To tie in with the review of the new Lost Crowns album, The Heart Is In The Body, main man Richard Larcombe and I met up at the Restaurant At The End Of The Universe for a virtual lunch, and a hopefully not too unreal chat…
Roger Trenwith (RT): By crikey, that was an audio experience and a half! The opening song of The Heart Is In The Body is I Might Not, and it sounds like an entire string section deconstructing! You have said that you recorded each instrument “three notes at a time”. That must’ve been hard work?
Richard Larcombe (RL): Yes, we created an orchestra for that one. Nicola Baigent played clarinet and flute, Rhodri Marsden played bassoon and I was the string section. That meant recording the first violin part 20 times, the second violin part 20 times and the cello part 20 times. It’s a time-consuming challenge, but all the more so as I cannot play either instrument, so through trial and error I recorded no more than 3 notes at a time, and often just one note at a time, with something like a five-to-one error-to-just-about-getting-away-with-it ratio. It took days, but look at me – I’m a string section! All the strings, harp, concertina, whistles and bagpipe on the album were recorded in the same fragmentary manner, in an approach directly comparable to stop-frame animation.
RT: I believe the new album was at least partly inspired by watching an out-of-synch Zoom meeting performance by folk musicians? How did you happen on that?
RL: In lockdown a friend told me this session was being attempted, and in lockdown anything would do. I didn’t think it would work, and I’ve heard a few great rackets over the years, but this combination of vigour and chaos was inspirational to say the least. I wish I’d recorded it. Anyway, I had it in mind when writing a different album from the one we’re discussing but then I used some of the songs on this album instead.
RT: …and is that what made you pick up various previously unplayed folk instruments? Did the instruments come before the songs, or t’other way round?
RL: It was a starting point, yes, and it makes sense to know what instrumental resources you have before writing the music. I’d love to write for brass but I don’t know any players, and can’t get a note out of anything from that family myself. But anything I can get my hands on and tease even one note out of can go in there, so I write with those objects in mind.
RT: “Bewildering” is one of several adjectives that might well be used to describe Lost Crowns’ music. This is a good thing by the way! Have you ever suspected that maybe you approach melody and form differently to most?
RL: The guiding principle when I try to create music is to conceive of something that I wish existed but doesn’t, not for the sake of being different but because heroic imagining is what it’s all about. Well, it is for me! I dreamed of these erratic rhythms, dissonant intervals, the heavy instrumental blasts with the dopey folky vocals on top, and once you’ve started thinking this way you can’t stop till you can hear it. And then you start thinking of something else.
RT: Do you have a tried and trusted way of constructing a tune? How much or little input do the others in the band have?
RL: I have a very particular way of creating this material, and the songs are so intricate that it makes sense to make all the decisions about what instrument plays what myself before asking the band to play them, but of course although their compositional gifts are not used in this band, they bring so much to the parts in their interpretation. The drums are worked out in a slightly more collaborative spirit because they are unpitched, so the odds against variations working are lower. We had a lot of fun working up different options for those parts.
RT: You and most of Lost Crowns performed songs from Mr & Mrs Smith and Mr Drake at last year’s Tim Smith celebrations. I was at The Garage event – boy that was some gig! The emotion of the occasion got to me; it makes me wonder how you all on the stage kept it together at times!
RL: It was a stirring occasion, but you have to concentrate on what you’re doing when you play music like that so that tends to keep the blubbing under control. Also, don’t forget you had to bear the emotional weight of watching 4 beautiful musicians, whereas from where we were standing the view was a little less moving.
RT: Haha! What music do you listen to at home other than your own, assuming you have the time?
RL: Anything really, and of course the people I know make such wonderful music, never less than at the moment. No sooner does Kavus Torabi’s Banishing start to settle than it’s 2025, that extraordinary year of new releases from Michael Woodman, the North Sea Radio Orchestra, Spratleys, Panixphere, and the first collection of Tim Smith songs for over 20 years, so we all need to polish our speakers and get a monogrammed hanky at the ready. I don’t know how we’ll make it to New Year’s Eve!
RT: Indeed! It’s like several fabulous buses all arriving at once! 🙂 Will there be an album launch gig? The last one was a fun night! Any other gigs being lined up?
RL: Yes, there will be a world tour of London and Brighton in July, launching the album three months after it came out. July the 10th is at The Victoria in Dalston, London, and July the 18th is at Alphabet in Brighton, in the company of William D Drake.
RT: That’s good to hear – I’ll do my best to make the London show, for sure! It’s been great to have this little insight into your musical workings. Now…how do we get home from here?
