Volcano The Bear: The Idea Of Wood

Navel-Gazers #59 is an interview with Nick Mott and Aaron Moore of Volcano The Bear who are going to talk to us about The Idea Of Wood. I wouldn’t ordinarily use the word “timeless” to describe…. well, much of anything, but earlier today I was revisiting this album with a fresh set of ears to prepare for our discussion, when I was struck with the most remarkable sense of temporal dislocation. When was this album recorded, was it the 90s, the 2010s? 2004 apparently, although if I didn’t know better I’d just as soon have guessed the 80s, or 70s, who knows. Volcano The Bear always came across to me as a group not so much out of step with the times as happily indifferent, inhabiting some sort of imaginary universe with its own earth-like lexicon of sights and sounds and behaviours which will seem to carry on existing whether we’re paying attention or not. But I do recall now what first caught my attention: it was this cover image - one of Nick’s - from the ‘The Idea Of Wood’ back in 2004, and to say the image tipped me off to the music I was about to hear is not inaccurate. That is to say the music of Volcano The Bear - like the imagery - is very nearly inexplicable but also, utterly arresting. This is navel-gazing gold-dust of the highest order, and I have many questions for its creators. Please readers, bear with us!

AC: Thanks for joining me on Navel-Gazers! I want to start with an extremely basic question and ask what exactly Volcano The Bear is (or was)? as in my intro I almost typed “band” but then I recalled that this guy Pablo Picco a.k.a. Bardo Todol in Navel-Gazers #53 actually quoted - perhaps paraphrasing - someone from Volcano The Bear, as saying: When you became a group... it’s better to avoid the idea of a ¨band¨. Aha.. so what is/was Volcano The Bear?

Nick Mott: Thanks for having us! I can't speak for everyone, yet for me the entire point of Volcano The Bear was to have a creative musical environment that was free of constraint. I'd grown tired of rehearsing songs in a band 2 or 3 times a week. I'd been in a band with Aaron for a few years and he was looking for something else too. I was bored of playing the guitar, at least in any kind of typical way, and wanted to explore sound in a much broader way. 

I don't have the discipline or musicianship to be in a band, and I still struggle with creative collaboration, preferring solitary artistic practice. The great thing about the formation of VTB into anything resembling a group was that it was unintentional and didn't play by band rules. Within the first year various people became involved to varying degrees simply because we were open to anything. The quartet that VTB soon became spent so much time together outside of making music that it hardly ever felt like being in a band. We were a small collective of people who accidentally generated and shared something rare. I can speak less of what VTB 'is' these days. I do know it's something with a life of its own though.

Aaron Moore: I do like that quote from Pablo Picco, I wish I'd said that. Maybe one of us did? I can't recall.

So, the idea of VTB was to be the opposite of what a normal band was, we initially thought of ourselves as an anti-band. We set out to create an artistic environment free from any boundaries. 

VTB immediately had its own spirit, as if The Bear was its own entity and we were there to fuel it. I think we were trying to remove the ego from music making. Also, the idea of having a serious artistic project that didn't necessarily require one's involvement all the time was an important part of the concept. If two of us had a recording session without the other two it was still a VTB recording. We revelled in the ambiguous options that we'd made available to ourselves. We had/have this philosophy of trust, trusting each other's contributions to be the correct ones. Chance and acceptance. 

AC: I know that approach well from live improvisation. That can be an interesting challenge in terms of how it gets applied to the album format, since constructing an album typically entails a great deal of decision-making. Would anyone have final cut on track listings, titles, mixes etc., and if not, how would those decisions get made?

Nick Mott: I think we always operated in such a way that we all had equal say in decision making. That's not to say we all had to agree with every single thing we did - we trusted each other, we all at different times took the lead on certain ideas, and we tried to ensure that all of us were enjoying everything we did enough to pursue it. If any of us weren't on board with something then we'd abandon it. Studio mixing sessions with all of us in attendance could be really exciting due to the combined creative process, whereas at other times it was clearly best to leave just one or two of us to it. The Idea of Wood was born from studio sessions specifically to make that particular album, and as far as I recall ideas flowed easily, harmoniously, and naturally from all of us. I can't remember why I took full charge of the artwork for this particular record - it was perhaps 'my turn'? Tracks were often titled as such simply because they made us laugh. 

Aaron Moore: The approach was always live improvisation. All the tracks on IOW come from group improvisations. Some had overdubs, some had edits. She Whistles… was pretty much a live take with no overdubs if I recall correctly, just an edit or two. The whole album was created in the studio so we had no preconceived ideas of what the music was going to be. I think that helped with any decisions that needed to be made. We had a few days in the studio, we'd try things and because the ideas were so fresh we didn't have time to analyse or define them. And again, the trust comes into it. Trust of each other but also trusting in our own input. Sometimes one wouldn't be convinced by one's own contribution but the others would assure them that their performance was right for the piece. We left a lot up to chance.

I have to correct Nick about the art though. The original image of the tree on the front cover was from a photo I took in Ireland. Nick subsequently added the rest.

AC: You mention that there were dedicated studio sessions for ‘The Idea Of Wood’, but no preconceived music. So where did the idea to do an album come from on this occasion? Was it that you had a studio booked (or did you have your own studio?), or a discussion with the label? Did you have a title before starting? Generally, is this how each VTB album has developed or do they all have different stories?

Nick Mott: On this occasion we were asked if we would like to make an album for a label we hadn't worked with before, Textile, so we chose to create the record from scratch in just one studio we'd used a lot in the past - mainly because the engineer, Kev Reverb, was so sympathetic to our working methods. Regarding any discussion with the label, I believe we were pretty much left to our own devices, and we chose to make a record that in retrospect feels like the logical next step from the 500 Boy Piano album. I have no recollection of where the album title came from! Each VTB album has a different story. I think this was the first time a VTB album was released in the way we originally intended it to sound, and subsequently released on the label that originally asked for it. 500 Boy was originally intended for another label, and The Inhazer Decline album ended up very differently to the original version we sent to Steve Stapleton, for example. 

Aaron Moore: The album was named after a track we'd recorded a couple of years before. We would often title albums after tracks that didn't appear on the said album. Yak Folk's Y'are, The Inhazer Decline, The Idea Of Wood, The One Burned Ma and Amidst The Noise And Twigs were all named using that method. Kev's studio, Memphis (situated in Leicester), was our go to studio for our more expansive sessions. We also recorded a lot of stuff at our various homes on 4 track and 8 track studios we had at our disposal. Though we'd always be back at Memphis to have them mastered by Kev. 

AC: To linger on the topic of improv vs composition, you mentioned how all the tracks on ‘The Idea Of Wood’ came from group improvisations. But then there are elements that are probably not improvised, for example I hear unison singing on the final track The Mountains Among Us and a couple of the others. So what's the process there, how do those things come together? Were you ever able to recreate this material in a live playing context?

Nick Mott: The process, mostly in the making of tracks for this album, involved initial improvisations that were either entirely spontaneously created as a group or based on a simple idea one of us had, whether that be a musical phrase or a suggestion of trying something relating to a group of instruments or sounds. In this studio we tended to record first takes of things with microphones and/or direct lines into the desk from each of our individual instruments, while having other microphones capturing the overall group sound of the studio. We would then listen back to the recordings and spend time editing and/or adding overdubs as required. I don't recall this process ever being difficult. To the contrary, it was mostly fun times for all involved. Whenever we performed anything previously recorded on stage, we rarely felt restricted by anything a certain track may have resembled before and adapted things we wanted to play live as required. 

Aaron Moore: The vocals would generally be added after the initial recordings. Sometimes the lyrics would be written in the studio or they'd be worked on afterwards and overdubbed at a later session. I did the lion's share of lyric writing and vocals, though there were exceptions where we'd all collaborate on words or sing parts together. Then again there'd be vocals improvised from the outset, She Whistles....... on the Idea Of Wood for instance.

The live stuff was very fluid. The preceding album 500 Boy Piano was mainly pieces from our live set that we committed to tape. The IOW sessions was mainly all new stuff, some of which got adapted to a live setting. We would use an element or 2, like the cello line and lyrics/vocals of Woman Who Weighs Out The Wood, or the lyrics/vocal melody from The Mountains Among Us and rework them/use them as springboards for further improvisation on stage. We were/are always recycling sounds and ideas. 

The Woman Who Weighs Out The Wood was a re-working of a track initially called The Woman Who Weighed Out The Wool we did for a comp. A version then turned up on the album Volfurten as The Woman Who Waited For The Woman Who Weighed Out The Wool, eventually morphing into a track called Amateurs Blind (on the Commencing box set and Amateur Shakes album). Same adapted cello line and lyrics/vocals. That playfulness with a simple element is very much the spirit of what we've always done.  

AC: Your explanation interests me as I think musicians are often reluctant to do things like that - recycle something that was originally improvised, for example - yet for you it came naturally. And, why not?

Nick Mott: I think we exploited and capitalised on what came naturally, rather than ever try and aim for anything specific. That way we were endlessly rewarded with ideas instead of being disappointed with failed expectations or plans. We found that reframing ideas in different contexts allowed for constant evolution of tracks. I’m not even sure we were capable of performing anything the same way twice. 

Aaron Moore: We liked the idea of not defining what we did. So why not have multiple versions of the same idea. They were always pretty fresh as we didn't rehearse material much. Perhaps we were also inspired by the free jazz we were listening to, particularly Albert Ayler as he only seemed to have half a dozen tracks that kept appearing on the records we'd buy of his. 

AC: Thanks for the scoop on ‘Woman Who Weighs Out The Wood’, which is one of my favourite tracks here. I want to ask about another track, Curly Robot, particularly some sounds towards the beginning which appear from around the 0:50 mark. There’s some really strange stuff happening with pitch and speed in this passage. What are we hearing?

Nick Mott: Curly Robot originated from a painfully simple 4-note (actually just 2 notes a couple of octaves apart) piano refrain I had been playing. I wasn’t really convinced as the melody had no edge, and seemed far too sweet and lightweight. As soon as everyone joined in though, the track started to gain more traction. The first mix we did, that eventually ended up on the Commencing box set, we abandoned for being too ‘normal’. We radically remixed the track and added tons of extra overdubs and tape manipulations - I can’t remember exactly what they were or how we did it though! The name Curly Robot came from a metal hand drum that was wearing a wig. 

Aaron Moore: The sounds you hear from 0:50 are clarinet, piano, violin, prepared guitar, 4 track tape and cymbals. 

AC: How did people react to this album? Generally speaking how have people reacted to Volcano The Bear, both in your local part of the UK and beyond?

Nick Mott: Haha! Good question. Personally, I honestly have little idea / can’t remember how anyone reacted to this particular album - I do remember an excellent tour in Europe though, organised by the label owner Benoit, whether that came before or after the album came out, again I don’t recall. Those shows went down with audiences well. Maybe we weren’t even playing any tracks from this record! Perhaps Aaron has better memories? How have people reacted to VTB beyond that? I think we’ve always been too obtuse and unpredictable for most folk - you can’t really put any of our records on and expect anything that sustains a consistent mood, or doesn’t take a few wrong turns here and there. There’s always been enough enthusiastic people on our side, locally and beyond - and I’m forever grateful for anyone who ever took the time to listen to what we’ve made. 

Aaron Moore: The tour Nick mentions was a co-headline tour with Jackie O MF who also had an album out on Textile. We generally got received very well outside of the UK. Nick stopped playing live with us around 2006 but we continued touring for another 8 years or so. Laurence stopped touring after a mammoth euro tour of 2007 - after that Daniel and I continued touring as a duo for a number of years. 

Some countries really loved what we did - France, Germany, Scandinavia in particular. At home we were often disregarded as a novelty, though we always had good support in Leicester. We'd maybe play to 30-40 people at most UK gigs, then regularly play to 150 in some French and German cities. We would often confuse people at our gigs as they weren't sure whether they were allowed to laugh or not. We weren't chin strokers and would add a good deal of humour and playfulness to our sets.

AC: I was always drawn to that humour and I encourage our readers to seek out footage of your live sets. What a trip!

Aaron Moore: And so they should!

AC: In a previous interview here on Navel-Gazers, Jeremy from Bablicon mentioned a collaboration which had occurred between the two groups. I’m fascinated by this as it seems the recordings have never seen the light of day. Please tell us all about it.

Aaron Moore: We did a US tour and 2 UK tours with Bablicon. Great times! I'm trying to think of specific collaborative recordings we made. I recall doing some loose recording at the Truck Stop in Chicago where Griffin had a studio/lived at the time. We also did some ad hoc recordings the night of a gig in Cleveland, OH. The gig actually never happened as when we arrived the venue was closed and there was a "cancelled" gig poster in the window. Unfortunately, no-one had bothered to tell the bands! We somehow were allowed access to the venue so we could spend the night there. The place was filthy, and we pretty much slept on the stage. But prior to that we set up all our equipment and played through the evening in a loose collaborative set-up. I'm presuming this was recorded on mini disc but I can't recall ever hearing it after the event. I remember one lady turned up who had driven for about 4 hours to see the gig. She'd made cookies for us and spent the evening hanging out. 

There was also a gig we did in Edinburgh where about 3 people turned up. We decided to do a set each and then a set together. I'm not sure if that got recorded. There was a lot of speed going round that night and we probably forgot to capture it on tape. 

Other than that, Jeremy lived in Leicester for a couple of years or so (including a 2 or 3 month spell at my old flat). Laurence (VTB), Jeremy and I ended up doing a project together called Guignol (mainly recorded in France but some recordings from my flat too). I think Nick ended up on a couple of tracks on the album, also Jeff Mangum joined in on 1 or 2 of the French sessions. Anyway, Jeremy was around a lot and we (VTB, especially Laurence) were always recording stuff, so Laurence particularly ended up with a lot of Jeremy's piano playing recorded. Some of those recordings have been used by Laurence in some of his solo projects. His latest (secret) project IMZRBZ uses a lot of those old recordings collaged in Laurence's inimitable way. He's been experimenting with extremely limited lathe cut pressings, like 3 to 5 copies of each on 5" and 7". Jeremy is featured on most of them, as are VTB members and others. 

Speaking of the lathe experiments - VTB are about to press up a handful of 12" lathes with about 25 minutes of new (and old/new/recycled) material. One track per side. If they work out ok we'll probably press a few more up for sale on our bandcamp page. 

So, I'm not really sure if there was ever a true collaboration intended to be worked into an album, just some happenstance events that were rough around the edges and not intended for release. But maybe Jeremy needs to investigate what he has.

Nick Mott: Further to everything Aaron has already outlined, a lot of which I had forgotten about, I do remember a tape Jeremy gave me with some rough mixes/edits of the loose collaborations. I recall it sounding really exciting at times, and I’m not sure why we didn’t pursue it further. I should probably try and find that tape….We have other collaborative recordings somewhere with other musicians including Michael Snow, Nurse With Wound, and Mats Gustafsson that we haven’t done anything with either (most likely because a lot of those other attempts at collaboration weren’t very good). Bablicon made for excellent kindred spirits with VTB when touring and playing together. Fun times. 

AC: Perhaps they were from that same earth-like universe which I described in my introduction. …or an adjacent one. 

Nick Mott: Yeah, most likely - fellow aliens are hard to find.

AC: Are there other artists you’ve known or admired for that same reason, that they seemed like kindred spirits to Volcano The Bear? Nurse With Wound has come up a couple of times in this discussion, Bablicon… who else from the world of music or visual arts or literature or film or wherever?

Nick Mott: Personally, I always felt that VTB were mostly operating on our own. I didn’t feel part of any particular scene or pay much attention to what any potential contemporaries were doing. I don’t mean that arrogantly, rather that I was too engrossed in what we were doing, which in part was a result of wanting to do something different in the first place. 

Aaron and I, especially, were very much into NWW, and subsequently the ‘NWW list’ of sonic recommendations. Steve Stapleton and his United Dairies label felt like a natural home for our music, so I sent him a tape which initiated the release of The Inhazer Decline. 

I really don’t know where to start with listing long-time or recent artists I admire and/or relate to, or who helped shape VTB in some way - I go through multiple obsessions on a regular basis. For the last few months I’ve mostly been listening to the myriad wonders of the Rephlex label, along with as many Drexciya related things I can get my hands on. I like anything that moves my atoms around in unusual and exciting ways, and I like dancing even when I’m keeping still. 

Aaron Moore: I think we all found Faust very inspiring, particularly Faust Tapes. Some of the LAFMS (Los Angeles Free Music Society) groups were definitely on the same wavelength as us (two decades before us). Doo-Dooettes and Le Forte Four had this wonderful dadaist approach that seemed to be coming from the same place as us sometimes. I ended up getting to know a lot of the LAFMS guys when I lived in the US and ended up playing drums for AIRWAY a few times which was quite special. The LAFMS dudes were big VTB fans so there’s a lot of mutual respect between the generations.

Dome also seemed very akin to what we were trying to achieve. I remember when Nick and I first heard them, we were amazed that some of our sonic creations were similar, at least in spirit. 

It felt like we had more in common with stuff from the 70's and 80's than we did with our contemporaries. No-Neck, Vibracathedral and Sunburned for instance had this sort of long form rambling instrumental improv nature, quite contrary to VTB's more vignette style where our frequent use of vocals/songs was quite unusual.

AC: Wrapping things up here, I hope you’ve found it interesting to reflect on this 20-year-old album, which is one of my all time favourites. You mentioned some possible upcoming releases - the lathe experiments - but that the current status of the group is uncertain. What have you all been up to for the past few years, and what’s next? Any further parting comments from The Bear for our readers?

Nick Mott: I've found it really intriguing to listen back multiple times, and reflect on how and why we made it. It's been quite a nostalgic experience, and your invitation to discuss it has inspired conversations and reminisces outside of this interview, so thank you very much. It means a lot to hear it's one of your all-time favourites. That our music would be meaningful to you or anyone else gives the music purpose outside of our own indulgences. 

I'm currently working on new solo music, and it's been enlightening to remember previous working methods and approaches to improvisation. This new music will accompany a forthcoming monograph book of my artwork. I'm also recording my next LP. Both of these releases will be published by Lumberton Trading Company. I work full time as an illustration lecturer, and am always making artwork of some kind most days. Working on music is no longer a regular activity for me, yet feels great when inspiration hits. 

Regarding any parting comments - I'll just say that there's definitely more to come from VTB in various forms - watch this space, and I'd really like it if someone were to reissue both The Inhazer Decline and 500 Boy Piano on vinyl. Cheers!

Aaron Moore: I moved back to the UK in 2020 after living in Brooklyn, NY for 13 years. Since the move I've been the least musically active I've ever been. I've played one gig in 4.5 years when I used to play 2 or 3 times a month at least. However, I've slowly been working on another collab album with Erik Skodvin and a batch of songs with VTB's great friend and occasional collaborator Stewart Brackley. I'm sure there'll be more VTB stuff in the future. Laurence is always working on stuff and always keen to do more. 

Your readers should check out our bandcamp page. and my own which has some of my other past projects including Songs Of Norway with Mott and Brackley.

Thanks for reading and thanks for listening!

Volcano The Bear can be found at  http://volcanothebear.bandcamp.com. 

Aaron: http://aaronmoore2.bandcamp.com

Laurence: https://imzrbz1.bandcamp.com

Daniel: https://danielpadden.bandcamp.com/

Nick: https://www.instagram.com/the.real.nick.mott