{"id":1009319,"date":"2023-03-08T21:19:08","date_gmt":"2023-03-08T18:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1009319"},"modified":"2023-03-08T21:19:08","modified_gmt":"2023-03-08T18:19:08","slug":"going-to-medieval-times-with-gilla-band-irish-noise-aficionados","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1009319","title":{"rendered":"Going to Medieval Times With Gilla Band, Irish Noise Aficionados"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Going to Medieval Times With Gilla Band, Irish Noise Aficionados<\/h1>\n
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Talking day jobs, disgusting levels of feedback, and \u201cdear friend\u201d Ed Sheeran with the lads<\/div>\n
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By <\/span>Madison Bloom<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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The members of Gilla Band, from left: vocalist Dara Kiely, drummer Adam Faulkner, bassist Daniel Fox, and guitarist Alan Duggan.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n
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Crammed in the back of a bus bound for New Jersey, Irish post-punks\u00a0Gilla Band map out a new direction. \u201cThe next album is medieval themed,\u201d announces guitarist Alan Duggan, smartly dressed in a charcoal pin-stripe suit and leather bomber. Drummer Adam Faulkner\u2014head-to-toe black, gauged ears\u2014elaborates on the vision: \u201cStart playing the lute. Get a few whistles.\u201d Dara Kiely, their towering but soft-spoken frontman, impersonates his future self growling at a tour manager, \u201cWhat do you\u00a0mean<\/em> there\u2019s no mead on our rider?!\u201d<\/p>\n

We are heading westward to\u00a0Medieval Times, the family-friendly establishment set in a sanitized Dark Ages, scrubbed of details like torture and the plague. It might spark a Spinal Tapian transformation for Gilla Band\u2014a gimmick-free group with\u00a0Stonehenge dioramas in their eyes. Or, as bassist Daniel Fox would color it, this is the start of \u201cour absolute fucking downfall.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Per its website, the Medieval Times experience includes \u201cjousting, horsemanship, and falconry, plus a four-course, utensil-free meal served in a castle-like space.\u201d As we exit the bus in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, we plod toward the fortress, which looks like a YMCA with Lego turrets stuck on top. It is a forsaken kingdom, surrounded only by shuttered businesses. \u201cOh they built a moat!\u201d Kiely jokes, pointing to a trash-strewn puddle. He clocks the long line streaming from the castle door. \u201cThat\u2019d be funny if it was just a load of indie bands,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Inside, we are knighted with blue cardboard crowns and led into a grand hall clotted with merchandise: plastic axes, light-up swords, pink headpieces with poly-mesh veils. Children dressed for kinder-combat run amok. \u201cI\u2019d hate to be here on a hangover,\u201d Faulkner notes. \u201cThe type of hangover you get here is like,\u00a0I\u2019m going to kill myself<\/em>.\u201d We beeline for the bar, where Wench Amanda serves us towering glasses of beer. \u201cThis feels like the U.S. to me,\u201d Duggan says, proffering his jumbo drink. None of us can quite believe the cheap splendor of the place. \u201cI\u2019d love to be at the point of conception of all this,\u201d Fox muses. \u201cThis really strikes of one very stubborn person with a dream. It\u2019s definitely not done by committee.\u201d \u201cAre you talking about our album?\u201d Kiely teases.<\/p>\n

Gilla Band are touring behind their exquisitely caustic third album, 2022\u2019s\u00a0Most Normal<\/em>. Though they\u2019ve always been slow, methodical writers, the new material is their most meticulous yet, the result of ample rehearsal hours during lockdown. Unconcerned with how they\u2019d translate the songs live, Gilla Band were more interested in sculpting sounds with the freedom of electronic producers. Blistering opener \u201cThe Gum\u201d was inspired by Daft Punk\u2019s nasty\u00a0Homework<\/em> gem \u201cRollin\u2019 & Scratchin\u2019\u201d as well as Jai Paul\u2019s mastery of\u00a0sidechain compression. Kiely\u2019s vocals, usually blasting in the foreground, are coated in a film of filthy distortion; Duggan buries him deeper under heaving pulses of guitar that fragment into a warped disco beat.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The four-piece formed as\u00a0Girl Band in 2011, issuing two full lengths in the lead-up to\u00a0Most Normal<\/em>, 2015\u2019s\u00a0Holding Hands With Jamie<\/em>, and 2019\u2019s\u00a0The Talkies<\/em>. The name change was a sign of maturity, and the group\u00a0admitted the original moniker \u201cwas chosen without much thought, from a place of naivety and ignorance.\u201d But their sonic blueprint was ironclad from the start: Kiely\u2019s mundane yet surreal lyrics, Faulkner\u2019s punishing rhythms, Duggan\u2019s corrosive guitar parts, and Fox\u2019s ability to make his instrument sound like anything but a bass.<\/p>\n

Listening to Gilla Band records, what might spring to mind, rather than specific instruments, are slabs of concrete crashing to the ground, a subway car derailing, or robotic bees. On\u00a0Most Normal<\/em>, Gilla Band perfect these strange textures, while Kiely expands on his deranged sermons. \u201cHe went to the sink and put Vaseline on a trout,\u201d he barks on \u201cBackwash.\u201d On \u201cEight-Fivers\u201d and \u201cBin Liner Fashion,\u201d he ridicules his own \u201cshit clothes\u201d and laments his inability to pull off hats. Kiely attributes his fascination with clothing to a general interest in everyday objects; on\u00a0Holding Hands With Jamie<\/em>, he preached about\u00a0pears and\u00a0Nutella.<\/p>\n

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Sitting in the Medieval Times arena, we tentatively pick at our regimented meal of roast chicken, corn on the cob, and a baked potato with the mouthfeel of a Doc Marten. A man in full plate armor appears on the sandy tournament ring stretching before us, which pools with fog and flashing red lights. He swings a chain in the air to commence the festivities. When they\u2019re not erupting into cackling fits, the Gilla Band lads prove to be hilarious pundits. \u201cSome kid has definitely gotten terrorized by that bird,\u201d Fox says as a falcon swoops around the stadium to triumphant choral music. Of the color-coded knights mounting horses, Kiely observes, \u201cThey\u2019re all\u00a0definitely<\/em> into metal.\u201d<\/p>\n

We watch, rapt, as the Red Knight jousts with the scowling Green Knight, who Kiely dubs \u201cthe John McEnroe of Medieval Times.\u201d Their lances splinter with a loud crack as they collide with thin metal shields. The men dismount to fight on foot, and Gilla Band shout at them like crazed soccer fans.<\/p>\n

Duggan: \u201cStab him in the heart!\u201d
Kiely: \u201cGet him in the neck! Get him with the shield!\u201d
Fox: \u201cKick him in the bleedin\u2019 nuts!\u201d<\/p>\n

Sparks fly as the Green Knight clangs his axe against the Red Knight\u2019s sword. When the Red Knight falls to his knees, the Green Knight gives him a hearty kick in the rear and inexplicably \u201ckills\u201d him. Gilla Band burst into laughter, and Fox diagnoses the fatality: \u201cDeath by kick in the arse!\u201d<\/p>\n

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We return to present-day Manhattan and settle in the back of Jimmy\u2019s Corner, a Times Square dive covered in boxing memorabilia. A mounted speaker looms above our heads, blaring sensual bangers like \u201cLet\u2019s Get It On\u201d and \u201cDirty Diana.\u201d We clink pints and talk about day jobs; Fox is a producer and engineer who recently worked on the debut from Manchester electro-noise group\u00a0Mandy, Indiana. Faulkner is a sound engineer, Duggan is a professor of music business (\u201cYou teach people how to lose money,\u201d Fox jokes), and Kiely has completed a college course on peer support for mental health. More recently, he\u2019s been giving shouting lessons to his friends. What does that entail, exactly? \u201cA lot of disappointed customers,\u201d he says with a laugh. \u201cI teach how to warm up properly and how to project. It can be cathartic. It\u2019s a real intense back and forth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gilla Band don\u2019t stigmatize their need for additional income. \u201cThe Minutemen would talk about working as a car mechanic or something. I thought that was so cool,\u201d Fox says when considering the difficulty of living solely off of streams and merch sales. \u201cIt\u2019s more accessible. Ordinary working people have the\u00a0 same legitimacy as artists as anyone else.\u201d Duggan nods. \u201cThe first time we met [our label] Rough Trade, they were like, \u2018We don\u2019t think you\u2019re gonna sell a lot of records,\u2019\u201d he recalls. \u201cWe always knew it was gonna be more niche.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because their music isn\u2019t hitched to commercial success, they can squeeze themselves into increasingly strange terrain. Discomfort was a running theme of the sessions for\u00a0Most Normal<\/em>, the most uncomfortable moment for Kiely being the tinnitus-like squeal that opens \u201cThe Weirds.\u201d \u201cI found it disgusting,\u201d he says. He wasn\u2019t the only one to take offense. Duggan says that one fan emailed to say he\u2019d remixed the song to reduce the feedback, certain it was a mistake. For Gilla Band, an adverse reaction can be a sign that something is working. \u201cIt\u2019s like eating really spicy food,\u201d Fox says. A sensation so painful it\u2019s pleasing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Still, the group has some notable fans\u2014namely, uh, Ed Sheeran. They assume an air of impish withholding when I inquire about an\u00a0Instagram post, a shot of Kiely and Duggan in a bar next to a smiling Sheeran, who took the photo. \u201cWe will not explain,\u201d Kiely says, sitting up a little straighter. \u201cHe\u2019s a dear friend.\u201d Given the band\u2019s penchant for taking the piss, I tell Kiely that I don\u2019t believe him. \u201cHe\u2019s come to some of our gigs,\u201d Duggan says. Reaching for his phone, he holds up a\u00a0concert photo taken from behind Faulkner\u2019s drum kit, zooming in on the crowd. There, standing in the front row, is Ed Sheeran, clapping and smiling politely. But the question remains: How the fuck do they know Ed Sheeran?! When Kiely does not budge, I suggest that he\u2019s signed some sort of Ed Sheeran friendship NDA. Kiely laughs, and then resumes his cagey performance: \u201cWe\u2019re not rats.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

Source URL: https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/thepitch\/going-to-medieval-times-with-gilla-band-irish-noise-aficionados\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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