Uncharted Riffs with Josh Dixon and Nick Buxton
Do you struggle finding your next favourite band? Do you spend hours listening to the same old tunes because you don't know what else is out there? Then look no further!
Welcome to Uncharted Riffs, the home of new music. We provide a platform for new, upcoming Music professionals and artists to showcase their craft, personality and ultimately, their favourite Uncharted song.
Uncharted Riffs with Josh Dixon and Nick Buxton
Episode 5 - Punched in the Throat (Space Octopus Cartel)
This week Guinevere and Alex from Space Octopus Cartel join us to share their Uncharted Riffs, taking us from the sci-fi rock of their most recent MEGAFAUNA EP through to their influences from around the world - this is one you won't want to miss!
Space Octopus Cartel - @spaceoctopuscartel
Latest EP 'MEGAFAUNA' Out on all platforms NOW!!
Uncharted Riffs Instagram - @unchartedriffs
Uncharted Riffs Playlist - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4igfp5xxq0pB1oBqQvyHck?si=KFS6Ng4MSs21DgUEhETNzw&pi=VohomlL3Qi2f0
Guinevere:
Fave live gig - Camden Assembly
Drum/Bass - Against the fall of night (Sungazer)
Vocals - Way Too Long (Courney Swain/Bent Knee)
Lyrics - Salt (Caligula's Horse)
Guitar Riff - Pareidolia (Haken)
Alex:
Fave live gig - Camden Assembly
Drum/Bass - Hysteria (Muse)
Vocals - Funeral from Royal Albert Hall (Devon Townsend)
Lyrics - Being Sad in Canada :(
Guitar Riff - Triptych (Arcane Roots)
Uncharted Song - Mask Machine (Flying Colors)
Hello, welcome to the Uncharted Rifts podcast with Josh Dixon and Nick Buxton here. We are back after another fantastic episode with the Space Octopus Cartel. I didn't even get to ask them the question I wanted to, which is where the bloody hell did that name come from? I mean, just judging off of the EP artwork for Megafauna, just judging based off their general vibe, I would say... it's quite self-explanatory yeah but we were so engrossed in the conversation that we were having that i didn't even get a chance to uh to ask the question so that just goes to show the level of conversation in this episode oh they were so much fun but yeah how much you've been anyway so how have you been since the last last podcast we did you're all good oh mate yeah yeah busy um as i told you earlier today i spent four and a half hours in the car driving to wiltshire for a 30 minute meeting which could have been an email and um i am knackered um because i I drove for far too long for something that was interesting, but just a long time. But in terms of general life, all is well, all is good, and I'm just glad to be here, frankly. Good to hear. I mean, not to discriminate against the lovely people of Wiltshire, but what the fuck is there? Is there anything? There... no it's more of a i look i was having this discussion today in the car with the person i went with and i was like what what all the the counties that don't really have any like wiltshire shropshire uh those those are the main two and then you get up to like the cotswolds what's what's it up in the cotswolds all i know is is that it's a lot of fields it's a lot of hills and some very nice scenery. But in terms of actual urbanisation, I don't think they've figured it out yet. Isn't that their whole thing, though? Isn't their whole thing not to be urbanised? Yeah, I guess so. And granted, Wiltshire does have Stonehenge, so technically it does have something worth going to see. But, you know, they're just bunks of rocks in it. I distinctly remember driving past Stonehenge. We were on our way down to Devon, and I just went, oh my god, it's Stonehenge, can we go and have a look? and my mum literally just turned around and went, no, it's a waste of time. And then we just drove off. And it was like, look, it's just some rocks. It doesn't matter. It's not the fact of how they got there or what they are or it's the fact there's an alien underworld or from space. But yeah, I mean, they're not going anywhere. So if you suddenly decide, oh, you know what? Maybe I am interested in some, you know, millennia year old rocks that aren't going to move and look like Jenga pieces, then fine. You can do that. But I saw them in the doctor episode about Pandora's box and that's all that matters That's the closest I'm gonna get and I when they build that tunnel that inevitably goes underneath it and you can't see it Anyway, there won't be a point. So we're glad I saw them. They're building a tunnel. Yeah What happens if it just knocks them over What happens if they just go? We all fucking die, mate. That's what will happen. If Stonehenge gets knocked over, then it will force all of us to... All our heads will explode. Because that's what's keeping us all level. Speaking of a solid performance, today's episode has been sensational. Much like Stonehenge, it's a very solid piece of artwork, all of which combined together to create something astonishing, groundbreaking, and likely from space. So we've got a lovely little set for you with... Space Octopus Cartel. Space Octopus Cartel. It sounds like a really fun version of The Godfather. They are. Sensational. They're brilliant. I mean, to give you the chat GPT. description. They are a five-piece band from London that blends synth-infused progressive rock with elements of sci-fi and history. And I feel like they kind of gave us a flavour of that. It's not fucking banging on about sci-fi and history. Sci-fi and history. It's fucking Stonehenge, the band. Oh, fuck my life. Well, here is the Uncharted riffs of the Space Octopus Cartel. Go and give them a follow at Space Octopus Cartel. Stonehenge.co.uk They are not a World Heritage site. They are the Space Octopus Cartel on every social media. Go and check them out. You can go and find us at Uncharted Riffs and I will put all of our social media links and the songs that they have chosen in the bio below. But in the meantime, enjoy the Uncharted Riffs podcast with Space Octopus Cartel. guinevere alex thank you so much for joining us here on the uncharted riffs podcast it's um it's been a while trying to get hold of you guys actually because i mean just to set it up obviously myself i know becky who i believe used to be your lead vocalist yeah yes indeed yes so i went to uni university with her and um we stayed in touch afterwards she was like yeah i've got this new music project it's going to be amazing i'm going to put you in touch and then she fucking left so how's it been for you guys since she's gone and what have you been up to yeah how are you guys been doing? Yeah it's been what about a month or so since like two or three weeks since
SPEAKER_03:our last actual gig about a month since the last EP came out which obviously had Becky all over it on Megafauna so yeah since then we've just been locked away writing
SPEAKER_01:yeah back in the practice room so we've in the process of getting a new singer we've got someone we can't we're not quite ready to announce it yet but things will be coming in the future of somebody that we may be announcing
SPEAKER_02:oh brilliant Is the idea to have another EP out next, or is it an album, or what's next for Space Octopus?
SPEAKER_01:Probably another EP. Albums are very expensive.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I was going to say, the only two you've got are three tracks and four tracks respectively. So I imagine that's keeping it light and breezy. But I think sometimes, especially with an EP, you don't want an album to drag on too long. I know a number of records that are like 14, 15 tracks long. And by the end, you're like, most of these, I don't even remember what they sound like. But having listened to Megafauna very, very recently, I can say with confidence and with the titles as well, that I remember every single one of them. They're all very interlinked. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, that might be quite a good touching point, actually. I mean, where's that idea come from? So it's called Megafauna. It's four songs long. I literally just listened to it before we started because I wanted to refresh my memory and basically, yeah, make sure that I was all researched up before speaking to you guys. But yeah, how did that come around? What was the influences? And yeah, why Megafauna?
SPEAKER_01:So this is my fault. Yeah. So I wrote a song about giant serpents taking over the world called Great Serpents because I'm very original. And Jake had done one called Lizard Impact that's about a dinosaur crashing into Earth from space because we do like real hard hitting emotional stuff, you know. And ages ago, genuinely ages ago, I'd come up with the name Megafauna to use for something. And I was like, all right, I've got to use it. Got to use it for something. And then for this, I was like, it's perfect. It even fits the theme. yeah so I came up with it ages ago and it sort of happened to fit and I was like yes guys please please let me do it please
SPEAKER_02:we were kind enough to let you did he just happen to write a song around also lizards or was that choreographed between the two of you to actually sync up
SPEAKER_01:I think that was not choreographed I think Jake just did it there was a
SPEAKER_02:complete reptilian coincidence that came through with those ones I mean you say you casually wrote these songs but great serpents from what i can tell is like eight minutes long just under eight minutes and obviously as a prog band you've got to blur the lines and sort of try you but you know try out these new things um but why is it that they got you know in four songs i think the ep is nearly 24 minutes long so you're averaging like six minutes per song like what what happened there where did the ideas just keep going and you didn't want to end yeah basically just kind of how it works we're very bad at saying no if if we're like
SPEAKER_03:i'm a
SPEAKER_02:practitioner room and someone
SPEAKER_03:plays something and it's like an idea which jumps up of
SPEAKER_02:something you know you don't need to pick one of them just play them
SPEAKER_03:both and then to be fair suddenly extends
SPEAKER_01:the the original demo of serpents was like i think 12 minutes long and some section you made me cut i had to cut out the 15 for doom section yeah someday i'm bringing it back it's coming back
SPEAKER_02:we took a hacksaw to that one just do it as a b-side just just throw it in there as a little extra quick win it's a quick win do you perform the full version when you do it live Is that something that you've decided?
SPEAKER_01:No, they don't like the 15-4. It's
SPEAKER_02:already longer is the problem. We're already extending bits. And it's hard enough to play once. We can't add extra bits to it. It's rough. I was going to say, a lot of bands, when they get a little bit more fame, maybe they end up doing songs that just last for 20-25 minutes and make it a full album. So maybe bank that idea. At some point... At some point.
SPEAKER_03:100% on
SPEAKER_02:the cards. Speaking of live music, obviously, the first part of the show will link us perfectly into that. Is one of the live shows that you picked one of yours where you've played one of these eight minute songs? Or is it something that inspired you to write the music that you put out now?
SPEAKER_01:You know what? It wasn't because I didn't consider that as an option. Our
SPEAKER_02:last guest picked their own one, didn't they? Or one of them did. It's always an option if you want to self-promote your own life. If you've got one now that comes to mind, I'll allow two. One that you've performed and one that you went as a punter. We should just change the rules, mate. When we get people on, just pick one of your own. Self-promotion, go for it. Yeah, why not? So yeah, over to you. I mean, what was a good gig for Space Octopus Cartel? Didn't you have one a few weeks ago that was your biggest one?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Oh yeah, genuinely, that was a great gig.
SPEAKER_02:That was a really good one. The last time we played that venue as well, I think, we did that venue sort of about a year ago, but as a, I think we were like second, like the sort of like first support act. So,
SPEAKER_03:but yeah, there's something about Camden Assembly just...
SPEAKER_01:It makes us play well,
SPEAKER_03:I think. I
SPEAKER_01:would also say our first ever gig, like two years ago, where we played for like... an hour and a half, an hour and 45 minutes, like a stupidly long amount of time for people who had only ever released three songs. So the audience didn't know any of it. And we're just there like, yeah, this is brilliant. And I was like, we hadn't even
SPEAKER_02:released
SPEAKER_01:for three songs. I thought, oh
SPEAKER_02:no. We just played. Discovery Bluff was May 2024. So about this time last year. So what did you fill an hour and a quarter of time with? Was it all covers? It was lots of like
SPEAKER_00:no no
SPEAKER_02:did you just play for an hour an hour and 15 version of great serpents just yeah
SPEAKER_00:i don't
SPEAKER_02:think serpents was on the set we had a bunch of earlier versions of like the megafauna stuff like lizard impact sort of been alive for about two years now but in various shapes
SPEAKER_01:and sizes. Yeah, there was an extra guitar solo in it. Those are my favourite ones.
SPEAKER_02:You could say that going from that to the most recent gig is on a whole different scale. Very good, very good. Right back down, right back down. We need that. Josh this is why you hired me it's at this point in the podcast about 5-10 minutes in where it just deteriorates because of a shit joke every time that's the sort of marketing we're looking for to be honest that's my part of the show done comedy sidekick is done I can just sit and relax now so what was it that made it about that last gig then obviously that was Camden Assembly Hall how many sort of people did that hold I don't think I've been there before
SPEAKER_01:I think it's a 200 capacity, but like...
SPEAKER_02:It says it holds 200.
SPEAKER_01:I think that's a lie. That
SPEAKER_02:would be tight. You think more? No,
SPEAKER_01:less. No, no, it's tight in there.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. We sold, I can't remember how many, like about 130, 120-ish? 126. Wow.
SPEAKER_02:There you go. Roughly 126. And yeah, that felt, it felt like quite a full room. There are another 74 people in there. they would have been unhappy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they would have been packed.
SPEAKER_02:But yeah, it's a great room, really good lighting, great sound.
SPEAKER_01:Love Camden Assembly.
SPEAKER_02:Was there much with it in terms of like mosh pits and actual live experience? Or was it a lot of maybe like, I know obviously quite a lot of it is almost synth, almost like psychedelic rock, which I love. But I mean, it's, yeah, were people moshing to it?
SPEAKER_01:I think we got a little mosh, I think, near the end.
SPEAKER_02:Some of our
SPEAKER_03:stuff encourages a bit of moshing. I mean, some of it encourages standing with your arms folded. So we try and keep it like... We try and balance for two. But especially in the smaller spaces, we can make people
SPEAKER_02:move a bit. Yeah. What did you get the most movement on? Which song? Can you remember? The middle of Lizard Impact normally goes pretty hard. People love that bit. It's like the perfect jumping tempo. You know, you can bounce up and down right
SPEAKER_01:in time. It's also a great opportunity to scream, let's fucking go and get people moving.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. People follow instructions. Oh, yeah. Say something into a mic and they'll do it probably.
SPEAKER_02:Everyone needs very blunt directions with that kind of thing. People are just there sort of tapping toes and doing this sort of 45-year-old dad dance where you know they don't want to be there. They're just sort of forward and back, forward and back. And then you shout, let's fucking go. And then suddenly everyone just starts circling around. each other. That's all they need.
SPEAKER_01:This summer we're playing Guildfest. Oh yes. Very excited about we're on the Sunday the 6th. which I think is Peppa Pig Day. Oh, yeah. It's been voted the best family festival for like three years in a row. So we're going to have to work very difficult to not say let's fucking go very loudly into the microphone because I think all of the children would not like that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. How did you secure that gig? You're not sponsored by Peppa Pig or pigs or farms or anything? Not yet. Not yet. Is that the aim? Is that what we're going to do with it? Well, it was either Peppa Pig Day or Bluey Day. Bluey was the day before. Yeah, we didn't get Bluey Day. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's it. Yeah, basically, Jake, our drummer, is just, like, an insane person when it comes to admin and just applied to, like, loads of festivals. He's been really professional with, like, putting, like, EPK together and, like, oh, this is all the venues we played. Like, this is how many tickets we've sold. And they said partially it's because of our, like, good social media presence, which is a lot to him. So, like, big up, Jake. We love you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I mean, that's all it is, really, as well. Like, obviously, you have to deliver when it comes to the live gigs. That's the crux of it. But the social media side of things is absolutely massive. So... Yeah, and also, I must admit, some of the artwork that comes with it, I don't know if he's doing it as well, but that is incredible. Yeah, yeah. Like the asteroids, the T-Rex. He taught himself to draw to do that. Yeah, yeah. He could draw. I went to uni with him, like, I met him about 10 years ago. He has no artistic talent before
SPEAKER_03:then. And then, like, about
SPEAKER_00:two years
SPEAKER_03:ago, honestly, and then two years ago, he was just like, oh, I'd like to draw now. I'm going to draw.
SPEAKER_01:No, it's really
SPEAKER_03:impressive. And then he did it. That's
SPEAKER_02:mad. I wish I had that level of conviction to just say, I'm going to do this thing and then actually do it. I can barely make breakfast, let alone like draw. I mean, even the cover of Megafauna, it has that sort of cartoony art style, but it almost looks like, you know, like... Like CatDog and those 90s cartoons from Cartoon Network. It really gives me that kind of vibe. I love it. Very Ed, Edd n Eddy, that kind of thing. Yeah. I love it. I mean, all of our songs are, as we've said, quite long and not the most serious. So we quite like having an air of cartoony-ness to it all. And I guess a lot of them are... trying hard to be or not trying hard at all they're just self-referential anyway and very you know it's good especially in progressive rock and synth and i mean you you guys all came from jazz bands or a jazz band so you've got to have a bit of self-awareness to to play this kind of music anyway oh yeah that sounds great but in terms of um obviously like live gigs away from maybe ones you've done before is there any particular one where you've been to as a as an audience member maybe even watched it from from behind the scenes like is there anything that comes to mind as a as a favorite live gig for for yourselves maybe gwyn first
SPEAKER_01:yeah sure uh so i i honestly this one was actually kind of an easy choice for me uh which is surprising because i've been to a lot of live gigs so i the audience may not know this but i'm transgender uh and in sort of 2020 that was when I like first sort of came out I was first like I wasn't out to everybody but I was like out to myself and like starting the process of stuff and I went to go and see my favorite band the Deer Hunter in Islington and they play they're not very big they're American they play in this really small room but it's just like a really amazing gig and there was a bit where they put up like pride lights while they were singing my favorite song This Wonderful Life by them great song go and check it out and that just like really meant a lot to me I really I loved it because it was One of the first times I was feeling like really comfortable in my own skin. And then they play my favorite song, like, oh, and it's gay, like, yay. So yeah, it was a really amazing night for me. I had a really good time.
SPEAKER_02:No, I mean, it's definitely something that could be kind of like a, almost like a muse as well for writers. Is that anything that you've looked at before when writing songs or is it something you've maybe avoided just until a later date?
SPEAKER_01:Very odd. Don't worry. The next EP is going to be full of Gwen's transgender nonsense.
SPEAKER_03:Love it. Is that my name? Have you just, have you leaked my name?
SPEAKER_01:Well, you want to let me, they won't let me call it The Life and Times of Gwenevere Klein. So yes, that's going to be it. They've retook that name, which I think is rude.
SPEAKER_02:I like it. I think it's poetic in a way. It's got a good flow. It's got character. How about yourself, Alex? Anything similar to that? Nothing as deeply profound and life-changing. No, I mean, there's a few. I've I'm going to pick probably a most recent one because otherwise I could go on forever. I'm a huge Biffy Clyro fan. Probably my favorite band. And last October, they did Three Nights at Shepherd's Bush, where each night they played... So they did their first album in full, second album in full, third album in full, and then a second set of just random songs. But it was... as a band they're one of those bands who are like so good live and so polished and just sound amazing but also have this like raw energy which i think is really hard to sometimes you get like super slick clean bands but it feels a bit too polished and shiny and other times you get bands who are really like rough and ready and energetic but they actually sound a bit crap so these are like perfect middle ground and like the second set just being essentially surprises for like a bunch of hardcore fans was like songs I haven't played in years and like weird b-sides and all that and it's just great like it's a band doing exactly what they wanted to do with such like conviction it was like yeah that's that's what I want to do eventually yeah I'd love to do something like that was it um Was it almost like an anniversary gig? Or was it kind of a... Yeah, so it was... I think it's been 20 years since their first album came out. And they sort of do all their albums in cycles of three. And this was the end of their ninth album touring cycle. So it's a chance for them to revisit all the old stuff before
SPEAKER_03:they lock themselves away and do new things.
SPEAKER_02:Well, they've done so many albums. Of the ones that you... Well, I presume you know all of them, but which one is your go-to if you had to pick one? oh oh probably vertigo of bliss so my second album proper angular weird but a couple of sing-along bits it's a very very good choice i was wondering which one would come up it's just uh it's so good such a good album i don't think i've heard any of the others i've heard only revolutions I feel like everyone has it's everyone's go to some of their earliest stuff it doesn't sound much like them now if at all because they really started they started off slightly heavier and then they sort of modernised themselves as you would as a band who have become very popular from their sort of mid 2010s but they sort of jumped on that modern rock train that Mallory Knox and Lower Than Atlantis kicked off sort of in the late 2000s and then carried on from there but I love them as well big fan glad to see it Were you at the gig, Nick? I was not. I was somewhere else, but I don't have an excuse. No, they're definitely a band I'd love to see anyway. Obviously, I only know the one album, really, but it's an album which seems to play like all of it anyway, all the time. It's always half a set list on a normal night. They just turn up and play half of their discography and go home. It takes like seven hours. I would love that. That'd be great. One, two, one, two. Well, speaking of discography, obviously that might move us slightly swiftly on to our perfect song mashup. So this is the next segment of our podcast. What we look to do with this is basically get an overall understanding of your influences behind your music. So obviously, Gwen, you're writing tunes for Space Octopus Cartel. Alex, obviously yourself, I think you're a guitarist. Is that right? I am indeed. yeah yeah i'll give it a go so yeah i'll go so favorite guitar riff what have i got scribbled down i had to think
SPEAKER_01:i've been excited for this
SPEAKER_02:i've got so i think yeah okay i'll stick with this one uh so arcane banquet arcane roots they no longer exist it's really annoying uh the singer moved off to iceland to become like a music producer and locked himself away in like a cabin and he was actually a fantastic frontman singer guitarist and the song triptych opens with this like singing this wild super high like vocal part and he's just playing these like super intricate arpeggios and like flying around the fretboard it's wild it it The song starts and you just get punched in the throat. It's amazing. I love that phrase. It's such a good phrase. It's so good. Punched in the throat. Punched in the throat by riffs. That's for Dream. Definitely that as a guitar riff. I'm intrigued by that one because it's so buried in blood and chemistry it's like the sixth track in the middle of there it's not even one of their main singles or anything it's just a lot of lodged in the middle there what was it about just did you just hear it and go that's the one i know it yeah i mean so i saw them support muse in rome in 2013 or something yeah because i mean it was like rome stadium and arcane roots were completely unknown so i just like i was there so i went to see them And again, they just come out and play these obscene riffs.
SPEAKER_01:That's insane.
SPEAKER_02:And yeah, so just absolutely hooked on them from there. And Triptych was in their live sets for a really long time when they first started, and then They took it out of the sets for like two years because the front man was like, it's not good enough yet. Then when they put it back in the set, it was the exact same song, but with more riffs in the middle. And again, just perfect. I know what this song needs. More riffs. It's not long and weird enough in the middle.
SPEAKER_01:I can see where you take the influence.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Is that something that you've tried to play before? Or is it something that you've attempted on your own? i can i can play the guitar parts i absolutely cannot sing it
SPEAKER_01:alex is one of the best guitarists i've ever met like it's insane yeah i got all the
SPEAKER_02:um they sold all the tab books for a really short while and i ended up waiting i think i ordered one of them because they just made them themselves because again they were like a pretty small band so i ordered one of them and i think i ended up waiting like three or four years for it to arrive and i've moved it was during uni so i've moved for a bunch of flats so when they sent out an email like oh they're gonna send this out soon i had to reply like i've changed address and then the front man replied because he runs the merch store
SPEAKER_03:like sorry
SPEAKER_02:so had his email it was great that is not a bad start to the perfect song mashup at all is there I mean you said obviously the vocals he's one of the best front men you've ever seen would you say that that would you use him as the vocals for your perfect song or would you change it up I would not i would jump over to canadian prog superstar devin townsend who is categorically the best vocalist alive and i will hear no no no further questions your honor he's just watching like interviews and stuff with him and he's similar to jake he was like oh i'm going to i'm going to sing now and he just like i don't know how he hasn't blown his like blown his lungs at some point he just like screeches with perfect pitch so loud so powerful so perfectly so probably like the song Funeral off like any live version of Funeral I think there's one from Royal Albert Hall like about 10 years ago which is just like again it's so high it's so like emotional and powerful and he just does it like you know he could be sitting in bed doing it as well so easy, so casual, but so good. One question I have for people who kind of scream little bit more maybe in their vocals is there actually like a certain way to do it where you don't completely fuck your vocal cords or is it literally just go hell for leather and just just hope it
SPEAKER_01:doesn't go wrong if you do that you'll destroy yourself so it's basically you've got to engage the chords but you don't want to provide you don't want to strain them so you don't want to be like you don't want to be creating the volume from the vocal cords you've got to do it all from the diaphragm and push from there it's really difficult to do properly like it's way easier to just belt it and hurt yourself
SPEAKER_02:you can do what uh cory taylor from slipknot did for the first couple of albums and literally just yell until until he like completely ruined his voice and took like 10 years to recover but i'll tell you what those two albums sound great you can't
SPEAKER_03:yeah so what you're
SPEAKER_02:saying is when i'm screaming in the shower i should just stop
SPEAKER_01:Well, you've got two albums worth, but that's it. Yeah, you get two years.
SPEAKER_02:Two good years. What songs do you listen to in the shower, Josh, that require you to scream? Oh, just Adele, Taylor Swift. Wonderwall. Wonderwall, yeah. Anyway, here's a... Literally anything. Basics for a reason. I just can't sing. That's the issue. It's all screaming. It's all just pain. It's just pain. But yeah, that's not a bad vocalist. I don't actually know. Devon Townsend. I don't know about yourself, Nick. Have you heard of him? I am aware of Devon Townsend and Devon Townsend Band and Devon Townsend Project. He gets his name around. Is that three separate bands? That's three separate things, yeah. It's all the same band but over like
SPEAKER_03:25 years where he's like, I need to completely reinvent myself.
SPEAKER_02:He just changes the name. Yeah, completely reinventing himself by not changing a single thing about the band's name besides fucking band and project at the end. and then the music's pretty similar anyway it's like me when i'm saving a word document and i do final final final one final final and actually final properly final it's just ban yeah david townsend ban ban ban ban yeah
SPEAKER_01:so like we have on on stage when we play we've got like a big roller banner that i designed oh my uh but on my on my desktop i have like 17 different versions of like banner final banner final yellow recolor banner final yellow recoloring this time final reel reel banner final it was great
SPEAKER_02:V1 V2 V2 yeah so many nothing is ever finished nowadays you just can't you can always add more but I guess that's loops back to being a progressive rock band you can always add more oh yeah exactly exactly and in terms of with the obviously so vocals have gone for Devin Townsend I've written down Devin Townsend Funeral from Albert Hall because I think that's that's a specific performance you said that sounds really sad yeah it is it actually just Is there any kind of lyrics to accompany that vocals? Is there a song, performance, band, anything that comes to mind that you'd like Devin Townsend to sing? What would I like to have in town? So his music style is very similar to ours in that it's a lot of big grand over the top.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, it's just a
SPEAKER_02:lot.
SPEAKER_01:Just leave it there.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's a lot. But in terms of what I actually quite like in lyrics, I much prefer bands like Death Havana or artists like Frank Turner who are a bit more almost so painfully specific. There's a bunch of Death Havana songs where the lyrics are I don't know. I grew up on a street in
SPEAKER_03:Norfolk and now I'm sad. And it's like, right. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:I
SPEAKER_03:empathize with that. I understand
SPEAKER_02:that now. And like this sort of really like cutting precision of them. is exactly what I want. So yeah, so I want Devin Townsend singing about being sad in Canada or something, I guess. I'm just going to note down being sad in Canada. Yeah. That's probably the most specific we can get with that, to be fair. But it's obviously finally to sort of wrap up your perfect song. So to be fair, what I've got so far, we've got Triptych from, was it Arcane Fire? Is that what you said? Arcane Roots. Arcane Roots. Not Arcade Fire. Oh, yeah. I got them mixed up. My apologies. So Triptych from Arcane Roots we've got Being Sad in Canada for the lyrics and then you've got Devin Townsend singing it in the in the style of a funeral from the Royal Apple Hall yeah nice what drum and bass would you have with that what drum and bass it doesn't have to be a drum and bass song I should say it doesn't have to be drum and bass no it'd probably be like I think Muse are one of the best rhythm sections like out there so I mean this song is a song of all the songs this song will end up being one of them it's probably something like Hysteria or even like Mercy off of Drones has a really good drum and bass mush in the verse which I really like I always forget Drones is an album that they did
SPEAKER_03:and it's better than everyone says I will defend
SPEAKER_02:it to a solid 7 out of 10
SPEAKER_01:You know, I've never even listened to it.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly my point. It's just one of the, like all of the others, everyone's like, oh my God, it's Muse. I love these records. And then it comes to Drones and everyone goes, oh yeah, that one. Oh yeah, Drones was there. At
SPEAKER_01:least they didn't try and sell that one as an NFT. That's
SPEAKER_02:true. That is true. Let's forget. Oh, if only they were so perfect and they didn't do that. But it's okay. Black holes and revelations means that I can't hate them. So I can, no matter what they do, that and the second law, I'm just going to go, you know what? You did a song, you did madness. You can stay over there and I like you. What's a bit of a weird coincidence as well is that our most recent guest, which is a band called Catlayer, they're like a German band, we'll play you their Uncharted song later on in the pod, but they literally brought up hysteria by Muse as their song as well so I'm starting to think there's a I mean the first two episodes we did was pretty much just Oasis coming up every mainly because of me but like it was like Oasis came up twice then Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd came up twice and now we've had Muse Hysteria come up twice we just need to go for the next episode what's that song combination that's like a 30 minute 30 minute guitar riff solo from Lynyrd Skynyrd mixed with any Oasis song and having Muse in the back as the rhythm as the bass now that is a song that sounds
SPEAKER_03:good
SPEAKER_02:I know what we're writing next let's re-record the episode start again That sounds brilliant. I mean, that is not a bad, perfect song. I must admit. I think, I mean, yeah, there's a lot of good stuff in there. And to be fair, being sad in Canada is definitely something I've wanted to do. So I will note that down as a song lyric. That's an album title if I've ever heard one. Exactly. Well, Gwen, we'll go over to yourself if you want with the perfect song mashup. Where do you want to start? Is there a particular part that you think is the strongest?
SPEAKER_01:To be honest, I think all my songs are perfect choices. So any of them are good. Of
SPEAKER_02:course. Nice. That is a bold statement, but I commend it. I
SPEAKER_01:hope you're ready for me to talk about some music you have never heard of.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you're going to have to get ready to describe it then. That is literally the point of this show. This is perfect.
SPEAKER_01:I guess, let's start with vocals. So one of my favorite vocalists is Courtney Swain from the band Bent Knee. Anyone heard of Bent Knee?
SPEAKER_02:I think they are saved in one of my playlists. And I recognize the name.
SPEAKER_01:I dearly love Bentley. I've only ever been able to see them once. And that was the first time I ever heard them was when they were supporting Haken like six years ago. Oh, they
SPEAKER_02:did Land Animal.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I have heard of them. Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Oh, yes. I love Bentley. Just two of you. Yeah, they're literally two of us.
SPEAKER_02:They better hope we don't get sick, because then both of their fans will be upset.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so the song Way Too Long is, I think, just a really stunning, really raw example of both a very technical vocal performance and very emotional. It starts off with incredibly powerful high notes, you're just holding over riffs, and then In the verses, it's just very tight, very controlled. Just an amazing display of technical range and how to use that technical range to emotionally express stuff. Because I think anyone can be really, really technically good. I think anyone with enough time can do that. But I think it takes real talent to use those techniques to be really expressive with it. So that's something I really, really like about her singing style. I think it's amazing.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, in layman's terms for myself and Alex and any of the listeners that don't know Bent Knee, is there someone that you can relate them to that maybe we would have heard of already?
SPEAKER_01:Oh God, this is what I'm not very good at. I only know weirdo stuff.
SPEAKER_02:That's quite a tough question because they're like, I'm thinking of bands in Boston now because that's where they're from. They're not, they're quite unique. They're another sort of, frog band but i think that it's the fact i'm trying to think of female fronted bands as well now maybe like um honey revenge they're quite i don't know that's probably the only one i can think of but i don't
SPEAKER_00:know i don't know them
SPEAKER_02:i don't even know if anyone knows who they are i'm helping that yeah i don't know it's just wheels within wheels
SPEAKER_01:yeah I mean like good female singer what's her name Hayley Williams from Paramore
SPEAKER_02:oh yeah
SPEAKER_01:like that but like a bit more technical a bit more controlled
SPEAKER_02:okay nice I feel like
SPEAKER_01:I'm not saying Hayley Williams I'm not trying to throw any shade I think she's great I think she's great but Courtney Swain's better
SPEAKER_02:it's a slightly different sound though from what you were saying I mean it's yeah
SPEAKER_01:it's more rocky
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Okay, nice. I mean, that was a fantastic description as well, I should say, by the way. Thank you. That was definitely... Well, Nick, would you add anything to that in terms of Bentley? I would say the only band I can think of that they're slightly similar to is a band called Thank You Scientist, if you've heard of them.
SPEAKER_01:Another one of my favourite
SPEAKER_02:bands. There you go. So they're like a sort of vibrant prog rock band. But yeah, I mean, in terms of... Obviously, that's the vocal side of things. Was there lyrics that would accompany that? Are you going to be sad in Canada as well?
SPEAKER_01:I'm going to be different. I'm going to be sad in Australia.
SPEAKER_02:Nice.
SPEAKER_01:So the specific song I've chosen is Salt by Caligula's Horse. Which is, this is another one that's actually quite personal to me. Because a few years ago, before I was trans, like very close to before, I had some sort of fairly bad health problems. I won't go into it too specifics, but I couldn't really eat food for a long time. And that was pretty bad for me. That wasn't fun. So... There were like lots of nights where I was just like lying awake, like really stressed and really anxious. And I would listen to this song and it has a really good bit right before the big chorus where they have the words are call out the warning more than a mantra. I can make it to the morning. And that really helped me because I was like, oh, yeah, I can make it to the morning. I'm not just going to like sit here and be anxious all night. Like this will be fine eventually. Yeah, so I really like their lyrics because they're not always very specific, but they're always very emotive, very evocative. I think that gives, it means you can always sort of find something to latch onto. Even if they're thinking about like specific experience you haven't had, you can always find that like emotional resonance and then join in with that. I really, I think they're really good. And it's sort of a cheeky way to sneak in an extra riff because I love the chorus riff from that song. I think it's great.
SPEAKER_02:Brilliant. And have you ever sort of nicked something maybe from that to be able to translate into your own songs with Space Octopus Cartel?
SPEAKER_01:I have a bit. I have a bit. The song Coming From The Rain that we have not recorded yet, but we have played our most recent gig, which is about being transgender because I'm very original. The sort of that is... I think there's only one bit in that where I'm very specific, like this is about being trans. But the rest of it is all stuff where you could kind of just like latch onto it if you want. And you could say like, oh, this is about, you know, like emotional experiences and like having gone through them, like how do you cope with it afterwards?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I feel like that's always the hardest bit as well as to be able to capture an emotion within the song. And I think especially if it's a song that's been written off the back of, a particularly painful experience or something that you've got to go through to be able to get to the other side, I think being able to capture that in three minutes, five minutes, maybe eight minutes in
SPEAKER_00:the case of Megaforna,
SPEAKER_02:to be able to capture that is really something. And I think it's, I mean, fair play to be able to do it and to be able to speak so openly about it as well because it's not an easy
SPEAKER_01:subject. It's something I've thought a lot about because one of the things I... This is partially on how I'm writing songs now in the future, is I really like it when you can specifically tell what something's a metaphor for. Because if you think about it, songs like anything by Rage Against The Machine and stuff like We're Not Gonna Take It by Dee Snider, where All of those are very angry songs, but coming from a very left-wing, very anti-authoritarian perspective. And Republicans fucking love them, and I hate it. They shouldn't be fucking playing those. They should have more than two brain cells, and they should know this song is directly against you. So something that I'm trying to do now in songs is make it be as obvious as possible. This is what I am singing about. Do not take this in any different way. I have had these experiences. I want you to understand them, but also do it in a way that everyone can listen to it. So making things easy for myself.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And with the songwriting process, how do you sort of go around that? Do you do it very solitary? Is it very much almost like a therapy kind of thing for yourself? Or is it very much a collaborative experience working with the others in the band to get their thoughts on it? Or how do you go about it?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, kind of all of the above, really. So like the way we normally write songs is, at least the way we do it when I start done most of the writing is, I will sit in my room and I'll like come up with something, whether that's just like fucking around on a bass or like keys or going learning some new theory and trying to apply it. And I'll like write stuff out and often way too much stuff. And then I'll take it to the practice room, send a demo to the chat, be like, oh guys, I wrote this, can we play it in practice? And then we'll go through it and people will be like, oh, what if we did this? And then Alex will be like, Gwen, your guitar part is bad. Here's a much better one. And I'll just play something amazing. And then we'll sort of slowly, once we've got the core ideas, we'll then sort of shape it, like the structure and the instrumentation as a band together. And then normally it takes us like playing it live once or twice to really get an idea of the identity of a song and which bits really gel and which bits really hit and which bits are maybe not good. But we don't have as many of those anymore. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:but that comes with success, right? It comes with building a fan base, being able to develop your own sound and being able to get people on board with it. It's over time being able to write songs that you know people are going to fall in love with. And to be fair, I know a lot of bands tend to try new stuff They tend to drift maybe away from where their roots were. But at the end of the day, if you've got that following anyway, people will follow you into the new direction that you want to take it. So I think it's amazing that you're able to sort of, yeah, transform it into whatever the next album is going to be about and the one after and the one after that. So that sounds great. But I mean, in terms of, obviously that was, I mean, yeah, Courtney Swain. No, so not Courtney Swain, sorry. That was the vocals. The lyrics was salt by Caligula's horse.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:You said the chorus was, guitar riff was pretty good what is the guitar riff that you've chosen that's beaten that from top
SPEAKER_01:so this is this is one of my all-time favorite riffs that i play all the time uh it is the and it's i've been cheeky it's a bass riff it's not really a guitar riff it's first heard on the bass
SPEAKER_02:i don't think that's cheeky at all i think that's perfectly valid
SPEAKER_01:uh it's the song pareidolia by haken See, Alex was expecting me to say schism. I was expecting schism, but it wasn't. I just play that because it's annoying.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it is. It's well done.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so this is a song that's haunted me for years. I love it so much. And it starts with this amazing bass riff where you guys aren't really music theory guys, are you?
SPEAKER_02:We can try. I just write about new music. The theory part is... I'm like Matt Patton. It's just a theory.
SPEAKER_01:Music theory! Yeah!
SPEAKER_02:Test us.
SPEAKER_01:So this is using the Phrygian Dominance Scale.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, we're fucked. I'm already out. I just heard fridge and now I need to make food you know Mario like desert levels yeah the sound of that sounds like that that's
SPEAKER_01:a great way of explaining it very like Arabian kind of well not really Arabian but like faux Arabian inspired so it's like that like that kind of sound and it's just this really cool riff like keeps going on it and then he plays it Connor Green the bass player plays it on his own and then the whole band picks in really heavy after it and it comes back a few times but it's It's partially also because when I was younger, I listened to the song Violent Pionography by System of a Down, banger song, that also uses a very similar thing. And then I heard this song, which is like a more complicated version of using that scale. And I was like, right, this is what I'm going to do forever. This is the scale I will use in everything. It's the scale that the song Great Scarp and Soft Megaphone is based off. I just love it so much. I think it's amazing. And I love the fact that it's a bass riff. It makes me happy.
SPEAKER_02:yeah I mean that's are you sure you don't want to put that down as the drum bass beat or do you have you got another one for that okay I feel like we're slowly gearing up towards probably the greatest one of the lot because it's every song is like yeah we've got I mean this is my lyrics but the vocals are also really good and then the next one is like everything I mean it was stated at the beginning that all of these are perfect and were picked out immediately yeah so
SPEAKER_01:it's hard to disagree I've chosen the best set song's written that's just the way it goes
SPEAKER_02:and it can't be proven wrong nobody can say otherwise but what's the uh what's the drum spot then that's the that's kicked that off i mean that's got it must be good to be able to beat that off if that's the base
SPEAKER_01:it's very good so i'm not to be fair i don't know that much about drums that's one of the few bits of music where i'm just completely head empty don't know anything
SPEAKER_00:yeah
SPEAKER_01:but i do like stuff that's very quick and has lots of notes i know i like that uh so do you guys know the band sungazer
SPEAKER_02:i do know the band sungazer
SPEAKER_01:yeah sungazer alex and i in fact went to see sungazer very recently uh so i've chosen the song against the fall of night by sungazer and the drummer's sean crowder just incredible drummer like the stuff he can do while just while he's just like chatting away it just throwing off like polyrhythms to playing like fives on one hand like sevens on the other hand and then like fifteens with his foot and making it sound good because that's another one where anyone with enough time on their hands can learn to do like oh I'm going to do sevens against like 14s. Wait, that's easy. I'm going to do sevens against 15s. Anyone can do that. But the fact that they can make it sound so groovy and so engaging, I think is really, really cool. I love that. And the way that he manipulates the feel of the time throughout the song, incredible. Absolute banger.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know that one. Do you know that one, Nick? I believe it's the title track of their album from last year. It is. What was the name of the song again? So, Sungazer. What was the name of the
SPEAKER_01:song? Sungazer, Against the Fall of
SPEAKER_02:Night. Fuck yeah. That is a great song.
SPEAKER_01:It's a great tune.
SPEAKER_02:It's a bold opener as well for an eponymous album. If you're going to stick the titular track at the start, it's got to be good. And my God, is it good? Yeah. Is this a band that you've seen live, Gwen?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I've seen them a few times. So I saw them. So this is the YouTuber Adam Neely's band, who's an incredible bass player as well. So that's another cheeky, sneaking some more stuff in there. Yeah, I've seen them live a few times. Saw them the first time, I think the second time they ever came to this country from America. I think I've seen them three times. I don't quite remember. But yeah, Alex and I saw them a few weeks ago. month ago yeah incredible gig if anything they're even better live than they are on the album like incredible stage presence really like put in on a show you know
SPEAKER_02:yeah was it was a small crowd or was it quite a
SPEAKER_01:oh pretty big
SPEAKER_02:yeah it's like an assembly hall like a thousand one and a half thousand people so
SPEAKER_01:yeah yeah yeah
SPEAKER_02:Nice. I was going to say, sometimes the smaller gigs are often a bit better, especially if you've known them from the early days. If you've seen them three times, I'm assuming at least one of them was slightly smaller, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they've gotten a lot bigger. To be fair, the first time I saw them was in heaven in London. That was pretty packed, actually. It was pretty packed. I think it's because loads of people were like, oh, we don't know if they're ever going to come back to England again. We've got to go see them.
SPEAKER_02:yeah they also have that that youtuber like yeah they've got a youtube site you know like people want to go and see adam neely because he's the bass man from youtube so yeah go and see him anyway does he perform music on youtube or is it okay or does he do other youtuber
SPEAKER_01:stuff so he's a music theory youtuber
SPEAKER_02:oh okay I was going to say, if he's doing Sidemen Plus or something. No, no, no. He does unboxings. Yeah, unboxings, mukbangs, all the rest of it.
SPEAKER_01:I would love to see that, to be fair. I think that would be really funny. On stage.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, a sungazer live mukbang. Now that's a dream. That's brilliant. I mean, in terms of a perfect song, you said they were all perfect songs for your perfect song at the start.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I mean, I need to go listen to every single one. Nick, you seem to know quite a lot of them, so you could probably pay testament to whether it is a perfect song. Well, I grew up with a lot of prog rock as well, so I've had my fair share. But I think in terms of those bands specifically, particularly, I'd say Sungazer, that is easily, particularly their more modern stuff has been exceptional. And I think all of the tracks that Gwyneth's picked, of the songs that could have been picked, are probably some of the best from the bands picked out. That's my personal opinion, as a man who knows very little about music besides that he likes it. Well, I mean, seeing as I don't really know any of the songs that you've kind of brought up, it's a lot of homework for myself to go and do. But it does also maybe... particularly in a very smooth segue nick buxton style move us on to the uncharted song oh very very good mate thank you thank you i've been practicing you're getting you're getting you're getting so good at the segues that you won't even need me at some point i know i know well we will need you for all the niche songs that keep coming up but i don't know yeah i'm the sort of i'm the i'm like the side fact checker comedy guy i'm like i'm like robin if he had a laptop basically who i am nice well yeah i mean in terms of our sort of uncharted song segment so basically what we tend to do with our guests is we'll get them to give us a song that's never charted before usually it'll come from well usually it comes from an album in which there's like a headline hit but then they've obviously gone and listened to the rest of the album the b-sides and they've picked one out that maybe they like more so than the wonder walls and the songs that have made it onto the charts the song in which has been left for you was from a band called cat layer as mentioned earlier they are a german band from cologne They do very sort of, it's almost like alternative space rock, very synth pop kind of stuff as well. That's perfect. I think it's a little bit lighter than maybe what you guys have done, but very similar sort of field of play. And the song in which they've left for you guys is a song called Songs for Liam by a band called Kraftklub. So, I mean, I don't know whether they left it because they actually liked the song or whether it was because they listened to the first episode and we talked about Oasis for about 20 minutes. I think it was a bit of both because they wanted to pick an authentically German band which they did with a name like Kraftklub. Kraftklub, yeah. But they also... because we got talking about Oasis and a lot of their influences I think the fact that it's almost like a meta song written for Liam Gallagher but not really it's kind of I don't know I didn't really understand exactly what it was about but it's Oasis related and that made you happy so that's all that matters to me it was quite a I mean I went and listened to the song and it was quite I can't really describe it. I mean, it's really good. It's gone straight into all of my playlists. It's something that I think they were maybe a bit too scared to pick a Muse tune because they spoke about that quite a lot on the episode. And it was great to hear it, but obviously a lot of people know what it is. Yourself, Alex, even mentioned Hysteria. So it's kind of maybe too overplayed for what they were trying to do. But what we'll do is we'll let you go away. I think it's only a three-minute song. So we'll let you go away, listen to the song. You can mute yourselves or whatever, unless you want to do a live reaction. i'm very open to a live reaction if you want to if you want to do it that way i mean kind
SPEAKER_00:of i could do a live reaction
SPEAKER_02:i don't know if it would just make the sound like awful though that's my yeah yeah or if i mean if the only other thing would be if you had like a um like an air pod you stuck in i mean through a phone or something but i can i can always edit all of it out if i need to but i'll literally i could just keep in them going yeah that's all right and then that's the entire reaction just just soft groans as they're listening to it oh yeah yeah Wow. Yeah, I can work with that. That's pretty good. Music. Okay, nice. Well, I mean, yeah, it's up to you guys, really. If you think it's easier to do it, go away and listen to yourselves. Or, yeah, you want to do that?
SPEAKER_01:Probably easier, I think. We'll go and have a
SPEAKER_02:listen. Nice. Well, you've listened to Songs for Liam by Craft Club. What are your thoughts, first off?
SPEAKER_03:My first thought, and I
SPEAKER_02:couldn't get it out of my head for the whole thing, was if any of you played Guitar Hero 3, it sounds like a bonus track from Guitar Hero 3. Like any one of those, like Heocomp Talics and stuff like that. And yeah, it's a big vibe, and it was testing my GCSE German.
SPEAKER_01:It was testing mine too.
SPEAKER_02:Pick out random bits. But yeah, really fun song.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I really liked it. I thought it had a really nice groove. The energy of it was really good.
SPEAKER_02:It felt very similar to From the Ritz to the Rubble, Arctic Monkeys. Yeah. If you've heard that song. Like very pounding, stompy rock. It's very like... Yeah, it sounds... I mean, I think the video was released in 2012 and it sounds like 2012. Yeah. It's got that indie stamp of 2012 on it. Yeah, yeah. So they told us when... So the song was created and apparently they sent a video of... craft clue to Liam Gallagher to basically watch it, because obviously it's about him. And apparently he gave a very muted response, which was like, huh, alright. And that's about it. What a guy. Quite an essential Liam Gallagher response. Yeah. The fact he didn't massively slate it is quite a... I mean, he probably did. They just didn't tell us that bit on the last podcast episode. Yeah, I think no news from either of the Gallagher Brothers is probably good news yeah I mean yeah it's a great song from my opinion anyway as I said it's gone in all my playlists I don't know whether it's it's kind of a little bit away from I guess where your influences lie but I mean I'm glad that you liked it anyway it's definitely I
SPEAKER_01:mean I like a bit of fun rock I like a bit of fun rock I have
SPEAKER_02:fun sometimes
SPEAKER_01:yeah not everything has to be silly complex bullshit just most things
SPEAKER_02:yeah I like that. That's also another song lyric album title to lock away, I think. Oh, yeah. And well, speaking of influences then, obviously now you've heard of Craft Club. We have to go and see what you will be passing on to the next generation of Uncharted Riff guests, as it were. I'm very intrigued by this because obviously prog rock can have all sorts of inspiration and it can come from anywhere. So considering we've had from Muse to Sunge and then a German song about Liam Gallagher. So who knows what it could be? So I am very intrigued to hear what this is all about. Have you both picked the same song or have you gone for two different ones?
SPEAKER_01:Well, we did pick one song, but we can also do more.
SPEAKER_02:Josh, that's under your jurisdiction. I'm just the comedy man. I would say pick one and then pick one of your own from Space Octopus Cartel to share into the world. Cool.
SPEAKER_00:We're
SPEAKER_02:all
SPEAKER_01:about self-promotion, right? We both wrote one song off the last EP, each of
SPEAKER_02:us. We can't pick that. We can't pick either of those. It's got to be a different one. No bias whatsoever. Completely partisan. Although mine is better. Spoken like a true partisan
SPEAKER_01:man. Yours isn't eight minutes long and is therefore not.
SPEAKER_02:That's true, that's true. Where do you want to start? Should we do our
SPEAKER_01:little joint
SPEAKER_02:one?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I'm going to say it because I think we agreed on it, but
SPEAKER_03:we'll find out very soon if we didn't. Mask Machine by Flying Colors, which is a prog rock super group. I wonder
SPEAKER_02:if this should
SPEAKER_03:pass with... It should do. It should do because it's like... It's a
SPEAKER_02:bunch of... people like Mike Portnoy from Dream Theater, Neil Morse, Steve Morse, and Casey someone. The singer is amazing, but I don't know what he's from.
SPEAKER_00:But
SPEAKER_02:they kind of basically tried to write like, they went into this side project like, let's write some almost light-hearted prog. Slightly
SPEAKER_03:easier listening.
SPEAKER_01:It's not as technically complicated as some of the other stuff all those people have done, especially Mike Portnoy.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, it's just meant to be a bit of a fun time. Dare I say it is. Is
SPEAKER_02:there any particular reason why this one called to you out of all the songs you could have picked?
SPEAKER_03:I think
SPEAKER_02:because it sounds like it's a banger. It's a banger. In like the 80s, it could have been like a radio hit. It's got that sort of like feel to it. I think like it's got like a big fuzzy bass line and all that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But it was just released, what, 35 years too late. 2014, according to the album.
SPEAKER_01:It's also just a song I really enjoy playing. The bass line is really fun. It's one I really like singing and playing at the same time. It's really fun.
SPEAKER_02:And you're sure you'd never cover it as a band? Oh, we don't really do covers. You're dead against covers. We could learn it.
SPEAKER_01:To be fair, I already know it.
SPEAKER_02:There you go.
SPEAKER_01:I reckon it wouldn't be hard for everyone
SPEAKER_02:else. That's a fifth
SPEAKER_01:of the
SPEAKER_02:way we're set. If you ever get dragged into another hour and a half set where you don't know what to fill the time
SPEAKER_01:with... Oh, we have so much. We have so much written. The back catalogue are just random stuff that we've got. There's so much.
SPEAKER_02:We've got loads of half songs ready to go.
SPEAKER_01:We're quite lucky because... I write music, Alex writes music, Jake the drummer writes music, Benny the keyboard player especially writes music, and our new mystery member also writes music. So we're very fortunate that we have a lot of people writing music, but it means we have a lot of stuff to get through, and it means we have quite an eclectic range of things to play, which is nice in some ways, but other times it's like, fuck all this stuff, oh fuck, I've got to learn all these things, oh no.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's hard to quieten someone who thinks their stuff is maybe slightly better than something they're being asked to perform. Me and Nick are both creative writers as well. Maybe not songs per se. Speak for yourself, Josh. I'm just a writer. There's no
SPEAKER_03:creativity
SPEAKER_02:involved. I could probably be as creative with a wall and just throwing my own feces at it. That's as creative as I'm going to get. Yeah, but I think if you, I mean, if I wrote something and someone told me, yeah, we're not doing yours, we're doing somebody else's. I mean, everybody's got a bit of pride as a writer. I feel like it's quite hard to tell them not to be proud of what they've written. So, yeah, I mean, that sounds, I mean, it sounds good if you've got albums and albums to go, right? It's just all EPs.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I think we are quite lucky that there's not too much beef with that. Like we're generally pretty okay with,
SPEAKER_02:We're not very kind to new songs which appear. And I think you take your song into the offering chamber and expect it to be ripped to pieces. So don't get attached to it before everyone else has touched it and you're fine. Yeah, I mean, that's quite a good way to do it, actually. Maybe I'll need to take some notes when I'm writing a poem or something. But I mean, yeah, that's a great tune to pick. I don't know if you know it, Nick, at all. Masked Machine? I have never heard of this song before in my life. It's uncharted. It is uncharted. There you go. What was the song, just out of interest, that you chose from Space Octopus Cartel? I know, obviously, this was kind of thrust upon you last minute. Which ones would you choose to share into the world?
SPEAKER_01:I would actually choose a song that Alex wrote for
SPEAKER_00:the last EP, Tidal. It's a
SPEAKER_01:really good tune. I really like it. For me, it's one of the great elements of... There's interesting stuff. There's funky key changes. There's riffs and weird time signatures. But it's also just a very, very cohesive song that has been tinkered with and very well crafted to be a song. I get quite annoyed with a lot of prog where it's just a million sections that don't bit together that well. They've just added a section because adding sections is fun. I think that's a song that does very, very well not being that and being very well crafted and very like specific to an emotion to getting across.
SPEAKER_02:Brilliant. Alex, quickly for your one. Oh, I fully agree. Exactly that one. Yeah. very quickly i would i would show people lizard impact because it's three minutes and as i said earlier it's a punch it's a punch in the face like it just it shows you lots of music very quickly and i think it's pretty good scene center perfect well thank you so much both of you for your uncharted riffs today honestly it's been i mean we always come off of these episodes and we're always like we've got a lot of homework to go and do to go and listen to listen to all of these songs um I certainly do a lot more than Nick maybe does, but we'll let you go anyway. But yeah, is there anything that you'd like to share with us one last time? Maybe give yourselves a bit of a shout out while you're on the podcast.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we are Space Octopus Cartel. I think we're at Space Octopus Cartel everywhere you can be. We are playing. We've got a gig coming up. We're playing on the 4th of July at 93 feet east, which will be our new singer. We'll have an announcement for that coming soon. Watch out for that on socials. We're playing Guildfest 6th of July if you want to come see us. But there'll be mostly other people. That's not going to be very much of us. If you want to check out to Guildford from wherever you are. Have I missed anything obvious? Go and listen to Megaforna, our brand new EP, and Discovery Bluff, our old EP that's also really good. Yeah, I think...
SPEAKER_02:Well, thank you guys. We'll leave it there. But yeah, genuinely, thank you so much for that. That was absolutely brilliant. Both of you naturals, which sometimes can't be said for people when you do this sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I loved that. Oh yeah,
SPEAKER_02:I forgot that it's four, not four. Yeah, they're German. It just looks like a German thing that you send your kids to at summer. Craft club. We go to the craft club, yeah. Yeah, you go to the craft club. We go on holiday to Tanzania. What
SPEAKER_03:the
SPEAKER_02:fuck does that
SPEAKER_03:even mean?
SPEAKER_02:I don't know. It's just what the parents want to do. They're like, oh man, let's just leave the kids over there. I'm going to go to Tanzania. There's a crafty critters club in Banstead. That's the closest I could find. Where's that? It's in Banstead. It's like... like south surrey oh wait it's in the uk yeah it's in the uk it's called crafty critters club that's the um that's the uncharted riffs space octopus cartel christmas party planned yeah sponsored by crafty critters club come and come and come and paint german sausages on your face i'm in a weird mood today yeah it's probably the aussie monster you had That stuff's fucking fire. Oh my god. What does it actually taste of? It tastes of smeg. What the fuck? What
SPEAKER_01:have I just clocked back into?
SPEAKER_02:Sorry. I was so perfectly timed. Josh asked what my Aussie lemonade style drink can. I said I was in a weird mood and he said it's probably because of all that stuff you've done. And he said, what does it taste of? And I said, smeg. But you joined at the really worst
SPEAKER_00:possible time.