INTRODUCING: Slung
In Ways, the debut album from SLUNG, has been a tapestry woven in parallels. It would seem that every aspect of the record has come from one extreme of the spectrum or the other. Even from the inception of this interview, vocalist Katie Oldman was having a very relaxed start to the day, while bassist and founder of the band Vlad Matveikov had been running around on a bad angle with morning appointments.
“We did everything backwards with this band. We never played a gig before we made the album,” Katie laughs on the recording. “Katie‘s right,” Vlad concurs. “Our first gig was in January the following year [after we recorded]. And also, having only played our gigs after we recorded it, we were used to them sounding and feeling completely different, so then when we actually sat down and listened to the record, it’s like, ‘oh wow, that’s what those songs were!’ And it was kind of strange, because we learned what the band was after, through the gigs, so that by the time we went back to the record, it felt like different people who made that record, which it was kind of fun. It was nice to get a genuine fresh ears on it. That seems like quite a process!”
In Ways has an untameable quality about it, shifting through genres and ideas in a way that feels like each song has its own agency, while still being part of a fuller narrative. “I think we kind of agonised though that a little bit,” Katie notes about the album order. “Actually. I remember when we were at the studio, knowing that there was such a range of different vibes, that [we wanted] to make it sound like it was a journey, rather than just like a series of unrelated things. We would say we have the party songs and then the definitely serious songs. It’s like, how do we balance them out in a way that feels like it’s flowing in momentum?”
“You kind of want to build the energy,” Vlad continues. “You don’t want to knacker people out. You want to give them a little break. And it’s just kind of timing the journey in a way that feels like it’s clever and thought out. As Katie said, that last track had to be the end. Now, some albums end on a massive track. But because we had one track with a fade out, we’re like ‘This is the end of the journey’. This sort of, like, wannabe country song is going to go at the end. So naturally we’re going to start with the biggest opening we can, which is Katie screaming at big drum fill! And then we fill the rest of the sandwich. And, yeah I think it works. All of us wanted to press it onto on vinyl as well. So it’s kind of placing it where an A side a would finish and where side B would start, and trying to get at least one interlude in as. Well, because interludes are really fun moments on records.”
It seems there’s so much cyclical energy around this record, even at this point where SLUNG are just starting to reflect on what they’ve created. “Just a quick note about the opener and the ender as well,” Katie interjects as contemplate the order of things and how the album got to where it is. “Something that I’m only, I’m only really realising, like right now in this moment as well, is that the opening track is quite like, loud and a bit more like, ‘fuck you’. And that was written about issues with authority figures telling you you can or can’t be something, and just saying, ‘you know what, get fucked.’ And then at the very end, it’s a very tender song about going home, like going back to your childhood home. And I think they’re kind of like symbolic of the same thing; of someone who didn’t believe in you and had an impact on you growing up, and then that being a real vulnerability, but reacting with rage. But then having the vulnerability of knowing that that’s still your home and going back at the end of it. That kind of brings it to this full circle of vulnerability.”
Moreover, while SLUNG are a very solid group, the record hasn’t been an insular one. As with all things In Ways, where things started with demos from various other artists collaborating with Vlad, to what they have become, is like a group of sculptures all participating in coming to an end goal, all fingerprints still visible.
“There’s so much lore in this record,” Katie beams, evidently very proud of what they’ve achieved. “The amount of creativity from different sources that has been sewn into this thing. It’s so interesting to be a part of, because it’s not just a band of four people who wrote some songs and put on a record. Sometimes I think we forget, because that’s how we feel. It’s like, ‘oh, it’s just four mates who made this record in it now it’s coming out’. But especially for Vlad from the very start of writing some of those riffs in demos, all the different creative hands and inputs and ways this thing has been. It’s almost like past the parcel has been shaped and morphed and grown, like each individual song has been through that so much. And then there’s this whole record that so many people involved – like on Glass Cherry. There’s like a string section that was played by an orchestra in Ukraine, and we had a slide guitarist. There’s so much in this, like a sponge that’s absorbed all this water. And I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to explain that, or even really acknowledge it in this age. Maybe we’ll look back in ten years and be like, that was mental.”
“But I like to think,” Vlad adds very poignantly, “I hope, anyway, that that somehow is like some kind of intangible magic, or something that’s sewn in there that some someone might just feel and not know what it is, but there is so much in there.”
There’s no denying that there’s a interlacing of past and future, start and end in a strange and wonderful musical journey through In Ways. The details of which, clearly are there for the unpicking.
In Ways is out now via Fat Dracula. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS122 here:
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