ZapTown

With a live show that builds a hypnotic connection between music and visual elements, it only takes a single for Phantom to get people’s attention and be the talk of the London underground. With the Great Pretender (Parallax Sounds), the elegant vocal enticements, the mysterious soundscapes and lush delicacies create an aura that will leave the listener mystified if not mesmerized.  Elsie Martins (vocals and guitar), Jonny Martin (bass and EBow), and Lyndsay Evans (organ and drums) plays music that take us back to 1982 without feeling trapped in it . Elsie Martin lets you in on her secret:

With Great Pretender, why the single instead of say an EP or gathering even more material to put together an album? With enough music to fill a live gig slot, was there any degree of pressure as to what you would release as your first impression? Why Great Pretender for this?

I really wanted some material out there for our fans to get their hands on, we have a good following in London but also in Canada (where am originally from) and a single is a perfect starting point for a new band. It’s not just an introduction but a stepping stone for more material to come further down the line, and it’s a bit of a tease too! Phantom is a new project and it felt right for me to release two tracks to start with while carrying on writing some material for an EP. I’m constantly writing, so the dilemma has always been what songs to do next with the band? The logical thing was to release a two track teaser really. Picking which one wasn’t easy but Great Pretender is the perfect introduction to my work, thematically and musically. It’s bold; it’s dark, cynical, bare-faced and brutally honest. There no pretence there, it’s confiding into the listener, it’s telling them a secret…and people like secrets don’t they?

One thing that was great in the ‘80s and music was the packaging. Test Departments double album box or getting those New Order singles on vinyl was always striking and stood out even to this day. Being a visual band, how do you feel about the iPod age and how that affects you for good or bad.

I love the ipod age! We actually use one on stage! The ipod Theremin. It’s made our lives so much simpler. The old analogue Theremin I had would pick up so many different frequencies in each room (venue) we played and had to be re tuned in every location. Now our soundchecks are that much easier thanks to the iphone Theremin application. Anything that makes your life simpler is a good thing by me, even if it does confuse the hell out of the sound engineer at times.

I can’t really see how the ipod is taking anything away from record collectors, music anoraks and vinyl junkies. If anything it’s an added tool for inspiration, it’s something you can carry around with you and watch, listen, share and or get lost in. It a box of treasures in your pocket. Surely that’s a good thing.

Your live shows are what have been on people’s minds. Can you briefly describe a Phantom live show experience? Can you also talk about how you incorporate your visual material into the music? What goes into selecting what is presented live, and in what way have people responded to it?

The live gig consists of projection material played in the background, admittedly it’s nothing new but it works very well for us. A lot of people have suggested that the music has a visual quality and would be fitting a film soundtrack. I suppose for the lack of a filmmaker asking me to write some music for his/her picture I just decided to make my own images. As for the actual content of the film we play on stage, I put it together from archive copyright free film material I found.  I am by no means a filmmaker, but wanting to add that visual element to the band, and being completely hands on with the project, I simply decided to do it myself! I searched archives for licence free images, and went for stills that had a style which appealed to me and incidentally would fit the music as well. I think it can only be described as “Hitchcock does biology!”  I found old 30′- 50’s era educational films about how the human body works. They’re the kind of films showed in classrooms at the time, so they’re not graphic and bloody but rather look a little innocent, shot in black and white and almost elegant / graceful. I used segments of each film that looked visually interesting and took them out of their original context so they can appear more abstract to the audience. You might not see a beating heart, an artery, blood vessels, the heart of a lizard, an fish egg foetus, an x-ray, a sketch of the eye’s tear gland…etc…

The response has been pretty good so far – it seems to set the mood, grab the attention, it links music and image nicely for the watcher.

I’d love to ask a film maker to create something for our gigs, and I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for someone to get involved on that side of things.

There have been bands where I walk away remembering them more for this visual presence than their music. Focusing on the visual elements live, does this overshadow the music or do you notice people soaking it up as an accentuation? How do you create that balance?

People come out of our gigs with different takes on the show as whole. The visual is not intended to take anything away from the performance, from the band, and it’s not in any way a canvas to hide ourselves either. The visual element was chosen specifically to be abstract, it doesn’t tell a story in itself but it supports the rest of the stuff that happens on stage – the music and the stories told. There were a few times where the projector or the space wouldn’t work for us visually so we would play without the visuals, and it didn’t take anything drastic away…the audience was still there, attentive.

What are some of the influences behind the music, and how does that relate to the current musical climate of London these days?

I’m a big fan of 80’s post punk, always have been. Bands like The Chameleons I think are so underrated and deserve a lot more recognition. I love the Cocteau Twins, Siouxsie, Echo & The Bunnymen, Jesus & Mary Chain…I’m also a huge fan of showgaze, as well instrumental bands like Mogwai and Explosions in The Sky. And I love classic, and slightly off beat, story tellers like Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and, for me, Nick Cave is the ultimate story teller of my generation. My love affair with 80’s post punk is not a surprise to hear am sure, and it does seem like a lot of London bands have been given that “dark” tag lately, but to be honest “gloomy” music has been fascinating audiences for as long as I can remember, and far earlier no doubt. The current trend is only a continuation of a great tradition of pop music celebrating heartbreak. Nothing new here.

Why did you choose to leave Montreal and a TV career and move to London? How did you three come together to form Phantom? Tell me a little background behind the band?

I always wanted to be in London, ask anyone who ever knew me in Montreal and they’ll confirm it. It just feels right for me to be here. The funny thing is that I didn’t come to London to play music, but I came here because of my love of English music ( it wouldn’t be fair for me to say London music as so many amazing bands have come from other parts of the UK) but I wanted to live in the capital of  the country that sparked so many musical heroes of mine, the ones I grew up listening to.

I was working as a music journalist when I first came over to London, but things didn’t pan out as well as I had hoped. Working as a Music TV presenter I was always surrounded by musicians; I was going on tour with bands, making TV programs about them, following them in the studio etc…but if I’m completely honest it just felt like something was missing for me. When I stopped working in music I realised that it wasn’t the work that I missed but it was being close to the music.

It was only a matter of time, I suppose, until someone threw a guitar in my hands and pushed me to play. That’s when I realised how much I wanted to play but never had. I’m a self taught musician because, for me, the idea of going to study music didn’t feel right. learning music for me was about rebellion, it was about doing something I wasn’t really meant to be doing, and rebellion, making your own rules isn’t something anyone could have ever thought me.

Phantom came together because I wanted to take this experience further and actually write songs of my own. It hasn’t been easy finding the right people to play with -  there’s a few music snobs out there, some unreliable bums and some vocalists with too many issues to deliver and commit (that last one is the reason I decided to grab the mic). The current Phantom line up works very well; it’s just 3 of us, no complications.  I bring the songs in and we arrange them.

When listening to your music, it feels very well thought out and intricate. How does the band construct a song and create that sense of depth and power?

I come into rehearsal with the songs already written out, and we arrange them in a full band format. We work out dynamics, textures and sounds. Because the songs are already written there’s no time spent on creating from scratch and it leaves more time to work on the arrangements -  it gives us the freedom to really try out different sounds and textures from the beginning of a rehearsal session. There is definitely a specific sound that I’m after; I know the mood and tone I want to create from the start. The great thing about finding the right people to play with is that I don’t have to go into lengthy explanations about it all. Jonny and Lyndsay get it, they just know what I am trying to do and help me create that sound.

There are so many elements that shape your music emotionally and metaphysically that the career of this band and the music almost seems novelistic. What are the most important elements you feel getting out of this project both as a musician and as a person?

This is a tough one….for me it’s about discovering what I can do, what I am capable of. Pushing myself and rediscovering my passions, my obsessions, and discovering music again from a new perspective. It feels like a new stage, a new road has opened in front of me and am doing things I never would have dared before. It’s liberating.

As a band with interesting possibilities, what would you like to accomplish musically?

Feeling like you’ve accomplished something, whether musically or any other creative or professional field is always rewarding. But I don’t think the initial motivation was ever to conquer, but rather to discover what you can do. It certainly was for me.

As simple as this sounds, it is the truth: I just want the freedom to write and not have to be chained to an office chair most of the day to pay the rent….oh and a tour with Nick cave would be nice too!

After listening to Great Pretender, it feels like a teaser for people to want to hear more. What will your focus be in regards to releasing new material?

I am working on getting a live show across the UK, Europe, US and I’d love to go to Japan! Then the next step is releasing an EP, so keep your ears peeled for more Phantom material coming out very soon…

Links:
Phantom: http://www.myspace.com/thisisphantomuk
Parallax Sounds: http://www.parallaxsounds.com/