Interview: ·Y· (2013)

[This interview was originally published in December 2013 on the original German Otranto site that is not available anymore]

by José Porroche (joseporroche.com)

Minimalism – this is (at least in my humble opinion) THE summary of ·Y·.
Minimalist sound, minimalist arrangements and even a minimalist name. And yet there is something oddly fascinating about the music of this Spanish band with its sometimes immensely brooding and dark walls of sawsynths and the light clatter of 70’s organ sound. The duo from Barcelona talked to the Otranto archives about themselves, their music and their future.

 [Visit ·Y· on Facebook or Bandcamp] 

Hello and welcome! Would you like to introduce yourselves? 

Hi! we are Guille (vocals, drum machines, keyboards) and Pau (keyboards, backing vocals) and we are ·Y·. 

With its extreme simplicity your music evokes comparison to various musical genres of the 80’s, such as electronic varieties of the New Wave or post-Industrial music, while the humming sound of your organs reminds me a lot of the 70’s. Is this intentional? Can you tell us a bit about your musical inspirations and backgrounds? 

When we started the band, the original idea was to aim for that 70’s sound you mention (soundtracks, early electronics, kraut rock…). Once we started playing, the sound shifted naturally towards a more 80’s new wave vibe but never losing that 70’s element. Pau still uses Hammond or Orchestron sounds, for example. 

Can you give us some more info about the instruments you use? A little excursus for the synth nerds maybe? 

Guille uses an AKAI MPC500 sampler with classic drum machine sounds (right now mostly Linn drum), a Micro Korg, MFB 522 and a couple of delay pedals. Pau plays a Yamaha CS5 and an MPC500 with vintage organ sounds. 

by Marina de Luis

Apart from musical aspects – are there any other influences to your work? For example: I noticed your use of clips from more or less surrealist movies by directors like John Carpenter, Jan Švankmajer or Dario Argento in your music video clips. 

As we said before one of the original ideas for the band was to go for a soundtrack-influenced sound. Also, Pau has always been a movie enthusiast, he had a b-movie videostore and has worked doing special effects and soundtracks for the movies. Guille made the videoclips to have some images that went along with our music, specially the lyrics, which have a strong surrealist element. 

I am very intrigued by some language matters: On your first release both songs („Timeless Whirl“ and „EIE“) had English lyrics, but on „Horizonte de Sucesos“ you switched to your native Spanish. Why this change, and don’t you fear to miss a possible audience? And what about the one exception, „Siri Fles“ – can you please enlighten me in what language this is written and what the lyrics mean? 

The way we write songs is basically doing a drum sequence and having Pau play something and Guille sing on top whatever comes to his mind. Sometimes it comes up in Spanish, sometimes in English, sometimes in some unknown language (like Siri Fles). We are recording 4 songs that will be in English, and after that an LP that will be mostly in Spanish. We don’t play music to please a certain audience, we are happy with whoever likes what we do. 

Horizonte de Sucesos

What about your name? Why ·Y·, and is there a reason you apparently pronounce it Greek? I went around telling people about this band „i griega“ I found, before I realized you sometimes spell it out as „Ypsilon“? 

Well, the name took us quite some time to figure it out. We wanted the name to be kind of like a symbol, but we chose Ypsilon as a way to pronounce it so people would not say „i griega“ or „Y“ or other things :) I don’t think we had some particular reason to chose the greek pronunciation. We read about the origins of the letter, and chose Ypsilon. 

The vinyl editions of your two releases are not available anymore. Is there any chance to get your music as physical recordings again at some point in the future? Maybe as CDs? 

We have talked with Burka For Everybody (who released the LP) about repressing it. It might happen in 2014 for our European tour. About the 7″ we don’t know, we don’t think we’ll do it. And about releasing on CD, well, if someone asked us to, we’d be happy, but it’s not a format that we buy, so it made sense for us to release in vinyl instead. 

You just announced a third release for the end of 2013. I know it’s going to be a four-track EP, but what else can you tell us? Is it also going to be available on vinyl? 

The songs are half way recorded, we need to re-record some stuff, edit, mix, listen to them and change stuff again. They are a bit different from the LP, maybe more rhythmic, more aggressive and more danceable. The record will be about 26 minutes long, and we’ll release it with Burka in Europe, and hopefully with another label we’ve been talking to in the US and, yes, it will be on a 12″ vinyl. We are also gonna record 2 more songs for a 7″ and after that, we’ll work on a new LP. 

After the release you plan to tour Europe in January and February 2014, as you just mentioned. Are there some definite dates yet? 

We have most of the dates closed. You can check the dates on Facebook. Still need a show in Belgium and Munich or around. Other than that, everything is pretty much closed. 

A pity there are no shows in more central regions of Germany (where there’s a huge wave/synth/goth following, by the way) 😉 But I’ll cross my fingers for you – maybe there are some readers out there with connections to clubs in Belgium and the Munich area?
Thanks a lot, Guille and Pau!