in session.. glaciers 07.01.
hello. it’s been a while. with the turkey-tinged merriments of the past couple weeks behind us, i thought i’d bring in the new year by sharing with you one of my most adored musical projects. here come the glaciers..
glaciers, the solo project of artist and musician nicolas burrows, is truly special. it’s not often one comes across something they didn’t know existed, but, regardless, and in an instant, completely falls for. it’s a nice surprise. i cherish instances like this. i can’t even remember how or when i came across glaciers, but if you’ve shared a square-foot with me anytime since you’ll know i go on about it just as much now as i did then.
25, and originally from blackpool, nic makes up one quarter of the leeds-based art collective nous vous. having moved to leeds a few years back for university, a familiar narrative perhaps, glaciers has remained somewhat in the shadows. with the few gigs under his belt, nic’s played with and alongside some of leeds’ most well known musicians. indeed, doug adams (bass, sky larkin) is one of his band chums, and it’s as though an elite few have had the pleasure whilst the rest of us went on oblivious.
and that’s a bit of a shame. glaciers’ ethereal folk is graceful and verges on the sublime. his use of loop pedals to create vocal and instrumental harmonies recall a certain david thomas broughton, but glaciers is perhaps less about a calculated concoction of emotions (think david’s live shows and the sheer amount of objects that make it up) but rather about them spilling forth as as when they come and perfectly illustrated by his song sundaythetwentysecondofnovember2009.. it’s adorable, and not just because my dog gets a mention.
glaciers is magical and certainly warrants as ornate a barrage of words as i’ve put you through thus far. i’m sorry, i couldn’t help myself. i spent a while racking my mind for ways not to sound like i’m going gay for glaciers, but truth be told i probably would. (hope this doesn’t make thing weird between us, nic. no homo!) nic and i met up for a chat and recorded a few songs a few weeks back. here’s a little interview..
..interviews with me can be so long and strung out..
[laughs] fair enough.
..but anyway, i’m here with nicolas burrows, better known as glaciers perhaps.
(..probably not..)
what made you pick such an epic name?
i think it was because, err.. i got the name because me and my friend will who i also make music with sometimes, we went to norway, well to scandinavia, but we spent a lot of time in norway a few years ago. and, we like, we went to see some glaciers [laughs], and stuff, which were amazing. when i was there i didn’t really do much, we were just bumbling around and going to look at stuff. we didn’t really have much money. erm, and then i was just thinking about all the stuff i wanted to do when i got back, so i wanted to call it that. and also because, erm.. originally i wanted it to be like.. me, but then with other people. so it would be like glaciers, like a sort of changing thing. but that, sort of, hasn’t really happened [laughs] but it’s started to happen a bit, because we’ve got a band together now, i guess.
the music-making process, because it’s an ever-changing cast, line-up.. how does it work? do you come up with the music and rope your friends into playing it?
yeah.. that’s what i wanted it to be, but it’s not really been that. it’s just been me! until i got a band. but i do want to have it like that, like, have people that know the songs in different places as well, so it’s easier to do gigs with other people. but yeah, i usually write.. well, yeah, all the songs are mine.. erm.. ’cause i still want to be able to play them on my own as well. ’cause sometimes it’s easier and it’s more suitable to play solo acoustic sets or something. it’s good to have a choice. so yeah, i write all the stuff and get everyone in. i don’t write every single part, i just write the songs and then everyone helps to beef it up.
so what do you play, then? because you’re quite a talented chap.
[laughs] well..
we’ll get into that..
i play, erm.. well i’ve got this record that i’ve almost finished that my friend mike who does mechanical owl is producing. on that record i’m playing guitar and some drums, and erm, piano and singing. and that’s about it really. maybe some little bits of crap. but, yeah, mainly like.. well i started to just try and play everything myself ’cause i couldn’t be bothered being in a band. it was, like, too slow a process, so i tried to learn to play.. i play guitar! that’s my.. that’s what i do, that’s what i actually could say i play. and then i just, like, could probably play drums well enough to record and stuff like that.
i feel a bit overwhelmed. i don’t really know where to start to ask you.. you’re a great musician, and you’re also an amazing artist. where.. well, let’s just start here: how do you find time for all of it?!
erm.. i don’t have a job [laughs]. i do, i do have a job. yeah, i don’t know, i’m always a bit worried about, like, it’s hard sometimes to know what to focus on, ’cause i do want to do quite a lot of stuff. and recently i’ve had to realise that i can’t do everything i want to do and just try and be a bit more structured about it, but.. it comes and goes, like i dunno, i sort of feel like my music is not, erm.. i see that as more, as like, not a secondary thing, but it’s maybe more important for me to.. it’s like i’ve got deadlines with things i do like commercial illustration and design, and then i’ve got a few exhibitions coming up. they’re like real deadlines i have to keep too, but with my music it’s only my deadlines. so it’s quite easy.. not easy but i try and fit in music around that. because there’s nobody else telling me to finish, which is a bit bad sometimes because it means i take ages to do stuff and i quite like somebody to tell me to finish something. but, we’ll see..
do you think taking your time, sort of.. actually i’m not going to ask that, stupid question.
alright [laughs]
for those that don’t know, you’re part of leeds-based art collective nous vous. i guess its obvious what comes first. well… is it?
erm.. yeahhh. i think.. i don’t know. like i said before, i think it always changes. like sometimes i think i’m doing better things with my music and sometimes i feel like i’m doing better things with art. but i think the nous vous thing has become quite important and it’s one of the reasons i came back to leeds this year as well. i think it’s.. well we worked quite hard over the summer and it got a bit intense. when we first started it was just like a collective of four of us, and we’d all do our own stuff, but then work as a group sometimes. but then recently, this year, we’ve tried to work together all the time so it got a but intense. so we’ve gone back to being a bit more, like, doing our own stuff i guess. so now it feels like the music is still part of that, ’cause everyone’s got their own thing that they’re doing, but it’s still related, so i feel like it’s quite nice now. it fits in and it doesn’t feel like it’s a struggle between them. it’s just, like.. it’s alright.
growing up, did you have a preference?
i think.. i guess i’ve probably been drawing and stuff longer than i’ve been playing music. i didn’t start playing a guitar until i was like 15 or 16 i think. but then, erm, i dunno.. my dad played a bit of music and he was always into new stuff when i was growing up. i think with art, i did it all through school and then i studied graphic design, so i’ve always been doing stuff like that. but i didn’t.. i think i didn’t take artwork seriously ’til the second or third year of university when i was doing a bit of illustration and things like that. i was always interested in loads of different things, i found it quite hard to choose what to do. but then, when i was at uni in first year i think.. i dunno, i mean, yeah. we used to have some recording stuff in my house. we had some really early versions of cubase and stuff, so i used to mess about with them when i was at college and at school and stuff. but i wasn’t really in a band until i came to university.
you’ve picked two of the hardest careers to make a living out of [nic laughs]. you don’t make it easy for yourself. if you wern’t as successful as an artist do you think your music might have come first..
erm.. [laughs] i wouldn’t say i was very successful at anything at the moment.
well..
i think, err..
you’re quite well known..
maybe..
you’ve got your exhibitions..
yeah, i guess so.
you’ve always got work..
yeah. well.. yeah, i suppose so. well, not really, it could always be better. but, yeah, i suppose it’s kinda good. i think, erm.. i don’t know about that, ’cause i feel like i don’t think i.. i find it hard to make music if i’m not doing it in, like, a sort of artistic way. i’ve played in bands before, i love playing music with other people, but if i was gonna do it as like a career or whatever, i think i’d find it quite difficult because i think i’ve got too much of a leaning towards doing what i want to do and making it.. i don’t know, i don’t really think that the stuff that i write is, maybe, conducive to being.. to becoming really that popular. so.. i wouldn’t bank on that. but hopefully, hopefully between the two things i’ll be able to live! [laughs]
i bet you get this question all the time, but it’s an interesting one to ask somebody with as broad a range of skills as yourself. your influences growing up? please don’t say your mum and dad’s soul and motown collection because that’s the most boring answer that 90% of musicians seem to give..
[laughs] nah. musical influences growing up? my mum’s not really interested in music, so.. apart from when she used to have a lot of simply red on in the car. which was quite horrible. i think the first.. i don’t know.. the first stuff i remember getting into, it wasn’t dead early on, but my dad had all the radiohead albums and i’d just listen to them. i think when i was about 14.. 14 or 15 or something, i just really got into that. i think before that, what did we have..? we had stuff like the waterboys, you know, and the brit pop stuff i guess. i think radiohead was the first band i really got heavily into. but then i used to have guitar lessons with this really good jazz guitarist for like six months or something when i was first learning guitar, so i did a bit of jazz - i can’t really play jazz guitar - but, i sort of got into a bit of that as well. not when i was younger, that was when i was, i don’t know, 17 or something. i don’t know, i can’t really remember loads. i just remember, like.. we always had music around. but nothing that old, i think my dad was more into contemporary stuff. and then, obviously, prog. i suppose, yeah, there was a lot of plog - plog?! [laughs] - prog floating around, a lot of genesis records, early genesis records, which are a bit silly now, but i used to quite like them.
speaking of radiohead, you played reading and leeds this past summer with a band you drummed for bear driver. was it the saturday you played reading?
no it was the sunday, so i managed to see radiohead. i feel like.. i still like them.. but i’m sure there are some bits of my music that are like.. it’s hard to get away from the first things that you like. but i don’t really listen to radiohead that much anymore, i still really like them but i don’t know. i think when i finished studying a few years ago there were . i don’t know, but radiohead were always pretty amazing
in terms of your own music, what do you have planned?
hopefully i’m going to have a new recording out before christmas. i say “out”, i don’t know.. i’ll probably have to distribute it myself.
is that coming out through hair-piece champion?
yeah, i guess so. unless anybody else wants it! [laughs] yeah.. it’s probably gonna come out through hair-piece champion unless another small label who’ll pay for it will want it. [laughs] but, erm, yeah yeah. there’s gonna be a 10-track mini-album thing. i’m gonna do the artwork for that soon. and then, i don’t know.. haven’t really got any other massive plans. i might be playing a few shows early next year, i don’t know yet. all i know is i’ve got this record to be finished and then i’m playing a couple gigs!
any thoughts on an album name?
i think i’m just gonna call it “here come the glaciers”.. [laughs] it sounds a bit lame, but it’s from this really stupid song - i wanted to put it on the album but i didn’t have time to record it - but it’s just a stupid little song from when we went.. when i went to a glacier.. sounds really weird.. erm.. and i was just singing a stupid song about it, and err.. i’m not gonna sing it! ..it was just a stupid little tune, but i thought it was quite a funny title because i always worry that my music is quite, like, not very fun. so i wanted to have, like.. a bit of fun title to trick people [laughs].. into thinking it was fun! and then just putting it on and being really miserable [laughs]
..and, whilst we’re waiting, i thought i’d share a sneak preview of it. we recorded three tracks with one is off the forthcoming album, one i can’t quite remember much about and one that takes m.i.a’s paper planes to new levels.
thegoldenowl.co.uk in session with.. glaciers
glaciers - paper planes (m.i.a cover)
download mp3s above. right click to save.
i hope you enjoy this as much as i do. keep an eye on glaciers’ myspace and on thegoldenowl.co.uk for the latest on the album, here come the glaciers, coming out soon.
oh, and if you like the above why not check out tip-toe records‘ latest podcast, featuring glaciers alongside some other wonderful bands including the tailors. have a look and a listen here..
love x