Original interview online [FR]
Interview transcript in English
Heligoland
Steve Wheeler and Darren Levin talk 80s
Many sundays ago glued to the spectacle of political collusion and bad taste, otherwise known as the Eurovision Song Content, I was reminded, or rather warned by a fetching Estonian pop singer that, "the eighties are coming back."
"Duh" was my immediate retort, and judging by the sound of their debut album Shift These Thoughts, Melbourne quartet Heligoland would tend to agree. Except their 80's revival has nothing to do with cock rock, hair metal or synth pop. Instead their music recalls the heady days of 4AD, where acts like the Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance cut through the zeitgeist with a stunning sense of ethereality and ambience.
So, it comes as no surprise that when probed about the palpable 4AD influence, Heligoland's bass player Steve Wheeler unreservedly agrees.
"Yeah, definitely," he exclaims. "A lot of that sort of era I guess. Probably the early eighties, a lot of the post-punk stuff, where a lot of the songs weren't particularly complex musically. They didn't have weird time signatures or key changes every five seconds, but the songs had a lot of atmosphere. Also bands like Joy Division. Their music wasn't incredibly complex and they weren't virtuosos, but the music they made had so atmospheric and has so much soul and impact to it."
Similarly, Heligoland create emotive, moving suites from a palette of rich textures, Karen Vogt's otherworldly vocals, and slabs of Eno-like ambience. But, despite the unmistakable influence of certain 4AD luminaries, Heligoland's sound is still refreshingly original. It is also, as Wheeler explains, painstakingly achieved.
"With some bands it may be easier for them to just go in and slap it all down live or do it all in a hurry. Some music is more disposed to that sort of approach. Whereas with us, what we found works on our recordings up until the album was to do it gradually over a number of months. To gradually build up the layers, adding it all together incrementally, rather than doing everything at once."
And with so many dense, enveloping layers, Heligoland's debut smacks of this overt attention to detail. It is also a marked, albeit natural progression from the band's 7" singles and self-titled EP.
"I think the sound has probably become a bit more refined," Wheeler surmises. "We've just developed the sound that we had, and been a lot more careful about the arrangements, making sure all the verses and choruses flow together nicely to create a cohesive song... we put a lot more time into that than we used to." Perhaps the emphasis on structure and brevity reflects Heligoland's desire to create atmosphere with a bit of substance?
"There's a fine line between Brian Eno and Ken Davis' music to massage dolphins to," Wheeler laughs. "So that's something we're always a little bit wary of. With a lot of the really spacious stuff on the album, we've tried to find ways to arrange it so that it is in a song format. So when people are listening to it, there's something there to engage them."
In this sense, Wheeler sees live performance as an opportunity for the band to not only connect with their audience, but a chance to transcend the limitiations of the studio.
"On record its sometimes hard to convey dynamics, but live it's not all one volume. The songs peak and ebb and flow... they do have builds and bits where they drop away. And I think that's what you get more of live. Because it is music that, at times, does have more volume. A lot of people when they hear it tend to think that it's just this kind of constant prescence at a certain level. But it has a bit more drama to it than that. It's not wallpaper music where it just sits in the corner."
After all, Heligoland, like their 4AD contemporaries, are not content with creating art for art's sake or an album full of new-age fluff. Their music is intended to be absorbing and introspective, poignant and affecting. And it is for this reason that Shift These Thoughts is such a stunning release. It is also daringly unique, so much so, that Wheeler himself has trouble pinning down the album, if not the band's sound.
"To me it's always sounded like a film soundtrack. I don't know what sort of film, but [one] that is quite evocative visually."
Heligoland launch their album this Saturday August 9 at the Rob Roy Hotel with guests Adam Cole and the Pollen Choir and Diving Bell.
Heligoland
by Robert Dunstan
Moody Melbourne-based rock quartet Heligoland (guitarist Cameron Gellatly, guitarist and vocalist Karen Vogt, drummer Chris Wright and bass player Steve Wheeler) care coming to town for the very first time to perform with much talked about local band Brer Mouse as well as also doing a show with revered UK act Neil Halstead (of Slowdive and Mojave 3 fame).
We spoke over the telephone to Heligoland's bass player Steve, and began by asking about the band's intruiging name.
"Heligoland is actually a very tiny island in the North Sea just off the coast of Germany and Denmark," he explained. "I'm not quite sure how we eventually chose the name but did so after a long and arduous process. We chose it as the band's name as it sounds like it might be a real place but it's one you've never really heard of.
"It sounds like a distant and far away land and that's what we liked about it," Steve added.
The internet reveals there are other bands with the same name.
"Yeah," Steve laughed, "there's a studio project in the UK called Heligoland and there's another studio project called Helgoland - which is actually what the island of Heligoland is now called - who are from Germany. They both seem to be pretty low key though."
Heligoland, who have a small but devoted following, boast an interesting sound.
"Some people like our sound to soundtrack music because it's quite evocative," Steve noted. "When we first got together that was the kind of sound we immediately gravitated toward. It seemed quite natural at the time and a lot of the people we were listening to at that stage - Paradise Motel, Eno and Mazzy Star - probably had an influence on our direction.
Heligoland will perform with Brer Mouse in Adelaide as well as Neil Halstead.
"Soadstream are doing the Neil Halstead supports in Melbourne and Sydney so we were quite pleased to get the Adelaide slot," Steve enthused. "We're obviously big fans of Slowdive, his band from the early 90s, while Mojave 3 are quite different but have equally great material with a few extra twists and turns."
Heligoland have been together for several years and have mainly released their recorded material on the vinyl format.
"I guess it's been about three or four years we've been together," Steve stated. "And, yeah, we've done a couple of 7 inch releases but we always wanted to release our stuff on vinyl because we think it suits our style. We get the odd comment about our music only being on vinyl but it's not something we're too worried about. It's been surprising to find out how many people still have turntables.
"I also think that an album of 20 minutes per side is the right length," he then remarked. "Most CDs are far too long."
Heligoland are in the process of recording an album.
"We're at the mixing stage with it," Steve said. "We've already recorded it - we did it at our guitar player's [Cameron] home studio because he gets such a nice, warm sound."
Heligoland play the Grace Emily on Thu Dec 5 followed by a gig supporting UK act Neil Halstead at Enigma Bar on Sat Dec 7. They have a website at www.heligoland.org
Heligoland
Bassist Steve Wheeler gets in the mood, writes Steve Tauschke.
Do you feel the vinyl format suits the sound of the band?
"I think so. I mean we're all in our late twenties so we all remember buying records and seven inchers and twelve inchers and stuff when we were younger. I guess something about the sound of the band and the warmth and production is perhaps well-suited to the format."
It's a brittle sound.
"Brittle? That's an interesting way to describe it. Sometimes I listen to our songs and they sound quite fragile to me, sort of ethereal. It's not meaty four-on-the–floor rock. We're coming from somewhere a little bit different."
Are you emotionally fragile to match?
"Haaa! No I don't think there's any major personality defects here. When we started playing music together that was just the music that we started playing so we've stuck with it and developed it a bit further."
Were you much a Nick Drake fan growing up? I can hear his influence in there somewhere.
"There are varying tastes within the band but one thing we would have in common is a lot of early 4AD stuff like Cocteau Twins and a lot of that really ethereal guitar stuff from that early 80s post-punk era. I'm a bit of a fan of Nick Drake myself though … I think he had a very literary bent to him. From my understanding the Cocteaus' lyrics are in a kind of made-up language so my guess is that it doesn't have a similar literary kind of thing from what I can hear."
Do you feel your sound is quite theatrical?
"One of the things I forgot to mention before is that a number of us are big fans of the stuff Brian Eno did and his ambience stuff like Music For Airports; music that's designed to be part of the ambience of where you are. Almost part of the furniture and is just there. You might not listen to it intently but it's there, feeding into your consciousness."
You mean like wallpaper music?
"Well, there's a very fine line between Music For Airports and music to massage dolphins to and the whole new age thing."
What about the visual aspect - do you incorporate slide projections on stage?
"No, it's all fairly standard, although we go with a fairly minimal drum kit without the drum kick and high hat which gives us a different slant to begin with. But certainly the visual side of the music is something we've been meaning to get around to, doing some projections on us or on a wall while we're playing. I think it would go quite well with the music, to have that cinematic, almost film soundtrack-y kind of feel."
So what inspired the song title Along The Snowline?
"We wrote the music first and then the vocal melodies and then the words. Then we were trying to think of a title and we had a list of discarded titles that we went through to find one that somehow related to the music. The middle section of the song has a kind of shifting, moving feel to it and it seemed kind of wintry and cold and Along The Snowline sounds as though you're moving along the edge of that periphery where the snow stops and meets the forest. I don't know, perhaps it's something best left up to the imagination. Haaa!"
You've released an EP and now this single, is an album in the works?
"Yes, it's been under way for a couple of months now and probably won't see the light of day for another seven to eight months, just because it takes a while to record our stuff. We like to take our time and gradually build it up rather than rush and try to get it all down as quickly as possible … I think we're a band well-suited to an album where we can put on some of our longer songs. A lot of them hover around the five minute mark so an album gives you that space to sort of stretch your legs."
Heligoland launch Along The Snowline at the Empress this Friday July 12. The single is out on Sydney's Steady Cam Records.
HELIGOLAND
A Tidy Town
By Nelson Kwan
Heligoland, a tiny little island off the coast of Germany, a tiny little speck of land in the middle of the ocean. As I walk into the nearby woods of this mysterious place, I start hearing music...fairly mellow, quite dreamy and movie soundtrackish, but not too new-agey or dolphin massage-like sounding. I instantly recognise this music, it's the music of Heligoland. Not the place, the band! I walk over and quickly introduce myself.
Not long after, we're all gathered around the campfire and I ask eagerly for some stories. It leads to Steve, the bassist, telling me about their worst gig ever: "Our second gig we ever did. It was definitely one of those nights... We were on first and we're a very quiet band and particularly when we started out we were very tentative. We were playing very quietly, as we did at the time, and the guy who was mixing just kept turning the PA up and uP and UP. Eventually it blew out the horns on the PA."
The funny thing was that some punk bands were meant to go on after them but the quietest band there blew out the speakers!
Heligoland released their new single Separate/Cabo de Gata on vinyl. I ask Steve why and he replies: "It's a little bit of an anachronism in some ways, but I think vinyl is a format that has a charm that's all its own, there's nothing quite like it, the sound and the sort of vibe to it, and it also offers a few more opportunities in terms of packaging...it's a bit bigger so you can actually do bigger artwork and bigger packaging."
Steve also has an unbridled enthusiasm for his art: "it's very enjoyable to play which is often very quiet and meditative but other times it's more full and sort of beefier, it's just music that's very satisfying to play. It's music that's easy to get lost in. There's these certain moments that you just drift away and you're gone, that's sorta like one of the magic moments."
As the conversation continues, I ask for some dark secrets of the band, but Steve tells me that there's nothing like that, they're: "not satanists or anything, nothing exciting like that... no black candles," he chuckles. And with that he throws away the voodoo dolls and needles, takes a sip of the cold chicken blood, puts aside the sharp instruments, unties my hands and let me run off, humming the tune to Separate as I go.