Monsters of Post-Rock

By now you’ve read the tour blog, seen the photos and tried to book a gig in Birmingham through Professor Robot, so it seems only fair to put up the interview that Tom and Rich gave before the tour – see if you can spot the irony lurking amidst these lines…

They’re not what you’d expect them to be, these two. Glissando spin out epic black candyfloss confections as light as air, as mournful as Penelope’s shroud, built insubstantially from minimal piano phrases, ambient synths, samples and bowed guitars from Richard Knox and bound together by the haunted, fragile vocals of Ellie Irving – it’s the stuff of abandoned toys in attics and other ghosts of childhood. Her Name Is Calla, though similarly epic, are more robust. Their songs arise from ambient folk soundscapes to cataclysmic riff laden climaxes, punctured by Tom Morris furious cries and Thomas Corah and Sophie Barnes blaring brass. You’d expect them all to be fairly dour and quite serious. So wrong, so wrong…

Rich (Glissando) has collared Tom (Calla) from packing up duties and he’s looking a trifle confused. “I didn’t realise I was staying for this,” he says, “I just came to get my piano case.” Still, general confusion, spontaneous puzzlement and utter bewilderment all go hand in hand with touring, which is what the two of them will be doing for the next week or so. Having both recently released albums (Her Name Is Calla’s ‘The Heritage’ and Glissando’s ‘With Our Arms Wide Open We March Towards The Burning Sea’) in need of some promotion, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Who’s was it? “It’s half and half really,” says Rich quietly amidst the furore of instruments being stowed and the birthday party next door. “We decided to do it… just to push a few areas that we had… and it worked out alright. I think.”

“At our level where you’ve got no representation it’s really hard to get things fluid, getting one day after another,” adds Tom, openly proud of their achievement, “no-one really wants to take two smallish touring bands. But it all seemed to come together really easily. Two of the dates we’d prefer the other way around because it means we’re going to have to do more driving, but in general things have been really good.”

“We’re just looking for fees to cover the petrol,” says Rich, ever practical, “that’s the starting point, and because we’re travelling together we can pool the money, plus travelling together is… nice.”

Nice? That’s a new word for it. Last time I spoke to Calla, they cheerfully recounted the drubbing Rich received at their hands. Tom grins evilly when I mention this. “Touring with us is quite eventful. We’re really worried about Sophie and Ellie because they’ve not come out on the road with us before.” I ask if he’ll be showing some sort of restraint with the ladies, stumble half way through my statement and end up in Mark Manning territory. I meant restraint, not restraints, Tom. “We’ll try… but probably after a few days…” he tails off enigmatically before regaining the thread. “It’s not that we do anything wrong, it’s just that… we seem to get involved with Portuguese drugs barons and things like that.” Tom reconsiders his last statement. “I wouldn’t say he was a drug baron, more of a peddler.”

“We have some footage of Mike asphixo-wanking…” chips in Rich. We’re going that way again…

Fortunately, Thom chooses to interrupt at that point, with a moment of purest Tap brilliance. “The handle of my case just broke,” he says mournfully, “the tour’s off.” After some gentle persuasion by Tom, he is mollified and continues to load up the van. I tentatively re-approach the subject of touring hijinks… “Basically, the last tour that these guys had, they played with Twilight Sad,” says Rich. “Pete (iLiKETRAiNS sound man) came with us and said it was the best time ever – and he’s done like a million tours.”

Tom stops Rich, remembering something. “About half way through,” he says, ”we had to pull over and all sit apart for about half an hour because… I didn’t know it was possible to get bruises from laughing so much.” It all sounds very chaotic and rock and roll. “What you’ve got to remember is,” explains, Richard, “all the tours that our two bands do are holidays from work and families. So none of us take holidays at all. We have to have a good time or it’s like more work and more work.”

Tom nods. “If we could take it to the next level,” he says dreamily, “if we could take more days off work and get more money from gigs then we could go out more – which would be ace.” It can’t be easy with petrol costing an organ every time you want to go beyond the city limits either. “Petrol costs are insane,” agrees Tom. “But apart from that, there are no real negative aspects, so we’ll keep on going out on tour.”

The tour this time around will be re-visiting some familiar haunts, but also opening up new territory. “I’m really looking forward to playing Newcastle and Cardiff,” says Tom.

“Cardiff’s a nice place,” confirms Rich, “and the promoter’s done a lot of work.” Tom notices that all his equipment has been put away. “This is awesome,” he says, “like having roadies. TRAiNS haven’t even got roadies.”

“I’m not really looking forward to London,” admits Tom, recovering from the novelty. “I don’t know what the York one’s going to be like. We seem to be playing some places this time that we haven’t played before – well, we’ve only been to York once… there are places that we’ve played at once, really small gigs, so it’s nice to get the chance to go back.”

“And because we’ve got the two records out,” Rich rethinks frowning, “but the students have gone, so it might be a difficult time.” Chin up, Rich, things could get worse.

At this point, the noise level rises a decibel next door as they put on Guitar Hero. “I think I might walk in there with my balls out,” says Rich, “see what happens.”

“I think someone would punch you,” says Tom.

Rich shrugs. “They’re playing Guitar Hero.” For some reason, this seems to explain everything for him.

‘The Heritage’ and ‘With Our Arms Wide Open We March Towards The Burning Sea’ are both out now and available from Gizeh Records.