Second Square To None

Over - As soon as you get out, just keep running by SSTN Noise

Starting as solo project and briefly a four piece, Over is currently made up of founder Jamie Grimes, who also makes dark forms of hardcore metal and ambient in Drainland and Cavemouth. Previous members of Over included Luxury Mollusc, Brian Conniffe, Vicky Langan and Al Doyle.


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

With OVER, the main intention really is/was initially a purely selfish one. It's largely motivated by an urge to vent basically, or to articulate and therefore exorcise whatever internal bullshit I'm dealing with at any given time through sound. As odd as it sounds, it's very much a comfort thing for me, as I find it allows me to escape from my own head - I don't mean that in some sort of trancey or meditational way or anything like that, it's more that it allows me to switch off from whatever irritations or stresses are going on with me (and as folks who know me in real life will probably confirm, I'm generally a pretty stressed person). I do try and do it in a way that's not a completely unfocussed mess - I still want to create something I'll want to listen to for my own enjoyment - but it's very much an attempt to overwhelm and defeat my own thinking process with sound. It's kinda like a musical punchbag, to be blunt about it.

What sort of environment it is intended for/what is the intended effect on the listener (if any)?

Ideally if you're going to listen to it, I find it's best listened to on headphones as loudly as you can tolerate. It should maybe hurt the ears a little. To be honest (and I'm very clearly only referring to the stuff I record as Over in this instance), at this point I couldn't care less what if any effect it has on the listener or if it has any effect on them at all. It works for me for the purposes I mention above, so what other people make of it means absolutely fuck all to me.

What sort of equipment you use (e.g. computer, hardware, home made gear,
circuit bent stuff etc.) do you use to make your sounds?

A borrowed analog four track recorded, a shitty karaoke mic I bought in Argos for a tenner, some pedals (which if I remember correctly are: a Boss Digital Delay, an "Uber Metal" distortion, some apalling Behringer cheapos - flanger, chorus and tremolo, most of which I've broken - and an Akai Headrush which is on it's last legs), and occasionally a guitar or bass. I've used a pair of broken headphones as a mic before as well, and occasionally record and interfere with sounds from movies or tv by putting the mic up to the tv speaker. I bought a Boss pedal board off someone recently, but I have to use that yet. A friend is building me an oscillator which I'm looking forward to using. I've used a crappy toy keyboard belonging to my daughter on occasion.

I'm a completel luddite. I'm clueless about computers (and technology generally). I like hiss, tape noise, and muddiness, and I suppose I'm worried using a computer to record will eliminate that.

As I say, I generally record track by track on the four track,in real time. There's not a whole lot of editing.If I don't like something I just stop and start again. I generally record stuff in my hall, with the headphones on, while listening back as loud as I can.

Any memorable noise-related incidents/ interesting gig anecdotes?

I was one of two guest vocalists for Bullets at the time of the Whitehouse fiasco in the Hub a couple years back. That was pretty fucking hilarious, involving the other vocalist being attacked by the King Of the Goths, and some drug addled postman taking over the vocal reins and attempting to trash Whitehouse's gear - the bouncers thought it was "part of the act" and only twigged it wasn't after about 10 minutes.What else..let's see.

Drainland, the hardcore band I play in, played with Smell & Quim in Leeds a couple years back which was amazing - their set involved nudity, burning tires, a bleeding drummer, and the best Boney M cover ever. Alas, I didn't watch the whole thing because the smell of burning rubber made me nauseous and I had to get out for some air. In terms of OVER, I'm quite impressed we managed to pull off playing in a "classy" venue like Tripod last year. I just wish we'd had a recording of it.

Info on upcoming gigs, preferred web address, releases etc.

Gigs are kind of out of the question for me in the current one-man formation, because basically I just don't want to do them. I'd like to do the ensemble thing with Al, Brian, Vicky and Stu live again definitely, and we're eventually going to record that, but I'm not sure that will be under the OVER name. Similarly, there were things recorded as a duo with Al which may come out some day, we'll see.

Because it's very much a self-indulgent enterprise, I've not really felt much urge to release much publicly thus far .There are tapes and tapes full of OVER recordings that might see release some day, but ultimately because they fulfill a personal function as described above,I rarely feel the urge to dump it on the unsuspecting/uninterested public. Or even friends for that matter. Right now I kind of feel like putting some of it out there (more for archive purposes - I tend to reuse tapes some times and have recorded over stuff I liked without realising it) , that will probably change again soon and it'll be back to sitting under the stairs huddled over a four track for another 6 months.

The only thing I know I'm definitely putting out soon will be some form of split with SEWER RAT, which is a power electronics project done by my friend Skippy in Cork. I've not been asked to do any other OVER releases lately but another one or two might emerge before the end of the year.