Strange Harvest

Strange Harvest

Dunedin cold-wave duo Strange Harvest have been busy finishing their third full-length album. A few weeks removed from the studio Justin Walshaw catches up with Critic’s Adrian Ng.

Did both of you come from musical backgrounds? Was there a particular moment that made you want to do music?

Skye Strange was in Rise of the City Cat Cult - legendary noise makers from up the hill a bit. There used to be a corner shop up there. People still ask about that shop. It’s still there but you can’t get milk anymore. The Cat Cult have some music out on Lttl Paisly records. It’s four women in cat-form. It’s good stuff. Even if you’re a dog person. My musical background is the taste of disinfectant on school recorders. And we used to have a piano growing up. I mean, the piano didn’t grow up, but it was there. I liked to play along to Beatles records and then the CD was invented. I got my first Walkman at age 11. I used to have this cassette by The Bangles. “Walk Like an Egyptian.” We decided we’d go to Europe. In London I saw Ronnie Wood. He was just buying some smokes. Not very interesting. We saw Gang Gang Dance play. That was the moment when we turned to each other and said “Let’s go, the tube shuts soon.” They blew up their synth. Not on purpose. But it was the moment.

You’ve recently finished recording your third album. Describe the process.

For this record we decided to do it as fast as possible, and most of it is the first takes. Skye had written all these songs and it felt live and a bit more raw. Luckily Tommy Thomas (the producer) was up for it, and we could use his studio. He works quick with cool microphones. We rehearsed the whole thing, played it a bit live and then recorded. It’s a keyboard-synth / drum-machine mash-up with a bit of water-damage.

Were there any particular differences that set these songs apart from previous albums?

It’s more ‘90s synth vibes. With the guitar low in the mix. The last album, I was listening to The Cure’s Disintegration album a lot, and that kinda leaks through. But in the last year leading up to the new record, we’d just listen to weird synth stuff. Like “Hot and Cold” and “Crash Course in Science.” And we accidentally created this failed futurism stuff. And we love old hip hop, so we wanted the drum machine to sound like Biggie Smalls - kinda wheezy.

Any thoughts on a name for the record yet?

I think we will call it The Best of John Lee Hooker. But for legal reasons we might call it Pattern Recognition or some nice vowel sounding pronouns.

Your music is so cinematic. If you could replace the soundtrack of a movie with your music, which movie would it be?

It would have to be Terminator 2, Judgement Day or Aliens. What’s the name of that film that’s basically those two films in the one film? Weekend at Bernies? Yeah, that’s the one.

If you could take only one album to a desert island, what would it be and why?

Skye Strange reckons Killah Priest - Heavy Mental - I truly recommend it. It’s very cool. And I think we’d want to take The Grateful Dead’s Europe ‘72 4 x vinyl LP Box Set, because the packaging folds out into a two person tent, and it’s usually dispatched within 24 hours. It’s probably edible too. Those pranksters thought of everything.
This article first appeared in Issue 17, 2014.
Posted 10:15pm Sunday 27th July 2014 by Adrian Ng.