- Articles
- We've included as many reviews, interviews and articles that we can find, if you know of more let us know. You can view them by category, release or category within a release by using the filters in the right hand column.
-
Watch this Trace
Hot Press, Colin Carberry
30th January 2004
There is a moment during the slow, final cascade of the song 'Catherine Holly', (maybe about nine and a half minutes in) when Tracer AMC could be anywhere. The noise they are making- powerful, overwhelming, but still thread-thin and delicate - is, despite the lack of vocals, remarkably eloquent and lyrical. The Belfast four-piece, when they're in this kind of form are capable of conjuring up all kinds of mental pictures: they could be in a disused warehouse, an igloo, a space station. And they could be writing about anything- joy, grief, love, the washing up. Flux and Form , their debut album revels in these kind of transportational, but ultimately enigmatic, moments. Put some headphones on and listen to Sleep Trick (Laughing Stock Talk Talk with ants in their pants) and the beguiling 'Copenhagen' and you'll be invited to paint your own pictures: to let your mind wander. Just don't expect the band to provide directions.
"There's no grand narrative behind it" says bassist Alex Donald. "It just kinda sounds right".
"They're not about anything," Jonny Ashe, the guitarist, adds. "They just sound like someone has spent a lot of time on them. Which we have. There's a lot of detail on there. The kind of detail you probably only get on the dole."
Flux and Form is a highly welcome release: both for the band themselves and the Northern Irish music scene in general. Not only is it of the very highest quality, it also shows what can be achieved with patience, perseverance, and a truly independent spirit. Tracer AMC's first single 'A Song For Amber and Red' was released almost 4 years ago, but instead of immediately looking to record an LP, the boys spent their time setting up a small label (We Love Records), promoting shows, and schooling themselves in the noble art of home recording.
"It took us a really long time to get to the kind of level we were really happy with," says Alex. "We recorded two singles and had decided that we needed another guitarist just to play it live - that's when we got Michael (Kinloch) in. Since then there has been such an improvement. We've grown up a lot. I think that's obvious when you hear the record."
Recorded by the band themselves in various bedrooms on the Lisburn Road, Flux and Form transcends the limitations of it's creation. It's a big, mature record with self-confidence and depth that deserves to be investigated.
Jonny: "We can really feel the benefit of the past five years. If we'd hung around waiting for a label to pick us up and look after us then we'd have just been another one of those Belfast bands who only ever make on record. We've done this all ourselves, and it's been difficult, but we're not relying on anyone else and that gives us a freedom."
Tracer AMC have kept their powder dry for long enough. Now it's time for some fireworks.
Order a copy through www.weloverecords.co.uk
Link: http://www.hotpress.ie
Back to the Top
Tracer Fire
Hot Press, Colin Carberry
1st December 2000
Tracer AMC's Alex Donald and Jonny Ashe on instrumentals, influences and Undertones.Alex Donald, the bassist, is in his final year at university studying Geology. He's a good humoured zealot for the cause of left-field underground indie - more than happy to pontificate on the merits and de-merits of Slint, and point up details from the NME classifieds section circa 1991. He drinks water like a white-knuckle alcoholic. Guitarist Jonny Ashe is slightly more taciturn and bares a striking resemblance to Radiohead's Greenwood minor. A physics graduate, he likes Slint as well, but also carries an applaudable torch for Sugababes. Keith Winter plays the drums and is studying to be an architect. His opinion of Slint is unrecorded.
Together they are Tracer AMC and for the last two years, their atmospheric, instrumental presence has been making gentle waves on stages throughout the land - showing that you don't necessarily need a vocalist to have a voice. In that time they've set up their own label, released a single, been played by Peel, and have had a track produced by Undertone John O'Neill. Not bad for a trio of Bangor school-friends who never bothered looking for a frontman.
"None of us are singers," Jonny explains. "We never set out to be purely instrumental, it just kinda happened."
"It was more that the songs we wrote didn't need singing," says Alex. "We sort of approached people half-heartedly, wondering if they'd sing, but nothing really came of it. That's not to say that we'd write it off completely for the future. You never know. It's just not something that we give a lot of thought to at the moment. It's good though. If we were Scottish no-one would notice us, but there aren't any other bands over here doing what we do really."
This independence of thought extends into their approach towards the commercial side of the music industry. In May Tracer AMC set up their own record label - We Love Records - with the sole purpose of releasing their debut single 'A Satellite Wish'. Far from ushering in a disastrous economic meltdown, the move has, according to Alex, been entirely beneficial.
"I read that the Czech Republic was a really cheap place to press records, So, I found out how much and thought 'We're not gonna lose that much if we do it'. We just read up a bit on it on the web, sent off the forms for copyright, and were lucky to hitch up with a distributor (Prime) that really liked us, and were really nice. It was great. We made records, put them in the shops and people bought them. Once we sell the remainder, and there aren't that many left, we'll have made money out of it." The single, with its cascading guitars and abiding ambience of dark languor called to mind Glaswegian noise-imps Mogwai and broody Canadian hat-wearers Godspeed You Black Emperor. But, already in their short career, it's clear the trio are suspicious whenever these touchstones are brought up.
"People are always mentioning those two bands to us and, okay I suppose they've introduced that style of music to a bigger audience, but I think there are other acts that nobody has heard of that we'd have more in common with. I don'tjust listen to instrumental stuff. People think, 'oh you play that kind of stuff, your record collection must be made up of these four records that were released in the last four years'. We don't listen to Mogwai at all. We bring more tunes. We could never be that noisy."
You can judge for yourself by picking up a copy of 'Energy Fields II: Genetic' - the second enhanced CD release from Derry's Nerve Centre. Tracer contribute a track ('Carin'), alongside The Mush Puppies, Homo Sapienz, Smokin' Arizona, and DJND. For self-confessed Undertones' fans, the fact that John O'Neill took care of the production provided a bit of a thrill. "He's great. Dead funny," says Alex. "He just agrees with everything you say and ends all his sentences with 'Ach aye' or 'Fuck aye'. But it was great spending three days with him, he was really cool. And we're hoping he gets us into the Undertones Christmas gig for free."
Aside from show blagging, Tracer AMC's thoughts have turned to the release of their, as yet untitled, second single. Honours this time will fall to "a wee guy in England called Adrian", and his label Errol Records - named after Roland Rat's best friend. We Love Records, meantime, will look to put out songs from other Northern Irish acts. Things are looking good. According to Alex, though, there is one ambition more pressing than the others. "It would be nice to get more airplay. We always seem to be used on the radio as backing tracks for round-ups and reports, We'll have to write something that'll
put a stop to that."
'Energy Fields II: Genetic' is out now. You can contact Tracer AMC at ...
Link: http://www.hotpress.ie
Back to the Top
BBM interview
BBM, Paul McNamee
April 1999
By rights, Tracer AMC haven't earnt it yet. By rights they should still be out paying their dues. They should be rehearsing daily. They should be hawking their demo from pillar to post, scraping for every single support slot and five minute karaoke singalong in any barn that will have them. They should, in effect, be doing what every other unsigned local act have to do.
Tracer AMC have only been together since Christmas. They have only ever played three gigs, two of which were to friends and acquaintances at private parties. Their demo has only two tracks, both recorded live, both tripping with mistakes. So why are they here?
Because their rough, raw, flawed, tinny, concise and purely instrumental tracks offer more invention and talent than pretty much all of Northern Ireland's disparate unsigned.
"Jonathan (Ashe) and I had been playing together for about a year. We wanted to work with different people but we couldn't find anyone interested in what we were doing," explains Alex Donald. Alex is bassist and sometime guitarist and Jonathan is guitarist and sometime bass player. They are both students at Queens in Belfast, the former studying Geology, Physics for the latter.
What they have been doing is busying themselves experimenting with noise. Taking their lead from those they admired - Mogwai, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Sonic Youth - they spent months trying to thread ideas together.
Realising that working outside the parameters of conventional meat and two veg trad/punk/metal outfits would not see prospective band members flocking to the fold they instead went looking. A notice board advertisement caught the eye of Stephen Ennis, a nineteen year old South African presently studying in Ireland. He was a drummer but didn't own a kit. He did, though, like the idea of what they were doing. He got a kit and Tracer AMC were born.
"We went into a church hall in Bangor," says Alex, "and recorded the demo. There was a mixing desk and a four track recorder. One night and it was all done live. That's why there are some mistakes, we hadn't time to re-record."
Now, it would be easy to pitch Tracer AMC as self-indulgent miserablists, as post-sixth form smart-arses who have read too much Camus and only listened to records they think they ought to. The bands and artists Alex lists as influences run all the way from JSBX to Blur's lo-fi apologist Graham Coxon. Indeed, Alex proudly asserts that they are a lo-fi band.
"It makes it a problem getting gigs," he says, "places that book new bands don't want to know. They hear the tape, say they like it but claim not having a vocalist makes it lack appeal."
The thing is Tracer AMC are as keen to gig and present their sound to as many people as possible, as any more conventional act. They are free from pretension, and although a little green, recognise the necessity of promotion.
If they fail, if they are exposed as charlatans, as frauds trying it on, it doesn't matter. Because of what they are doing, because they are prepared to be so belligerently different, Tracer AMC may just be one of the most important bands we presently have.
Link:
Back to the Top