FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Vice Blog

DOOM HIPSTERTRONICA - PSYCHIC ILLS

The problem with listening to lots of music all the time is that it makes you a really dull person who can't listen to something without your brain clicking into register mode and self-listing all the things it sounds like (don't do this by the way - despite what Adrian Tomine comics and High Fidelity taught you, girls will never, ever find this endearing). Most bands tend to sound like lots of other bands, but occasionally one will come along and crack open the rocky fortress of mundane reference to reveal a beautiful, glowing, gloopy stream of musical amazingness. The Psychic Ills, for instance, try to melt down all of the various bits of contemporary art they like into distorted rhythmic noise. We met up with them and asked them to tell us a bit more about what they do…

Advertisement

VICE: Why are you so secretive?
Tres Warren (vocals): I don't know. I guess our webpage expired, we forgot to pay for it.

What's the deal with Swedish prog bands like Dungen getting so hyped in New York?
Tres: They just seem to blow up over night. We just really like Träd Gräs och Stenar, we've been listening to them for a long time.
Elizabeth Hart (bass): Yeah, they're inspiring in every way. Right now we also listen a lot to this band Guitars Of The Western Sahara.
Brian Tamborello (drums): And free jazz. Stuff like Don Cherry, Larry Young, Pharoah Sanders.

What pisses you off?
Tres: 28 hour drives, small cups of coffee at 6 in the morning and listening to the same CDs.
Elizabeth: We've been driving all over Europe for weeks now, mostly it's nice, stopping in little towns in Spain and drinking wine, Portugal was the best. But then we get to places like Bilbao and after a 20 hour drive you start to hallucinate and then when you finally arrive you realize that the venue is a post-apocalyptic, dusty metal factory where no one has been for 10 years. That can be tough.

Where do you get your cover art? It's amazing.
Tres: Yeah, that's a German artist from the 60s, Wolf Wostell. He's dead now. He's kind of under-known but people should know more about him. His work was a kind of a parallel to the Fluxus stuff but he had little to do with that movement. I guess he never got big 'cos he never had a show in America. He didn't want to go there as a personal protest against the Vietnam war. Someone told me that he has work in the MoMA now.
Elizabeth: Yeah, it was on display last year but I'm not sure if it's part of the permanent collection 'cos they haven't had it out since.
Tres: It's called 3 hairs and Shadow. I liked it for a long time and then we had a record, so it made sense to have it on there.

And they let you use it just like that?
Tres: Yeah, his son was really cool about it when we asked him if we could use it.

* Dins is out now on The Social Registry.

MILÈNE LARSSON