Some artists make albums that are a simple collection of songs; some create lavish lyrical concepts. But for Denmark's Mew, and its new masterpiece And the Glass Handed Kites, this quartet has created a musical voyage that's ethereal, sparkling and powerful.
Call it space rock, shoegazer pop or something totally unique (all are accurate), but vocalist Jonas Bjerre, guitarist Bo Madsen, bassist Johan Wohlert and Silas Graae on drums, who first met in seventh grade in Hellerup, certainly create visionary music that's deep and stuffed with emotion. And the Glass Handed Kites, which sees 14 individual ideas strung together into one thematic rock opus, is truly one of 2006's breakthrough efforts.
Mew joins Kasabian Friday, Sept. 29 at St. Andrew's Hall in Detroit — Nick Brandon spoke with Bjerre to preview the group's debut in the D.
NB: In the last few years, I've had the chance to interview countless artists, but you're the first artist I've talked to from Denmark. Tell me a little about it.
JB: It's pretty small. It was the central area for the Viking domain from 500 A.D. to 800 A.D. We speak Danish, and it's pretty northern — not quite as northern as Sweden and Norway, but it's pretty cold in the winter. We have long winters and short summers.
NB: How about as a music scene — Mew is a unique and incredibly creative group, how did Denmark influence you guys musically?
JB: Growing up, we were mostly influenced by what our parents were listening to, which was 80's pop music. When we grew up, we started listening to alternative rock music and indie-rock — like My Bloody Valentine. Not so much Danish music ... mostly American and English music. I don't know if it was that big of an influence — maybe, in some ways, the society was, the place we lived. We lived in the northern part of Copenhagen, which has a lot of woods and forests, and a beach on the coast. It's hard to say.
NB: You mentioned being brought up on 80's pop music — this morning, I listened to A Flock of Seagulls' first album. They're so underrated. A lot of people know them for ...
JB: The hair.
NB: Yeah! But the fact is, musically, they're outstanding. In Mew's music, I can hear a little bit of that influence.
JB: I only know them for the hair (laughing), but I'll definitely check it out. I really like bands like The Blue Nile — they're also a little frowned upon, but they are definitely very underrated.
NB: And the Glass Handed Kites, that title has intrigued me from the beginning.
JB: We generally like our lyrics to represent both sides of a story, and have a lot of contrast in terms of a lot of sadness and melancholy, but also hopefulness and even joy. The image is quite abstract, but if you imagine the kite, which is very fragile because it's made of canvas, and it can easily be ripped apart and crash into the trees, but at the same time soars in the air majestically. We think that represents the two sides of our music. It's something along those lines.
NB: This album is such a journey, I love the soaring aspect — it's surreal enough to be interesting, but it has great songs. The thing I like is the way the songs are all connected, the transitions to make this one big piece. Why is it you wanted this to stand as one large suite?
JB: We generally like to build songs up in a way that you don't necessarily know where it's going to take you — we don't appreciate music if it's obvious from the beginning what's going to happen in the song. We want to surprise the listener a little bit ... and enjoy the challenge of fitting these parts together in a different way than usual in rock music. It was quite difficult, some of the transitions, but very enjoyable to work with. I think it makes for, as you say, a kind of journey — it has a lot of hills and valleys, and a lot of different things happening.
NB: You touched on it earlier, but the other thing I like, too, is it brings back a sound that meant so much to so many people in terms of that shoegaze, space rock. You mentioned My Bloody Valentine, and I hear a lot of Verve and Ride — I commend you guys for trying to recreate that style, it's a great style of music, one that's forgotten about in a lot of ways.
JB: We all enjoy that sound a lot. We try to incorporate a little more interesting rhythms and different kinds of styles. There's no fun in just recreating shoegaze music, that's already been done really perfectly, especially by My Bloody Valentine. But we definitely enjoy elements of that, and at the same time we try and be more experimental with rhythms and progressions.
NB: With the nature of this album being one piece, is that how you express it live or do you break it up?
JB: We do play a few songs into each other, changing from night to night. We do it with some of our older songs as well now. The way we do it live it works really well — you won't really necessarily know which are the older songs and which are the newer. That's what we're trying to do, anyway.
NB: Playing in Detroit, how are you looking forward to that?
JB: We're definitely looking forward to that. I don't really know that much about Detroit, but a very close friend of ours moved to Michigan recently, and we look forward to seeing him. You never have that much time when you come to a new city to see the sights, but it always helps to have someone show you around.
NB: Also, you guys have had the chance to tour with some great bands — Secret Machines are one of my favorite groups right now, and you'll be coming here with Kasabian.
JB: We recently did a tour with Bloc Party, which I thought was really nice. They're one of the bands in England we really enjoy, and they're very nice as people as well. We definitely enjoyed that tour a lot, and Kasabian are really nice. It's always interesting to meet people who work in the same field as you and do the same thing, but are from a different culture and have a different take on everything. It's definitely very enjoyable.
For more, visit www.mewsite.com
Contact Go&Do Editor Nick Brandon at 734.246.0861 or at Nick@GoAndDoMichigan.com.
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