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Kinski.
 It's something you often see from Australian bands, but not often with American avant-rock instrumentalists on famous labels: Kinski have delayed the release of their latest record, the great 'Alpine Static', and are waiting to tour until - wait for it - the school holidays, when schoolteacher and bass player Lucy Atkinson has enough free time to travel Europe and Japan.
In fact, as guitarist Chris Martin explains, "We're all trying to keep our day jobs while we're touring." Although he belittles his own line a work as "just a part-time delivery job," it seems the rock dream has escaped this Seattle quartet, at least at this point in their lives. "I actually went to film school," Martin recalls. "Before I really decided to do music I was toying with the idea of going to LA and really trying to get work, but I'm glad I didn't, I think. I think everybody's fuelled by that [ambition] to some extent, even the most underground, experimental person. When you really talk to people, they all seem to think 'it's not going to happen, but maybe I'll become famous one day.' That wasn't really the goal with this band, I was in some pop bands before this that no-one's ever heard of and we were really trying to make it, get somewhere, and then with this band it was just friends getting together and playing, and we didn't even know if we were going to get shows in Seattle. We didn't expect anything to happen, it was just a little, gradual thing. I think it's when you don't try as hard to make it, things work out a little better. People can tell when you're really trying to, trying to get somewhere."
With Kinski, it's all about the music. And quite interesting music it is, too - the noticeable contrast of dirty, guttural Sabbath-esque rock riffery with pristine, clean production. "Clean: that's the way our amps sound, too. The big goal with this record was to try and make a record that sounded like we do live. And I think Randall [Dunn], the engineer and co-producer, succeeded. It's sort of the way our amps sound. Our amps are just set at clean with a little bit of distortion. We have some Big Muff [pedals] and some distortion, there's this thing called Prescription Electronics... But we only sort of use the pedals for thirty seconds and then it's back to usual sounds. I think our last record, 'Airs Above Your Station' was a lot more ethereal, a little more reverby, it was a product of the time, too. The other records weren't as flat and in your face as this record is."
A talk on sounds leads to a talk about influences, and Kinski's website biography name-checks a whole lot of them. And a whole lot of them that seemed rather obscure to me - in fact, I'd only even heard of maybe two out of the fifteen or so bands the website names. "The main reason that in our bio we mention these bands is that they were obscure bands that I was listening to in the last year or so and some of the songs were remotely influenced by listening to that stuff. But there were a whole lot of, you know, seventies bands that no-one had ever heard of that I wanted to spotlight, as opposed to all the common reference points that we always get, I thought it might be fun to mention things that people might see and track down and like, you know, if they like our band. The one that we mention there is a Mexican band called Los Dug Dugs, they have a record called 'Smog' you can get online and which is just amazing. If you like heavy psych rock, that's the record. I've been playing it for everybody that comes over in the last year, everyone's so bored by it. I hesitate to build it up too much, just for people to say, 'Oh, is this it?' But we got bored of all the Sonic Youth references, so we thought, 'Let's mention things that people might track down.'"
And where does Kinski's artistic vision see them heading? "I see a big left turn, somehow. I've been listening to a lot of bubblegum from the sixties, The Archies and so on, and I just want to go completely in a different direction. I think we should start the next record a capella, shut everyone up about the whole thing."
Finally, Chris Martin has one message for the people of Australia. "Find us a booking agent," he cries. "Find us a booking agent so we can get over there!"
Any takers?
Ben Revi
 | 'Alpine Static' is out now through Sub Pop/Stomp. |
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