Music Profile: Mew
This article appeared in the 8.19.09 issue of the Weekly Dig.
http://www.weeklydig.com/[catpath]/200908/mew
Most people would agree that a newly acquired band member stops being the “rookie” after a couple years. Silas Jørgensen, drummer for Danish indie-prog rock sensation Mew, laughs at them.
“I joined 10, 15 years ago and I’ve been with them ever since. I’m still the new member,” says Jørgensen, though he and bandmates Jonas Bjerre, lead vocalist/guitarist, and bassist Bo Madsen still get along famously. “We’ve known each other since we were small kids,” says Jørgensen. “We went to school together, and we’ve done some movies and some film shorts. We have a good relationship.”
The trio has come a long way from schoolyard fracases and $10 film budgets—and since their inception in 1994, they’ve released four albums, three re-releases and an EP, with their fifth and most intricate album, No More Stories, slated to come out this Tuesday.
The album’s full title reads: No More Stories/Are Told Today/I’m Sorry/They Washed Away/No More Stories/The World Is Grey/I’m Tired/Let’s Wash Away. (Go on, play your bongo drums.)
“We were looking for a short title for the record, but we had difficulty finding that,” says Jørgensen. “So we felt that this was suitable. It’s kind of written as a chanting thing. It is dark in a way, but it looks for new places, new worlds somehow.” As does the rest of the album, which Jørgensen says pushed the band out of their comfort zone. “We work a lot around rhythms. We wanted to go a little bit further and push ourselves.”
With a strangely soothing, complex, ethereal feel, No More Stories is an eargasm. Rhythm is used deftly, with plenty of snare in songs like “Hawaii,” which goes from a Caribbean feel to exploding into a beautiful series of soaring vocals and warm drum fills. Compare that to the cadence-stretching, time-distorting complexity of “Introducing Palace Players,” and it is one remarkably diverse album that challenges the listener … in the best way.
“We wanted to do a more colorful record, more diverse, and in every song make it brighter, more joyful,” says Jørgensen.
And then?
“Then we just started working. ““We aimed to make a record that would kind of leave some space in between. We tend to throw a lot of stuff on records and on songs. We wanted to make it less heavy,” he says. “I don’t know if we achieved that. Maybe on some of the stuff, but we wanted to make it dry and more direct on this record.”
Planning out something as intricate as No More Stories might prove daunting, but Mew’s approach plays a big part in the album’s controlled chaos. “We tend to take every song as a new thing to work on. A new song is one record for us,” says Jørgensen. “Everything on this album is thought through.”
Mew recently finished touring with Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction this summer, an opportunity Jørgensen says has been great. “It’s an honor. It’s good to be playing with those guys.”