Shunt Voltage: An Electrifying Musical Interview

An electronic project based in the North West of England UK, Shunt Voltage is nothing short of a musical electrifying band! I met one of its members for a great interview!

1) Hello Jamie! How is the current going lately? (laughs!) Thank you so much for joining me on the Balearic Breakfast blog! Colleen featured Shunt Voltage's music several times during Balearic Breakfast, and we all dig it a lot! By the way, are you into electronics? (laughs!)

Hi Artur, the current is flowing very well thanks, and thank you for inviting us on. Yes! it’s actually Damian who knows all about circuit boards and capacitors etc. It's great for us because he’s really good with the gear we use.

2) On Facebook I read that quote from your latest musical effort: "Thanks to Andrew Weatherall for bringing us together". How did you guys actually meet, and what led you to create music under the "Shunt Voltage" moniker?

I had worked with Damian for many years on previous projects that he had been involved with, and so we just decided to start our own project. Initially, there were another two guys involved and SV started life a little more organic sounding. When they left, it kind of forced us to approach things differently and we became more electronic-based. We had a rehearsal room (the Bunker) where our mates, who we’d known for years and with whom we used to hang out, played music and did photography/art and so Karl started to look after the projections when we played live.

We wanted a name that kind of reflected what we were doing and so, with Damian's knowledge of electronics, he suggested a few names and we both instantly agreed: 'Shunt Voltage' sounded right… I think he then explained to me what it meant which wasn’t quite as exciting, but it still sounded right! The Andrew Weatherall nod is a reference to the sonic ecosystem that in a roundabout way enabled us to hook up with Duncan Gray and John Paynter/Ben Lewis for the remixes on our 12" release.

The same musical ecosystem was also a catalyst for a previous release 'Scapeism' on Duncan Gray's Tici Taci label which was remixed by Sons Of Slough (Duncan Gray & Ian Weatherall).

3) That's quite impressive indeed! And it leads us to the song played by Colleen on the 173rd episode of Balearic Breakfast, 'To What Degree (A Space Age Freak Out)' which, in its essence, is quite close to some tracks played at the Loft (I'm thinking about

"Torch Song's "Prepare to Energize" here), with that bumping spacey feeling to it. How was that tune born and how did you guys collaborate with ASAFO on that one?

The SV version came about like most of our tracks, just experimenting with ideas and jamming things out. We like using vocals but not too much, we try to avoid being too song like (i.e verse chorus and so on). I think minimal lyrics and repetition are good enough hook lines in themselves.

Our manager, Paul (Beautiful Burnouts), was the catalyst behind the remixes. He’s put on a number of gigs that John Paynter and SV have appeared on the same bill, and so we’ve got to know John and become friends. We submitted a couple of tracks and a remix for John's “Shelter Me” projects, so it made complete sense to ask him alongside Ben Lewis to do a mix, they did a great job with it, and gave it a bit more of a club vibe. We were also really pleased with the Duncan Gray remix of 'Cowboys', which was a bit more industrial electro-funk style! So all in all we're proud of our first vinyl release!

4) I went down memory lane and listened back to the 120th Balearic Breakfast episode where another track of yours was featured, "Generator", another very electrical name indeed, laughs! It's also a very interesting track because it has some beautiful stereo effects, quite frighteningly realistic, I must say, and also a beautiful soundstage, which helps the listener lose himself in the Sound. How do you work on a track? Do you start with a rhythm or a beat, or do you go another way around while creating?

Yes, we have a few running electric themes. Our first release on Bandcamp was titled "Electro Circus”, but this was actually a nod and a wink to the infamous 70’s punk night in Manchester the Electric Circus, where many great bands played like Buzzcocks,

Talking Heads and Fall etc.

Back to the question… Generator started life very differently to how it ended up. It was based around a Can-type groove on bass guitar and drums mixed with some industrial-type sounds, it was an unusual blend of ideas which is what we still try to do now.

Eventually, things were replaced by sequencers and drum machines. However we retained the industrial aspect of it to keep the original spirit of the song and, finally, to finish off, the vocal idea was developed. We generally process all our vocals one way or another

to make them a bit more interesting.

5) You're quite busy lately, as I saw you also had a few dates this year leading you to the Social in London! Congratulations! With all of that going on, what's next for Shunt Voltage? Any chance an album could be in the making?

We self-released our first vinyl 12’ this year. Hopefully, if we sell all the copies we can fund another release at some point later this year.

We also have a single called “Resistor” (keeping the theme going, ha!) being digitally released through Paisley Dark alongside remixes from Adult DVD, Mindbender, Cosmikuro and A Space Age Freak Out.

Other than that I guess our future plans are to carry on doing everything we’ve been doing, more gigs and more music.

Thank you Jamie!

Thanks Artur!