At a time when music is marketed as merely something to be consumed, like tins of beans, it seems that great songs, played and recorded with warmth and emotion are overlooked. So it is great to see the many very positive reviews, in the UK and internationally, that Kontiki Suite’s On Sunset Lake has gathered. My enjoyment of the CD led me to the bands website, where the experience is enhanced by the visual impact of the videos which impeccably reflect and enhance the songs.
I was determined to find out more about the Kontiki Suite and how they created this musical gem. Happily for me Craig [Craig Bright – keyboards & percussion] and Jonny [Jonny Singh – guitars, lap steel & backing vocals] from the band gave me some of their time to chat about the creation of the CD and how they achieved a warmth and clarity that is both vintage and modern. Something not often heard in contemporary recordings.
Firstly, I want to say how much I enjoyed the album.
Jonny: Thanks for the kind words. We’ve been absolutely blown away by the response we’ve had. It’s weird, we really never knew how folks would respond to it, but it really seems to have been embraced by like-minded music lovers.
My particular favourite song is Magic Carpet Ride, both the original and remix versions are great. It achieves that rare feat of being both familiar and new at the same time. There is some great guitar on Magic Carpet Ride. However, it is the longest track on the album. What was the reason for choosing it as the single? Hollywood, for example, struck me as being a more likely candidate for a single and may have wider appeal.
Jonny: We’ve been ending our live sets with Carpet Ride since, pretty much, the beginning and it quickly became a live favourite. It was usually the track that most people would be buzzing about after gigs. I think its crossover potential helped us out on occasion too if we were playing showcase type gigs to a varied audience. I think the track has got longer and longer over the years. I’m sure we’ve even clocked in a 20 minute version on occasion but managed to restrain ourselves to under 9 minutes for the album.
I don’t recall there ever being a discussion about singles, as I’m not really sure if we ever planned to release one as such. If there was then this was made easy for us anyway as Richard Norris had produced a great remix of it and kindly released it as a double A side on his 5D record label.
Craig: Jonny is right, in that there was no conscious decision to release a single, let alone for it to be Magic Carpet Ride. I guess I understood that in order to make any waves in a music world increasingly awash with all types of self-released music, good and bad, we had to make a statement from the get go. To do so, asking a well-respected DJ in Richard Norris to put his stamp on our 9 minute set closer was an obvious choice. As contrary to the norm as that is.
Richard, as one half of Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve with Erol Alkan, had given me some memorable nights at Glastonbury spinning their take on 60s psych and garage tunes as well as great re-edits of more recent folkier stuff by Midlake and Findlay Brown. The decision to release it as a double AA side 12″ was, again, the obvious thing to do because we wanted DJs out there to pick up on the ‘dancier’ mix by Richard and be able to play it at its best, on vinyl.
I felt that Magic Carpet Ride had a bit of a Madchester vibe going on. How did you come to write it?
Jonny: I wrote the track when I was living in Manchester and back when I was only really a part-time member of the band, if I recall correctly. I’d only recently finished producing the first Kontiki demos, so it must have been 2007. I think even from the moment of strumming the chords on the acoustic, I knew what sound I wanted from it. It came from an appreciation of what Ben [Ben Singh lead vocals and guitar] had already been writing for the band and our more obvious 60s influences. It also came from our, or really ‘my’, less obvious influences from early 90s shoegaze bands like Ride, Swervedriver and My Bloody Valentine. I’d also been spinning Notorious Byrd Brothers heavily at the time, which all helped the trippy swirling grooves and harmonies of Carpet Ride just fall into place, even in the first demo I put together of it. In fact, that demo is probably more psychedelic than the proper version.
Where and how did you record the album? Was it a local studio and if so do you think familiar surroundings contributed to the warm feel of the album? The production is very supportive of the songs. Did you get involved or if a producer was used, were they known to you before recording?
Jonny: We recorded the album ourselves between our rehearsal room and my basement studio, so really recording technique decisions were kind of made easy by what equipment I had. The number of available mics and inputs was usually the main factor. Having our own studio was a huge benefit to achieving the right sound. It allowed us to take our time to get it all just how we wanted it. Although, sometimes this luxury can lead to too much time being taken.
Did you record any of the songs as a band, with overdubs as required or did you all lay down your parts individually? I feel some of the warmth that comes through in the songs is not just the recording techniques but also to do with closeness of the band.
Jonny: Initial tracking was generally performed as a 3 or 4 piece to get the drums down at the right tempo and groove. Everything else was then tracked individually to get the best performances down. We are generally a well-rehearsed band anyway so I think that adds to capturing that “closeness” sound that you mention. A lot of recording techniques went into it too. I experimented with “vintage” mic’ing techniques, for want of a better description, such as only mic’ing up the kit in mono with 3 mics, which I think adds a lot to the sound of the album.
From: https://thestrangebrew.co.uk/interviews/kontiki-suite-the-north-west-coast-sound/
