Remember Remember preview third album, Forgetting The Present

On 30 June, Glasgow's Remember Remember return with their new album Forgetting The Present, on Mogwai's Rock Action label. Today, the band unveiled the first track, Magnets – you can stream it below, and it's also included in this week's Cloud Sounds playlist.  

We spoke exclusively to Graeme Ronald today about the band's latest LP, their first since 2011's The Quickening. "The current line-up of the band is the most stable it's ever been," Ronald tells us. "We have been playing live as a 6-piece for over two years now and a number of the songs on the new album were written specifically for some live performances we were commissioned to do over that period of time. When it came to recording these songs, unlike previous records, everyone knew their parts and the arrangements were already in place. It was important to me that we document the sound and the energy created by the six of us playing live, without reaching our for augmentation from guest musicians, or swamping the songs with too many overdubs."

On the subject of the band's relationship with Rock Action, Ronald comments: "I am just eternally grateful that we have a label that is in a position and willing to afford us to spend time crafting our music in a great studio like Castle Of Doom, and allow us to release our records in a physical form. It is easy to forget (if you become too used to such a method) that the majority of small bands and musicians simply have, owing to the nature of the present, to create music at home on their laptops and release it only non-physically through the internet."

Speaking of the moniker and philosophy behind the new record, Ronals remarks: "The title refers to the French composer Erik Satie, of whose music I have always been a fan but I have only recently become aware that not only was he half Scottish, he was also a fascinatingly eccentric weirdo. In the performance instructions to his scores, Satie would provide obtuse, verbal puzzles to consider while playing the piece rather than simply an indication of pace or tempo. I was reading through a number of these and one in particular jumped out to me; Grandly Forgetting The Present. The word forget immediately appealed to me as the antithesis of our band's name but, further, I felt that the words quite poignantly described our band's situation and philosophy. In present times, making music at all is becoming increasingly difficult, particularly when that music is on a large scale and you intend to present it, as we do, in a large scale. The title represents our fight against modernity, our battle with the real world."

Finally, regarding the stylistic changes that have taken place within the group since their last outing, Ronald suggests fans can expect new colours to emerge on their third LP. "With The Quickening, the starting points were a little more fragmented and the final songs sculpted in the studio. This meant that we were able to a great deal more live recording. The producer Tony Doogan encouraged us all to take the sessions home to embellish and edit as we saw fit. The results are an interesting mixture of a very grand 'proper studio' recording, and a lo-fi bedroom electronica project. In terms of influences, there was a shift from the pastoral, melancholic and kraut/psychedelic touchstones that we're perhaps known for towards allowing influence from early electronics and the dance music that I was listening to in my early twenties. We may be forgetting the present but we're not completely living in the past, in that we may have moved from the 70s into the early 80s now at least!" 

REMEMBER REMEMBER - LINKS
Official Site
Facebook 
@Rmmbr_Rmmbr 

From the archive

FEATURES
Pleasure Palaces: Remember Remember on their rehearsal space 
Graeme Fears Satan: Graeme Ronald talks The Quickening
Day of the Scorpion: Graeme Ronald on 2010 EP RR Scorpii