There’s nothing wrong with good old three chord pop music – tune in, tap your feet, sing along.
Similarly, there’s nowt wrong with music that makes you think. Clever erudite lyrics that carry a message, set to smart instrumentations and shifting, multi-cultural rhythms.
A New International are in the latter category – and while they can carry a singalong chorus with the best of them, new album ‘Operation Internation’ shows what they do best.
Having released music sporadically over the last decade (and previously, as a slightly different lineup as The Starlets) they’ve finally put out their fourth album. Beginning life as their second (“we were blown off course by The Dark Carnival and Covid”), frontman Biff Smith says), ‘Operation Internation’ follows the acclaimed ‘Come To The Fabulon’.
Its (actual) predecessor ‘The Dark Carnival’ soundtracked a stage play, but while their latest, 20-track effort doesn’t go quite that far for the cause, it still has that ambitious feel, while there are high production values in the artwork, the cover’s black/white mugshots giving a very Cold War / espionagey look.
“There’s a general theme of internationalism, in whatever form that takes – espionage and immigration are forms of cultural exchange,” Smith explains. “Stadium chants bring warring tribes together. Tango music, marginalised at home, found an audience and a liberation on the other side of the world.
“With Philby and Fawkes there is the internationalist principle that one’s country is not one’s government.”
“I’d say there’s also a subtext and celebration of how culture flourishes in forgotten or forbidden spaces,” the singer continues. “I’m interested in the margins of life; the areas which power and the mainstream have (so far) overlooked and haven’t yet monetised.
“Linking it all is the romantic idea that another world is possible. I think it’s a very romantic album. Although, I daresay they all are.”
And musically, the band aim high too – incorporating the massed voices of the Glasgow School of Art choir and the strings of the Up North Session Orchestra.
“Less is more! Or at least, different,” Smith muses. “‘Operation Internation’ was a bit of an everything and the kitchen-sink production, featuring a cast of (near) thousands.”
The music also spans Europe and beyond drawing influences that show up in musical styles like the tango, the polka, etc….
“For me, it’s an embracing of the anarchy of musical taste, and the liberation that comes with that,” the band’s frontman enthuses. “As eternally searching, curious, capricious humans, we like what we like; and what we like can often surprise us. Like many people, I love a variety of music.
“And I love the idea of a band that reflects that; a band that sounds like a variety show.”
Smith and the band never stop looking for new sounds, new ways of creating new music, and the follow up to ‘Operation Internation’ is already in the works, and it may again sound quite different to its predecessors.
“For album # 5, I’m inspired by the thought of a more minimal approach, based on whatever noise we, as a band, can make ourselves,” Smith muses. “It’s sounding a bit more rootsy so far.
“We’re at an age now where we might get away with going country,” he adds with tongue in cheek. Well, probably. Fans of A New International can always rely on the unexpected, especially when it comes to musical style..
“I think genre is useful for filing purposes but it’s something to be played with, not shackled by,” Smith concludes. “If you go to a carnival, you don’t want to go on only one ride.
“And music is a carnival.”
‘Operation Internation’ is out now. A shortened version of this article originally appeared in the Yorkshire Evening Post.
More at anewinternational.com
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