I randomly discovered In Isolation a couple of weeks ago and now beating myself up for not knowing about them sooner. Thankfully they agreed to an interview for the music blog and I'm now a fan for life......
Can you tell us about your musical background, where we might have heard your work before and your sounds?
All four members of Nottingham-based In Isolation have heritage in the U.K. Alternative music scene. Folk who visited mucky Darkwave clubs in the 80s and 90s may be familiar with band names Every New Dead Ghost, Die Laughing, Emma Conquest and The Perfect Party, from which our band members grew. (The Perfect Party had major label interest, but were passed over in favour of a little skiffle outfit known as ‘Wham!’) Amazon Prime streaming subscribers may have seen and heard us performing in low-budget horror flick ‘Zombie Hood’, recent festival-goers might have witnessed us performing at the Leeds O2 Academy recently at HRH Goth, Toyah fans may well have caught us supporting Ms Willcox at Nottingham’s Rescue Rooms, and keen-eared listeners might have heard our tunes behind magazine segments on primetime BBC1’s The One Show and on late-night national radio broadcasts on BBC 6 Music. In additional to a smattering of 70s punk guitar riffs, our style is mainly influenced by our love of 80s New Wave and Post-punk. All the melodic ones.
Has lockdown impacted you creatively at all, and how have you coped over the past 18 months?
Lockdown gave us time to think more about what makes a good song and how to implement that effectively. That sounds a little contrived, but we really like producing music that people want to listen to repetitively. Mixing what naturally flows out of us with recognised methods of hooking the earholes is something that we think is essential for giving people a happy aural experience. We have coped pretty well with lockdown, although all members have been affected in some way either directly or indirectly by the sledgehammer effects of the virus. Nasty business.
What's your latest release and what inspired you to make it?
During lockdown, we released our 2nd album ‘Shards’; first digitally, then later physically. This includes former singles ‘TRAPPIST-1 (A Space Anthem)’ and our reworking of the classic Bauhaus track ‘She’s In Parties’. ‘TRAPPIST-1’ was inspired by a NASA press conference we saw on the telly in 2017, which described the discovery of a planetary system 40 light years away that provided possible conditions to host life. Tons of lyrical possibilities there, and it gave Ryan a chance to dabble in some John Williams-style orchestral arrangements in the middle of this electric guitar-based track. ‘She’s In Parties’ was a song that we all loved in the 80s, but we had to tackle it from an angle where die-hard Bauhaus fans wouldn’t string us up for even going near such a masterpiece. We think we have produced something very much in our own style which will inevitably still have some purists fuming, but appears to have pleased enough people to make it worth making our own. It’s also worth checking out the music video, which was a chance to flex our own creative filmmaking muscles rather than outsourcing.
Where can folks get to listen to your music?
Bandcamp (inisolation.bandcamp.com) is where we like people to investigate our sound. Everything is downloadable digitally, physical records and merch can be sought, and some of the music is even pay-what-you-like. If anyone uses Spotify, we absolutely encourage you to always add music you like to playlists and share these lists socially as much as you can – this really is the only way bands who aren’t corporately pushed can make any kind of impact.
Can you list your social media links?
(currently links to Facebook)
@inisolationinstagram
@InIsolation (Twitter)
What's next for you?
We’re playing our first ever unplugged show in November, supporting Mark Burgess from 80s legends The Chameleons in Glasgow. We’re pretty chuffed with that booking and have acoustically arranged some of our most favourite back-catalogue songs. We’ve also been approached by a promoter with whom we’ve worked in the past to support a well-known US band from the Darkwave genre when they tour the U.K., COVID-permitting. That’s a pretty exciting one for us; keep an eye on our social media for future revelations!
The next single off the current album will be ‘The Man Who Hides From Love’, from which we have removed the filthy words to help inspire daytime radio play. This will be accompanied by our first fully-animated music video, which happened by begging and pleading with a shitload of amazing animators around the world, essentially based on their love of the track.
In Isolation were commissioned to write a song for gross-out horror movie ‘Seepers: A Love Story’ which led to the inclusion of ‘Loving The Ghost’ in the film and on the soundtrack. The movie has its U.K. Film Festival premiere in October. Moving even further forward, we’re working on writing the third album for release in 2022. Ryan has been getting inspired by more synth-based 80s bands, such as The Human League and Ultravox, and as previous In Isolation albums have been more heavy on the guitar, this could be an interesting potential twist for future output.
Anything else you'd like to add about the project, or a message for the readers?
Please, please go out and support local gigs. It’s an effort, we know, especially on a school night, but your new favourite band could be literally performing round the corner, and there is so much talent and beautiful songs being missed by so many.
Cheers Guys
Comments