requests. Here in the UK, the response was predictably lukewarm but I felt validated when Saint Etienne’s Bob Stanley told me he wished he’d written ‘You & John Are Birds’ and Simon Raymonde from Bella Union invited me for a coffee and enthused about the album (though not enough to sign us).

‘Artists’ Rifles’ also became our calling card. In a moment of impulse, I called Chris Sharp at 4AD and asked him if he liked it. He did. Would he be interested in signing us? He would.

THE TRACKS

(1.16) : John Rivers accidentally played the finale of ‘Artists’ Rifles,’ (the track) at half speed. We loved it and promoted it to the album’s opener/scene-setter.

No Closure : A poem set to music. Processing heartbreak somewhere in the flooded Loire Valley. I don’t recognise the narrator on this track. I have an inexplicable American accent, although at the time, I’d only visited the States for 3 whole weeks. The (no) closure theme was to return on our last album, ‘Closure,’ in 2016. This song was a particular band favourite and stayed in our set for many years.

A Return To The Sea : a recycling of both ‘Trick’ from ‘Mort Aux Vaches’ and ‘A Trick Of The Sea’ (Darla, 1998), which can also be heard on the later, ‘Son De Mar’ film soundtrack. The vocal canon was suggested by John. Adrienne Quartly plays lovely cello. Another band favourite during which, live, we’d often fall into a trance-like state.

(1.22) : An improvised dulcimer and darbuka interjection by Miguel. Short on songs, we recorded several pieces like this to help fill the gaps.

You & John Are Birds : A paean to John Cheves (guitarist in the band at that time) and my friend, Joanne (she also inspired ‘I Am The Sub-librarian,’ ‘Sketch For Joanne,’ ‘Deleted Scenes,’ amongst others). The lengthy end section recycled from ‘Birds’ on the ‘Mort Aux Vaches’ CD. Again, live, we’d often get rather lost in this track (in a good way).

The Index : The Dead Can Dance influence is strong in this one, if not fully realised. My voice is trying its best not to burst.

“‘…Rifles’ hushed gravitas is sabotaged by Johnson‘s nasal indie mewl, as suited to these death marches as The Field Mice were to combat.” – NME

(1.55) : Improv on the Hammond Organ Felt’s Martin Duffy (R.I.P.) played in the very same studio.

Century Schoolbook : Dead Can Dance’s ‘The Serpent’s Egg’ creeping in everywhere; their ghost haunting the studio and John’s production capitalising on our love for them.

Password : The song for which actual studio footage exists. This was our set-closer for many years, the end section invariably a slow descent into an black hole of noise, louder and louder as those years went on. This song set the tone and style of what was to come. That I was thirty one (or thirty two?) when I sang this, now seems ridiculous.

Artists’ Rifles : Misinterpreted as an album about World War I, this is actually the only song on that theme here. The Artists’ Rifles were a regiment of the British Army Reserve, in which the poet, Wilfred Owen, served. Owen was killed in action exactly one week before the signing of the Armistice which ended the war. His mother received the telegram informing her of his death on Armistice Day as the church bells in Shrewsbury were ringing out in celebration.

The vinyl re-issue of ‘Artists’ Rifles,’ the first since its original release twenty three years ago, is out on September 15th and is available to pre-order from Rocketgirl here