Q&A: Flock

Flock’s self-titled debut was recorded in a single day. Giving yourselves more time with this body of work, what did you hope to achieve differently in your compositional style?

Danalogue: Well in some senses, the compositional style was very similar on Flock II in that through improvisation we are creating spontaneous compositions. With the gift of more time we could try different combinations of instrumentation, and have headspace to listen back to how it was sounding, reflect and adjust or just simply have new ideas built on the understanding of how we are synergising, rather than a more chaotic initial outburst of creativity. Having more time gives you room to get comfortable and relaxed in the studio and it also gives you the opportunity to flow through more iterations and combinations between the players, and even blow off steam with random jams all playing different instruments or taking a swim in the ice-cold Pembrokeshire sea. Me personally – I felt an affinity with three or four of the tracks, and wanted to take a deeper dive into the edit and post-production, adding a couple of extra parts and effects here and there, tweaking the initial recording, somewhat mirroring my process with The Comet is Coming records a little more. It felt exciting to share some of my expression in the secondary composition process with the rest of the Flock, taking a more rough diamond of a jam and attempting to bring it out and give it the shine I could imagine in my head.

Flock’s international line-up brings a combination of global influences to the table. Were any specific elements of the group’s individual backgrounds channelled, and if so, which ones?

Bex Burch: We are all channels for every single influence in our detailed microcosm of life, isn’t that amazing? What I have been enjoying about this group of people is that Flock writes part of a love letter to London for me. To the community and the feisty, crazy, determined, deeply creative, sometimes kinda loud and Arsenal-loving (OK, that last one is mainly Sarathy and Dan) beautiful mix and match of life and sound it is. London and the UK [have been] built for centuries on immigration, this tiny island where people have always come, to go on somewhere, or stay for a few years [or] generations… My country: it’s been global since the Paleolithic era!

What kind of improvisational composition techniques were employed in the making of Flock II? How was improvisation balanced with structure?

Sarathy Korwar: We had ‘jump-off’ devices for each musical piece, for example – graphic scores with shapes and repeating patterns, a rotating lamp creating strobe effects on us while we were improvising, poems, narrative stories made up by members of the band and more. All to provide inspiration and structures for our improvisations as a group.

Listening back to your completed work, does it invoke any sort of mental imagery / aesthetics for any of you?

Al MacSween: In a very literal sense, a good amount of this music came from direct interpretations of visual stimuli, including graphic scores of birdsong, homemade videos of seascapes, and ‘dream machine’ strobe lighting. In a more abstract sense, we are inspired by imagery that evokes collectivism and a lack of hierarchy (which is also reflected in our band name and album artwork), so especially the image of a flock of birds moving as a single unit, waves moving across an ocean, a bluster of swirling leaves, drops of water forming a pool, the celestial bodies that make up a night sky.

Lastly, do you think there is any sort of ideal mindset or setting for listening to Flock II?

Tamar Osborn: An ideal mindset would probably be with no preconceptions, an open mind and an open heart! Personally I don’t think there’s an ideal setting for listening – I hope different things will jump out and connect with the listener depending on their circumstance and frame of mind at that particular moment, in that particular place. Our daily lives are full of improvisations, big and small – every conversation, every time we plan a new route when something delays the train or the road is blocked, every surprise that makes us change plans for the day, the week, the year… so I hope listeners will allow this into how they experience the music, as much as we did playing.