Altered Beasts: Vessels Interviewed

Change. Develop. Progress. The demands we make on artists and their art seem never-ending. Don’t you dare stand still, we hiss, as we prod them towards some sort of miraculous re-invention. Dylan and his pesky amps. Taylor and her DX7. You wonder how The Ramones, full-time boarders at the if-it-ain't-broke school of rock, kept themselves fed without daring to properly explore their zydeco side. And yet, if it works and if it's honest and it doesn’t play like distracted dicking about, wiping the creative slate is a smart move favoured largely by the brave. You're a fool if you think 1989 has sold more copies than the actual number of people on earth through mere novelty alone.

Whisper it: change is good. Leeds quintet Vessels need little convincing. Their emergence nearly a decade ago drew encouraging comparisons with the likes of Battles and Mogwai. Favouring lengthy, (largely) instrumental pieces, their first two albums (2008's White Fields and Open Devices, and its 2011 follow-up Helioscope) were expansive and journeying reworkings of tried and trusted post-rock forms. The latter hinted at a shift towards beats and electronica but it felt like subtle underpinning rather than a rush for the dancefloor. But think again, because album number three, Dilate, gleefully trashes the template.

Martin Teff and Lee Malcolm, joining The Skinny by Skype from their hometown of Leeds, agree that ditching the guitars in favour of beats and synths is a natural progression rather than a leap from the artistic cliff edge. "In the background, in the evolution of the music we've been doing, we've always listened to electronic music," begins Teff. "It's always been the one common factor that we've had, musically. We're all into lots of different stuff and most of the time what we're all into really does cross-pollinate. Of course, there are things that some people like a lot more than others and obviously the music is the thing that ties us all together. So, with this album, we felt like the transition kind of had to happen. We really wanted to continue to make music together and we probably wouldn’t have done that if we had stayed in the old format." 

"Trying to find melodies with synths is quite hard" – Lee Malcolm

The irony here is that Dilate, ostensibly less 'human' than their previous work, is a more involving and ultimately more relatable album. It doesn’t feel like five guys playing together in a room, for sure, and yet it has a deeper musicality. "Well, it's interesting, isn’t it, that you should feel that way, given that it's largely electronic sounds," says Malcolm. "I think for us it's probably the same, given that there's a lot more space on this album. We take our time. It doesn’t feel like we have to cram a lot of ideas in there; we can sit back to some degree and explore our own headspaces for a while. I think it's been quite an exploration for us to see how long we can actually do that for and how we can subtly change things and still keep the momentum going." 

Teff  agrees and is keen to not overstate the transition: "I think also you can perhaps say it's like this big change and that takes some courage, but on the other hand, there's the fact that we've never really wanted to do the same thing too much, so to some degree there's always been this element of not wanting to repeat ourselves and try to ensure we're still making our own particular kind of music. That's ultimately really important; you have to love the music you’re making if you've any real expectation of other people liking it. So, in that respect, this change did feel like a natural evolution, something that we really felt like we needed to do." 

"Plus, you have that thing," continues Malcolm, "where bands playing electronic music has definitely shifted somewhat, with people like Caribou and acts like that. I mean, it's hardly like we were pioneers or anything but there's definitely been a movement towards electronic music crossing over into other genres. The kind of things that people are listening to these days, there's been a real blurring of the DJ and electro camp, with more 'band' stuff and now there's this situation where you go to a lot of festivals and there's a real overlap." He holds the thought. "That said, I guess you've had that for a long time. So, maybe it's just that it's more prominent now than it ever was before." 

If electronic music has always been an influence for Vessels, has it not just been a case of waiting for it to seep through, to push aside those early post-rock preferences? "Yeah, I think, to some degree," says Teff. "It's always taken some time for the influence of the music we're listening to to filter into what we're actually playing. We started off – this is before we were even Vessels – playing all that post-hardcore, emo stuff, and then we started listening to Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky: a lot of post-rock. It took quite a few years until you could start to see that particular shift in our actual sound. Similarly now with electronic music, we've been listening to it for a while but it did take a while for its effect to start to filter into our sound. So I guess you find yourself trying something new based on something you've caught onto recently and it just sort of gains momentum that way: slowly." 

Dilate is such a convincing shift, you can’t imagine there'd be any turning back. There's a compelling narrative beneath the sheen and the beats. The abrasive, staccato Vertical has shades of Laurel Halo ("Yeah, we've listened to her a little bit" – Teff), while the epic Attica builds to a lyrical and melodic centrepiece that recalls John Carpenter in his spine-chilling prime. "Trying to find melodies with synths is quite hard," says Malcolm. "I think that particular line you’re referring to on Attica is done on an old 70s Korg MS-20 and it's an instrument that's generally been a workhorse for a lot of stuff. To pull out those kinds of lead lines, it is quite hard to do without sounding – well, look, it can very easily cross the line and start to sound quite cheesy. We're all conscious of that, all the time. But, yeah, it's nice that you say Carpenter. It's a nice compliment, that. He's a big influence." 

Teff agrees that the album has to work as an integrated piece: "Well of course these days we're all so into the Spotify and YouTube thing, everyone's attention span when it comes to pretty much anything is so much shorter. So it's nice to have a work that goes together in a certain order, is a complete and ordered work and not just a thrown together series of tracks: something that can take you on a particular journey." 

With Dilate received as their most acclaimed release to date, and a string of club shows to support it already under their belt, the band are preparing to take it to the tents outdoors. Their immediate touring schedule is a summer of festivals. From Benicassim to Latitude to The Skinny's stage at Electric Fields in Dumfries at the end of August, Vessels are relishing the prospect of a return to live performance. "It definitely kicks off a lot more these days," says Malcolm. "In the right setting – not too huge and not too intimate – it can become quite intense; it can feel like we're properly together with the audience. It's not just about us performing and the crowd watching; it's more like we're, for want of a better expression, facilitating a good time."

Facilitators of a good time: that's probably worth copyrighting for the t-shirts alone. "It makes us sound like a Coke advert!" laughs Teff. "Or an iPad advert. To be frank, this is the first time out of our twelve or so years together that we've actually had a festival schedule at all! And they’re fascinating things, festivals. They’re like these little rollercoaster weekends where you never quite know how things are going to work out. There's a huge amount of stuff to work around and it's a challenge to get it all right for that hour or so onstage, you’re just working hard to be the best that you can possibly be. It usually works out, though, and when it does, it's a pretty amazing experience for everyone concerned, no doubt about it."