In*Press Magazine 2nd November 1994 [page:] 18

POP WILL EAT ITSELF

----------------------------------- by L. B. Bermingham Speaking In Tongues

 

They are hallmarked as one of the only bands to sucessfully transform the elements of trance ambient rock, dub, hip hop and funk. After five albums in ten years, Pop Will Eat Itself were the first band to cross over from the indie ghetto and introduce their audience to the glory of backbeats, sampled loops and police sirens, together with good old fashioned guitars. L.B. Bermingham spoke to the master of the backbeat, Poppies drummer Fuzz about the release of their latest album, Dos Dedos Mis Amigos. With a history of 14 consecutive Top 30 sinlges from their previous five studio albums, in their homeland of the UK it surpirsed on one when the first three singles from Dos Dedos Mis Amigos hit the charts in the UK. "Will you speak out? Will you defend me?" vocalist Clint Mansell demands the listeners attention on the albums first single Ich Bin Ein Auslander - a stand out track with forceful driving beats that rage against facism and xenophobia constructed with German stompers propoganda. Pop Will Eat Itself demand their listeners to wise up to the world around them with a no words minced recording and a healthy pissed off attitude. "Auslander really comments of global facism," explains Fuzz, "It's not purely directed at Germany. It's directed at people who try to take the easy wasy out of economic crisis and we felt that that is not a good thing," he says. Pop Will Eat Itself exhibit a stronger focus on Dos Dedos Mis Amigos. They have engineered their sonically stunning trademark hip hop/pop groove by showing their darker, angrier and yes, more serious side. The outcome is sharper and leaner record that maps out a listening excursion of high-tech grooves with a deeper exploration of the ambient universe. They add an extra surge of aggression as the mix and match different sounds and styles, yet still produce a hybrid that can never be traced back to its inception. "There seems to be a whole heap of interest and we've created a whole new audience," says Fuzz. "The last album was very poppy but this one is a lot darker. It isn't a concious thing though," he adds. "There isn't any real thought put into the process or else we'll trip over ourselves. We just work on songs as they come to us and there isn't anything that isn't out of our reach for subjects. You get a few threats come through but if we were frightened we would write the songs. We're not overtly policital but we do mirror what's around us." The Poppies are in the process of what will end up being a world tour, following the success of Ich Bin Ein Auslander in the fartherest reaches of the world. In fact, the song has become somewhat of an anthem in the troubled Bosnian/Serbian states. "It's really heartening when we find we're being played everywhere. This band is just like being a hamster on one of those running wheels," is how Fuzz describes the continuing success of Pop Will Eat Itself. "We got on 10 years ago and we haven't got off yet. We don't know what the next album will sound like. It depends on what we're listening to over the nex few months as well as what's going on around us." With the Poppies move away from a major recording label and back onto a independent, the band has experienced a freedom that has long escaped them. To this end, Dos Dedos Mis Amigos is an album that the Poppies have long wanted to make. -> Dos Dedos Mis Amigos is out now and available through Liberation Records.

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Richard Smyth, Melbourne, Australia. [email protected] [email protected] http://bambam.eng.monash.edu.au/users/rjsmy1 http://yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au/~richjs