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ARTWORKER OF THE WEEK #34

Kyp Malone (TV On The Radio)

Brooklyn-based TV On The Radio was formed in 2001 by animator Tunde Adebimpe and musician/producer David Andrew Sitek (who produced the Yeah Yeah Yeah's debut Fever To Tell). The Young Liars EP garnered attention for melding heavily processed instrumentation together with vocals which drew as much from blues and soul as from rock. (In addition, a narcoleptic, doo-wop cover of the Pixies' "Mr. Grieves" did little to harm their reputation.) The arrival of Kyp Malone (vocalist/guitarist) in 2003 preceded Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes -- a diverse and politicised soundtrack of skewed love songs and lo-fi distorted blues (to be released in the UK via 4AD on 07/06).

TV On The Radio play at the Barfly Camden on Wed 02/06

James Cowdery: The album has been very well received in the US and you're comparatively well known. What have the last 12 months led you to expect from the UK?

Kyp Malone: I don't want to come at it with any expectations because, as crazy as the last year has been, we're still at the genesis of this whole thing. We have a long way to go and a lot of work to do. I certainly didn't expect to be sitting in London talking about TV On The Radio a year ago when they asked me to join.

JC: How well do you think the album represents where the three of you are at the moment?

KM: I feel like we now inhabit the songs to a greater degree than when we recorded them. What we're doing with the songs live is significantly different from the studio. I feel like we're almost a different band already, which I'm more than happy about, because what impressed me in the first place about what David and Tunde were doing was that they weren't afraid of constantly changing things.

JC: One of the most marked aspects of the album is the juxtaposition of these beautifully soulful vocals with distorted, bass-heavy backing tracks...

KM: That has a lot to do with Dave's ear. If it was up to me it would have sounded different but I’m really glad it wasn't up to me. It's principally David who does the production although obviously we all have input. The contrast between the vocals and instrumentation –- you can expect more of that but when we get back to the States we're going to record a different album. We'll be a different band.

JC: The opening track "The Wrong Way" addresses race and identity, what's your view on the relationship between music and politics? How useful is it?

KM: On a personal level it's very useful, because I don't have a forum besides TVOTR to express myself and vent when things are bothering me. I think that if it was going to save the world it would have happened a long time ago and there wouldn't be anything bad to sing about.

JC: There's an argument that good art is born of adversity.

KM: I've been thinking about that a lot lately because I don't really want to write about those kind of problems. It would be nice to not have my mind occupied by that kind of bullshit. But as it stands I don't have the luxury of not commenting on it and not trying to effect some kind of change. Even it's just a change in how I'm feeling about the world because I've gotten to speak my piece. I think that's important.

JC: Whilst in the UK do you find you're asked to comment on New York or the US as a whole?

KM: I was thinking about the fact that we're coming here as Americans. Not that's there's ever been a time in my life when American foreign policy has been something that you want to stand up and shout with joy about, but particularly right now it's pretty abysmal. I'm wondering how much of our identity as Americans is going to affect dealing with people on a personal or even press level. How much is going to be required in expressing our dissent. It's different (in the UK) in that it seemed that there wasn't really any popular support for the war but that it still wouldn't have happened without Tony Blair's collusion and blessing.

JC: Let's talk about the record again -- aside from the political how would you define it thematically?

KM: There are love songs, songs about the disillusionment that one experiences in relations to love, there are songs about recognising your mortality, whether it's coming to that realisation or losing loved ones to death. There are songs about sex... so yeah -- it's just love, sex and death -- the basics! I don't really know what else there is. I guess we could make a food record at some point.

JC: There's a degree of humour and warmth on the record that I think might have been overlooked.

KM: It does get overlooked, yeah. It's funny, because you can make it sound heavier than it really is. I've read a lot in the US press about how dark it was.

JC: I think it's a joyful record -- it reminds me of a lot of techno productions in that it's very dynamic and exuberant.

KM: Yeah, because you can talk about all this shit but the point of talking about it isn't to like wallow in the pain of it all. I don't hear it as a dark record. I could listen to some of that mid-'90s Norwegian metal and understand the allusion to darkness in that. But when I was growing up and people told me the Smiths or Depeche Mode were depressing and I really didn't know what they meant.

JC: What do you think is the biggest misconception about TVOTR?

KM: The first track on the album addresses race and race relations. In the States, it's pretty funny -- we get asked over and over again how it feels to be playing rock music as a predominantly black band. And for people to be asking that question in the first place displays absurdly poor cultural memory. The biggest misconception I've experienced so far about TVOTR is more to do with the biggest cultural delusion in the place where I grew up -- the delusion of race and what race means. There's this desire to gloss over the past 400 years of history and this desire to pretend that everything's okay. And when thing's aren't okay there's no hiding the bitterness and resentment on both sides of the issue. It's pretty retarded.

JC: If you do want to make a political point on a record, it's difficult not to have that overshadow and define everything else.

KM: There's also a big fear that if you comment on something in a ham-fisted way you can really do a disservice to the cause you're trying to champion. That's one of my biggest fears but at the same time I can't turn that into self-censorship and just write songs about fucking. It's important to not let that fear stop you from raising your voice at this moment, right now. Because right now is pretty hectic.

James Cowdery is a freelance music critic and regular KultureFlash contributor.