Atlanta’s intense and experimental DIY underground provides an amalgamation of punk, shoegaze, different rap, and noise-rock — and because of this, it’s ripe with bands to look at. There’s Playytime, Foolish Goose, Upchuck, and extra — although right now, our full consideration is all on Sword II, a useful participant from the scene.
In true DIY spirit, the three-piece have put in years, forging a sense of unity at native home exhibits and unconventional venues. Their brash, experimental debut album, Spirit World Tour, arrived post-pandemic and took on the fraught political panorama — a charged message to their metropolis and past. Their off-the-wall course of and melodic noise-punk introduction embodied the underground, and made a mark that left listeners looking forward to what would possibly come subsequent.
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What got here subsequent was a shock, of kinds. It’s by no means a provided that bands we deem “experimental” will proceed experimenting. However Sword II did. Electrical Hour was recorded over 14 months, throughout which the band holed up in a rundown home in Atlanta — recording the album in a mildew-filled makeshift studio within the basement. Quickly realizing the electrical energy wasn’t working all too properly, and the basement had flooded, they merely tailored. They’d incorporate some acoustic devices, the sound can be stripped again.
And the album born of those environment is totally different. Softer. Their most cohesive and collaborative work up to now, Electrical Hour is deep and dreamy, textural and layered, and the place there had been Spirit World’s angst, the abrasiveness of noise, there are literal harmonies, and uncovered feelings. Although DIY via and thru, this album sees the band lean onerous into their model of pop sensibility — which incorporates psychedelic parts, shoegaze, and indie rock. The band are at the moment on tour with Electrical Hour, with help from Tex Patrello.
Bean Nickerson
Are you able to describe the Atlanta music scene you got here up in — the highlights, the challenges, the venues, experiences, and people who have helped form you as artists, and a band?
MARI GONZÁLEZ: The primary present I ever performed was an Abolish ICE home present my mates threw in 2018. Quite a lot of us had been collaborating in demonstrations and an encampment at a jail, and that present actually revealed to me how vital it’s to have launch and have fun life in instances of intense organizing and preventing within the streets. Music is such a strong recharge and actually brings folks collectively and contextualizes the second. Drunken Unicorn in Atlanta was the primary actual venue that I performed, which can all the time be particular to me as a result of I used to skip class in highschool to drive into town to get boba and make the early punk exhibits.
TRAVIS ARNOLD: I got here up within the ATL music scene a number of years earlier than formally beginning the band round 2019. ATL had a really wealthy DIY tradition on the time. Everybody in each scene was throwing enormous exhibits and events of their yard, on rooftops, home exhibits, warehouses, and DIY venues. Combined-genre DIY payments had been the norm, and that positively influenced our method to music and efficiency.
CERTAIN ZUKO: I began going to exhibits at a DIY venue within the suburbs after I was 12 years outdated, and I began going to this place within the metropolis referred to as Wonderroot after I was 15-16. Again earlier than COVID, there have been a variety of DIY venues and home present spots. I noticed this band referred to as Locations to Cover lots after I was 16. They had been unimaginable. I used to be actually obsessive about them and would go to all their exhibits. I might beg my mates and manipulate them to drive me there as a result of I couldn’t drive. Folks had been dancing, screaming the lyrics. I additionally noticed a variety of screamo and metalcore bands right now. I used to be in highschool when Terrible Data was blowing up. We might go to their events and exhibits and stuff. They’d such a robust collective, so many artists dropping music and bouncing off one another. Then I labored at Mammal Gallery and likewise Murmur, reserving exhibits and doing sound. I met a variety of artists that means, noticed a ton of individuals from out of city carry out, like The Cradle from NY and Weyes Blood early on.
There’s one thing so atmospheric about your music — it’s immersive, world-building. Once you method a venture, do you go in with an overarching idea and construct tracks round that, or are you working in actual time, making a group of songs to string collectively?
GONZÁLEZ: I believe typically we now have an thought of how we need to work collectively and issues we need to strive with sound or what we need to categorical within the lyrics. I don’t assume any of our songs sound that comparable to one another — we actually attempt to give respect and vitality to every thought and let it come via as we’re engaged on it, with out heavy constraints of something we would like it to sound like. Ultimately, I believe they all the time all make sense and inform one another in a means that’s sudden.
ARNOLD: Typically we simply catch a vibe off a riff or sound. At first, experimental sound design was on the forefront of our method. In our newest album, Electrical Hour, we approached worldbuilding with a extra songwriting-focused method. Pushed extra by lyrical themes and storytelling with out focusing an excessive amount of on the social themes. At this level, the sonic themes got here extra second nature to us.
ZUKO: With this final album, we didn’t have a brilliant sturdy path once we began writing. There have been a variety of issues we had been messing round with. After the primary few tracks, we had been like, “Oh OK, it’s the Electrical Hour.” When Mari advised that because the title, it actually helped tie every thing collectively conceptually. I believe with the following album, we’d begin with a reputation or an idea at first, no less than loosely, as a result of it helped a lot having a typical title for what we had been engaged on.
What artists, albums, sounds have been probably the most influential to you?
GONZÁLEZ: I grew up listening to a variety of ’80s rock with my dad, which is an plain affect: The Remedy, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, David Bowie, Kate Bush. I used to be an indie child within the 2010s so naturally obsessive about Karen O and the Shins and Paramore. I additionally listened to a lot radio, so I nonetheless have a robust style for pop music. Proper now, I simply love music that bridges theatrical efficiency with rock pop and the esoteric. There’s this superior film we watched referred to as Repo! The Genetic Opera that has an immaculate vibe.
ARNOLD: Chris Isaak – Coronary heart Formed World, Sonic Youth – Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star, Blood Orange – Coastal Grooves, the Weeknd – Home of Balloons, Ramones – Street to Spoil, Atari Teenage Riot – The Way forward for Warfare, Mazzy Star – So Tonight That I Would possibly See, Björk – Volta, the Remedy, a lot of ’80s-inspired metallic and pop.
ZUKO: MGMT. Actually every thing they’ve made, particularly the primary couple albums and their faculty stuff, Mitski – Bury Me at Makeout Creek, Dean Blunt – Black Steel, Spirit of the Beehive – self-titled, Ardour Pit’s first album. It’s so good.
Your final venture was made in such a selected setting, as DIY because it will get. Is that a part of the DNA of the band, or do you assume you’d strive going right into a extra polished path sooner or later?
GONZÁLEZ: The DIY tradition is so embedded into who we’re and the way we realized to make and expertise artwork I can’t see that ever being one thing that doesn’t inform how we make music. There’s a sort of experimentation that’s so distinctive to DIY areas and guerrilla exhibits the place you be taught to improvise with the constraints. That was a variety of this final album, working round our limits — like when the electrical guitars began electrocuting us, we picked up the acoustic devices and made one thing else. That being mentioned, proper now I’m loving taking part in on greater levels and need to continue to grow as an artist and take the music to a variety of locations. At this level, that seems like a brand new sort of experimentation to me.
ARNOLD: Sure. I’m excited to discover all of the themes and symbols that characterize what DIY actually means. The true spirit of coming along with like-minded folks to prepare and do what you imagine in with out ready for approval.
ZUKO: Yeah, completely a part of the DNA. I believe what excites us with recording is mixing the tremendous polished with the tremendous soiled and experimental. I hope we get extra intense in each instructions concurrently. I need the vocals to be Electrical HourBritney Spears-level polished and throw that over 144p guitars or one thing. Or report a damaged amp with a $1,000,000 mic. If anybody has a million-dollar microphone, or no matter the costliest mic is, hit us up so we will use it incorrectly.
Bean Nickerson
Sword II dwell exhibits really feel intense and intimate on the similar time — how do you method efficiency in another way from recording?
GONZÁLEZ: The recording course of generally feels pulled in so many instructions and potentialities. It’s such a distinct apply of constructing choices and experimenting. It’s typically for us actually sluggish and centered. Taking part in exhibits positively informs how we need to write music, however it’s such a distinct expertise to truly be within the room with the viewers. As soon as onstage, all of the writing and rehearsal are executed, and it’s only a matter of leaning into what you rehearsed and taking part in in between the areas of that. I believe that house is the place the magic occurs, and the place we will actually dwell within the music with the followers.
ARNOLD: Performing is enjoyable as a result of I get to be linked with the viewers, and the viewers can join with us. Even simply seeing how folks within the crowd react to a sure transfer I do or how I method the mic actually has knowledgeable me about making music transferring ahead. I like to maneuver lots onstage and have little dance strikes, so what I’m taking part in on guitar must hit in a merely epic means. I need every thing I play and each observe I sing to hit and resonate in a means that makes the group really feel alive and linked.
ZUKO: We actually attempt to join with the viewers. The vibe will be so totally different night time to nighttime. Typically folks need to mosh and go loopy, and different instances persons are hugging one another, singing the lyrics. So we actually fed off that. We modified up the songs lots dwell. We’re much less fearful about precision — it’s extra about making an attempt to hook up with the room.
Has there been a dwell second that felt like a turning level for the band?
GONZÁLEZ: Our final present on the tour in Atlanta, there was a second after I dropped out of the verse on “Sugarcane” and dozens of individuals within the room had been yelling the lyrics again to us. It was so surreal and superior.
ARNOLD: This previous run of exhibits on the East Coast was like night time and day from different exhibits earlier than. Seeing folks within the crowd get so hyped and singing the phrases again to us from an album we simply dropped was surreal. In Chicago, after I autographed a handful of vapes was after I knew one thing was totally different. [Laughs.]
ZUKO: Actually, once we performed in New York and there have been so many individuals who knew the phrases, dancing, I used to be like, “Wow.” It’s onerous to sing when different persons are singing the lyrics, as a result of I used to be smiling lots and laughing. It’s such a joyous expertise when everybody sings collectively. It’s like a choir — it makes the room a lot louder. It made me take into consideration what lyrics would sound the perfect being screamed in a giant room with different folks.
What sort of areas do you are feeling most at residence taking part in?
GONZÁLEZ: I like large and excessive levels, lady sound engineers. I like strobes. I like when there’s no barrier so followers can get actually near the stage. I like when safety isn’t energy tripping on folks. I like a sound inexperienced room… Most of all, I simply love when the followers just like the venue and really feel snug to sing and dance with us.
ARNOLD: I like taking part in in big-ass venues the place the stage is big to a ton of individuals. I like to maneuver round lots. I’ll all the time love taking part in smaller golf equipment or diy exhibits, however there’s one thing so electrifying about being on an enormous stage the place you possibly can see the size of the viewers and the sound onstage is fucking excellent.
ZUKO: One of the best place to see a present is sort of a packed 200-cap room that’s loud. The stage needs to be between 4-5 toes excessive or much less. We’ve additionally executed a variety of exhibits outdoors which have felt wonderful. This final tour, we actually felt at residence in every single place at any time when folks had been singing the lyrics.
There’s a robust emotional undercurrent in your music. Are your lyrics private, observational, or summary? What’s the lyrical course of?
GONZÁLEZ: We write lyrics for one another lots. We had been all going via a lot whereas we had been scripting this album, and I believe we tried to assist one another make sense of a variety of the feelings and complexities and join them to greater concepts via the lyrics. It may be fairly weak sharing lyrics you write. We’re good at staying playful and constructing off one another to make one thing that all of us imply and perceive in our language of the music.
ARNOLD: I like to consider how we method lyrics like modern prose poetry in music type. Emotional however not all the time darkish, rhythmic with storytelling, private however personable.
ZUKO: I like to consider our lyrics as little snippets, collages of experiences and reflections. Not all of it needs to be so literal or precise. Typically poetry generally is a capturing star, one thing that intervenes and cuts via logical debates. Poetry is the place spirit comes out. It’s the realm of religious questions, and on this means, songs will be temples — locations you possibly can all the time return to meditate. That’s what I like about recordings and songwriting. It’s a means of making spells, spells that mirror the instances we’re in but in addition will be returned to years later. After we write lyrics collectively, which we virtually all the time do collectively, no less than partly, it actually helps us steadiness the hyper-abstract with the will to be understood. We’re impressed by a lot; our mates, uprisings, resistance, love, and we attempt to deliver the spirit of these issues to bear via the lyrics and the sound.
For listeners, and followers, what’s the expertise you’re making an attempt to create?
GONZÁLEZ: I’d like for folks to faucet into their freakiest, most imaginative model of themselves and be impressed to make one thing in that headspace and share with different folks in their very own language.
ARNOLD: I need it to really feel such as you’re watching a play, and the music is simply the soundtrack.
ZUKO: Hypnosis, dancing, crying.
What’s subsequent for Sword II?
GONZÁLEZ: Apply, touring, writing, attractive, love, revolution.
ARNOLD: Make extra epic music, join and collaborate with extra folks, and share our imaginative and prescient with the world.
ZUKO: Hopefully tour in South America, Africa, Asia.
When you needed to give one, what’s the “thesis assertion” of the band?
GONZÁLEZ: Nourish life.
ARNOLD: Something is feasible.
ZUKO: Sound waves towards the empire. Elevate the freak flag.
