Tracks That Shaped Our Sound: Volk Soup

Leeds-based band Volk Soup has dominated the studio playlist this week, they've conjured a no-nonsense sound in the studio that translates wonderfully in a live setting. We were lucky enough to have a chat with the band about the 'Tracks That Shaped Their Sound' feature. Their track Billionaire (out on 15/04/22) throws listeners into a frantic dervish of sound, with some real standout vocals from frontman Harry Jones, the band also consists of Ryan Walker(Bass), and Luc Gibbons (Drums). Without further ado, here are the tracks that shaped their sound:

Champagne Holocaust- Fat White Family

Since first seeing a video on Youtube of Fat Whites performing live sometime in 2013 they’ve been the band whose sound, image and artistry have most permeated my own creative conscience. People would have you believe that the most endelibe mark Fat White Family have made on music is their provocations—the nudity, shit-smearing, drug use, controversial statements being the only footprint they’ve left behind. I don’t think they’ve received the credit they deserve for shaping the last 10 years of British guitar music. The horrible noise that is Champagne Holocaust is a mighty achievement. It’s not a sound I’m brave enough to rip off (for both fear of the band’s derision and for commerciality's sake) but it is at the core of everything I write. HJ

Satan Is Real Again- Country Teasers

Directed towards Country Teasers through listening to Fat Whites, I think this album has the energy, atmosphere and general bedraggled nature that ‘Billionaire’ is getting at. The lyrics in ‘Billionaire’ are a more cowardly satirisation than anything on Satan Is Real Again but Ben Wallers’ scandalous sardonicism is something I’ve found fascinating since I first heard the likes of ‘Black Change’ and ‘Panty Shots’. There’s a danger to Country Teasers that I’ve always been drawn to, in the same way I’m drawn to Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s films or Michel Houellebecq’s writing. HJ

‘77- Talking Heads

This was the first vinyl I ever laid my hands on non-nepotistically. Partly for David Byrne’s eccentrism, mostly for Chris Frantz’ drumming. This album was of course written before they started farting around with polyrhythms and all that malarkey, and his minimalist approach on the record sounds great. I’ve always been more inspired by just playing what needs to be played, and focusing on how it works with the other layers. So for these tracks I just hit what needs to be hit when it needs to be hit, and focus on playing whatever it is Harry and Ryan tried their best to vocalise when we wrote it, most of which was an assortment of raspberry sounds, onomatopoeias and the words diddley diddley duh!. There are points in our stuff where I can afford to be a bit busier without overcrowding owt- the verses in Billionaire and the build in I Shot Him and I Ran for example. There are only three of us and I don’t want it to sound like there are more. Not until we compose a “Stop Making Sense” of our own that is… LG

No New York- Various Artists

There’s not a huge amount I can say about this other than recommend you listen to it. The Contortions’ stuff is moveable, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks under-stay their welcome and Mars strip off any semblance of compositional formula. For me, it’s DNA’s involvement in the compilation that makes it what it is. It gives you a headache, it leaves your ears ringing and remains delightfully unpredictable at every corner. The drummers for these various bands don’t necessarily break any grounds, but the culmination of it all and the crunchiness of the production causes me nausea in the best ways. If you haven’t got a clue what I’m on about just give it a spin. It’s purposefully pretentious- it sucks but that’s the point. LG

Bad Breeding - S/D

I distinctly remember listening to this album and by the time I blinked my brains had somehow fallen through my nose and landed on my shoes. From Remembering, No Progress, A Cross, Separate Me, to Moral Itch and Age of Nothing, it resounds and resonates for me as the band’s bass player. By now, I’m aware enough that sometimes where words fail, noise can fill any cavity with muscle, intense power, dense precision, feedback attack and merciless action. Divide from 2017 on La Vida Es Un Mus, once home to remarkable, influential punk bands Crisis and Total Control, and Exiled from 2019 on the now One Little Indie label, are also top. But this one specifically always manages to refocus my attention to detail and abilities as a bass player, arguably in his element when playing with a drummer as limitless as Luc to reach these peaks of guttural anarcho-punk, unstoppably inexhaustive hardcore and avant-garde mayhem. RW.

Elastica – Elastica.

The debut album from Elastica easily falls in my top 10 albums, occasionally fighting its way to the fourth or third finger in the ranks. Achieving the inevitable like all good bands often do on their debut; it sets a standard that can’t be topped. It’s a landmark. A snapshot. A lovebite on the neck of the 90s, when indie was more pop than Pop. On the awkward peripheries, active in the underbelly, yet dizzy in the middle of Britpop, this dirty, direct hit of lop-sided, loose-limbed, stick-thin and razor-sharp post-punk angst glam from London does what most of the 90s failed to do – kick you in the bollocks and kiss you on the lips at the same time. It's lazy and dramatic, wet and electric, sexy and swaggering. Musically primitive and also incredibly intricate. Fall and Wire. Gang of Four and Slits. Ultravox and Buzzcocks. Connection and Car Song are reasons enough to listen. Digging deeper without skip or shuffle will give you Annie, Smile, Hold Me Now, 2:1, Stutter and Vaseline. Something quick in the veins as a bulge emerges in the trousers. The sound of a garage band in the 90s sharing a stick of glue as the giants of lad rock wanks into a pint of larger. Annie Holland is a bass goddess and this album is fantastic. RW.

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