To look at the cover of Terms’ excellent second album, All Becomes Indistinct, you’d not necessarily imagine that it is quite one of the most eclectic albums you’ll hear all year. Metallic, but possessed of the spontaneity of jazz, it is the work of just two musicians – Danny Piechocki (Ahleuchatistas) and Chris Trull (Yowie, Grand Ulena), with whom we are speaking today.
Hello
Hello, can you hear me?
I can, how are you?
I’m good.
Thank you so much for making this time to speak to me, I really appreciate it.
My pleasure.
I’ve been spending a bit of time with the record over the last few days, first reviewing and then thinking how to talk to you about it, because it’s one of those albums that changes perspective the more you approach it and songs that you think are your favourite kind of disappear and then other things emerge… I don’t know if that makes sense…
Yeah, that makes sense to me because I spent quite a lot of time listening to rough mixes and things… I mean we spent almost two years making that record, so I lived with it for quite a long time, and I understand it both as a participant and as a listener, just kind of taking it in.
I understand that you formed the project during the lockdown and sort of started work quite quickly on the first record, is that right?
Well, it’s actually before that. We started playing together, or working together I think, in 2018, and so we already had kind of a long-distance working relationship in place, and we actually had first album done before the lockdown, but it came out during.
Ah, OK
Yeah so, the main thing – our sort of master plan – was that we would make that record long distance, and then we would get together and start playing shows right when that came out; but everything shutdown and so we had to wait like two or three years before we were able to that. But we were able to make another record in the meantime!
But it was a very strange period of creativity, I think. A lot of a lot of artists found themselves in the same sort of position – and suddenly your pushed into creating something new at a point where you thought you would be touring old material. And then, working remotely during lockdown changed the way that people approach composition – not worrying about whether it could be done live and just thinking about sounds and textures, is that something that you experienced?
Definitely, yeah and even now, as we’re working on material, I tend to sort of sort pieces in my brain as things that might be playable live and things that won’t be. Or at least, you know, without one or two additional players we just wouldn’t be able to play those songs, but it that doesn’t enter into it at the recording phase. When we’re recording, I’m just trying to make the song sound as good as I can and then, as we start amassing material, I think okay what could we actually pull off? And we actually managed to pull off a fair amount from the first album, so I was proud of that.
One of the things I find quite interesting is that you can quite often have something that, in the studio, is really essential – in that it’s kind of repeating and running underneath the entire track – but when you actually get to play it live, you can put that element at the beginning and then segue into playing something else, because you don’t have enough fingers to play everything at once! But, in your mind (and in the mind of the audience) it is still there and you realise the part was not as integral as you thought it was, but only through that process of playing live.
Yeah, you definitely find yourself having to imply things as opposed to explicitly stating them. It’s challenging, but it’s kind of a good exercise to figure out what really needs to be there and what doesn’t.
In terms of playing live, are you finding that you kind of amass equipment – you know, stereo amp setups and pedals – or do you try to keep it fairly stripped back?
I do currently have a stereo amp set up and pedals, but I try to keep it as minimal as possible. I try to make it so that I can focus on actually playing as opposed to like dancing on pedals and triggering things, but with it just being the two of us, I do have to loop a few things pretty much in every song. I think there’s one song where I don’t loop anything, but that’s kind of … for me, I like to keep it at the bare minimum if I can, so just like just a looper and a couple of different ways to switch between the amps and change up the sounds. I’m trying to keep it as minimal as I can, while still filling up enough space that it doesn’t seem like the bass player and singer forgot show up!
Given that a lot of it feels, in in the way that is it’s recorded, very spontaneous and I get the impression that that’s kind of how it starts – with you kind of jamming on things – how do you come to develop from the initial idea to the to the finished piece.
It varies. sometimes there have been times I’ve written a song from beginning to end and Danny has just recorded drums to that. But that is increasingly becoming the exception, where a lot of the times he’ll hear something interesting in a part that I play very briefly and he’ll loop that and expand it, and then I’ll add more guitars or change things up. There also have been – there are a couple of things on this new record that I completely improvised and then Danny went through and composed drum parts to the improvisation> so, it’s basically an improvised guitar track with a through-composed drum track. But it really varies around what we’re working on day-to-day. Luckily, both of us are very open to trying different things and also admitting when things aren’t working!
One of the things that I find with this kind of music is that there is the potential, and this is neither a good thing nor a bad thing – but to expand things really far out, whereas on your album everything is very concise, with the longest track maybe beating the five-minute mark. So, I guess you’re fairly good at self-editing, or do you have someone who acts as an external set of ears?
It’s pretty much just the two of us. We don’t really play things for anyone else until we think they’re presentable. I think… I know that me, in particular, I’m a pretty vigilant self-editor. But, on the flip side of that, I do like things to be done as quickly as possible and not over think them, so there’s a balance there to figure out what needs to be worked over and what needs to be off-the-cuff and just accepted as it is.
One of the things that is really noticeable is that the production on the album is absolutely fantastic, and I think it’s you guys just working on it yourselves. Obviously, you know what you want your music to sound like, and I know you’ve worked on other projects as well, but what is your background in recording and how did you develop the skills to make your music sound the way you want it to?
As long as I remember, I was always the guy bringing the little four-track cassette recorder to band practice to try to make the demo take. So, I always try to record things myself, going back thirty years at this point. I don’t have a particularly sophisticated set up – I just have a few mics and a little mixer, and we try to do a lot with a little. I’ve never worked in any actual studios, but I’ve done a lot of recording – just ad hoc, basement set ups over the years, both with my own band and trying to help out friends So, that’s just it – basically self0taught I know how to make things sound the way I like them I don’t know if I could make things necessarily sound the way someone else would want it to sound.
I find the art of sequencing fascinating and often ask about it – especially for artists who cater to those audiences who still want physical media – and this is even more the case with vinyl making a comeback, because you need to think about side a and side b. When you’re writing the music, do you spend hours trying to get it into the flow that you want it to, or does it kind of sequence itself as you’re recording?
It’s definitely something I spend a lot of time thinking about. I don’t think I think about it as we’re recording, but as we’re sort of gathering up the material and starting to assess what it is – whether it’s an EP or whatever. Sometimes a track is obviously the first song of a record, and it reveals itself, but it is something I think about a lot and even our first record which didn’t come out on vinyl, I purposely sequenced it in two halves because we wanted it on vinyl, but given the nature of the world at the time, we weren’t able to do it that way. I think, having grown up listening to records and always thinking of them as two halves with their own distinct beginning, middle and end, I’m always thinking about that in terms of album sequencing.
It’s an unsung art. I know that there are some bands for whom getting the sequencing right can be one of the hardest things, because everyone hears it in their own way, and they end up fighting their way through it.
A lot of people want to frontload what they think is the best material. They put it at the very beginning and then the record loses steam, and you don’t want to fall into that trap either. Everyone has their favourites anyway, but it is an artform in itself, for sure.
You said it took you two years to get this done, so I guess you started in the pandemic and then were throwing things back and forth online – was that the basic approach.
Yeah. Usually, it starts with some guitar and bass recordings, and I’ll email them to Danny and, you know, he’ll get around to it when he has time and things evolve very slowly. I usually try to have time to work on things every day, but it’s not a constant work. I’m not working on tracks every single day – I let it happen when inspiration strikes or when we have a specific thing, we’re working on> That’s one luxury of this project. I always kind of didn’t love the process of going to band practice three times a week and slugging it out and standing there staring at each other like “well, do you have any new ideas?” With this method of working, we can work on it in our own time, and I think, actually, it’s just as productive as standing in a room for four hours together a few hours a week.
I think it’s difficult when you know you’ve got to produce something to order – I find that’s an instant route to creative block. Often you default to just chugging away. It’s when you’re walking up a hill somewhere you get an idea, and then you sing it into your phone like a crazy person, and that’s where more interesting stuff happens.
Yeah, absolutely, it’s when you’re distracted by other things. That’s when creativity has a chance to sneak in. I’ve written parts where I’m on flights just listening to the roar of the engine, and all of a sudden, things have come to me. It’s best to not try to force it.
I remember speaking to an artist a while back and he was talking about filing away those little snippets – obviously it’s a lot easier when you have a computer – so you’re never really starting from scratch but coming back to ideas when it feels like it’s time to work on them. Do you find that?
I definitely store up a catalogue of ideas, mostly in the form of iPhone videos. I’m pretty lazy about writing things down, so I make a video and if my hands are in the shot, I can at least have a vague idea of what I was doing. Then, as I end up using those things, I go through and delete them, which sometimes I regret later because when it comes time to relearn the songs, I have no idea what I was playing and it’s like learning them from scratch – then I wish I’d saved those videos. It’s fun when you set little traps for your future self!
You obviously put a lot of effort into your packaging, which is really cool to see – you’ve got the artwork and the obi strips and all these little touches – and this kind of genre I think (I hope) encourages physical music fans and it’s obviously something that’s important to you as well.
Definitely, and working with Mark Fischer at Skin Graft is a big part of that he’s always very hands-on with the look of the work and the packaging. All of his stuff always looks amazing, which is great and it’s a nice benefit of being on that label – everything has to look great.
The label started out in comics, right?
Yeah, they were an underground comic that they would sell at punk shows and, yeah, I don’t even know what started the idea, but they put out 7” records packaged in comic books and then it just kind of grew from there.
That’s so cool!
Yeah, those early 7” record and comic book sets are really cool if you can track some down.
I spent a while looking at the cover to the record trying to work out why it felt so comfortable to me, and then it hit me that it reminded me of the attic in my parents’ house – the vintage speaker, the random audio gear… it’s like a musician’s home. Whose idea was the shot and how did it come about?
The shot was something a local photographer, Adam Newsham, had. It’s actually a photo of an estate sale, so basically someone dies and then they gather up and sell all their stuff. For some reason I just saw that and loved it, and there were a couple of other photos of his that we loved and thought went well together – yeah, actually the back cover… I’m not sure if it’s obvious, but it’s actually the waiting room of an eye doctor, and we didn’t even realise that at first, but I thought it actually is an amusing pun with the title of the record: your vision is becoming indistinct! [laughs]
That idea of “all becomes indistinct” – the titles of the songs are pretty oblique throughout. Do you have, when you’re titling things; do you have specific themes in mind? How do you come to agree titles for tracks?
A lot of them are just sort of wordplay that we find amusing or, like, random inside jokes, or things that were misread or misheard. Another little thing about carrying a phone is that the notes app has a book-length thing of little phrases that I’ve heard or thought of over the years that I store away as possible song titles. Sometimes I’ll have a few ideas and immediately associate them with the title idea, other times it’s retroactive as we try to figure out what to call a song. A lot of the time, I feel like the more composed, bigger, five-minute songs – they usually have a title earlier on and they seem to develop their own personality as we’re working on them> I guess the title plays into that somewhat.
In terms of the music itself, we talked about it being quite spontaneous, but is there anything that particularly triggers you into writing?
A little bit of everything, but I think more than waiting for a flash of inspiration or some sort of external thing, I think just picking up my guitar every day and putting in some work so that I’m not just waiting for something to happen. Sometimes you have to be there and be available. I’m afraid I’m sounding like Robert Fripp or something! It’s more about doing it as often as possible so that you can generate enough material that it starts to… the form starts to come up out of the murk. I’m certainly inspired by films and book and other music and it’s not usually a direct influence. It’s not like I see something and directly go and start working. It sneaks in subliminally.
It sounds broadly like you have a very varied range of musical influences anyway. It’s always more interesting, because obviously if you like one style of music, you’ll end up sounding like it. If you’re able to draw from a variety of places, that’s where the more interesting ideas crop up, which aren’t necessarily of your genre.
For sure, yeah. And I think that we made some pretty conscious effort to make this album more varied than the previous one. Just because we had different things that we wanted to explore. If there were direct influences on this record, like… I got really into the Meridian Brothers. They’re a group from Columbia and the records are all basically one guy, but he has a touring band. It’s like a sort of modern-day psychedelic band, but the production on the records is so awesome and I was listening to those all the time, so I was thinking “how can I get the thing I like about this production into our music”?” and just stuff like that. And yeah, I can’t think of any other specific examples, but in that period, I loved the way those records sound. Musically it has very little in common, but in terms of stealing little production tricks, it’s always good to grab things where you can find them.
That idea of trying to figure stuff out is one of the most interesting things about music making. The advantage of wandering through the countryside and getting an idea in your head – you then have to come home and figure out how to create it rather than jamming on stuff that you already know how to play, which feels a bit more stilted. Trying to find that production trick or that sound that you don’t previously know how to make – that’s where you get the happy accidents that you get in music.
Yeah, absolutely. We do a lot of stuff with a lot of different, overlaid rhythms. That’s something that, intellectually, I’ll think “this can sit on top of that, and we’ll figure it out” and then you try it, and it sounds terrible. Other times, it’s like “oh, wait, that was awesome!”
So, you guys live pretty far apart, so now that you’re moving towards touring, what’s the process for that?
We’re still figuring some of it out, but we did a short tour in October and basically what happened I that I flew down to Florida and we practised for about three days and then I flew back here and, when the tour started, Danny drove up here and we started in Saint Louis and did that> we basically practised once or twice before we started playing shows here. We were able to do it pretty quickly We had about a month break between the first little weekend three-day practice and the start of the tour, so we were able to practice, figure things out, and then practice more efficiently on our own before we went out on tour. Now, I feel like if we had a show next week, we could get together in an afternoon and play pretty well.
That’s interesting, because it feels like music that requires a lot of understanding of one another, so I guess through the process of making the albums and making that connection, you have a pretty intuitive grasp of what each other is doing.
Yeah, and I feel like we’re both thoroughly familiar with the material. We know the map, so we can figure it out together.
Amazing, thank you so much for your time.
