Inside a dark, cold, soundproofed cave somewhere in the depths of St John’s there sits the remnants of a tower of empty Chocomel cans. Though the tower may be mostly gone (milk goes off and it’s a shared rehearsal space), cables, amps, mics, instruments and synth pedals remain: the marks of eclectic electric psychedelic drone pop trio BAAD ACID. We paid them a visit a few weeks ago to chat about their new four-track EP Aboo/Sound, the vinyl copies of which have recently made their way onto our shelves. Jack, Ed and Owen from Sound Records on one side, Brian, Jamie and Leigh on the other ー those last two sitting in Leigh’s now-discontinued double-width camping chair to add an element of danger and risk ー we settled in and got to talking.

BAAD ACID have long since been friends of Sound Records; they performed at one of our first events back in September 2020, and they even did a secret concert in the shop a few weeks back (more from this to come very soon). With their vinyl now well-situated on our shelves ー and on our player more than a couple of times ー we wanted to dive a little deeper, to see how it all happened. Besides, a physical album feels that much more special when you know just how much is involved, and how much is at stake. From writing to recording to editing to releasing, this is what we learnt about BAAD ACID and Aboo/Sound: “In Their Own Words”.

The full interview is also available in audio format. Listen below:

You can also watch and listen to tracks from the EP, plus some unreleased songs, live in Sound Records, below:

Write

BAAD ACID was not always a trio, and not always this trio. The journey to Aboo/Sound’s release started all the way back in 2014 when Copper and Zinc was written ー before Brian joined the band. The song, which uses mineral imbalance as a metaphor for struggles in a relationship ー too much copper and not enough zinc, giving too much love and not receiving a lot back ー marked a breakaway from their previous punkier sound and a move towards experimenting with dance music, helped by synth-playing ex-band member Ben Jones.

“I’ve never known anyone to be able to just pull the perfect melody out of thin air like Jamie does; it’s like some kind of sorcery” ーLeigh

Instrumentals always come first with BAAD ACID, with Jamie improvising lyrics once the melody is in place to start off the structure. Next, it’s usually Leigh who finds the title, pinching from a list found within his obscure reading habits ー “Ground Luminosity” comes from The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, of all places. Next, Jamie refines lyrics around that. With Brian playing both drums and synths, the percussion line is sometimes determined by what he can play with one hand ー a style he kept up for recordings. Jamie also doubles up, in charge of bass and vocals. Despite the necessary multi-tasking, they feel like they’ve hit the perfect mix with the three of them.

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Circling back to the enigmatically-titled Ground Luminosity, this song was written around the idea of accepting death: Ground Luminosity is the point of absolute death; when you start again, when you’re reincarnated, when the scales of good and evil have been weighed up. With the lyrics originally floating around the topic of Jamie’s anxiety and fear of death and dying, a Tibetan concept at the helm brought the song’s message round to one of accepting of death, opening matter-of-factly with the line “where do we go when we pass away?”

“When I was still trying to make lyrics, the whole ad-libbing, the second line [of Copper and Zinc] just sounded like ‘baby notch is all’. It was just gibberish. And then I couldn’t think of anything else, so it stayed! Still not fully sure what it means...” ーJamie

Jamie tells us he needs to be in the right frame of mind to write, and sometimes when he finishes, he’s taken aback by what’s in front of him. With all the chaotic multi-tasking in rehearsals and live performances, Leigh tells us that recording was the first time he’d heard Jamie’s lyrics; really listened, understood and appreciated them.

Record

The whole EP was recorded at Ballagroove Recording Studio down in Ballasalla with sound engineer Gyp Buggane. (In actuality, two EPs were recorded, but we’ll get to that later.) When they went to the studio to record, it was like an Aladdin’s cave, scattered with CDs, instruments and music memorabilia. However, this was three and a half years ago now (a global pandemic and three newborns got in the way), and the studio has been done up since then ー we visited a few weeks ago to see it for ourselves (article coming soon!)

[On Ground Luminosity] “I could always hear it in my head. Then, when you’ve got all that available to you, it’s the chance to do something extra. That’s why we have the bonus piano.” ーBrian

With Aboo/Sound, BAAD ACID wanted to replicate the live experience: nearly everything on the record they can (and do) play live. One exception is the piano in the outro of Ground Luminosity, an instrument Brian found in the studio and just had to play with. Another small discrepancy is the keyboard part on the EP’s first track Vimana; this was recorded on Ben’s old Roland keyboard, which he has since taken back to the UK, so they have to replicate this machine’s sound for live performances.

In the same vein, the opening sound of Monolith (recorded around the same time and available on Spotify) comes from an Indian raga machine that Ben bought at a car boot sale for £4 because the seller thought it was just an old broken radio. This device has since been reclaimed as well, so if anyone sees an Indian sound machine at any car boot sales, give BAAD ACID a shout!

*Recording something exciting in-store…*

Taking even more from the live experience, the boys made the click track (that is, audio cues that help keep musicians in time when recording) for Capgras Delusion based on videos of their live performances, layering percussion over the top to catch tempo and time changes (4/4 to 6/8 and back again) as the song breathes and morphs. Keys were layered over the click track from home, since this part was all electronic. After that, recordings were all done as live takes, with the three of them in the studio at the same time. Some elements were added after ー Leigh messed around with Gyp’s guitars and added some feedback onto the end of Copper and Zinc, for instance ー but the majority came from that joint live session environment.

“We don’t want to have something on the record that we can’t replicate. It’d be like doing a disservice.” ーJamie

*Setting up at The Embassy Room for a gig back in September 2020*

“I hope anyone who comes across BAAD ACID through that record will be pleasantly surprised when they see that we can make that sound that’s on the record between the three of us” ーBrian

*BAAD ACID at Dark Horse, via Isle Photo*

Edit and Release

BAAD ACID actually got down around ten songs whilst recording in early 2018. They always had vinyl in mind, and had originally planned to release all ten together, but the cost of two LPs was too high (the songs are long, so it would have been two!). They instead settled on two EPs, with four songs on each, pressed onto twelve-inch forty-fives. Having secured Arts Council funding to help them press the first EP, they only have to sell half of their 250 copies to fund the pressing of the second themselves, (all recorded, mastered and ready to go!)

For the funding application, Brian designed a brochure with illustrations and live excerpts on CD, which they might repurpose if and when they release both EPs together ー a deluxe edition, if you will. At the moment, Capgras Delusion and Vimana are only available on vinyl, an incentive to buy the physical version by making it more exclusive.

*Papped at a recording session by Gyp Buggane back in 2018*

“For me, this project started in 2017 when we applied to the Arts Council. I wanted to leave them no other option but to say yes, so I put together this colourful brochure with illustrations and a CD with live excerpts from the Noa Bakehouse gig. It was just: look, it’s all here, you just need to give us the money to put it together. Then, when I was speaking to a girl from the Arts Council, she was like ‘they won’t have time to look at that, so if you could just fill out this form?’ [they all laugh]” ーBrian

Not all of the ten songs will see the light of day, but that is part of the learning process. Knocked Up was written before Leigh even knew Jamie; back then, he was an Arctic Monkeys and Kings of Leon fanboy, and you can hear it in the music. Metropolis got away from them in the mixing process as they tried to make such a long song not sound static and boring on record ー a problem they hadn’t encountered with the live version.

*Drummer and Synth Wizard Brian at Dark Horse, via Isle Photo*

Thus, song selection and ordering from ten down to two sets of four was an organic process. Both songs on each side of Aboo/Sound are in the same key and so flow into one another naturally: Side A, Vimana and Copper and Zinc, is in D, and crossfades on the vinyl; Side B, Capgras Delusion and Ground Luminosity, is in A. Starting the EP with Vimana replicates how they like to open their live sets, the opening descending scale on Leigh’s guitar leading the listener down the steps into the basement world of BAAD ACID.

For the album artwork, Brian was inspired by Broadcast album covers and ‘70s and ‘80s science books. He hit a few stumbling blocks, but eventually found the photo when the band was sorting out their single Monolith. He messed around with a few kinds of free illustration software before making his peace with pixlr, playing with colours and effects to eventually settle on the result: no text, simply a blood-red sky above Corrin’s Folly and the band logo in the corner.

“With the back cover, we wanted it to be something where, if there’s 20 minutes of music, you could spend 20 minutes looking at it.” ーBrian

Brian ruminated on the experience of listening to a vinyl record when composing the elements for the back cover: a shot from a wedding they played in Sulby, upside-down; a row of cryptic numbers with a hidden message along the base; the lyrics of Copper and Zinc, but in alphabetical order. This last feature was inspired by Stanley Donwood’s artwork for the Radiohead album Hail to the Thief, where he interpreted the LA coastline by repeating words from adverts he saw in the city. Pretentious? Perhaps. Entertaining for twenty minutes of music? Most probably, but that’s for you to decide. Of course, this is exactly the reasoning behind the design choices: Brian wanted to create an environment in which to digest the music, where you have to figure it out for yourself and come to your own conclusions.

Reflect

Reflecting back on Aboo/Sound, the boys agree it represents that (not-so-recent) period of their musical development pretty well. Leigh pointed out that collaborative creative projects are never quite what you imagine them to be: there are other people involved, so no one band member can have a clear, singular vision of how the project will be realised. Coming to terms with this, he’s happy with the record. Because of the length of their songs, their own schedules and the way the world consumes music today, Aboo/Sound is a digestible chunk of BAAD ACID.

*Leigh on the guitar at Dark Horse, via Isle Photo*

“Now, I’m happy with the EP. I wasn’t for a while, because Gyp was sending us all these different mixes of it… I was new to recording so I kept just thinking ‘this sounds awful!’ It wasn’t until he sent the masters and then [I realised] it sounds good. I had such a vision for it in my head, but that was my vision, and there’s Jamie and Brian involved, and Gyp as well, and it was never going to be that way. It just took me a while to accept that.” ーLeigh

Brian says he will finally be satisfied when the second vinyl is out ー the process that started with applying for Arts Council funding in 2017 will be complete. Even now, they’re thinking about doing it all again: they couldn’t stop themselves from talking about recording a new song of theirs, Rotator. BAAD ACID may “move at a glacial pace” (their own words!), but it’s always worth the wait.

Written by Owen Atkinson

BAAD ACID - Aboo/Sound is available on vinyl in Sound Records now
BAAD ACID are playing alongside El Catraz and Manavia at COOiL bar in Ramsey this Friday (13th August)

BAAD ACID - Aboo/Sound: in their own words