“I was very conscious of the fact that no one knows who I am outside of the East Neuk” begins Johnny Lynch aka The Pictish Trail.
One half of Silver Columns the songwriter teamed up with Adem to produce something quite different. Better known for wooly jumpers, beards and acoustic guitars the pair swapped their capos for synthesisers, producing one of the year’s most surprising debut albums.
Released through Moshi Moshi, ‘Yes, And Dance’ is no mere dance crossover. A fun and frisky slice of electro pop it has garnered praise from some unlikely quarters, with French label Kitsune placing Silver Columns on one of their ultra chic compilations.
The summer opens with a flurry of festival dates for Silver Columns, so ClashMusic sat down with Johnny Lynch to talk about that debut album and much more…
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How did the Silver Columns project come about?
It started about a year and a bit ago. I’d been friends with Adem for years and years – we’d toured together, I’d played in his band and he came up to Homegame to play a few times. Then a year and a half ago he got in touch and said “it would be good if you wanted to come down and do some recording”. He had been doing some producing for other people at that time anyway and I think he fancied doing something different. He had been listening to a lot of electronic pop music and was inclined to try something alone that direction. So he invited me down and in the space of three days we managed to get three songs written, recorded and fully produced from scratch. It kind of clicked so we just decided to keep at it.. and before we knew it the entire Silver Columns album was born!
Silver Columns seem informed by dance styles, did the two of you head out on the town to get to grips with this?
Out on the town! (laughs). Not really. We’re both into that type of music anyway. From a record collecting point of view, Adem has always been interested in London garage and 2-step stuff. So he’s got a bit of a collection of that – Wookie and MJ Cole kind of stuff. I’ve got a lot of my older sister’s tapes, like Erasure and Depeche Mode. Also I’m a big dance music fan anyway. I suppose I’m not really a professional fan, in the sense of that I don’t have tens of thousands of house records in my house like OnTheFly. I’ve got a fairly well rounded collection of singles, all the stellar UK dance stuff of the 80s and 90s. There’s not many clubs to go to in Anstruther.
How did the actual writing process work?
It worked in a few different ways. The entire record from start to finish was written, recorded and produced when we were in each other’s company. None of it was done by email, none of it was done by sending a CD down. So in terms of roles – Adem has much better equipment than I have. He’s got a good set up in terms of software and microphones, so he kind of took care of that type of thing. I’d say I probably wrote more of the lyrics and had more of the vocal melodies whereas Adem had more of the foundation of the tracks. Sometimes the songs would start off with a lyrical idea, a vocal part which I had maybe wanted to sing for a while. Then he would write a chord sequence behind it, taking on board my lyrical ideas, and we’d focus on the song. Sometimes it would change in the process, sometimes it would stay more or less the same. There are other songs in which the lyrical ideas are born out of a call and response thing. A lot of the record is like that – we would set each other scenarios, characters to take on. From that we would pull together a lot of the lyrics in a different format.. that is unbelievably boring!
It’s a really fun album, was it intended to be a lightweight, throwaway pop record?
I think there’s a lot of heart to it. When we first started doing it we didn’t have anything stylistically in mind other than what would fit. We didn’t go into it thinking “let’s make an 80s pop record”. It wasn’t anything like that. What became apparent is that we were more comfortable working with dance music in a song based format. I don’t know if that makes the songs more throwaway, if anything I would hope that it would make the songs more listenable. In a way it recalled the way bands worked in the 80s, who had a lot of new equipment made available to them and they were just testing what they could get out of it. Using it for the first time and trying to make songs with equipment which was basically alien to them.
Silver Columns have enjoyed a warm reception outside of your usual fan base.
It’s been amazing. The whole thing has been amazing. Initially was didn’t have any plans to make an album, as initially we only wanted to make an EP. I didn’t know if we would release it on Fence, or what would happen to that. Then Rob da Bank got in touch as tried to sign us for Sunday Best, Adem sent tracks to Moshi Moshi and they loved it too. So we’ve had an amazingly positive response, coming mainly from people outside of our little folky circle. Our current live agent is also someone who books Calvin Harris and Chipmunk! He heard our record and he was like (adopts extremely dubious Lahndahn accent) “this is the best dance pop I’ve heard in ages!” Thanks!
Those first 12 inches came out without any information – what lay behind this?
I was very conscious of the fact that no one knows who I am outside of the East Neuk. There was no delusion that this was going to be a big deal. This was definitely something which we wanted to take to an audience which we didn’t have already. In terms of the anonymous thing, we didn’t want to make a big deal out of it but every review I’ve read of it has been: “these guys, they wanted to remain anonymous but they’ve come out and no one cares!” OK great. “Oh and by the way they sound a bit like Hot Chip!” Thanks! Fair enough. The danger was that if we’d come out immediately and said this is Adem and The Pictish Trail doing something a little bit different then immediately all the reviews would have used the word ‘folktronica’ or an adaptation of that. I think that in a weird way it’s good that Silver Columns music had the chance to come out first, and that people had the chance to listen to it with fresh ears and hopefully like it for what it was. And for what it is.
Have you noticed the Silver Columns approach feeding back into your solo material?
To be honest it’s kind of always there, it’s just so lo-fi that it has never had the chance to come out in the way the Silver Columns stuff has. It always depends on the gig for the most stuff. It’s maybe a case of making me think about how I approach songwriting, and introducing me to other ways of songwriting. So I think that probably will feed back into The Pictish Trail stuff to an extent. I’m writing solo stuff at the moment, I’ve got plans for another release and a Pictish Trail tour later in the year as well.
Will Silver Columns be an ongoing project?
I think whether we can find time will be the main thing. We’ve got some other bits and pieces written in terms of the next record, but it’s finding time to focus on it. The album was really written in the space of a few weeks, over a couple of different sessions. We would travel between London and Anstruther, writing a few songs at a time. It’s finding time to put into it. We’re taking it step by step but there’s no definite plans as yet.
Silver Columns debut album ‘Yes, And Dance’ is out now
