Hurtling, The TVD First Date

“I’ve had a bit of a funny relationship with vinyl, in that when I first got ‘into’ music in the early ’90s, it was pretty much the last hurrah for the original vinyl age before CDs became ubiquitous, and then in the last couple of years I’ve really fallen back in love with it as a way of enjoying music. I don’t think its a nostalgic thing, but rather the tactile and linear nature that forces you to sit down and listen to an album from start to finish, while the physicality of a record forces you to consider the whole design as well as the music itself.”

“The first bands that I considered ‘mine’ were Nirvana and Suede. (I still have the initial run of singles from the latter in my collection today!) Before that I loved TOTP and chart music as an ’80s kid, and then towards the end of that decade my four older brothers began to get into ‘alternative’ music. As anyone with older brothers or sisters will tell you, at a certain age there’s nothing quite as cool as your older sibling’s music collection. I distinctly remember my brother Sean passing me on the stairs and singing the sweary line from Dinosaur Jr’s “Freak Scene” into my face, and around the same time hearing Pixies records suddenly being played at home. The illicit, alien and deranged sounds of these records were an instant hook.

Hurtling have been compared to a few early ’90s bands since we started, but I think if there’s anything we are inspired by, it’s in how some of these bands approached music. There’s always been something a bit ragged and loose about bands such as Dinosaur Jr, Stereolab, or the Breeders (particularly live) that gives the music an immediacy and rawness that has kept it exciting. Both Jen and Jon are great and very experienced musicians, but we’re not afraid to make mistakes or improvise in places, so whenever we play live it feels fresh, and hopefully that excitement and energy is felt by the crowd.

Even though we’ve all been in bands before, this is the first time for all of us to have an LP release, which is all due to the wonderful Nick Bourne, who runs Onomatopoeia Records pretty much singlehandedly! Even in the age of being able to record and release with ridiculous ease, there is still something magical about dropping the needle and hearing your own music coming out of the speakers. We had the album mastered at Abbey Road with Sean Magee, who was kind enough to show us the lathe cutting machine that he used for the vinyl master. Looking down the microscope and seeing the sound made physical through the grooves seemed simultaneously fantastical and mundane; we were all amazed.

The album itself (Future From Here) was definitely ordered and thought of as two sides, which happened quite naturally once we had all the final recordings in place. Not being the songwriter I can’t confirm this, but it feels like a story is being told, even if it’s just in the way the songs flow from one to another. My approach to playing bass basically comes from Peter Hook and Kim Deal, although I also try to incorporate a Tom Verlaine/Neil Young type approach to add some unexpected elements in there.

Over the last year vinyl has really come back into my life, mainly as I’ve been discovering a wealth of Japanese music from the ’70s and ’80s. Being half Japanese, you might think I would have had an earlier insight into this, but record companies of that time seemed reluctant to market bands outside Japan, so very few artists made a wider impact. As such, Western audiences in the last decade or so have been discovering all this great music. For me it’s like a glimpse into an alternate childhood, where instead of Bowie, Depeche Mode, and Kate Bush, there was Haruomi Hosono, Yellow Magic Orchestra, and Akiko Yano! There have been some great compilations and reissues of these artists recently by such labels as Light in the Attic, WRWTFWW, and We Want Sounds! However, there are a surprising number that haven’t been re-issued, so the only way to get them is the original vinyl. (Plug – am posting and writing about these records as I find them on instagram at collecting_net).

Since getting a decent deck last year (Pro-ject Essential IIIA), I’ve loved finding record shops both at home and when I’ve been away. There’s a comfort and warmth to flicking through records wherever you are, and I could happily do it all day. It’s also been lovely to see new shops open, such as World of Echo in Columbia Road and South Records in Southend. It shows that there is still an interest in both music and vinyl, and there’s a DIY, relatable aspect to these shops that feels more inclusive compared to the old days of Virgin Megastores etc.

In a way, it’s also a throwback to the days of small independent shops on the high street where you could get to know the owners. Music shops lend themselves to this so well as I’ve had numerous recommendations in the last year that have all been stuff I would never have heard otherwise.”
—Simon Kobayashi