Modern Rituals was born in London (UK) and has released its latest album, This Is The History this year through Holy Roar Records. The band manages to write apparent straightforward songs with a vast array of complex structures and melodies. Combining a strong sense of indie rock identity with noise rock and bits and pieces of sludge and even grunge, Modern Rituals mark themselves off as a new and fresh force to be reckon with.
"A lot of noise bands who started out in the 80s and 90s scenes would have to be mentioned too, for example Unsane and Cherubs, for our tonal approach. Going back to song structures, Radiohead need a mention, particularly what they were doing around the early 2000s. There are loads of indie bands, like Archers of Loaf, Broken Social Scene, Chris Wollard and the Ship Thieves, The Replacements, Sebadoh and Guided by Voices that need a mention. Duster, Helvetia, Cleaners from Venus, one Sun Kil Moon album (the first one, I don’t like any of the rest of it haha), The Cure, Elliott Smith, Kowloon Walled City…"
- Modern Rituals is a relatively young band. How and when did it originate?
Modern Rituals began properly in early 2016 when Rob (our bassist) joined, we recorded our first EP (Stranger Culture) and did our first tour (with rock legends Brunch). Before that myself (Harry) and Jake (drummer) had been playing together and looking for the right person to join us. I always say that it took Rob to join us for our sound to start taking direction, and it was summer 2018 when our current guitarist, Tom, joined us and things took a more definitive route. So, it’s been an incremental thing without a clear beginning, but I’d say that with the four of us now, it’s complete.
- You have released two LP’s so far. What did you wish to experiment more with the new album?
The new album was taking a noisier edge as soon as we started writing. I think the intention was there to write something less melodic and the desire was there to mess around with some of the same components from the first album in a different way. That first album was the first time any of us had done a full album and it was more of an experiment for that reason. I’m certainly much more pleased with the way the second album came out and it feels like there was control over every element in there. So, in that sense, it was less of an experiment, though I think we did take a few more risks on it because we felt more in control to do so.
"In music, film, whatever, I think the thing I love the most is that feeling of running away with something and I don’t want it to end. I don’t think it should end either."
- Your sound mingles some light moments with heavier ones, and you seem to be quite an eclectic band in terms of musical tastes. If so, what bands/artists do you feel more connected to?
I think the most comprehensive starting point for us is Neil Young, and as a ‘rock’ band, I think that’s in the core somewhere for us. Particularly ‘On the Beach’. For me, Scott Walker inspired a lot of the writing and the string experimentation. Layered discordance and cohesive nonsense; mistakes and deliberate accidentalism. Those ideas are important in the coming to be of these songs and, musically, I think I figured a lot of that out through the later SW catalogue (particularly ‘Tilt’ and ‘The Drift’). A more contemporary artist that has to be mentioned (because all of MR share a strong liking for them) would be any of the Steve Hartlett projects (Stove and Ovlov). He has a very strong talent for writing straight to the heart, simple pop songs and there’s a lot to be desired in that. It’s by no means easy to pull that off properly. Stove have a formula they can rely on and it always works. A lot of noise bands who started out in the 80s and 90s scenes would have to be mentioned too, for example Unsane and Cherubs, for our tonal approach. Going back to song structures, Radiohead need a mention, particularly what they were doing around the early 2000s. There are loads of indie bands, like Archers of Loaf, Broken Social Scene, Chris Wollard and the Ship Thieves, The Replacements, Sebadoh and Guided by Voices that need a mention. Duster, Helvetia, Cleaners from Venus, one Sun Kil Moon album (the first one, I don’t like any of the rest of it haha), The Cure, Elliott Smith, Kowloon Walled City… Can you tell I’m scrolling my Spotify now? The Men for their amazing eclecticism need a mention. I can’t believe each album they put out is the same band. I know Rob and I both love them. Modern Lovers need a mention there for their flow, something I’ve always envied in songwriting talent, it just flows and always sounds good. Last one, for their incredible ability and sewing together an absolute beast of a vibe and melody, is Pinback, particularly (maybe only) their first two albums. Fuck it, Sumac, Primitive Man and Young Widows: I love you too.
- Concerning the lyrics, what themes/motifs do you feel more interested in exploring?
Well, I am very into the way a film tells a story, particularly a loose narrative. I kind of like the idea of translating that over into lyrical themes. My favourite filmmakers can tell a really neat, subtle story in the loosest fashion that makes so much sense to you in a way that doesn’t lend itself to an easy explanation as to why. It’s like a feeling more than an explanation. That doesn’t immediately sound like something you can turn into lyrics since they’re words, they need to explain something. But I guess I like the idea of them creating a feeling more than having a ‘meaning’. I feel like you lose something when you can nail something down to ‘what does it mean’. All the magic gets lost and it just makes it end with that explanation. If you can have characters and things that happen to them instead of one cohesive picture on something, then you have a freedom to keep running with them and seeing what happens next. In music, film, whatever, I think the thing I love the most is that feeling of running away with something and I don’t want it to end. I don’t think it should end either.
"Getting our playing to the point that we can make them sound right in a few takes live where the sound is clear and mixed well (so poor performance becomes clear), I think that is a necessary step for any band to ensure they are good at playing live. I don’t know if we are good or how those sessions sound to other people, but for us it was a good and necessary step to take for those reasons."
- The cover artwork for this album seems to be inspired by abstract art and the previous record also featured collages. What concepts did you mean to express by those choices?
The art for both albums was done by my partner Jessica Pratten (@06jes on Instagram). She started experimenting with collage-style art a couple years ago and that made it onto the first album cover (patterns and paper collage). She then started experimenting more with printing, particularly screenprinting, with different materials. This was what we have on the second album cover. What we wanted, like in the album, was dense, expressive shapes in close and intimate relationships to one another. We wanted elements of it to look complex and deep, but we wanted things to look uncomfortable and jilting. I don’t think we’ve approached the art that Jess has done with concepts really, but with the EPs (‘Stranger Culture’ and ‘Yearning’), where the art was done by Archie Fitzgerald, concepts were easy to portray. Both concepts simply being the titles of the respective EPs.
- You have performed in some live sessions so far. How were those experiences like?
We’ve done two, they were like a milestone for us to do in terms of our performance live. Getting our playing to the point that we can make them sound right in a few takes live where the sound is clear and mixed well (so poor performance becomes clear), I think that is a necessary step for any band to ensure they are good at playing live. I don’t know if we are good or how those sessions sound to other people, but for us it was a good and necessary step to take for those reasons. The latest session is at Tom’s studio in south-east London; The Bookhouse. We did that session before we recorded our album there, so the songs are less complete than they were by the time the album was recorded, so it was a little bit weird to listen to them again, they just seem different and less complete to me. So, it’s probably best to not listen to them again! I find that’s often best practice anyway.
- Modern Rituals is an apt name for your sound and band, it is modern, but it features some throwbacks to 90’s rock and grunge. How did you come up with the choice for the band’s name?
I think I had the name way before I started trying to find people to play the music with! So I guess it’s the only ‘concept’ part of this band – it always had the name! I don’t really remember too much about why that name came to be, maybe just the obvious meaning of it (what are we doing!!!). I don’t know, I don’t like attaching too much meaning to things and if you got a name you dig, stick with it.
- Due to this pandemic and complicated situation for musicians and other artists. How have you been coping with it as a band?
Well, I think we’re fine as a band. We can’t complain really. Our album came out, if anything people listened to it MORE because of all this. Our shows have been cancelled, but to be honest, with all that I personally was doing musically before this, I seriously needed a break. We all have income in some form (most precarious is Tom being the self-employed music producer). I’m happy to sit this out and wait because that’s what we gotta do logistically, there are more important matters to worry about now until this is over and because we can always pick up where we left off when that time comes. In the meantime, we’re writing a new EP. I’ve demoed a load of stuff and we’re just working out how we can record it properly remotely. So that’s a new project in itself (remote recording) and it’ll be really fun to see how it pans out.
Thanks for the questions, I enjoyed answering them!
Text & Interview: Cláudia Zafre
Band: Modern Rituals