{"id":12388,"date":"2012-11-26T15:12:18","date_gmt":"2012-11-26T15:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wonderlandmagazine.com\/?p=12388"},"modified":"2017-03-01T13:42:32","modified_gmt":"2017-03-01T13:42:32","slug":"new-noise-wife-james-kelly-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wonderlandmagazine.com\/2012\/11\/26\/new-noise-wife-james-kelly-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"NEW NOISE: WIFE"},"content":{"rendered":"
You wouldn’t expect WIFE<\/a> – aka James Kelly, the singer from heavy metal band Altar of Plagues – to produce subtly disquieting, dusky twilight sounds. But make them he does, and it’s tingly Burial-esque stuff. We sat down with James to discuss his sound and Stoic, his EP out on left_blank.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n For anyone who isn\u2019t familiar with your work, could you introduce yourself and your music?<\/strong><\/p>\n I’m James, I come from the rural south of Ireland and now live in London, England. I’m a music obsessive and have been unable to stop making it since I began in my early teens. Most notably prior to WIFE, I created (and continue to create) music with the band, Altar of Plagues<\/a>. WIFE incorporates all of my tastes and re-contextualises them as ‘electronic’… or something like that.<\/p>\n Your music has been described as \u2018post-dubstep\u2019. How do you feel about the label, and that scene in general?<\/strong><\/p>\n I try to avoid getting tangled up in labels. I don’t feel like I even know what WIFE ‘is’ yet, and I prefer things that way. There is a risk of stagnation as soon as your past works influence you future works. I can assume people will associate my use of sub-bass frequencies with dubstep, but I grew up listening to heavy metal and dance music so I was interested in sonic weight long before I ever heard dubstep. We all hear the words ‘post’ and ‘hipster’ a lot these days. They seem to mean everything and nothing at this stage.<\/p>\n We first came across WIFE through the Bodies video, which is amazing (if not pretty disturbing). Is that you in the vid? How did you come up with the idea for it?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, that’s me. The creation of the video itself came about quite impulsively. I tend to trust my first instinct and often act on it. I’m also a practician of automatic writing. I had a vague narrative in mind for the video, but I was not sure how to actualise it. I’m very fortunate to have a variety of creatives within my immediate circle of friends, and together with Patrick O’ Mahony (film-maker) and Stephen Lordan (artist\/musician) we brought my vision to life.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You\u2019re also in black metal band Altar of Plagues<\/a>, but your solo output is pretty dramatically different. What made you want to make music as WIFE?<\/strong><\/p>\n After years spent writing what is quite intense and taxing music, I just wanted to create something more visceral and far less emotional. Really I just wanted to create something that I could close my eyes and move my body to. But looping kick drums for eight minutes became quite unsatisfying so I reverted to writing music in the same way I always have, which is in a hands-on manner with live instruments, guided by my instincts and emotions.<\/p>\n Were you ever worried that you might turn off Altar of Plagues fans with your solo music?<\/strong><\/p>\n Not at all. I have never pretended to be anyone other than who I am, so I’m sure that by now anyone who has ever dug a little deeper into finding out what Altar of Plagues is about will know that we are as informed by Bjork as we are Burzum.<\/p>\n If you could collaborate with anyone, who would it be?<\/strong><\/p>\n Someone who could offer a skill-set that I cannot, and vice versa. I like the idea of pairing contemporary electronic sounds with indigenous ones. Or working with a visual artist such as Matthew Barney…<\/p>\n