THE AMORPHOUS ANDROGYNOUS
Garry Cobain has got a new record brewing, with guests including players from The Verve, Happy Mondays, VdGG and more.
“I felt quite stung by the Noel situation.”
GARRY COBAIN
“I’VE GOT A château in France,” says Garry Cobain, the cosmic yet matter-of-fact brain behind The Amorphous Androgynous. “But don’t be impressed by it. I bought it with very much a Led Zep romanticism in my mind, but it’s falling apart in my absence – it’s a fucking nightmare, ha ha! So don’t follow my lead!”
It would be near-impossible to try. Alongside partner Brian Dougans, Cobain’s been a chimerical presence in music since 1991’s starry-eyed rave classic Papua New Guinea, credited to The Future Sound Of London. A later refocusing as The Amorphous Androgynous led to 2002’s unashamedly Aquarian The Isness and “super-consciousness” mixtape series A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind. Yet an uncompleted album with
Noel Gallagher begun in
2009, it seems, placed stones in his passway that took time to get over.
“In simplistic terms we haven’t actually done anything since 2002,” says Gaz. “But we’ve been very busy, and all those chapters have been collected and worked through.”
Already released is big-themes prog-epic six-part, 40-minute suite with strings and analogue synths featuring Peter Hammill, Paul Weller and the Chesterfield Philharmonic Choir, among others. The piece had a long genesis, growing from, variously, childhood memories of Pink Floyd, the Iraq War, hearing Comfortably Numb while immobilised on a
Shoreditch acupuncturist’s couch, meeting Hammill at the MOJO Honours List awards in 2010, and the tragic death of drummer Virgil Howe.
“I began to realise, my God, you’ve got one life,” says Cobain. “I regrouped, regrew and regathered. I wanted to get into my own power again… the challenge [with We Persuade…] was to make it not only new, but also ’70s, which I realise is a bracket that potentially only ‘me’ would like.”
He says that recording has been going on since 2011, collaborating with musicians at 12 studios, physically and remotely – spaces include previous collaborator Weller’s Black Barn, ex-Verve guitarist Nick McCabe’s West Midlands set-up and, for mixing, Enrico Berto’s Neve desk-equipped Mushroom studio near Venice. As a self-funded project, Cobain was able to overcome budgetary restrictions in a spirit of cooperation, directing up-for-it musicians including McCabe, guitarist Ray Fenwick, The Kooks’ Luke Pritchard, and Steve Cradock into new creation via his sample collages and vibes.
“I’m tapping into all these great people and their collective knowledge,” he says. “The album goes from pagan folk craziness to rocktronica to sampledelia to prog-funk epics. The next single [Mantra (Crossing Over)] is pure Madchester, a confluence of where machine hits spirituality hits vocal – I’ve got Paul [Weller] on vocals, guitar, keyboards and veena, and Rowetta! …there’s a lot of sonic wangery on the album, the songs point to inherent spiritual sound-truths…”
Cobain is currently in Glastonbury for a month, and as Dougans lives in Frome, they might get to meet in the flesh. We must ask: will the Noel Gallagher LP ever come out?
“I felt quite stung by the Noel situation,” says Cobain, who says he has 10 hard drives’ worth of music from the 18-month sessions. “We didn’t finish it together. I’d love a reason to revisit it, it was great, but maybe it was a bit too early… on a finishing note, [Noel] may or may not be on the album. I’ve had so many drummers and bassists in that I’ve forgotten.”