The Voyeurist just ooze sex through their music, it is effortlessly cool. The London three piece put together a very excitable sound with atmospheric guitars, laid back vocals which captivate the listener before a whirlwind of beats and guitars crank your head along a roller coaster ride, one which you will gladly get back on again and again. The Voyeurist are lo-fi masters, their dark music is seductive and punishing. They remind us of a faster paced, slightly more brutal xx. They are beginning to make a stir and grabbed our attention with their debut video NW1.
We are excited to present to you our March 2011 band of the month, may we suggest you ‘like’ their facebook and grab a free download of their track NW1 here which they would like to give away to our readers. Check out the video below.
Ladies and gentlemen…The Voyeurist
US: Tell us how The Voyeurist were born?
RUSTY: Primarily we were incubated in the womb of the world wide web. Through the deep and often seedy means of social media, advertisements, and telepathy we (rusty and sarah) met. Anna found us through last.fm after perusing some London based noise pop. She was such a fan we took her in as bassist.
US: What music influences your music and describes your sound?
RUSTY: There’s alot of old school industrial in there for me as well as alot of recent noise stuff which might surprise people. I always want to try and keep a fairly dark, atmospheric feel to things. Cinematic if that’s not too pretentious a term. The trick is trying to slip that inbetween the more tried and tested pop format, sometimes it feels like it gets lost even to me. One of the few constants in all of it is to have just a slight undertone off seediness, of the macabre. But not to have that get in the way of people singing a hook or line. That’s how you get in people’s heads, not by distortion, more distortion and distortion with a bit of distortion on top.
SARAH: My background isn’t as dark as Rusty’s but I do have a soft spot for obscure music. I would say that my singing style could be attributed to years of punk/new wave/soul obsessions which have amalgamated into a blend of ‘lets see what comes out this time’ sort of thing. Vague I know, but to be honest my vocals always tend to appropriately mould themselves around the music whether that be something quite punchy or morose.
ANNA: For me I guess anything from contempary bands such as white lies and the kills to more old school the cure and depeche mode. I must say film soundtracks do play a big influence on the music. Sometimes I listen to the voyeurist and it sounds a bit like a movie soundtrack.
US: Tell us about your video for NW1?
RUSTY: We were fortunate enough to have a really lovely, talented group of people work for free on the video for ‘NW1’. We had set aside a few days at the end of last year to film it somewhere in Holloway, North London. The idea was dark and twisted which immediately caught our eye. We let the team have full creative control over it and we were very pleased with the outcome. It was an interesting experience for all of us, not least because the Nan had been in countless music videos. One of which was the video for The Knife’s ‘Rock Classics’. ‘Pretty much one of my all time favourite bands’-Sarah. We gained a lot from making the video. We made close friends with the directors and producers but also learnt a bit more about where we want to be heading visually for the future.
US: What does 2011 look like for you guys?
RUSTY: One year closer to the apocalypse.
SARAH: Bloody busy. We are getting a constant barrage of gig offers and new opportunities it’s hard to keep up with it all. It’s shaping out to be our most prolific year yet… then again… we have only been together a year, so maybe that was a little presumptuous. In all honesty I see us touring sometime later this year.
ANNA: Hopefully a big party. Also, we are so busy at the moment we really need a manager to keep on top of everything. Hopefully we’ll find the right one this year.
US: Whats the best thing you have achieved to date?
RUSTY: There’s been a fair amount of cool stuff so far. Honestly, one of the best things is getting featured on a blog, any blog. Just feels good to know that you’re actually doing something right if other people are liking it too. I know its corny as maize-filled-shit, but the best thing for me is still hearing a song back for the first time. That sense of having finished something. Its like a new-book smell for an author I guess.
SARAH: I tend to agree with Rusty in regards to the sense of achievement when finishing songs. We have made so many this past year you can’t help but look back and think ‘wow… we have been busy’. I think my own personal highlight was headlining the Roundhouses’ emerging artist festival. That was intense and surreal. We had nearly everyone there who has supported us from the beginning which is of course a great feeling. Anna: Anna speaks for all of us when she says the best thing we collectively have achieved to date was ‘letting Anna join the band :)’. But of course…
US: Anything coming up in the near future you are looking forward to?
RUSTY: Tons! We are playing a really cool festival called ‘No York’ where we’ll be supporting and supported by some amazing bands like ‘The Black Tambourines’, ‘Halls’, and ‘Chapter 24’. We’ve also been asked to play the Camden Crawl Tips Show at the Bull and Gate on March 24th.
Playing live:
Mar 10 Safari Single Launch @Old Blue Last
Mar 21 The Hysterical Injury+Peepholes @Old Blue Last
Mar 24 CAMDEN CRAWL WARM UP
Apr 3 NO YORK Festival
May 10 Club Fandango @ Bull and Gate
May 28 Mixtape @ 93 Feet East