New Build are Al Doyle, Felix Martin and Tom Hopkins.
Between them, the trio are responsible for material from Hot Chip, LCD Soundsystem and more. So when news broke that the three were working on a project together, ClashMusic started to get a little excited.
New album ‘Yesterday Was Lived & Lost’ is a terrific collection of electronic hymns, matching typically expert production with a gilded, emotional edge. Out now, the release is being handled by Lanark Recordings – a reference which rang a few bells with the Clash team.
‘Lanark’ is, of course, a seminal novel by Glasgow based artist, writer and cultural bellwether Alasdair Gray. A few phone calls later, and New Build’s Al Doyle began opening up about his literary tastes and influences.
– – –
What is your favourite book and why?
I don’t really have favourites of anything, but there are those things which I currently think about a lot, or that loom large in my life for whatever reason. At the moment I often think about scenes and characters from Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake, which for some inexplicable reason I’ve neglected to read until very recently. Exquisite, unbelievable finely observed descriptions, huge and terrifyingly real characters – and a massively surprising and thematically disconnected third part to the trilogy, after a completely engrossing first two parts. In case you hadn’t guessed, I loved it. Unique in literature as far as I know – it has more than a splash of Dickens, and some debts to the gothic novels of Gaskell etc I guess, but it inhabits it’s own world and needs no company. It is complete.
What other authors do you like?
Sebald, Haruki Murakami, John Berger, Ishiguru, Kawabata, Lydia Davis, Siri Hustvedt, Alasdair Gray, Robert Walser, Laurence Sterne, Fernando Pessoa. Not a novelist, but I love the writing and sometimes the poetry of Clive James.
What draws you to certain books?
And I can’t say the cover right? Most of the time I’ll have heard a little something about them, or it will be a recommendation, or sometimes a review. I know when certain of my friends recommends a book I’ll tend to like it. I’m also lucky enough to travel a lot, so when I’m in other countries, or out and about in the UK, I get to spend time in lots of great bookshops, where I’ll often pick up something on instinct. Now and again it pays off.
Have you ever discovered a real lost classic? What is it and why?
Not sure how lost we’re talking here. There are a few possibly less well-known books that have cropped up recently – ‘Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky’ by Patrick Hamilton: amazing portrait of some salubrious characters in early twentieth century London; ‘The Book of Disquiet’ by Fernando Pessoa (the title of our album comes from within this): famous in Portugal but neglected by English speakers; and finally ‘The Mortdecai Trilogy’ by Kyril Bonfiglioli; genuinely hilarious exploits of an alcoholic art thief. Good cocktail recipes therein.
Do your literary influences have a direct impact on your songwriting?
In as much as I’m terrified of being repetitive, banal or cliched – yes. But then again we’re writing pop music, which is pretty much a celebration of repetition, banality and cliche, so the impact is oblique, rather than direct I’d say.
What are you reading at the moment?
Just finished a couple of very short novels: ‘The Captain and the Enemy’, Graham Green’s final novel; and a book I picked completely at random in a bookshop – ‘Without Blood’ by Alessandro Baricco. Both really good by the way.
What is the first book you remember reading as a child?
Probably ‘The Machine Gunners’ by Robert Westall. Bit of a boys-own story but fun from what I can remember. It’s got a machine gun in it so as a 10 year old I was sold on that straight away, I suppose.
Did you make good use of your library card as a child / teenager?
Yes definitely, got lots of books out. And then later I got out VHS videos, some of them French ones with girls in them probably.
How do you think literature achieves timelessness?
By being really good? And saying something about the human condition that resonates across the centuries? And through surviving physically of course – you can feel very sad very quickly if you start thinking of all the ancient Greek plays lost to posterity for instance.
Do you read book reviews?
Yes.
Would you ever re-read the same book?
Yes definitely. I’ve read a book called ‘Austerlitz’ by WG Sebald twice, ‘Moby Dick’ twice, and a couple of others that I skimmed over in school or college that deserved a closer look.
Have you ever identified with a character in a book? Which one and why?
I think every reader identifies with at least some of the actions, thoughts or motives of characters in every book they enjoy; that’s one of the reasons we enjoy reading. Recently I identified with the main character in that Bonfiglioli book I mentioned, because he often wakes up with a hangover and comes up with increasingly wild cures, one of which is called a “salvation special”, for which I now have nearly all the ingredients, apart from the dexedrine.
Is there an author / poet you would like to collaborate with?
Not sure how that would work, but I’d like to at least meet Alasdair Gray and have him talk at me over a few whiskeys. His novel ‘Lanark’ provides the name for our record label incidentally; he seems like he’d be an endlessly entertaining character.
– – –
‘Yesterday Was Lived & Lost’ is out now.
