Alan Dearling is in musing mode
After seeing Aircooled live at the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge very recently I have been new music reviewing today in my studio…two albums, both featuring Oliver Cherer. His new one: ‘Furlongs’ under the aka of Gilroy Mere, pastoral, gently ambient, gorgeous sound-scapes. And, the latest from Aircooled, which also features Oliver along with his musical colleagues Riz, Katharine, Justin & Mew who has joined the band. Their latest album is more funky, more American sounding, lots of grooves, riffing off into underworldly territories. It’s still psychedelic, but perhaps less so than earlier albums. To me it makes nods towards Hawkwind, early hippy Donovan, Pink Floyd and Kate Bush on some tracks.
As I listened to the two new albums, as is my wont, I scribble notes, thoughts, ideas about the music and the antecedents. Unusually though, I took two pics of the scribbles and sent them to Oliver for his responses.
Oliver Cherer
Aircooled: ‘My God It’s Full of Stars!’
Oliver: “It’s interesting that you suggested Ultramarine is like a Gilroy Mere tune. I didn’t think that one was going to make it onto an AC record. It probably would have languished in my “to revisit at some indeterminate future date” folder but the band picked it. Tölt similarly. Tölt was Riz vocalising over a demo I don’t remember making and turning it into something. The words for Idiots were written on mic in the time it takes to sing them. Kepler is a love song that points out that there might be other viable planets to live on (those numbers are all planets) but here’s not so bad with the right person.”
Alan: Next, Oliver gives me the details of the evolution of the tracks on the new Aircooled album.
Oliver:
‘Delirious’: Written thinking about how a rock band does disco. A discussion about drum sounds led us to Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance album’, so the first solo was added to Justin’s drum track as a kind of Stevie Ray Vaughan joke that I was going to wipe, but the band liked it so instead we turned it up. The opening guitar chucking was supposed to be a nod to Nile Rodgers but ended up sounding more like Andy Gill I think. I was going to change “Mutherfuckers” to “Mellon Farmers “ – partly because it’s a better rhyme for “Pyjamas” and partly because it was the substitute word Harry Dean Stanton used in “Repo Man” and that always amused me. I was out-voted though.
‘Azmar’: You’re right – an attempt at an eastern flourish. Riz and I had been listening to a lot of Turkish Psych rock and I thought she’d like to do something like this. It came from the guitar riff but I think is transformed by Riz’s other worldly vocalising. We added some clarinet from Helen who played on the GM album and Riz contributed flute. I think Hawkwind is a fair point to make. Early on someone described us as “Kraftwind”. Azmar is named after the vape shop at the end of my road – it’s a little more Turkish than we are.
‘See it Detective’: Transformed by Riz’s “Kate Bush” vocals at the end I think. Almost took my vocals out of the mix but was persuaded otherwise. We’re very democratic! I like your comment about “space whisper vocals”. It’s one side of an imagined conversation between a detective and a lower ranking police officer at a murder scene. Musically I have always felt that this was cut from similar cloth to Marianne Faithfull’s ‘Broken English’ – always loved those tense, jagged, jangling guitars and cold synths. This is probably the band’s favourite to play live.
‘Kepler’: I love all the references you make for Kepler. This came out of a new synthesiser. The riff (that appears only once) was the first thing I played. I thought it sounded a bit like Gary Numan and wondered if we’d get away with it but I think the band took care of that. It’s a bunch of mixed images and yes, ‘2000 Light Years From Home’ is a good call, though it hadn’t occurred to me. It’s where the album title comes from and that of course is taken from 2001 (I think it’s the book rather than the film, though it was pointed out to me recently that it’s all over the sequel, which I haven’t seen).
Lyrically it’s about our tiny place in the universe. The chant is a list of planets that might be viable for human habitation – somewhere to escape to perhaps.
‘Ultramarine’: A song about a slow descent into an increasingly digital and artificial world. You’re probably right – it does have a Gilroyishness about it. The strings were recorded by Cathy Thompson, the sister of our close friend and band roadie JT, who had died recently. She’s a big time session player and she did it as a favour and it made us all cry. This song will always have that extra level of meaning for us. Hard to do live without a 40 piece string orchestra though.
‘Idiots’: A reaction to gentrification. It’s really accelerated since lockdown with a London exodus of people with money. I think it sounds like Dr Feelgood playing a Talking Heads tune but God knows what other people make of it. The verse vocal was improvised, words and all, in one take over an odd measure of bars and had to be edited down to fit a more regular structure. We first played this song in the same gallery that gave me the line about the “idiot led space” – there was a sign in the window that read “an artist led space by artists for artists”. I don’t hate artists. It’s also the first episode of Nathan Barley.
‘Tolt’: Pink Floyd gets referenced a lot with this tune. It wasn’t deliberate but that stuff is all in there. It has subsequently influenced the way I approach this live with very Pink Floyd guitar sounds. It started as a little electric piano groove that Riz wrote the entire vocal part over. She transformed an unfinished, half idea into something magical.
The title, according to Wikipedia means:
“Tölt, a four-beat lateral ambling gait mainly found in Icelandic horses around the Tolt River, located in the western foothills of the Cascade Mountains, United States.”
Gilroy Mere: ‘Furlongs’
Oliver: “Pleased to see references to Virginia Astley, Steve Reich and Terry Riley – all influences I’d readily acknowledge. Walk a Line is also kind of referencing the land artists like Richard Long and Andy Goldsworthy.”
Alan: Here are some detailed thoughts from Oliver on the creative process and gestation of the tracks that feature on ‘Furlongs’. You can see some of my observations on the album, such as, “gentle, hypnotic soundscapes…floating, gorgeous…classical ambient…Arcadian sounds…reverential reverb…conjuring up bygone ages.”
Oliver: ‘On The Road’:
This is one that’s named after an Eric Ravilious painting. It uses the first theme I came up with. It’s a G major arpeggio, played mostly on a classical style guitar made in 1974 by Robert Kaye Kneller. I mention this merely because he is from Worthing – another South Downs coastal town so it feels like there’s a connection. I found the guitar in a Bexhill charity shop years ago.
I was working on the train on my laptop and this theme was the first thing I wrote for the album and initially the whole collection was to be based on this little repeated figure. It does crop up again later but gradually many of the early pieces were replaced as the writing got into its stride. That arpeggio idea was conceived as a metaphor for the gentle undulations of the downs. My hospital train journeys took me along the foot of The Downs so it seeped into the music very quickly. The amalgamation of the landscape, motion and Eric Ravilious was gradual though, and happened as a kind of osmosis until it crystallised into a fully formed concept.
‘A Wet Afternoon’: Again, a Ravilious painting. Just trying to evoke a wet road, a wet garden, a journey in the rain. Electric guitar, bass, synths and a recording of the rain outside my garden studio.
‘Furlongs 1’: There are two versions of this tune on the record. This fully realised version was actually the first of the two. It was written very quickly with each part an improvisation layered on the previous improv. These feverish improv sessions happen occasionally with me where I keep almost every pass. Many of the parts were later replaced by Hutch Demouilpied, Helen Edwards and Riz Maslen, but the writing was done in this quick, improv fashion. It’s another Eric painting, this time a view of and from the cottage he stayed in while making his Downs work.
‘Cuckmere Haven’: One of ER’s more famous paintings and another piece improvised in one hit using my phone to record the upright piano in my front room. I later replayed it in the studio to make a decent recording and it was quite hard to get right! Lifted immeasurably (in my opinion) by Helen’s clarinet. Crows were recorded at Wilmington Priory when I stayed there with my family a year or two back.
‘Walk a Line’: My appreciation of the work of Eric Ravilious comes in major part from walking on the Downs over the years. My Mum was from Brighton so the Downs have been part of my life for all of it. This song is really a description of those walks with a reference to ER’s depictions and the work of people like Andy Goldsworthy and Richard Long.
‘Chalk Paths’: Here’s that theme again. It’s a G major arpeggio played on various synths and other instruments. I played the trumpet on this (the two or three notes I can manage without passing out) in an attempt to sound like french horns. At the risk of pointing out how far short I fell, I had the prelude of ‘Das Rheingold’ in mind here. I had the vision of dawn on the downs in my head here – starting in the dark and ending in full sunshine on dewy gates and fences.
‘In Winter’: A direct attempt to evoke a particular painting. Improvised with the painting in front of me on the piano and then transferred to synthesisers.
‘Hope Gap’: This one is not an ER painting. It’s a somewhat bleak place on the edge of Seaford, with white cliffs and sea vistas. It made me think of ER’s last flight over the Icelandic Sea from which he never returned. The name, Hope Gap was also irresistible as a title to work from. This was again written very quickly with each part improvised over each previous part. Once I had the first part I deliberately constructed the piece using Gavin Bryars’ ‘Jesus Blood’ as a kind of blueprint.
‘Furlongs 2’: There are two ER Furlongs pictures (at least), 1 and 2. I improvised this second version of the first Furlongs piece on the harmonium before the first was very familiar which I think accounts for its slightly approximate similarity.
‘Beachy Head’: An attempt to evoke ER’s Beachy Head picture with the lighthouse beaming out through the fog.
Eric Ravilious Towner Gallery, Eastbourne: https://townereastbourne.org.uk/whats-on/the-ravilious-collection
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Alan: Can you give me tell me a bit more about Frances (and ClaypipeMusic), who you record with for Gilroy Mere. It seems really interesting – the mix of art, art history, pastoral images, and music – ambient, folky, floaty and electronic, methinks.
Oliver: Clay Pipe Music is a lovely label with a very loyal following. It suits me as all I need to think about is the music. There is a built in core audience that support Frances and all the artists. It has a particular aesthetic as Frances Castle both runs the label, makes all the curatorial choices and designs the sleeves and artwork. She always sends the sleeve art for approval but I have never had any reaction other than a warm excited glow. It’s a lovely thing to be a part of.
The heart of CPM is gentle, English electronica but she has ventured into folkier and pure ambient territory, but everything she has issued has a sense of place. I mean in geographic terms. Occasionally that is stretched to include outer space or night time but everything seems to evoke the psychgeographic or hauntological in some way. We both recently appeared on a panel at the launch of Dr Phil Hubbard’s book ‘Listening to Landscape’ as “eminent hauntologists” (my own phrase and an attempt at self- mockery) because of these CPM traits I think.
It’s very much the boutique label and the place where I feel most at home.
http://www.claypipemusic.co.uk/
Alan: Finally, the inevitable question about the amazing range of activities you are currently involved and planning.
Oliver: I do have these periods of overactivity! Partly it’s because the planning isn’t great so things that would be better spaced out all come together and I find myself run a little ragged.
Last year I did a little European tour playing bass with the Miki Berenyi Trio and Lol Tolhurst (ex of the Cure) and part way through received my cancer diagnosis over the phone. After the tour we cancelled the UK leg while I did six weeks radiotherapy. They very helpfully shifted the radiotherapy so that it fell conveniently between an appearance on BBC Loose Ends and a three week tour of the USA. As you know, during this six weeks I wrote the Gilroy Mere album, largely on the train. After the American tour (where I also ended up playing bass for Gina Birch when her band didn’t get their visas) I got on with writing and recording the Aircooled third album whilst doing all the UK MB3 dates rescheduled from the spring.
This year we got that out, did a few shows and I got involved with co-writing and recording the second MB3 album (which is almost finished). Then the Gilroy album activity started up with a couple of shows and a Bandcamp listening party/pre-order. The GM shows were at The Towner Gallery in Eastbourne, which houses the Ravilious collection and the Horse Hospital in Bloomsbury. Both shows sold out so we’ll probably do more – in fact I’ve booked one at Kino in St Leonards for 27th November.
There will be a few shows with MB3 and another European tour with Lol Tolhurst.
I’m currently working with Aircooled on a fourth album and a “lost album” of songs that never found a home before though this is very much back burner stuff when other projects are busy. Maybe one day I’ll finish that album!
Interview with Electronic Café: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uu3P6o18fWU
The MB3 record will be out in February ’27 and there’ll be some UK touring in May and probably the far east too.
I plan to take 2028 off!
Alan: A final, final question, a little bit about your ‘back-catalogue’…you were really quite well known as Dollboy, for quite some time, and in Cooler before that.
Oliver: Here’s part of what I’ve put up online about that…
After Cooler, I started making quiet, beatless music. I went back to Eno and Bowie’s ‘Low’ and ‘Heroes’, Harmonia, Neu, Kraftwerk etc. I made music for myself to listen to in the bath. At some point Anna Haigh asked me for tracks for her mate’s compilation and she passed on a couple of these pieces. When asked who had made them she said “it’s my mate Dollboy”, which was her nickname for me at that point and so the next phase started. That comp got picked up by Nick Luscombe at xFM and The Big Chill and suddenly Dollboy was something. Loads of shows, festivals, radio sessions and six or seven albums followed and there may be more to come, who knows?
That’s not my name…
Although there have been many members of a Dollboy live band really it was just me in my studio most of the time and after a while it seemed silly to be hiding behind an assumed name, especially one as silly as Dollboy! So in 2014 I released my first record under my own name. And that’s where I am now. So far, there are three Oliver Cherer albums, Sir Ollife Leigh & Other Ghosts, The Myth of Violet Meek & I Feel Nothing Most Days. Plus a collaboration with Riz Maslen and Andrew Kötting, ‘The Whalebone Box’.
This coincided with a period of making and releasing a lot of music in different styles and under different pseudonyms, (something for which I have rather embarrassingly picked up a bit of a reputation). There were records issued by Polytechnic Youth, Front & Follow, Deep Distance, Modern Aviation etc. most of which sold out quickly and are now long gone.
Aliases include: Australian Testing Labs Inc., Dollboy, Gilroy Mere, The Assistant (3), The Wrestler
In Groups: Aircooled, Cooler, Kiss The Blade (2), Rhododendron (3), Silver Servants, Statues In Fog, Miki Berenyi Trio
Aircooled Music: http://aircooledmusic.co.uk/
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