Second Square To None

Luxury Mollusc - The Oblong Shell by sstn noise



This week we have seagull sample destroyer Luxury Mollusc in the virtual interview chair: take it away Stu!



What are your reasons / motives for making music, and how did you arrive at this style?

LM: For Luxury Mollusc (as apposed to other projects) a desire to announce my 'self' was the only reason/motive. I think that the only REASON for any SOLO project; whether that's a flaccid singer/songwriters' croonings on a stool or a Shakespearean soliloquy performed on a lonely stage, they're the expression of a lone individual. For me, there is no difference between these fore-mentioned actions and the wail of a baby crying, the message is different but the reason the same. In terms of the reason and significance of solo performances (in my case) the message (ambivalent) isn't as significant as the alone-ness. The fact that someone might hear (and it thus becomes a message) is secondary to the 'noise' itself. I make noises for my benefit primarily, it's cathartic, it's my Scream (as in Munch), I neither hope nor expect anyone else to 'get it'. I began releasing material to others when I realised if someone liked it and put me on the bill at a gig I could see the gig for free. Awesome! I've had the good fortune to play at some of my favourite gigs.
As to how I arrived at this style; it has been an organic voyage I assure you.
Feedback can be a mystical experience, and natural reverb gives me a semi. I'm also obsessed with Moby-Dick, doubt as a lifestyle choice, and Freud.
LM: I try to excrete noises that emphasise presence and absence (volume plays a role in this as much in mixing as in live, and as much in absence as in presence), and reflects something of the listeners own hollowness (the occupied skull as a persistently hollow bone). It is the perceived echo of the listeners own emptiness. An evoking and invoking of a dull, grueling and prolonged castration. Mine in particular. The only intended environment is that of the listeners awareness of their own mortality (you know you'll die, admit it), and alienation as a subjective witness to their perceived senses. An environment of lacking and lost things. Every 'one' knows the environment of loss all too well.
Transmission of this is probably best received in either (a) live environment that is of either sufficient volume or intimacy as to render conversation mute/void, or (b) on headphones which physically sever the witness from outside aural influence (to some extent at least).
Having said that if someone lashes something I made on a stereo and spends a few minutes staring at an ashtray before realizing the track has changed the intended environment has been achieved.
If the listener likes it or hates it doesn't matter to me, rather the act of forming an opinion as an exercise of ones' subjectivity is what's important.Listening is always a subjective experience: the particularities of vibrations upon the inner ear and their interpretation in the mind are always unique (Ever tried to explain why one noise track is awesome and another is shite?). Simply by hating it you have engaged with the material, assessed it and dismissed it, and that's enough for me.
With the emphasis of intent on a subject-to-subject engagement the act of listening itself becomes a solo project. I was alone making it and you are alone hearing it. That is the intended effect on the listener. Loving/Loathing is irrelevant.
LM: I'm in lust with a borrowed Alesis Microverb right now (thanks Dave; respect to the delay-pimp), and as always my Kaosspad. The input is mostly contact mics and samples, distorted free-associations, and random scrap/instruments. I've got lots of respect for circuit-benders but I just suck at it, I can make mics and simple toys: which I enjoy, but when trying to render some circuits 'bent' I usually end up rendering fingers burnt. For the purposes of this project though I think it's important to explore the limits of the gear I possess rather than customizing them, it's all about accepting and despairing/rejoicing/testing limitations (death being the archetype) rather than attempting to manipulate and distort them (it). Reality is limiting, distorting and harsh, I can only get so much gain out of my Ubermetal, batteries will only last this long, I can only squeeze so much joy out of this life, I feel no need to reject this, rather I accept and reflect it.
LM: When upon opening the above mentioned donated Alesis Microverb - to investigate a noise-related-tech-fail, a horde of dust mites erupted, huge motherfuckers, they had shorted it out (flashbacks to the movie Pi).
When I was playing/attending (therefore free!) a gig in a meat truck and a drunk Pole turned the freezer on; Grim and Frostbitten noise!
When witnessing a performance by Bipolar Joe in a gaff-gig. While he climaxed he hurled a plate of 69 cocktail sausages, which he had been squatting on during his set as some sort of social commentary, at my (long suffering) girlfriend.
And of course getting to play support for Costes with Over, that guy blew my mind.
Oh and when the above mentioned gig in a gaff in a Galway was momentarily halted by an irate neighbour: letting himself in, pushing and posturing his way through the crowd, smoking in the house, and confronting Phoresy DURING his intense home-set. The ignorance. Short interval with the intervention of Polish-muscle and the Phoresying resumed. NOISE!
LM: For gigs you should check www.myspace.com/luxurymollusc
As for releases;
Skafold ov Bone (Husk Records (!))(Irish version sold out, few American versions left)
No one ever drowned without first having their face washed (split 7" with The Salty Duke)(just got more in!)
D'eist the fiend part II; ceremonial skinning of celtic tigers (Idrone Park)(few left)
A Discourse with Decay (self released as necessary)
Wheeze (self released as necessary)
Scrimshaw and Castration (split with Null/Void)(static acts)(new)