The Age of Poli-Pop: Neon Neon unveil Praxis Makes Perfect

This month Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys and outer-limit hip-hop producer Boom Bip reconvene as Neon Neon; they talked to us about Italian communists, political pop and 'extreme concerts'

Feature by Paul Mitchell | 16 Apr 2013

“There are some intentionally ‘extreme’ moments on this record, just to keep it in place.” Bryan 'Boom Bip' Hollon discusses some of the songwriting techniques he and Gruff Rhys have utilised on their second collaborative album as Neon Neon, Praxis Makes Perfect. This ‘technique’ involves the liberal sprinkling of clichéd songwriting tropes into their songs, seemingly at random.

In a previous interview with The Skinny, Hollon admitted that when writing their debut album, Stainless Style, the question had arisen as to why so many songs contained the word ‘Tonight’  and so the chorus of one of the standout tracks on that album runs thusly: "Tonight, Belfast, I’m saying my goodbyes. Tonight, Belfast, the distance in your eyes." It is, he admits, their way of keeping things fun  a sentiment the Super Furry Animals frontman agrees with, noting that Dr Zhivago is probably the closest thing to Belfast on the new album, chiming in with a deadpan: “I think having the word ‘Doctor’ in the chorus lends it an air of... emergency.”

Stainless Style presented itself as a biographical musical, based on the life of John DeLorean, he of “The way I see it, if you’re going to build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style” fame. The '80s synth-pop album they produced was a revelation, and not just for the novelty value. The serious musical chops that went into it garnered plenty of deserved praise, even a Mercury nomination (winners, Elbow  Seldom Seen Kid). For Praxis Makes Perfect, they’ve alighted on the life of another unheralded maverick, choosing the Italian communist sympathiser and wealthy publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (Rhys: “I pronounced it wrong for the first month or so”) as their subject of choice.

So what drew them to this particular subject? Rhys helpfully enlightens. “I was always into the story. The contradictions in his life appealed  there’s an endless supply of subjects for songs.”  He’s not wrong there. Feltrinelli had been born into great wealth but had always taken issue with the way ordinary workers were treated. He joined, and subsequently fell out with the communist party, travelled to Cuba to meet Fidel Castro, and died in 1972 under strange circumstances (though he probably blew himself up), but not before publishing Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, having smuggled the manuscript out of the Soviet Union, whose regime were rather disapproving of the book’s less than flattering account of the Russian Revolution. “Ultimately,” Rhys continues, “the songs come from the subject. As with John DeLorean, it’s the extremes of his life that make him so easy to write about. The two come from extremely different political standpoints and places  so we made the first record about an American industrialist. Feltrinelli was a European industrialist but he was also a communist and had a huge influence by virtue of the books he published and the ideas he put out to people."


“I suppose it’s a good time to talk about different ideas than extreme capitalism” - Gruff Rhys


Rhys denies, despite some of the ideas broached in the album, that it’s an overt political statement. This comes despite the fact that the subject matter of some of the songs has been transposed to the modern day. For example, Mid Century Modern Nightmare uses extracts from Feltrinelli's 1970 pirate radio exhortation to reject the forces of big business whilst suggesting that the problems from that time have shown no signs of dissipating. “I suppose it’s a good time to talk about different ideas than extreme capitalism,” he admits. “What’s so interesting about Feltrinelli is that he wasn’t in an ideological strait-jacket. He was kicked out of the Communist Party because he was publishing what were considered to be dissident texts, anti-communist, even though he was a socialist himself. He was close to Fidel Castro but he did question his treatment of artists and gay people, so he was a really interesting person living in an extremely violent time. I think the books he published are inspirational, so it’s because of that we decided to put out a Communist Europop album.”

Turns out Communist Europop sounds a lot like the '80s synth pop of Neon Neon’s debut effort. Not a bad thing of course, but not the era with which their subject matter is associated. Hollon explains that this is because Neon Neon, with Stainless Style, had essentially established their sound. “I think we wanted to detach ourselves a bit from the story of Feltrinelli and that era. It would have been easy to take a '50s-'60s library of music to set the tone but that would have felt like a departure from what we’ve established. A large part of Neon Neon is just for the pure enjoyment and entertainment value of what we’re doing and not necessarily get too deep or too earnest or too opinionated on the subjects we’re dealing with. So that’s why we have that contradiction and separation of the story from the sound. Even though we’re dealing with heavy subject matter it’s still sometimes a really shiny synth-based package. However, with this record we have an EP which goes along with it called The Years of Lead [a period of social unrest, primarily in Italy, during the Cold War era] which deals with the more heavy aspects of Feltrinelli’s life. It’s something which is a first for us because we’re getting a bit more deep and heavy with the tone  that’s something which is going to be released with the new album. It’s a departure from our sound but gives it some balance, adds some weight and heaviness.”

At this juncture, Rhys interrupts with his own description of the album’s sound: “Europop, Thai disco and Yugoslav New Wave.”

“Yeah,” continues Hollon, “We call it Poli-Pop; is that, like, a new genre we can establish right now? Political pop?” The Skinny promises to do everything it can to help spread the word [see headline], an offer gratefully received. In the meantime, Neon Neon have arranged a live show produced in conjunction with National Theatre Wales and written by playwright Tim Price using (as well as the music, naturally) an elaborate set with actors and projections all designed to tell the story of Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. At the time of writing, there are only a handful of these shows confirmed, as Rhys admits that “it’s by far the most ambitious production I’ve ever been involved with and so it’s not particularly ‘tourable.’"

He does promise it’s likely that Neon Neon will likely add dates ‘“in some form or other” across the whole country but those who manage to get tickets for these shows will get to see his vision of an “extreme concert” come to life. “We’re going to have the audience very much involved and hopefully contribute a lot of ideas. But the music will be the dominating aspect. On the record there’s some narration  so that’s part of the record and it will be part of the songs on stage. We’ll be involving the audience quite a bit, but they don’t have to think too much about it, or clap along or anything.”

Who says you can't clap along to Communist Europop?

Praxis Makes Perfect is released via Lex Records on 29 Apr. Neon Neon play Forbidden Fruit Festival, Dublin on 1 Jun http://neonneonofficial.tumblr.com