Gravenhurst

Bleak Seasons



The English indie record labels have long been the parent of unique entities. The Smiths, Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine are just a few acts who been granted the space they need to follow a singular vision by the non constrictive conditions offered by labels such as Creation, Rough Trade and 4AD. This philosophy has bled over into the electronic domain, where labels such as Skam, Rephlex and Warp have offered the best home to the best and most eccentric acts. But while they nurture their musician's creative urges, each of these labels does tend to have a stylistic straitjacket that they adhere to.
Warp have managed to burst out of these preconceptions numerous times over their lengthy existence, always keeping a few steps ahead of trite musical trends. Having been the home to electronic mavericks such as Autechre, Aphex Twin and Squarepusher, it was a little odd when they recently released an album from an act called Gravenhurst. His sound was described as being somewhere between The Smiths and Nick Drake. Upon further investigation the album Flashlight Seasons was certainly atypical Warp fare. It was, however, one of their most inspired signings in recent memory.
Flashlight Seasons is a sparse, melancholic journey through the bleak nether regions of Nick Talbot's consciousness. While the minor key finger picking and fragile voice is certainly redolent of Drake’s pastoral meditations at times, there's a lot more going on. "All the bands I'm interested like the Smiths and My Bloody Valentine and Husker Du have one thing in common, which is that they're all fucking great pop song writers," says Talbot. "They might seem disparate on a sonic level but the songs are so memorable, and they're also very emotionally honest."
Before going solo, Talbot was in a band called Assembly Communications. They called it quits following the tragic death of their bassist, an event that contributes to the introspective nature of the Gravenhurst material. Prior to Flashlight Seasons Talbot released Internal Travels on his own label, distributing it through other small companies. "If you record on your own you can get a good sound with really basic equipment," he explains of the ethos behind Gravenhurst. "For Flashlight I was in a very morbid frame of mind, it was a desperate attempt to get down a bunch of music before I was convinced I was going to die. I spent two months in a room, just getting all the parts down. It was really exhilarating but really stressful. When it comes to recording I can't think about anything else."
It's clear that the result of this self-imposed solitude is the heartbreaking honesty of the music. While Flashlight's simplicity is one of its most rewarding elements, Talbot's take on it is different. "I dunno, I think it's really strange, I thought I'd made a full sounding pop record!" he laughs. "I'm probably quite deluded about what my stuff actually sounds like. I think as soon as someone hears an acoustic guitar they decide it's a minimal folk record. I think it's quite a full sounding record, some tracks have got like 16 parts."
Lyrically, Flashlight contains some dark gems, such as ‘The ghosts of autumn murders walk me home,’ or ‘I caress where my lover once lay by my side/Before I turned inwards and forced her to fly’. There's a real menace, a malevolent intent to some of the lyrics, which belies Talbot's intimate delivery.
"I try and convey anger in a different way," he explains. "There's a kind of tension between wanting to be understood and wanting to be really esoteric. If you make it too specific it becomes quite difficult. I'm really into evoking a sense of mystery in lyrics and in music in general."
As for the melancholic nature of his lyrics, Talbot says it has been a common theme since the romantic poets wallowed in it. "It's quite a privileged thing to have. I try and tap into things that are part of the collective consciousness. It seems to me once you've peeled back all the banal everyday shit what you get is an immense sense of sadness that is mixed with a really life affirming force. The human condition seems to be intrinsically melancholy."

Gavin Bertram.