“Full Circle”
from the album Concertina Heart
2008
iTunes
Can you share a little information about yourself?
My name is Rigil and I make little songs out of anything I can get my hands on. I live in East London at the moment near Mile End tube station. I have absolutely fallen in love with London. Before that, I lived in Bedford and studied at Keele University. That’s where I really started to make music and not really just bundle a load of noises together. Pop is a beautiful and completely versatile genre and I am obsessed with it. There is so much chart fodder out there, but there are so many people that make great pop tracks. Something a bit different, something slightly interesting, and something full of colour. That’s what I am trying to do at the moment. I love living in London as you are exposed to all that, you know? There is so much culture here, you can just put on an invisible snorklet and just dive into it. You can stay there for ages and just have a love affair with arty jellyfish.
You’ve followed Jonk Music and I’ve visited your Myspace page. So now that it seems the Internet isn’t a fad, what are your thoughts on the power of the web in relation to helping or hurting an artist?
I don’t think it really can hurt an artist. Maybe I’m just being naive? Hmmm. I love the internet and the amount of music that is on there. I think the internet really gives you a great opportunity to ignore what’s normally just being disseminated to you. You can spend hours trawling and searching for music. You can randomly find and come to rely on great blogs like this that you can engage with. You can kind of forge your own radio and get access to artists that you wouldn’t normally find, and that can’t be bad for the artist or the listener. I know some have the view that giving everyone the opportunity to make and promote their own music potentially dilutes the talent and quality of music available. I don’t think this is true at all.
Could you describe the recording process of Concertina Heart?
I made these practically skeletal tracks in my bedroom, then started to add vocals to them and record whatever I could get my hands on — whether it was a guitar being plucked, or a housemate eating crisps. I started talking to Dynamophone Records a couple of years ago. They invited me to play the IXMAE festival and afterwards asked if I would like to record a few tracks with them. I went into the studio and recorded some vocals over these bedroom creations. Everything was then sent over to Ryan Coseboom in San Francisco. He put muscles around the bones of my skeleton tracks and smashed a beating heart in, too. It was an amazing but weird process. There was something exciting about waving goodbye to these baby tracks I had made with limited technology and equipment, and then receiving a full-blown massively improved version back. It was a very lengthy process! But very enjoyable. I felt I went on a proper journey with these little songs. Ryan and Dynamophone were great to work with.
Are there any current bands or records or websites that you enjoy and would recommend people seek out?
I’ve been revisiting all the Patrick Wolf records recently. I love his new album and his new vulture-like character. I’ve also got slightly obsessed with playing a band called the Asteroid Galaxy Tour as soon as I see any glimmer of sunshine. It’s like you have travelled back in time or something. I’ve also been enjoying some amazing electro tracks from Data and also the album by Discovery. They are on heavy rotation. Website wise, I like the one with loads of pictures of dogs upside-down on.
Parting words?
I hope you like the track, and others that I have made. Get in touch and say hello.