Trouble and Strife: WIFE interviewed
Under the moniker WIFE, James Kelly released one of last year's most overlooked records. We caught up with the Cork native backstage in France to discuss his background in black metal, the need to keep progressing and his new home in LA
James Kelly is sitting in a bright room in the west of France, freshly emptied champagne flute rested on the table in front of him. He’s just finished playing an electrifying live set under his solo moniker WIFE in a dark and cavernous club in Rennes. The performance, he says, was intended to stare people down: to make the audience feel uncomfortable. Such was the level of its intensity, it must surely be considered a success. Sitting opposite him afterwards, it requires a double take to ensure this softly-spoken Corkman, with his neat hair and big blue eyes, is the same WIFE we just encountered on stage.
His debut solo album, 2014's What’s Between, is a monster. Treading a thrilling line between James Blake and Trent Reznor, it is dark and brooding. Kelly’s vocals are but an element in the maelstrom of noise: shards of melody that occasionally penetrate the amorphous shadows. In the live show, his vocals are higher in the mix and more prominent. WIFE has been a “thing” for more than two years, but it’s only recently that Kelly has felt comfortable as a singer. It’s only recently that he’s felt confident to project his voice.
He comes from a metal background. He was the driving force behind the critically acclaimed black metal band Altar of Plagues, which disbanded in 2013. The band was described as “Ireland’s most promising extreme metal band since Primordial.” It was celebrated for the “stark images of crumbling skyscrapers, dying and rotten urban structures, empty cracked worn down highways and desolate vast oceans.”
“I don’t want to write throwaway beats that are just functional on the dance floor" – James Kelly
Kelly simply got bored. “I felt like black metal was all repeating itself. I was stuck in a bubble and I had to get out of it,” he explains. “WIFE is still tonally dark. But at times, I’m aiming to go for something more elated… not so oppressive. So yes, tonally, I can personally draw a lot of comparisons. But Altar of Plagues was a very different thing that had a very different purpose. The difference is that Altar of Plagues is way more aggressive and bleak than WIFE is. WIFE has the capacity for a happier outlook.”
WIFE was born when Kelly relocated to London to study for a masters’ degree in environmental science. He moved into a small East London flat with neighbours who weren’t happy for him to thrash about on his guitar. So he just started making music on the laptop.
“I’ve always been really into electronic music,” he says. “I started getting really back into it when dubstep first came out – when it was really interesting. That rejuvenated my interest and made me feel very strongly that I had something I could offer the world, that I had some good ideas. The early stuff was straight-up fucking obvious dubstep.”
London’s fingerprints exist all over What’s Between. There are nods to the likes of Skream and Benga, dubstep’s earliest innovators, but also more genre-bending artists such as the Bug and Burial… even Nicolas Jaar. Kelly admits that his early efforts at electronic music were based around the famed “imitate, assimilate, innovate” creative cycle, learning from the best before attempting to put his own mark on the genre.
“I am trying to learn as I go and trying to adapt as many of the live band practices as I can,” he says. “The blessing and curse of electronic music is that sometimes you’d keep going and going, changing and changing. It gets to a point – and I’ve learned the hard way – where you find something you’re really happy with and excited about, then spend too long noodling over an unimportant detail and lose your interest in it. Learning how to leave well alone, is what it is.”
Those who monitor Kelly’s progress on Twitter will have noticed, in recent weeks, nods to Jam City, who Kelly says “owns pop music right now,” and Carly Simon’s Why, which he says he is “stuck on right now.” Okay, Jam City may fall slightly beyond most people’s parameters of “pop music,” but it shows Kelly’s leaning towards more accessible music. To be clear: WIFE’s debut record is a challenging listen. It’s complex and demanding. This reporter’s notepad from that live show in France screams, excitedly: 'Sprawling,' 'Nebulous,' 'Thumping,' 'Dense.' But those things considered, even, there are moments of pure beauty on What’s Between, particularly on standout tracks Dans Ce and album closer Further Not Better. Kelly says he uses the term “pop music” loosely and is referring instead to a sense of levity and the traditional art of song writing.
“I just like songs,” he says, with a laugh. “I always say ‘pop’ because it’s an easy reference point. I just want to write songs that make people happy or sad, or whatever. I don’t want to write throwaway beats that are just functional on the dance floor and nothing more. That’s why I’m lucky I sing. At least the room knows that I’m real. Half the time, people don’t know what else you’re doing.”
It appears that Kelly views WIFE as a much more “human” project than Altar of Plagues – of which he is still immensely proud. He wants to maintain the trajectory he’s on, he loves the sound he’s created and the tools he has used to create it, but like all the most interesting musicians, seems determined not to gather any moss.
He has spoken in the past about the polishing of the record, on an island off the coast of England with Bobby Krlic of The Haxan Cloak, who lent his production skills to What’s Between. The pair stocked up on bottles of whisky, got extremely drunk, and made some wonderful music. He says he would be keen to involve another member in WIFE in the future and that his experiences with Krlic shows what that can bring to the table.
He continues: “It’s in my nature to make something better and make it grow within itself. Altar of Plagues changed a lot, but it was still making total sense when you heard each record after the other. They all make sense as part of the same thing. With WIFE – this is why acts have side projects or new bands. As much as everyone has freedom within their musical endeavour, we all know the confines of it and what you want it to be. So yeah, I can see it changing and developing, but within the pop context. I would love to add another member in the future and see what we could do, without compromising the other sounds.”
For now, Kelly is settling into a new home in Los Angeles, a move he made after becoming fed up with London rent and securing a US visa this year, having previously spent time there as a student. He says the album is of London – that’s where he made it. But he’s drawing inspiration from the Jekyll and Hyde nature of LA.
“LA is cheap. It’s inspiring. There’s lots of cool stuff going on there. What I like about it is that it’s really bright, shiny, sunny and happy – but it’s also got this oppressive, heavy, dark, sketchy, dirty side to it, which inspires art and music. It’s a city of two sides. It’s got an energy to it that I really enjoy.”
Having produced one of the most overlooked records of 2014 in the shape of What’s Between, we’re fascinated to see what new bent Kelly’s new surrounds will have on the future of the WIFE project.