Dub Tractor (SCQ's Year-End Questionnaire Part I)

Not only was I unaware that a new Dub Tractor album was coming out this past November, I had no idea how beautiful it would be. Truly, Sorry is an upgrade on the Dub Tractor sound in every way, delving into deeper songwriting and more resonant instrumentation. Anders Remmer takes a moment to satisfy SCQ’s curiosity with his favourite new artists and how he managed the recording of his latest record.

SCQ: What have been some of your favourite records of 2009? Gush away!


I’ve been listening a lot to the very inspiring minimal sounds of The xx.
And the dreamy music of Washed Out.

And of course the brilliant
2562: unbalance
Lukid: Foma

Earlier this year I spent a lot of time with this album:
Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion

But the most played album of 2009 must be Brian Eno: Thursday Afternoon. I just put it on repeat and play it as relaxing background music at low volume. That records really works to calm me down and get me back on track.

SCQ: Be it from the radio, lost on Myspace or from your roster, what songs could you not stop spinning?

Washed Out: 'Feel it all around'
Washed Out: 'Belong'
The Field: 'Everybodys gotta learn sometime'
King Midas Sound: 'One Ting' (Dabrye mix)

SCQ: Seldom celebrated but crucial to The Album’s identity is cover-art. Can you offer any shortlist of personal favourites from the past year?

Lukid: Foma
Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion
The xx: xx
Millie and Andrea: Vigilance
Lotus Plaza: The Floodlight Collective

SCQ: When you look back on what transpired this year, what will stand out as your most memorable professional moment(s) of 2009?

Well that must be the release of my Dub Tractor album Sorry. It’s the first time I’ve really had a go at singing real songs. Recording my own vocal was really a different kind of hard work. And since the concept was to do everything myself, I didn’t have a producer or any help. I sort of figured out how vocal production could be done as I went along.

And performing the tracks live has also been very special and exciting.

SCQ: Most of us probably haven’t thought as far as New Years Eve plans but still, looking forward, what do you have on the horizon for 2010?

Well I’m gonna play a bit live. And then start working with other musicians again. I have a few different musical projects in the pipeline.

Sorry - Dub Tractor

Sorry

Dub Tractor
City Centre Offices.

SCQ Rating: 80%

Hideout was something of a rarity; a record I struggled to find, wrestled to love and then slid into comfortably once I stopped focusing so damned hard. In the months following its purchase, that 2006 effort by Anders Remmer found itself increasingly chosen for my I-Pod and home stereo, as if its somber tones immediately brought back cool Autumn breezes I first took the album walking through. Given its gradual way of winning me over, Hideout now defends a hard-fought place in my regular rotation…; a feat I wouldn’t have predicted even a year ago. So the surprise of Dub Tractor’s return was met with great satisfaction when Remmer’s new album, Sorry, blew me away at first listen. Boasting deeper songwriting and brilliant soundscapes, Sorry accomplishes what Hideout could not; catching listeners off-guard with emotive electronic pop that refuses to fade into mood-music.

This immediate evolution is felt on opener ‘And You Are Back’; what sounds like an echoed piano, cut into loops and fed with reverb, drones harmoniously to molasses-slow beats under Remmer’s hazy vocals. Those details – fuzzy guitar lines, liquid percussion and subtle, dubby bass - may sound in line with Dub Tractor’s well-trodden territory, yet the songwriting has undergone a massive upgrade. As foreshadowed by the more pronounced vocals on ‘And You Are Back’, Sorry breaks the long-running tradition of only repeating lyrics that are in the song’s title, inevitably giving these compositions more heart and mood. On the late-night gloaming of ‘I Don’t Get It Anymore’, Remmer illustrates a strained relationship with the lyrical directness of New Order's Bernard Sumner while, on ‘It All Went Wrong’, he takes a more narrative bent. Not all songs delve into full-on verses the way these aforementioned examples do, but it’s worth noting that these forward-thinking Dub Tractor tunes are among the best on Sorry, especially ‘Fall In Love Like This’, where a processed guitar rumbles menacingly over Remmer’s innocent vocal hook. These tracks supplement the tempered beauty of past albums with a potent dose of shoegaze, triggering his songs to push forward instead of pacing on-the-spot.

The rest of the time, Sorry isn’t so much a new direction as a refreshed commitment to what Remmer does best. The familiar warmth of ‘That Won’t Heal By Itself’, a one-phrase mantra of soft chimes and muddled acoustics, is as stationary as the buzzing ‘A lot of Work is Done’, and these pillars should support a refuge for older fans untouched by Dub Tractor’s growing style. Split between his classic, textural sound and his emerging voice as a songwriter, Sorry is Dub Tractor’s most vital record to date, dripping with deeper emotion and new promise.