WOOZE Break Down Their Influences
New EP 'Get Me To A Nunnery' is incoming...
Alt-pop partnership *WOOZE* continue their journey with new single 'Tu Es Moi'.
The project evades genre boundaries, drawing from pop possibility in order to conjure something emphatically individual.
New EP 'Get Me To A Nunnery' is out on October 22nd, and 'Tu Es Moi' leads the way.
The British-Korean pairing surge into fresh territory on the single, a snappy piece of pop-funk that flirts with other dimensions.
Clash invited WOOZE to break down their sound.
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Young Poet Records · WOOZE - Tu Es Moi
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*A Flock Of Seagulls - 'Wishing (If I Had A Photograph Of You)'*
*Theo:* I love western songs with an Asian tang to them and this definitely has a heady and exotic Asian backbone to it. I only discovered this song, for my sins, a few weeks ago when I was deconstructing a kitchen table in a removals job. - My boss was in The Kooks for a bit and has some wild tales. He was busy regaling me with some juicy Goss while pumping out some of his hits and within the first few seconds of this I knew I had found a new favourite of mine.
Doing such a mundane task while listening to such an intoxicating 80s number elevated the normal to the sublime, which is what all best music and art does. For a second there I felt like I was Van Morrison instead of being a removal van man.
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*Rush - 'YYZ'*
*Theo:* I started off by playing bass guitar when I was nine, so my idols were Les Claypool, Geddy Lee and perhaps Flea before he started playing jazz trumpet live.
I think that's informed the way I play guitar as I had to play guitar out of necessity than choice in my first school band as there was a freakish abundance of bassists around in my year. I still think I'm much better at bass guitar than the electric guitar. Maybe I should swap my bedroom wall poster of Geddy Lee for Eddie Van Halen at some point and accept my lot.
This instrumental song is in many ways a microcosm of how Jamie and I approach our writing for WOOZE. It has such a mix of pompous and barbarous riffery beside lilting moments that border the sublime. It's such a hoot. All my favourite songs share the ingredient of fun and not taking itself too seriously, and that's definitely something we try to do with our music.
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*Thomas The Tank Engine Theme - Junior Campbell, Mike O’Donnell, Ed Welch*
*Jamie:* I’m sure I’m not the only one for whom this song remains a powerful influence. I like to think Matthew Wilder had it in mind when writing ‘Break My Stride’. It revolves in my head on a regular basis, and if it pops in there while I’m on foot, my amble becomes a swagger, ne a strut. As well as its sassy groove, ‘Thomas’ boasts many qualities I value in music. One other such quality is hard to put succinctly in words. Essentially it’s one of those pieces where the music itself matches the tone of its story so completely that it transcends the medium, and the story itself. (Another example that springs to mind is when Frank Sinatra says “riiiiiiide in limousines” in ‘It Was A Very Good Year’).
Technically, ‘Tank’ is very neat and clever. The clarinet gracefully lopes over the top of time signature changes, immediately conjuring images of the tank engine ascending a steep incline, or winding through a bend on a hill. There are few perfect moments in music, and that one, (if you know which bit I mean), may be one of them. ‘Engine’ is full of them in fact.
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*LA Shark - ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’*
*Jamie:* Similar to ‘TTTE’, it’s a song that often slams itself in my head. The bass groove in particular. Louis and Nick, the bassist and drummer of Dry Cleaning, were in LA Shark before, and all of us in WOOZE were and still are huge fans.
All the members were amazing at what they did. Scott (our guitarist) played with them a bunch of times too. I actually bought Nick’s drum kit after LA Shark disbanded, just so I could hang the bass drum skin on our studio wall. I first saw the music video for ‘Summer’ when I came to London all those years ago, and it blew my little mind. I was so relieved and grateful that stuff like that was being churned out in my new home. They remain the best live band I’ve seen, and it’s such a shame they’re no longer playing.
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*Yukihiro Takahashi - 'Flashback'*
*Theo:* This is one of our favourite songs ever. We're big fans of Y.M.O and all their respective solo projects but the album this song comes from 'What Me Worry' might have to take the biscuit. - It's such a masterfully crafted song, balancing majesty with being a really accessible pop song. It's the song equivalent of the Queen at the school disco.
*Jamie:* If I may do a flashback to my first choice of song, ‘Thomas The Tank Engine Theme’ I feel is a sibling of ‘Flashback’. They share the same groove. ‘Back’ is one of those songs that really does feel like a journey. Not a rollercoaster, by any means. More of a slow train, or some sort of tank engine.
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