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16 AUGUST 2017
visit MUSIC FEATURE
A cross the timelines of specific mediums
of art – literature or visual art or music –
you can find a pattern of one movement
seeking to crystallise, escape or straight-up revolt
against the ideals which preceded it. In writing
new album Go Farther Into Lightness, David
Le’aupepe found a connection with The New
Sincerity, a literary movement originating back
in the 1990s whose aim was to re-embrace the
humanistic qualities of art which cynics had pooh-
poohed for their mawkishness.
“I became infatuated with David Foster
Wallace and Zadie Smith and Dave Eggers, and
all these kinds of really verbose, highly emotive,
obsessive-compulsive writers, in ninth or tenth
grade,” the musician explains. “I think when
you feel alien… I grew up pretty working class
in the inner west [of Sydney], and I’m a Pacific
Islander, so all those things usually point towards
a career in rugby or a career in organised crime.
I think there was something about [Wallace’s]
cadence, his obsession with attentive detail. He
wanted to connect deeply and empathetically
with people.” Wallace’s beliefs and style were a
reaction against the nihilistic efforts of writers
like Bret Easton Ellis (who wrote bleak best-seller
American Psycho). “In [Ellis’] prose, everything’s
dark and f-cked up and histrionic and pessimistic.
But there was something really poignant and
defiant about guys like [Wallace] and Eggers.”
That idea, in letting down your ironical guard
and allowing yourself to be vulnerable, is the
antidote to the original hipster – a person who
is ‘hip’ to many ideas but not deeply engaged
with any of them, because if you love something,
someone can trash it or pull the rug out from
under you with a few serrated words.
Go Farther In Lightness is absolutely full of
hopeful affirmation – the pizzicato strings in
Achilles Come Down echo lyrics which appeal
to a cynic to face his truth; the piano chords in
the title track slip unexpectedly up and down in
semitones, mirroring the strangeness Le’aupepe
describes in its lyrics; a track like Persevere, with
its Imogen Heap vocoder, pattering electronic
beat, Rhodes chords and gospel ‘oohs’ would
be poxy in anyone else’s hands. The beautiful
string interlude L’Imaginaire, which is a sneaky
cover of one of the biggest rock songs of all
time, Le’aupepe imagined as “capturing some of
that ambitious long-windedness of Pink Floyd”;
he arranged its strings, as well as those on the
other two interludes. “There’s 450 pages of score
sitting out there in the Sony office – I was a bit
nuts about it,” he smiles. “I conducted one little
part of it but I’m not a very gifted conductor. But
[writing the string parts] was one of the most
rewarding things I’ve ever done. I spent four days
sleeping on the floor in the Sony studios, not
eating or drinking – I think I had Thai curry one
day – just trying to get it done. It was liberating,
invigorating and exciting to finish it up, and to
look at four very gifted string players playing my
horrible scrawling.” The effect of those pieces is
like moments of The Smashing Pumpkins' 1993
epic Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, with
rich cello and impossibly bittersweet violin. “I
think Mellon Collie is one of the all-time great
double records – that’s something I can really say
comfortably,” he asserts. “I wanted [Go Farther]
to reflect some of these gigantic, huge works of
almost literary music.”
But still: once you open yourself up, what’s
to stop you being hurt? It’s a very courageous
approach to life, but it’s terrifying too. “I think
we’re all capable of it,” Le’aupepe says. “Fear is
only the first step in a longer and wider journey
in life. I’m wholeheartedly taking this fear and
looking at it, and overcoming it, and mastering
it. Self-mastery is the point here. I’m not a
courageous person by nature – you have to learn
how to be. We all have to. And I think the myth
that somehow it’s reserved for some and not
others is bullsh-t. We’re all capable of overcoming
past terror and past trauma. The word ‘trauma’
– Freud talks about it – is Greek for ‘scar’.
Scars heal. Trauma heals. That’s the whole
point. It’s there and it’s visible but it’s
demonstrable of a wound or an injury that
the body’s healed over.”
Le’aupepe admits he doesn’t have
all the answers – he says the album
proves “how little [he’s] figured out
about it all” – but the effort is the point.
It’s most distilled in track The Heart
Is A Muscle, the message of which
Le’aupepe describes thusly: “The more
empathy we exercise, the more love
we display, the more autonomy we
demonstrate, the stronger that muscle
becomes.” ZKR
Gang Of Youths' second album Go Farther In Lightness gave
vocalist David Le'aupepe a chance to express some of his ideas
aroundThe New Sincerity and how its maxims affect life beyond
literature. He spoke to Zoë Radas at Sony Music HQ.
Go Farther
In Lightness
by Gang Of
Youths is out
August 18 via
Sony.
DAVID LE'AUPEPE
OF GANG OF YOUTHS
I wanted to reflect some of
these gigantic, huge works
of almost literary music
INTERVIEW
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