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ince the mid-1990s, and first under the name Appendix Out, Alasdair has built up a consistently excellent back catalogue. Channeling melancholia and black humour along with that raw intensity, anyone with more than a cursory awareness of Alasdair’s music knows how intelli- gent and careful it is. While the songs often retain an abrasive edge in execution, the lyrics typically feel meticulously construct- ed, with huge backstories behind every line. He begins to talk through his latest work.
“In my brain I divided the new songs into different cate- gories,” he says. “There’s three or four that I call ‘metaphysical songs’. Then there’s some that I call ‘cosmological songs’. Then there’s some which I think of more as ‘political songs’.” This latter category surprises me a little. In previous interviews, Alasdair has shied away from attaching a political label, or even a political implication, to his work.
“‘Political’ is a hard word to use, because it’s such a broad word,” he says. “I think my writing tends towards the metaphysi- cal or the cosmological, rather than to the overtly political. I’m interested in strange ness and mystery, ambiguity and complexity. But I have a growing sense that, even though I don’t really feel that it’s my forte, that I should maybe try and write things that are more directly political.” He sees this ‘political’ component as a necessity for the overall aim of the album. “I suppose I’m trying to go for some kind of wholeness,” he says of his intentions. “Like a Gesamtkunstwerk. An all-encompassingness. It is just a collection of songs. It’s a very small thing in the grand scheme of things. But it’s my work, and it drives me in that way.”
Trying to unpick this Gesamtkunstwerk is daunting. Alasdair Roberts seemingly has a dizzying range of intellectual interests. “Well, when I have time,” he smiles. “I haven’t had much time for reading recently. But one thing that I read for the first time about three years ago was Gargantua And Pantagruel.”
Written in the 16th Century by French humanist scholar Fran-
cois Rabelais, Gargantua And Pantagruel is a series of five inter- connected satirical novels, and one of its key concepts particularly fascinated Alasdair. “There’s a Carnivalesque aspect to these new songs,” he explains. He’s referring to the Rabelaisian idea of a unique interlude in human society; the Carnival as a time when normality is suspended, and order is turned on its head. “Some of the songs I’ve been thinking about are ‘tapsle-teerie’ – that’s the Scottish word for ‘topsy-turvy’. The world can be turned upside- down politically, or metaphysically, or cosmologically. The songs are tapsle-teerie in a Rabelaisian kind of way.”
In terms of musical influences on the new material, Alasdair says he listens widely, but he’s becoming more interested in har- nessing formal structures, albeit in an informal style. “I’ve been trying to reach a deeper stage of compositional complexity with the songs that I’m working on,” he says. “I don’t really have any musical training, though. I can’t even read music. So I’m teaching myself, by listening to things on Radio 3.”
“I have periods of listening to a lot of music, of absorbing it, and periods where I need to stop absorbing and start creating,” he continues. “Touring is good for listening to things. You know peo- ple like to talk about reading ‘with place’? Well, I listen ‘with place’. I was touring in Spain and, there I was listening to flamenco and a lot of other Spanish music. I was taking the opportunity to explore that place’s musical culture. I enjoy things like that.”
Photo: Ian Anderson
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