When local band Blackmilk take the stage, they create an atmosphere of psychedelic sound so intense it seems to drip from the walls, fill the air and become so real you can almost reach out and touch it. Driving guitars and layers of harmonious vocals are a signature sound for these guys, so when I heard they were playing the next Unplugged gig at The Ellington this week, I was intrigued. I had a chat with them about the upcoming show and this is what they said:

1. Being a band known for your ‘wall of sound’ performances, how are you rearranging your songs for this stripped back gig?

Tim: Our live shows are always quite intense and have a wall of sound impact to them, with this unplugged show we’ll be focusing on the subletites of our tracks and stripping away alot of the atmospheric noise. We’re adding some different elements to them too, a bit of dub and soul flavour.

James: Some of our tracks are suited perfectly for a stripped back acoustic gig, seeing as the majority of them are written on an acoustic guitar and are then fully fleshed out by the rest of the band in rehearsal. Its ironic that were a band known for a ‘wall of sound’ considering the fact that we don’t really listen to alot bands that create that sound. Were into motown and alot of mellower music.

2. How did you choose which songs you would play and did you find it challenging to rearrange them suitably?

Tim: We chose a bunch of our tracks which lend themselves to being cut back to the bare elements more than others. The majority of our music is written this way and the added to, layering up the sound so its kind of taking the songs back to this primary stage.

James: It allows the songs to stand on their own, stark naked. People always say they cant hear the lyrics when were playing live, i dont mind this because i dont want the lyrics to be easily grasped upon first listen. In saying that, they will be far more clear and distinguishable in this setting.

3. How did you find the process as a band? Did everyone want to take it in the same direction or was there conflict about how things should sound?

James: Were all pretty much on the same wavelength so theirs no dramas there, a simple nod of the head to a bandmate during rehearsal is at times the greatest form of inter-band communication.

Tim: There wasn’t any conflict, we tried to look at changing the tracks collectively rather than one person coming in with the ideas, it happened spontaneously which is usually a good thing.

4. Have you spent alot of time working on this or is it something that comes naturally?

Tim: I’ve been thinking about how we’re going to approach this for a while, but once we started jamming for it , it all kinda fell into place and worked.

James: Im always learning cover songs just in case we get the oppurtunity to do a show such as this one. We decided on one that we felt the most comfortable with though i would of loved to do erykah badu’s new song window seat, shes real good.

5. How do you think you will go on the night? Going from such a full band sound to something more relaxed and tame that leaves alot less room for error, does that bother you?

Tim: I think it’ll be great for us to hear our songs live in a very different way, and using the grand piano will be neat.
It’s going to be a very different twist on our live show so Im really lookin forward to it.

James: Its going to be exactly how i foresee it to be, which is a soulful and intimate evening playing our songs to people we love.