News in the world of The Sundays Story of The Sundays, Geffen records.
The Sundays' musical career kicked off like a latter-day fairytale back in the summer of 1988. Songwriters David Gavurin and Harriet Wheeler had recently moved from Bristol to London, where they'd written some material for a four-piece band and teamed up with bassist Paul Brindley and drummer Patrick Hannan. The plan at this stage was simply to gain some live experience before even thinking about trying to attract record company interest.
But at the band's first-ever gig - a support slot at the Camden Falcon - music journalists there to review the headliners ended up focusing on the opening act. After rave reviews in the New Musical Express, Melody Maker and the now-defunct Sounds, the Sundays' career was launched.
"We knew next to nothing about the music business," recalls Wheeler, "and felt we had to act as our own managers to educate ourselves, if only so we could tell a decent manager from a duff one further down the line." Facing them were the seemingly bizarre tasks of refereeing an avalanche of record company offers and trying to slow the wave of publicity engulfing them. "We definitely weren't complaining about the press or the music business interest in us," says Gavurin, "but we'd barely played a gig - let alone recorded a note - and we didn't want the hype to turn people off."
The Sundays signed to the independent Rough Trade label and recorded their debut single, "Can't Be Sure," in 1989. The track became an Independent charts #1 and was listed at #1 in influential DJ John Peel's Festive Fifty of that year. An American deal with DGC Records came next, and in early 1990 the band released their first album, Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. The rest of the year was spent touring worldwide. Meanwhile, the album went gold on both sides of the Atlantic.
Following the financial difficulties and eventual collapse of Rough Trade, the Sundays moved to the U.K.'s Parlophone Records, which released their second LP, Blind, in late 1992 (the band remained on DGC in the U.S). The album prompted a second world tour and another gold record in America.
Gavurin and Wheeler then took some much-needed time off. They rediscovered their social life, had a baby, painted the bathroom red and put together their own studio, where they wrote and recorded the bulk of Static & Silence, their self-produced third album (released Sept. 23, 1997).
"Having our own recording setup was something we'd been thinking about for a long time," Wheeler explains. "We'd never particularly enjoyed performing in a studio. Live gigs are one thing, with adrenalin flowing and an audience in front of you. But 11:00 in the morning in front of a row of faces in the control room is another thing altogether."
Adds Gavurin, "There's something satisfying about understanding the process you're involved in, not just being shunted off into the live room and told to start playing." The major downside of
The resulting album does not represent a radical shift in musical style for the Sundays - no jazz or jungle here - but more a difference in mood and sound. "It's an atmospheric record," says Wheeler. "It's less grounded in ambient music than Blind, and while Static & Silence, like Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, is very song-based, it's not as youthfully 'pop' as the first album." Assesses Gavurin: "It's a slower, more emotional record than our other albums. We didn't set out with this in mind - it just turned out that way."
And though they didn't have a particular musical agenda for the new album, the Sundays did know they wanted a more direct, less effects-based sound. "We regard the songs as quite simple and intimate," Gavurin continues. "We wanted the treatment they received to reflect that. Even where we've used orchestral instruments, it was never as an afterthought, a 'production idea' intended to add a touch of grandeur to a basic song." Wheeler picks up the thread: "It was
Despite the largely introspective, sometimes melancholic nature of Static & Silence, the Sundays insist the making of this album has been the most enjoyable experience they've had in terms of writing and recording. "Right from the start, the songs seemed to come in a very natural way," says Wheeler. "In the past, we'd usually write the melodies after the music. We generally liked the results, but the process sometimes felt a bit clinical. This time - either when we'd work things out with me singing along, or when Dave had already written a song line while coming up with the chords - the melodies were created at the same time as the music and so, in turn, could shape the way the music eveloped. The whole process felt really fluid and organic."
The writing of lyrics, a duty Gavurin and Wheeler share, took a similar path. "We didn't really search for a specific lyrical style," Wheeler recalls. "The mood and sound of the music suggested one for us - one we hadn't really explored before." Whereas Reading, Writing and Arithmetic featured a fairly light, frequently ironic tone and Blind favored largely abstract, impressionistic lyrics, those of Static & Silence are more straightforward and expressive. "This doesn't mean they can't be poetic or evocative," Gavurin hastens to point out. "But they're quite simple; we've never been into the willfully obscure or ornate."
The Sundays' current stylistic methods thus uncovered, Gavurin notes: "We don't feel part of the current trends in British music, be they Britpop, New Grave, Big Beat or whatever. We're just plowing our own furrow somewhere to the side of what's going on."
"We like to think we've got our own style, our own character," Wheeler comments. "But nobody writes in a vacuum and music continually seeps into our consciousness, whether it's an old Sly and the Family Stone track or the latest Oasis single. Still, there's no particular artist or style we're trying to emulate. If anything, we're influenced by the mood of certain records more than the style of the music itself. With the new album, we didn't set out with the idea of writing more emotional, personal songs, but we'd been listening to a lot of Van Morrison toward the end of the Blind tour and had really gotten into songs like 'Sweet Thing,' 'And It Stoned Me' and 'Have I Told You Lately' - music that really touched us."
Ever candid, the couple conclude their discussion of Static & Silence with some explication of its title: "Firstly," Gavurin illuminates, "we were really pleased with the imagery of that line in the song 'Monochrome,' remembering when we were children watching the moon landings, how those moments of nothingness - when the screen went fuzzy and the sound died - seemed only to heighten the excitement and sense of anticipation." Says Wheeler: "It also works as a description of a more general, shifting state of mind - one minute all is confusion, the next minute there's peace. Oh, and of course, we liked the sound of it."
The Story of The Sundays in Parlophone records words.
They were formed on a Friday but sacrified the truth for art. "Can't be Sure", their debut single on Rough Trade, topped the independent charts for two months & was John Peel's Festive Fifty No 1 in 1989. Their two albums have each sole over half a million copies worldwide bringing them gold discs before it became the macho thing to discuss sales figures and breaking territories, ie pre 1997.
The songwriters are David Gavurin & Harriet Wheeler, they have a two year old child. They've set up a studio and producded their third album there.
"Static & Silence" is not as grounded in ambient music as their former lp "Blind", and though less
Even where orchestral arrangements are used, say the band, it's always as a intrgral part of the music, rather than an afterthought to add grandeur to a song.
This album will not smash you in the teeth with mind-stomping backwards white noise feedback, or knock you senseless with 180 bpm hypno-tracks. If it does its job, it will curl around your spirit, walk with you, give you a glow. It could do that rare thing - promised everywhere but almost never delivered - improve the quality of your life, and maybe even be the soundtrack to a small part of it.
Parlophone's "Flavour of the Label" newsletter on The Sundays (Sept 1997).
The SUNDAYS
Well, it was David Bowie who so poignantly sang "give me one damn song that can make me break down and cry" in 1975. The Sundays have a whole canon of them. If you bought their first album "Reading, Writing And Arithmetic" you might have fixated on "Here's Where The Story Ends", still a classic, or any number of songs that helped send the album to over half a million sales worldwide. If you also bought "Blind" you will still remember the gorgeous single "Goodbye", amongst others, and be counted amongst a further half million fans.
But if you're new to The Sundays and are wondering what prompted "Melody Maker" to recently write that they were "the sound of summer dying slowly and melting into autumn's warmest glow" (!), grab a listen to their current single "Summertime" which has been monopolising radio for quite a few weeks or, even better, to "Static And Silence", their new album, which will rapidly unfurl itself around you like a much loved blanket. But a blanket with knobbly bits. And a blanket, of course, warmed by autumn's warmest glow.
Because one thing that some people say is that The Sundays music is "refined". But that's just lazy. It's refined to the extent that the songs work in a linear manner, gently stretching themselves around you, sweeping you up in a way which would be described as seductive if they also weren't filled with such sadness, and if seductive didn't conjure up an image of subservience. For there is a strange melancholy about much that is on display here, even in the ostensibly "up" single "Summertime" in which the subject matter conceals a distinctly wintry chill. although this lyrical sadness permeates much of the album, it has to be said that it contains a form of beauty rare in pop music - some of the music here could easily make you cry, and might do. This beauty comes from the knowledge that, if songwriting is a craft, then The Sundays have honed it to sharp perfection without losing any feeling whatsoever, without losing their edge. this is the most beautiful record you'll hear all year.
So, it being the 90's and all that, where do The Sundays "fit in". Because, if rock n roll is all about artifice, then The Sundays are most definitely not rock n roll. For they don't play the game. They make records when they feel inspired to make them, not when a schedule dictates that one is due. They don't tailor their interviews to the cloth of a hungry media - you won't find them at happening parties chasing column inches, or in a rush to share their thoughts with the tabloid press. And you won't find them making a trip hop album because they've been told it's what they should do in 1997.
But you will find them slowly yet purposely creating music which is recognisably theirs and stands pretty much alone. How refreshing it is to hear a record which is not a product of its' makers' most obvious influences, but is an original, multi-levelled expression of more than just a few platitudes strung together with a couple of old 70's riffs. And, in that respect, what they're doing is maybe the most rock 'n' roll thing of all.
Murray Chalmers
Transcript courtesy of Phill Chatwin ( Cheers Phill ).
The Sundays-Summertime.
The Sundays hibernate for decades, then come along with a pile of wispy
indie and everyone falls over in gratitude even though THEY ARE POO. The
woman has hair that all girls who didn't like Bros had to have (haystack
with fringe) and one of those quirky (i.e. actually extremely unpleasant)
voices that he only gets away with because everyone fancies her (see also
'Sexy Saff' from Republica and her with the washboard stomach out of
NoDoubt). Well I don't. Played by drunk people at three in the morning
when trying to impress the opposite sex with their sensitivity. Pah! quick
burst of PJ Harvey's all you need, believe you me, and at least she doesn't
sound like she eats clouds for breakfast.
1 out of 5 stars
Select review of "Static an silence"
For a time in the late '80s, somewhere between the demise of the Smiths and
the onslaught of the Roses, you couldn't break into a bedsit without
tripping over a copy of The Sundays' "Reading, Writing and Arithmetic".
Chiming hall-of-residence masterpiece in the bag, they disappeared, briefly
emerging with the enigmatic "Blind" before going AWOL once more. Now
they're communicating with planet Earth again, in their own language.
Harriet Wheeler still has that voice, the elasticity of which allows her
notes that other singers wouldn't even dream of, and David Gavurin's
beguilingly simple arrangements boast more than their fair share of
irrepressible hooks. But while songs like "Summertime", "She" and "Your
Eyes" could conceivably have appeared on either of the previous albums,
changes are afoot. Recorded in their home studio, "Static and Silence" is an
altogether more comfortable experience than either of its predecessors,
with tracks like "Folk Song" and "I Can't Wait" at home with their own
intimacy.
4/5
Soundbite: "Look forward to months of Sundays"
Dan PhelanTranscript courtesy of Colin Shaw. http://www.wintermute.co.uk/users/pingu/sunhome.htm
The Sundays Static and Silence (Taken from VOX October 1997)
It's been a long time, not that anyone cares. But those exemplars of
pastoralism, the couple that argue in whispers and who defined indie
conformism for a generation of indie conformists, Harriet Wheeler and David
Gavurin, are back with an album whose Stereolab-esque title is as near as
they get to cutting edge. As defiantly unprepossessing as ever, the
charisma-free zone that is The Sundays prompts one to ponder just what we
actually know about them. Well, they were obviously in further education
during the mid-'80s, they liked the Smiths but haven't really kept up with
music much since, though they did dust off their Joni Mitchell albums the
other year. Sundays time is rather less hurried than the world in which the
rest of us have to live; a bit like the Teletubbies universe. They've built
a studio at their home in a pleasant residential district,though their
neighbours don't know what they do for a living, with only the occasional
late night taxi offering a clue. Oh, and they remain exactly the same in
every way: the sound of Young England 1985. As the '90s become the '80s
down to the smallest detail - a right-wing elective dictatorship concealing
blatant self-interest, tedious cultural conformity dominated by conspicuous
consumption and powder-powered gibberish, Weller and the Bunnymen on the
covers of both inkies in the same week - then this curiously dated and
blessedly short collection might well find it's own niche. With The Verve's
fine "Drugs Don't Work" sounding like an outtake from "The Queen is Dead",
and the useless Dubstar and Gene offering their own takes on the Smiths
legacy, only that sad case Morrissey, it seems, is incapable of cashing in.
But seeing as The Sundays were once touted as rivals to the likes of the
Sugarcubes - wonder what happened to their elfin girl singer? - the
conservatism of this collection is remarkable. Wheeler's "Fly, Librarian,
Fly!" tones are intact and as touching as ever, but the songs seem to have
been written in a snatched moment in their domestic ferment, and recorded
very, very quietly so as not to disturb the baby. "Summertime" uses the
same chord change as Steely Dan's "Peg" (or De La Soul's "Eye Know") to
little effect, it's feeble synth-brass stabs sounding comically dated.
"When I'm Thinking About You" aspires to the languid feel of Mazzy Star,
but ends up resembling "Loaded" as performed by the English department,
while "Another Flavour" leaves the stale taste of Lloyd Sodding Cole in the
mouth. And these are the highlights! Honestly, if you hanker for a world
before PlayStation, MDMA and Cubase, then this could be the ideal backing
music for your theme party. But the rest of us can just leave Harriet
Wheeler Badger and David Gavurin Badger to their chosen obscurity. Even
Everything But The Girl have left them far behind: and can you ever have
imagined saying that straight-faced a couple of years ago? "Static" just
about sums them up.
3/10
Jimmy BlackburnTranscript courtesy of Colin Shaw. http://www.wintermute.co.uk/users/pingu/sunhome.htm
THE SUNDAYS
Summertime
(Parlophone)
"... The Sundays were once one of those sickly,
puke-inducingly sweet little clever-clever pop bands so
favoured by critics from the Fotherington Thomas school of
wilfully effete rockophobia. And now they're back. Oh joy.
Oh whoopy doo-daa day. They were shit then and they're
shit now."
Q magazine review of "Static and silence"
Do Harriet Wheeler and David Gavurin still dine out on the fact that their debut single, Can't Be Sure, was Number 1 in John Peel's Festive Fifty in 1989? Parlophone do. But that was two platinum albums ago (Reading, Writing And Arithmetic, a measured, likeable extension of Can't Be Sure's giddy jangle; 1992's Blind, a polished remake). Like closest stylistic forebears The Cocteau Twins, The Sundays have since set up a studio, had a baby, and lost their indie fizz, as their twentysomething angst is replaced by thirtysomething concern - but the music is still nicely guitar-driven, yodelly and plaintive. If Another Flavour and Summertime are notably beatier, pastoral slowies Leave This City and Folk Song will suit seated venues only. Meanwhile, the heartwarming closer, Monochrome, showcases Wheeler at her songbird best. It's honest urban folk made by parents - for parents.
-Andrew Collins
3 out of 5 stars (Good. Not for everyone, but fine within its field.)
Information courtesy of Craig Parker on the Sundays mailinglist.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ChainofFlowers
CMJ Online review of "Summertime"
The Sundays, who formed in 1988, hit it big with the song "Here's Where The Story Ends," from their 1990 debut. That release was followed two years later with their sophomore success Blind, which went gold. Unfortunately for fans, the Sundays dropped out of hearing range after that, leading most to assume that they had broken up. It turns out that in the interim, songwriters David Gavurin and Harriet Wheeler built their own recording studio and had a child, but are now returning to prominence as public musicians. Just in time for Indian summer comes "Summertime," the lead single from the forthcoming Static & Silence, the band's first release in five years. Fans will be relieved that the Sundays have changed very little musically -- their gentle, classic pop charm remains intact. Wheeler's honeyed voice may be the best it's ever been. Horn solos and "Summertime"'s overall crisp sound hint that the album will feature a big, stylized production. This single is like an
by DAWN SUTTER
NME review of "Static and silence"
EYE OF Dolores, tongue of Jewel, sprinkled horn-break, Morissette's stool. The cauldron bubbles, a pint of frothing green slime is syphoned off and gulped hungrily down. At last! After five long years of pet sacrifices, satanic incantations and smoking the bones of the record company reps that had dared to come round to see if they were still alive, the potion is complete. Harriet Wheeler and David Gavurin join hands, whisper a few ancient words of invocation. A flash of smoke and the pair step through the flames. They still look like The Sundays. They still sound like The Sundays. They are still, essentially, as dull as The Sundays. But their souls have finally been unshackled from their credibility and possessed forever by the spirit of Fairground Attraction.
Alright, so The Sundays actually spent the five years since their last album 1992's bland effort, 'Blind' wiring up their home studio, dropping a sprog and avoiding 'proper work' like Nagasaki nappies. Bar the rising cost of rusks and the odd change of presenters on The Price Is Right, nothing has changed in the cosseted, patchouli-scented Sundays World since their 'Reading, Writing And Arithmetic' debut in 1990. Baggy, shoegazing, NWONW, Britpop, grunge, new grave, skunk rock, big beat, the Gulf War, a Labour government, God's Gift, the '90s in general: all mere blips on Harry'n'Dave's never-changing stenograph of popular culture. "You can stuff all yer flash-in-the-pan musical malarkeys," you can almost hear them cry during the majority of 'Static And Silence', "piddling indie-folk whining about flowers, bunny-wunnies and having unmanageable hair has been around FOREVER!!" So the Zeitgeist has sailed repeatedly past in the distance, the Peel endorsements have built rafts and fled and The Sundays have become Monarchs In Mimsy of Twanglefolk Island just as everyone leaps on the last freedom jet ski to the horizon. And now WOO-HOOO! here's 'Static And Silence', 11 songs (that's over two songs per year! Your move, Guided By Voices!) with all the vibrancy and imagination of setting concrete.
You'll already be familiar with 'Summertime''s anodyne horn parps, its impression of Alanis Morissette's 'Ironic' sleepwalking off a cliff and its valiant attempt at recreating the world's biggest girl's blouse flapping in the world's drippiest fart. And wahey! you'll be familiar with pretty much everything else here as well. There's the way that the string suffocation of 'Folk Song' so obviously yearns to be sung by a cartoon mouse in Snow White And The Seven Hand-Knit Cardigans. There are the countless Texasified howlers ('Your Eyes', 'When I'm Thinking About You', 'Gone') on one of these three thrilling topics: a) wail, why have you left me? b) sob, it's my turn to feed the little git, or c) blub, they've cancelled The Great Antiques Hunt. Or, most nagging of all, there's 'Another Flame', which has already gnawed its way into the nation's subconscious as the theme to a thousand
In fact, only the delicate and understated 'Cry' comes close to shuddering the soul like yesteryear. The rest is merely the sound of all the world's oceans being simultaneously trodden.
When shall we three meet again? Another five years, y'say? Couldn't bring a bit less static next time, could you...? 3/10
Mark Beaumont
Wall of sound revew of "Static and silence"
The Sundays: Static & Silence
Rarely have so many owed so much to so few. In 1990, The Sundays' debut album, Reading, Writing & Arithmetic, established a sound that has influenced everyone from folky alt-rockers the Cranberries and Belly to ethereal trip-hop groups such as the Sneaker Pimps and Portishead. The Sundays' key ingredients--singer Harriet Wheeler's alluringly childlike voice and a harmonic approach that delivered somewhat dissonant chordings on strummed, washy guitars--created a mini-sensation, fueled by their alt-rock hit "Here's Where the Story Ends." But their 1992 follow-up, Blind, took a blander route, and after it failed to capitalize on the gains made by the debut album, the band took some time off. A lot of time. Five years later, Wheeler and guitarist-songwriter David Gavurin have had a baby, constructed a home studio, and . . . let's see . . . oh, yeah, they recorded their finest album yet. No, it's not exactly a return to the exuberant spirit of the debut, nor does it traffic in the peculiar harmonies that made certain tracks jump right out of your speakers. But this is a beautiful, accomplished effort in which orchestral strings and Gavurin's lightly funky guitar parts provide an ideal sonic bed for Wheeler and her lovely, keening voice. Strangely, the first single (and opening track), "Summertime," is not one of the album's better cuts. The synthesizer punches seem overly artificial, and the soaring chorus doesn't quite balance its rather dull verse. The next seven tracks more than make up for it, though, from the gorgeous, Joni Mitchell-influenced "Folk Song" and the Eddi Reader-like "When I'm Thinking About You" to the rocked-up, psychedelic "Another Flavour." Not only has the story not ended, but the latest chapter is a must-read.
Rating:80
Bob Remstein
Information courtesy of Craig Parker on the Sundays mailinglist.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ChainofFlowers
Msn.com/WeeklyReviews review of "Static and silence"
The Sundays
Static & Silence
On this self-produced third album, the Sundays take a melancholy turn toward blue Monday, draping their once sunny folky guitar pop in melancholy gray. The London-based quartet, dominated by songwriters Harriet Wheeler (vocals) and David Gavurin (guitar), shuns U.K. trends of beat pileups and sonic congestion for refreshing simplicity. While atmospheric and spare, Static & Silence lingers with poignant emotion and gentle melodies that retain their appeal day after day after day.
3/5 stars
Edna Gundersen
Rolling Stone review of "Static and Silence"
Since the Sundays' previous record, 1992's Blind, songwriters David Gavurin and Harriet Wheeler have hatched a recording studio and a baby. The young'un running around the mixing board hasn't changed their sound on Static and Silence, though; Gavurin's airy guitars are still coupled with Wheeler's clear, angelic voice. Aside from the perky rhythm and wah-wah guitar of "Summertime," most of the songs here are so gentile, they seem as if they might just float away - from the wistful "Monochrome" (about watching the '69 moonwalk on TV) to the breezy "She" to the delicate "Folk Song."
3 /5
THE SUNDAYS
3 out of 4 stars
(4=excellent, 3=worthy, 2=mixed, 1=poor, dog symbol=dog)
Five years is a long time between albums, but the Sundays have rewarded their devotees for being so patient. The British alterna-pop foursome fronted by vocalist Harriet Wheeler and guitarist David Gavurin has crafted its most accessible work to date. It even has a hit single in waiting (the buoyant "Summertime"). This is pretty lofty stuff for a band that, though it has two gold records to its credit ('92's "Blind" and the 1990 debut album "Reading, Writing and Arithmetic") is primarily a word-of-mouth fan favorite. "Static & Silence is more linear lyrically than the Sundays' previous efforts, which wandered into the oblique at times. And strings, horns, even chirping-bird sounds on one track enhance the "poptimistic" feel that pervades this album. A constant throughout is Wheeler's distinctive, heartfelt warbling, backed up by Gavurin's thoughtful acoustic guitar playing. "Static" is top-heavy with ballads (the best are "Leave This City,""Homeward" and "When I'm Thinking About You"), but that is Wheeler's millieu. It's good to have her back.
-DAVID L. CODDON
Transcript courtesy of Ben Simpelo on The Sundays mailinglist.
Interview with David and Harriet in NME July
The Sundays who have not released a record for five years, put out their much-anticipated third
album, 'Static And Silence', on September 22, preceded by a single, 'Summertime', on September the 8th.
They also plan to tour the UK, although dates have not yet been confirmed. Their last album, 'Blind',
the follow-up to their 1989 debut 'Reading, Writing And Arithmetic', was released in 1992. But
since then there has been very little news of the band, fuelling rumours they had split. However,
guitarist Dave Gavurin and singer Harriet Wheeler revealed that the reason for their lengthy absence
was simply that they'd become parents, and they wanted to take time out. Gavurin said: "We toured
quite a lot on the back of our last record, and that took up most of the year after that, and then we
just took a bit of time off. We had a bit more of a social life again and basically did other things.
Then we set up a studio and had a child." The pair built their own studio at their north London home
and eventually started recording their album about a year ago. About the experience of recording
the album, Gavurin said: "It was fucking enjoyable, basically. It was just much more fun (recording
it at home), but probably a bit more time-consuming, you know, learning how to use everything. It's
been a very different process. It is weird thinking, 'Yeah, this evening we're really going to do some
work,' then Billie (their little girl) wakes up and that's the end of it." "But in a way, it makes things
smoother because it does keep you grounded," added Wheeler, "it stops you going completely up
your arse, in the musical, creative sense." The pair said that recording the album at home had lead to
a more direct and "organic" sound. "We didn't really set out on this album with a particular musical
agenda," explained Gavurin. "We don't sit down and say, 'Right, this time we're going to do a jungle
album'. That's fine if that's what you want to do, but we just sit down and see what comes up.
This time round, we felt the songs needed words that had some kind of an emotional impact to them,
where as the first album was more jaunty and ironic," Wheeler said. "Forget about what you've been
listening to over the last five years. Get ready for this! I'm sure Oasis are fucking scared,"
quipped Gavurin.
Tracks on the album include the new single, plus 'Homeward', 'When I'm Thinking About You',
'Monochrome', 'Folk Song', 'I Can't Wait' and 'Another Flavour'.
Extracts from interviews featured in NME's September 13 issue
BACK SABBATH! THE SUNDAYS
" People get obsessed by change and novelty. They've got to be pushing the aesthetic barriers back.
And that's great,innovative music, but it doesn't all have to be like that: I like it when people just
give part of themselves. It doesn't have to be unique, it doesn't have to have any other music or
culture, it's just them. And that's what we've tried to do - we don't think about being groundbreaking.
And why should any work of art be a cultural barometer? Should a record always tell you exactly
where you are when it's playing? "
- The very non-Zeitgeist David Gavurin
" If I'm anti-anything it's being anti-phoney, anti-pretending to be what you're not just because you
think it's what other people want you to do. The fact that there are things we don't do - the foot on
the monitors or Harriet rolling around on the floor - doesn't mean I don't like it in other bands ".
- A bit of Black Sabbath in The Sundays then David?
" Hale-Bopp's supposed to be back again in what, 10,000 years? Hmmm. Should be about the same time as the next Sundays album! "
- David has a dig at the 'Days' work(shy) ethic...
Addicted To Noise correspondent Matthew Budman reports : It's late in London and the Sundays' David Gavurin and Harriet Wheeler have just convinced their 2-year-old daughter Billie to sleep. It's been a long night for the couple, full of all the unexpected twists and turns of parenting.
They even had to pass up a photo shoot because they couldn't find a baby sitter for Billie. There are more important things than music, after all. After a five year hiatus that saw them fall from public consciousness, the quartet's long-awaited third album Static & Silence(Geffen), the first since 1992's Blind, has finally made it to the presses. Now it's time to talk about where they've been and what has come of their music over the years.
Sitting by a speakerphone from across the Atlantic, they follow-up each other's points and finish each other's sentences -- that is, when the garrulous Gavurin pauses for a breath.
"It used to be the case that we'd finish the music before we'd even write the melody line on top of it," Gavurin says."And last of all we'd do the lyrics. But on this album, the melodies came up as the initial idea came up. It felt like a less clinical process. It made for a more direct-sounding album. We kind of wanted it to be quite natural, so the effect is..."
"More human," Wheeler interjects. "And this time we used all live drums. We recorded virtually all of it in our little studio, but to record the drums we had to go to a big studio. Drums don't make for real happy neighbors."
Since the Sundays have been out of the public eye for some time, the new album will reintroduce, and in some cases introduce, many to the band. Longtime fans will find it instantly familiar: offering the same brand of shimmering,strikingly melodic, acoustic-electric pop as offered on the first two releases. Gavurin allows that some listeners will find it too similar even.
"It wouldn't surprise me if people said it sounded exactly the same -- or if people said it sounded totally different," he says.
But there are real differences. Real horns and strings on a couple of tracks, and -- more significantly -- a more organic feel that likely comes from the way it was written and recorded: at home in the couple's small recording studio.
"The album feels less lightly poppy than the first two," Gavurin says. "It's more mature. You don't imagine a 17-year-old band wrote the songs."
Though Static & Silence is only the group's third release, the Sundays have been together since 1988. Gavurin and Wheeler met at Bristol University and formed the group that year with bassist Paul Brindley and drummer Patrick Hannan. On the basis of the band's first album, Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, and its hit single, "Here's Where the Story Ends," Britain tagged the band as the next big thing. But the Sundays' low public profile and meager recorded output have caused public consciousness to slip and rumors to surface that the band had dissolved.
"It's not really something we've lost a lot of sleep over," she says, adding that she and her husband put the band on hiatus for a year after their 1993 tour simply to break up the monotony.
"I don't mean to say that we're not ambitious," Gavurin says. "We're happy with how many records we've sold, and we'd like to reach more people -- but not at the cost of who we are. If this record gets a good response, I'm sure we'll be very pleased. But we'll never put out something we didn't believe in just to have something in the marketplace."
"It'd be much worse," Wheeler says, "to put out an album that you don't believe in. If we don't get a good response to this one, we'll be upset, but at least we know that we acquitted ourselves well."
A good deal of why the songwriters say they are happy with Static & Silence is the album's lyrics. At 34, they wanted to express thoughts that were more profound, less juvenile.
"The album is less youthful," Gavurin says. "It's less quirky and jokey than the first album; that one was more stream-of- consciousness. The new one is more poetic. We took a lot of time over the lyrics. They're hopefully evocative, express a mood, express feelings. The essence of the first album was sort of..."
"Flippant," Wheeler finishes.
The couple says they were not looking to get a message out to the world. They have no story to tell. They just wanted to make good evocative music, Gavurin says.
"It's not pages torn out of a diary. It's not autobiographical for either of us. It's just moods and feelings. That's what moves us when we're listening to music."
Drawing inspiration from some of the classics, they cite Joni Mitchell's landmark 1976 Hejira album as an influence.
"I think we're going to have to update our CD collection!" Wheeler laughs. "The things in the CD player most often lately are Fred Astaire, some very weird French film themes from the 1960s, and quite a lot of Frank Sinatra."
That doesn't mean there isn't something new in their sound though. Wheeler admits to liking "a lot of trance music, ambient dance music," especially when she's driving.
"We do follow the pop world very closely," Gavurin says, "but as you're working on a record, you become very immersed in details, so it's hard to just listen to new pop music without being too intense about it."
Gavurin adds, "I can write songs like the Prodigy!"
A tour is tentatively planned to support Static & Silence and Wheeler says the Sundays will play a dozen or so U.S.dates before the end of the year. But one question remains: How to handle Billie on the road.
"I don't think either of us are attracted to the idea of having a rock 'n' roll kid," Wheeler says. "So we will take her, but we'll take a nanny as well." "If (Billie) wants to come at all, she's got to prove herself,"Gavurin quips. "We're auditioning her these next few months."
[Thurs., Sept. 4, 1997, 9 a.m. PST]
The Sundays attempted to live up to the expression "never in a month of
Sundays" by taking more than three years to release Blind, the follow-up
album to their 1989 debut Reading, Writing & Arithmetic. Now, nearly five years
later, their third album Static And Silence has finally arrived, taking them off the
missing-in-action list.
The core duo of vocalist Harriet Wheeler and guitarist David Gavurin
acknowledge that the main line of media questioning will be as much about where they
have been as the music they have made. "We didn't plan to be away for any length
of time," maintains Gavurin. "After coming back off tour in the summer of 1993,
we wanted to take time off and have some semblance of life outside the band.
We had a child in 1995 and then decided to finally set up our own studio, which
obviously took more time, learning how to use it. The longer things went on, the
less it seemed like we should hurry and the more we should be satisfied."
Employing the same rhythm section of bassist Paul Brindly and drummer Patrick
Hannan as on the first two albums, Wheeler and Gavurin's relaxed pace of
working has clearly seeped into the new record, The Sundays' second for
Parlophone (their first was on Rough Trade). Although the band are known for
their gentle, pastoral style, distinguished by Wheeler's lilting vocals, Static And
Silence is their most intimate, considered record yet. "For us, it's a more mature
record, which doesn't mean wearing a cardigan and slippers, but a bit more
grown up," says Gavurin. "We are older after all, and the lightness and naivety
of the first album would be inappropriate now. If we had any plan, it was to do
something that moved us quite strongly. Before we started the album, we were
listening a lot to Van Morrison, whose songs can really get to you. We'd had
those elements in our music before but never at the forefront."
The homely atmosphere that surrounded the making of the album equally had an
effect. "In terms of performances, working from home allowed us not to worry if
we weren't feeling in the mood at 11 in the morning," says Wheeler. "It meant
that we could leave something and come back, without that usual studio
pressure."
Gavurin adds, "It also meant we were freer to experiment, to try out different
instruments and to get to where we wanted to on a song."
Wheeler says that neither Parlophone nor their American label Geffen applied any
pressure. "Both labels knew what they were taking on at the start," she says.
Parlophone managing director Tony Wadsworth agrees that the superbly melodic
results justify the time taken. "They could have delivered an album that was
second best three years ago, but that wouldn't have been right for them," he
says. "Anyway, they have an eye for detail in what they do which means they
won't settle for anything second best."
Though hardcore fans will be thrilled, there will still be some detractors who will argue
that Static And Silence represents no real creative advance from The Sundays'
preceding albums, both of which sold half a million copies worldwide. Wadsworth
argues that the arrangements, with dreamy strings on Cry, flute on Your Eyes, horns
on I Can't Wait and keyboards elsewhere embellishing the band's traditional
guitar-based line-up, represent an advance. "And once you've lived with the album
for a while, you'll realise how much of a breath of fresh air it is," he promises.
"Nobody else is making albums of this type."
The album is preceded by the breezy opening track, Summertime, on September 8,
which offers a litmus test for how much their popularity has been sustained. "In the
pop part of the business, there's a real danger of leaving too long a gap, but The
Sundays have very little to do with fashion any more," says Wadsworth. "Like
Van Morrison, there's a strong musical vision that is expanded upon with each
release. If you come back with something strong, it doesn't matter how long
you've been away."
The fact that Summertime has already been playlisted by hugely influential Los
Angeles station K-ROQ, seven weeks before release, indicates he is right.
by Martin Aston
The latest Sundays chart information.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ChainofFlowers
