Automotion

Jesse: When we first started we had no vocals and a lot of it was improvised, we didn’t really have much in the way of song structures either. Only Meeting at the Periphery, from our first EP, even made it onto record. We have gone through many tracks and a lot of them get cut quite quickly. In a sense, we are not too keen on cementing a sound that is definitively our own, the idea is to try to keep progressing and changing as we move forward.
Finton: I’ve only been in Automotion for about a year and a half, but the transition from the music I came into and the music we play now is huge. I definitely feel like each EP is a big step towards refining and improving our sound; in a way, it feels like it’s a constant proving ground for us as a band.
Otis: Our first few shows were very loose, it was a lot of head nods and signals to signify the end of a section. The structures of our songs began to become more thought out compared to just changing when it felt right or at the end of a solo.

Jesse: Lennon and I met at school and then met Otis at the Windmill. We went through a few bass players, all of which were great, but then Finton joined and we have not looked back. I’m not quite sure how Otis and Finton met.
Finton: I met Jesse and Lennon at the Windmill but didn’t really start properly hanging out until I joined Automotion. Otis and I have obviously known each other since way back when.
Otis: I met both Lennon and Jesse at the Windmill, I work there as a sound engineer. Finton and I had played previously in a band together, so when a vacancy came up, Finton seemed like a great option.

Jesse: The name just sounded cool. On the idea of revolutionising music, or creating the new, this was the initial thought. But the initial conception of creating the new was too naive. To revolutionise music as a whole, one has to be doing something that cannot yet be recognised as music. What we are doing is clearly music and therefore is not revolutionising music. If we are to create the new it is in a much more limited sense, it would be limited to the new within rock music, which we have still been unsuccessful at.
Finton: Yup, Jesse is right.
Otis: Yeah, what Jesse said.

Jesse: I think less about creating the new. This is not because I think the new is unachievable, but rather because one cannot really say what the new is. To clearly be able to discern what the new is, is to recognise it, which is a contradiction as what is truly new is unrecognisable. This is partly why some claim there is nothing new since we can only truly understand what is new once it has already happened.
Finton: I’m less motivated by creating a musical revolution and more motivated to make good music and tour the world with mates. Influencing great music after us would obviously be a great cherry on the top, but I am much more motivated by having a good time than starting the next revolutionary wave of music.

Jesse: The interest in the new is an interest in the work itself rather than the industry. Although it is important to note that the industry absolutely affects the work, we see this through the shortening of songs and putting the hook at the beginning to grab the attention of the listener as one can skip a song at will. But more importantly it is the music technology industry that has the real effect on the music. Whole genres are created due to changes in the technology used to make music. The biggest force in the creation of music are the tools available, more so than the feelings and so called expressions of the artists involved. Perhaps we can say that the issue with the industry is that there is too much focus on the artist rather than the art.

Jesse: Dissolve somewhat feels like a move away from the fine art and literary influence. It is an attempt at refining the music as what it is, in the sense that we wanted to develop what we thought was good musically in our previous stuff. These days I am more interested in seeing what music can do itself rather than trying to unify it with other domains.
Literature is, in a sense, so utterly different from music, that’s why the two so often go together, lyrics stimulate the imagination in a way that music cannot, but music stimulates emotion in a way that literature cannot. It is difficult to talk about this, even to say music stimulates emotion seems wrong, perhaps feeling is a better word as it is more ambiguous; emotion is too associated with happy, sad etc. But in any case, words don’t do justice to what music can do.

Jesse: You could read it that way I guess. Titles are kind of a pain in the arse, we usually just call things No.1 or No.37. We then scramble on the day we gotta upload it to come up with the titles.

Jesse: Patrick is great to work with, we almost always tend to agree on stuff. He has an unbelievable ear and is himself a fantastic musician. What is particularly great with Patrick is how we are sometimes able to toil over a minute detail for ages but then sometimes we get something super quick and just roll with it.

Jesse: Dissolve does not feel like a switch up; rather, the word we keep on using for it is ‘refinement’. To work on what we have previously done, but do it better. We tried to have the song written in a way that had dramatic changes whilst retaining a sense of continuity, which I think some of our previous work didn’t quite achieve. Hopefully, future releases will have a more radical shift in our sound.

Jesse: I certainly think we have progressed, there have been changes in our sound but not as radically as we would perhaps have hoped. Gotta wait and see what may lie ahead.