Column258’s live foundations are in warehouse parties, roof top gigs and art galleries. It’s only been over this last year they started playing more traditional rock venues resulting in tightly honed performances through years of playing but considered” new players” to promoters and gig goers alike.
‘This is music as a force for change, seeking escape from the tyranny of conformist predictability.’ (David Erdos, International Times).
“If Bauhaus’ Peter Murphy fronted Future Days era Can” (Sean Kitchin, the Quietus)
There’s no such thing as a “final version” with Column258’s material, so when the band were offered free access to studio space above a disused tool hire station in an industrial outreach of town, they decided that what ever they left with, that would be the album. Sometimes it’s the restriction that enables the art. The studio space was full of equipment accumulated by the owner over decades of salvage. The vocal shield, prominent on the record cover, was originally used by The Who. Well-rehearsed songs flowed between on-the-spot jams. Fine-tuned lyrics butted against headlines read from the newspapers gaffa taped to the studio ceiling. Mic’s crackled and affects boards sparked.. This could easily have D I S A S T E R written all over it. But fortune favoured the foolish with the end recordings providing enough quality output to cover two albums.
Interloper (Workshop Sessions Vol 1) is late night listening, it’s for digesting and pondering if any of it was intentional or a simple glorious accident.
