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Besides, I would hate to give the impres- sion that Spiro are a bunch of hippies because they are not. Alex Vann and Jon Hunt both started off in punk bands. Jason Sparkes began his career at the age of six in an accordeon outfit playing classical music which was what Jane Harbour stud- ied as a student of Suzuki. As well as these influences and folk, the band are inspired by minimalism, systems music, good pop, cheesy pop, epic pop of the Queen variety (Sparkes), hip-hop, trance, dance and rock- ’n’roll. I put to them another Ben Mandel- son suggestion, outlining our discussion of possible titles for this feature over lunch. The best, his: “Band in Split due to musical differences.”
They laugh. The musical differences are bunged into the pot, the tensions somehow work together and it’s why the band is impossible to pin down to a partic- ular genre. Do they have a Bristol sound? Sparkes says “It’s not something we’re con- scious of as we just do our own thing. But in the sense of being modern and original we fit in.” And they’re quite ‘trancey’. Vann says: “There’s a Bristol philosophy to do with the size of the city. There’s a lot of cross-pollination going on. Certainly there’s a non-commercial, slightly rebel- lious streak in the music.” And they’ve just done some brilliant work with Adrian Utt- ley from Portishead.
The band have a new EP The Vapourer
out on Real World on 28 October which features two of their tracks with all the parts played by Uttley on Moog synthesis- ers. It gives their acoustic sound a mechan- ical depth and other-wordly resonance which I like.
T
The Vapourer will be their fifth release in 20 years, hot on the heels of last year’s Kaleidophonica. Lost In Fishponds, record- ed as The Famous Five (Uncle, 1994), was followed by Pole Star (Uncle, 1997), fast becoming a collectors’ item and currently re-selling for around 20 quid on eBay. One of its tracks, The Sky Is A Blue Bowl, is a desert island disc for Alan James, who on hearing it was moved to become their manager. Then the deal with Real World and the Simon Emerson- produced Light- box came years later in 2009. Maybe that’s just the time it takes due to the nature of their compositional process, though they all work on other projects. Vann gigs with festival favourites Three Cane Whale. Sparkes is working in a duo with Birming- ham-based folk singer Louisa Davis Foley, Hunt mixes poetry and music in The Wraiths and Harbour has a big solo project bubbling away.
hey all say that the demands of playing in Spiro have a definite and positive impact on how they work with other people. Perhaps even more significant-
ly, working in Spiro has transformed their instrumental techniques. The music neces- sitates their development of new ways of playing, ways that are unorthodox and sometimes difficult, in order to produce the required sound. And for Sparkes this has meant the added requirement of learning to play standing up which, he says, “is knackering.”
So what’s next? Harbour likes the idea of working with voices. Though not lyrics. Hunt is excited. “I like to sing, I do in my other projects, but I can’t with Spiro.”
“No,” says Vann. “We’d have to kill you, which would be a reasonable response.”
“Well if that was to be my duty then I would of course oblige.”
“With death.”
“With death. Though I’d prefer to just take my singing elsewhere.”
“Well one or the other…”
It seems the choice will not have to be made, as having seen Croatia’s Kries (fRoots 305) perform the night after their own gig at EthnoAmbient, the band are keen to work with frontman Mojmir Novakovic, who makes an incredible sound. They should be debuting together at an fRoots spectacular at the QEH in March 2014, on a bill packed with lots of exciting new collaborations.
They all agree that working in Spiro is unlike working with any other band. In 20 years they’ve all made every gig together. Sparkes has only missed this one as an awful family tragedy kept him at home. “Oh, and once, years ago,” he admits, “I missed a lift in Hungary and they had to go on without me.” Whilst in all this time they might not have ever set out to set an example, they are nonetheless a source of inspiration for others. Young Kentish band Arlet, appearing on this issue’s fRoots 46 compilation, are one of a raft of new bands now citing Spiro as a key influ- ence, recognising that, as Robin Denselow wrote in his Guardian review of Kaleido- phonica, “Spiro are that rarity: true English originals.” And nothing to do with a German town.
www.spiromusic.com F
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