- Mon, 2013-01-28 12:39
Just under two weeks ago GAPS appeared online, posting three tracks to a brand new soundcloud page.
Languorously drawing gentle acoustic guitar and piano into a blossom of muted beats and post-club haze rhythms, their sound is hypnotic in its simplicity. Feather-light vocals commit to short melody lines, repeated and looped. Rough edge recordings add depth - buzzes, crackles and echo are left in. The result offers all the charm of early demo recordings with all the promise of an exciting artistic future.
Aside from three tracks, with a fourth that followed a week later, GAPS remain offline. I found them following a tweet recommendation from Cave Painting, who couldn't shed any light on their existence. Neither could the two blog posts I found. Their name isn't Google friendly either. As I came close to abandoning the search Ed from GAPS sent me a message on Soundcloud. Ha! He was nice. We chatted about Bonobo for a bit and then he agreed to answer some questions about GAPS. Here is their first ever interview...
ILM: Hello. How are you?
GAPS: We're good thanks.
ILM: You uploaded your music to Soundcloud less than two weeks ago, have you been pleased with the response?
GAPS: Very pleased. A little overwhelmed!
ILM: Who / what is GAPS?
GAPS: We're two old school friends (Ed & Rachel) reunited in Brighton.
ILM: How did you come to be?
GAPS: Rachel played me (Ed) some tracks she'd been putting down over the last year or so. It was clear to me there was a sound there and we got really excited about the possibility of developing it further. She left me with some material to work on and it just seemed to come together really naturally.
ILM: What did you do before?
GAPS: We've both been in bands before, Rachel as a drummer and me as a singer/drummer.
ILM: What drew you to the name?
GAPS: I fear we may have been drunk at the time. I was adamant on Mantilla Drive but Rachel laughed/shouted no and quickly thought up GAPS.
ILM: When were the tracks made?
GAPS: We started going through Rachel's ideas in October '12 and just worked on one track at a time. We put up the first 3, two weeks ago, in the order that we made them. We were really excited about the response so I got cracking on "When I'm Gone".
ILM: Where do you make them?
GAPS: Rachel records her ideas in her bedsit using the mic on her laptop. We end up with quite a lot of seagulls and neighbours etc featuring in the tracks! I then sit in my spare bedroom and get weaving on the production. Rachel comes round to work on the finer details together - I feed her if she's lucky.
ILM: I was captivated when I first heard The Void. What can you tell us about that track?
GAPS: Ooo..glad you liked it. It was our first venture together. It was an idea that really stuck out and Rachel was keen to develop it. I started by looping Rachel's guitar and vocal and bit by bit added the rest. I kept the heavy use of reverb that Rachel works with and left most of the original recordings untouched - we were keen to keep that original sound she had captured. I experimented with using the buzzes/clicks etc we found on the tracks and it's an approach that we've stuck with.
ILM: The only artwork we've seen is a photograph of the sea. Why did you choose that image?
GAPS: One of Rachel's friends (who rather conveniently is a brilliant graphic artist) came up with it once we'd decided on the name. She's been listening to the tracks as they've been developed and thought this image would work. We think it does too.
ILM: I discovered you through a tweet by Cave Painting. We had a little chat about how we couldn't find out anything about you anywhere online apart from Soundcloud. Is that simply because it's early days or would you like to remain a mystery......
GAPS: Early days.
ILM: When can we expect more music? Any release plans?
GAPS: We'd love to release something in the future but right now we're just focusing on developing some more ideas.
ILM: How's everything in Brighton? Any more new music you can recommend?
GAPS: Cold. But lovely as ever. We had an amazing night out on Friday watching our mate's band: "Rhythm of The 90s." They play LIVE 90s dance tunes!
By Kim Hillyard - @kimhillyard
