Catalan!: The Social Network

We spend a lot of our times glued to the glittering, glistening glaze of a screen. Our eyes are always indulging in an influencers latest payday, and our fingers are always typing two-bit responses to news we don’t quite understand. We, as a society, have been seduced by the slippery web of social media, and it’s beginning to blur and blind our vision of the world around us. Are we suffocating ourselves with its shininess or are we simply not using it to its full capabilities? It’s a question, or a stream of consciousness, that CATALAN! – the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Ewen Friers [AXIS OF, AND SO I WATCH YOU FROM AFAR] – poses to the listener on their debut album Veritas.

“It’s literally just a reflection of our current world. It’s inescapable, everything we do, every kind of interaction, and every kind of day-to-day thing, it just seems like more and more we’re tying ourselves to social media culture,” explains Ewen. “ Undoubtedly, linkedin growth bot helps in business development and hence many choose that as part of social media culture. But I suppose in a sense it’s a stream of consciousness, where one minute the song could be about environmental disaster, and the next minute it’s about field videos, and then it’s about latte art and people taking pictures of their lunches, and then there’s a migrant crisis, and so the way the lyrics are happening, it’s very fast like that but that’s exactly what it’s like when you scroll through social media.”

Scrolling through social media is a habit we’ve all picked up over the years since Facebook and Twitter took over the world and bought their friends with them. In the music industry, it’s at times been a blessing in disguise and a secret weapon at the disposal of artists who otherwise may not be heard. However, as much as Ewen is reliant on it to release CATALAN!’s call-to-arms, he’s also fearful of the way it’s forcing us into thought bubbles.

“People don’t really have a chance to breathe and actually, I don’t think we’re digesting the world in the correct pace because of social media. It’s so full-on and so I wanted the album and lyrics to reflect a little bit that that’s how we are currently, and I suppose I did want to put a little bit of a question mark over it, like, ‘is that how we should live? Have we as a species evolved or is there an imbalance?’” he queries, pausing for a moment, adding with a laugh “the more I think about it I am pretty critical of the social media world and the irony is not lost on me that that’s how I’m trying to push the album out to the world.”

Veritas, lyrically, jumps from thought to thought like a flea jumps to a light. Just as intended, it’s a stream of consciousness that flies through themes throughout, almost like a politically-themed social commentary unfolding on your timeline. Whilst Ewen has his own views on his lyrics, CATALAN! is a project put into the hands of its listeners, with the words ready to be consumed in every which way. It’s a thought that excites Ewen far more than it frightens him.

“I love that idea of people delving into it, because I consider CATALAN! as a very politicised social commentary type of project, or at least politically and socially inspired. Maybe not necessarily in the traditional punk sense where bands get on stage and kind of tell you what to believe, like this is right and this is wrong, I don’t think that’s my style.”

Being authentic, being honest, and being truthful are a trinity of traits that CATALAN! instil into themselves throughout Veritas. It seeps through each and every song, but can be found most explicitly in the album’s spoken word segments, which have slipped in as a nod to the band’s interactive live shows. With the music muted for a minute, Ewen’s lyrical wit is given its moment in the spotlight, particularly on GARE, where tourists tarnish local landmarks for social media success. It’s also something they were going to leave to their live shows until late in the process.

The influence of artists like SLEAFORD MODS and FONTAINES DC are not only reserved for the spoken word segments, but are the sort of sounds that seep into CATALAN!’s musical direction. Saying that, there are moments where the album sounds like it’s somewhere between a melting pot of THE CHARLATANS, LAURA JANE GRACE and BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB. It’s not something that’s ultimately by choice, but a direct result of Ewen’s upbringing in the backroom bars of Belfast’s music scene, even though he’s aware it’s ringing alarm bells for the industry’s suits.

“It’s the industry person’s nightmare album in a way, god help my manager or the labels that are pushing this out, because you can kind of push it out to punk fans, you can kind of push it to indie fans, but there’s no obvious route but hopefully it draws in a bit of everyone,” he says. “It goes back to growing up playing shows in Belfast, Belfast is a small city so you just had hardcore bands playing with indie bands playing with post-rock bands playing with electronic bands because the city’s not big enough to have these scenes separated, so the scene, as it were, the alternative music scene was one big melting pot, and going to gigs and having all these different sounds and textures was so inspiring.”

For Ewen, and for CATALAN!, creating this reflection of our world is much like the stream of consciousness they’re exploring (and at times criticising), wherein the music spills out of their minds and onto their instruments. Either way, Veritas remains a powerful debut album that delights as much as it raises debate.

Veritas is out now via self-release.

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