In our latest Band Spotlight, we chat to Derbyshire progressive band, Haiku Salut about their lamp show projects, touring and more.
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S] Talk to us about the challenges you face as a band?
Time is the biggest challenge. We all love writing and making but sometimes it can feel like that has to take a backseat to all the other stuff, being in a band is 50% admin, 20% sitting in a van, 25% playing live/rehearsing and 5% writing/recording. I’d love to turn that on its head one day.
S] What motivates you guys outside of music – think specific people and places?
Place, definitely. The landscape and a sense of place are important to us. We live in Derbyshire which has severe topography. It’s quite dramatic and beautiful.
S] What are the challenges of touring for you guys?
I personally find touring quite a challenge. Performing can be quite the psychological drama, meeting new people, the nerves, the adrenaline, the rush, the judgments, the come down. It’s a lot for one body to take in a day! It begins to rack up after a few days. We try and look after ourselves as much as possible (self imposed gin ban/adequate broccoli consumption) and it’s good to take some recovery time after a tour to recuperate. Post tour blues isn’t much fun. That being said all the best memories are made on tour, we’re a great team. It’s a lovely feeling to be a cog in a travelling machine of wonderful people.
S] Talk us through the writing process, and project development, how does it happen – for example with ‘Cold To Crack The Stones’?
It’s difficult grasp all the elements of how our songs become.They are moving entities, morphing many disparate ideas. We don’t write in a very linear fashion and it can be hard to pinpoint exactly where each idea came from. Sometimes writing can feel disjointed and angular and sometimes it can feel like a song emerges like it was always there. Often when a song is finished there’s an amnesia surrounding how it came to be.
In terms of the writing process we like to fuse natural and organic instrumentation with broken electronics and field recordings. With Cold To Crack The Stones we used recordings of lightning pulses (open source from NASA) to create an otherworldly atmosphere and use a music box melody to ground the track to a familiar place. The end section was written in a flurry, we kept piling noises on top of each other and the middle section with the build up was written in reverse. By muting sounds until there was nothing left. It was then patchworked together with a music box melody that had been around for while. We wrote the brass band score which was then fleshed out into a full arrangement by Glastonbury Brass. We went to record them in a community hall in Somerset and it was an incredibly humbling experience.
S] What are your goals and aims for the rest of the year!?
The album is released on 7th September by PRAH Recordings and we are touring the UK with our lamp show in September and October. We’re also collaborating with the Robot Orchestra and experimenting with self playing instruments in Newcastle on August 10th as part of the Great Exhibition of the North (https://getnorth2018.com/
New single, ‘Cold To Crack The Stones’ here:
Haiku Salut’s forthcoming live dates are as follows:
Sun 15 Jul – Pickle Factory, London (PRAH Recordings/Kit Records Sunday Sessions)
Sun 29 Jul – Indietracks festival, Derbyshire
Sat 4 Aug – Once Upon A Hill festival
Fri 10 Aug – Centre For Life, Newcastle – with robot orchestra – As part of The Hexagon Experiment
Mon 27 Aug – Greenbelt festival
** Lamp Show Tour **
Thurs 20 Sep – Belgrave Music Hall, Leeds
Fri 21 Sep – The Great Eastern, Glasgow
Sat 22 Sep – More Music, Morecambe
Thurs 27 Sep – Deaf Institute, Manchester
Fri 28 Sep – Wirksworth Town Hall
Sat 29 Sep – Nottingham Contemporary
Tues 2 Oct – The Cube, Bristol
Wed 3 Oct – Hard of Hearing Centre, Oxford
Thurs 4 Oct – Norwich Arts Centre
Fri 5 Oct – St John On Bethnal Green, London
Sat 6 Oct – The Haunt, Brighton
** Lamp Show Tour ends **
Mon 31st Dec – Town Hall, Louth (with British Sea Power)
Tickets for the Lamp Show are available from http://www.haikusalut.com/
