Malcolm Middleton on his new Human Don't Be Angry record

Malcolm Middleton first found fame in the mid-90s as one half of Arab Strap. Middleton and Aidan Moffat split in 2006 after a decade of stellar releases and Middleton focused on the solo career he'd begun with 2002's hushed, stark 5:14 Fluoxytine Seagull Alcohol John Nicotine. This musical iteration had seemingly run its course by the time of 2009's Waxing Gibbous. It was at this point that Human Don't Be Angry (HDBA) was born, Middleton taking the moniker from a translation of the German name for the classic board game Frustration – Mensch ärgere Dich nicht.

“I used to play it a lot in the 80s,” Middleton remembers, “and I was just looking for a band name that's as daft as anything else.” There's a loose, unpretentious freedom that runs through the whole HDBA oeuvre, perfectly captured on the new, third album, Guitar Variations. “I'm excited – I'm self-releasing it – there's no bother or anxiety. It's a laid-back record, there's nothing too heavy on it, it's quite ambient and fiddly... not everyone's cup of tea, but I like it.”

While his solo output contains deeply introspective and personal lyrics, HDBA is a mostly instrumental project. “The first album had three songs with vocals, the second had two, and now this one's only got one," he says. "Hopefully the next will be entirely instrumental. The 'songwriting' songs tend to get written over a period of months, or even years; about half the stuff [on the new one] was written off the cuff, just playing some guitar and making it up as you go along. It's quite different to trying to write words, trying to get feelings down, some soul-rich words, which is why I like it – I don't have to worry about people hearing what I'm thinking.”

Although he has since gone back to making music under his own name, HDBA provides Middleton with the sort of enjoyment that comes with deviating from established patterns and being able to embrace what you simply feel like doing. “[By 2009] I'd done three albums back-to-back, A Brighter Beat, Sleight of Heart and Waxing Gibbous... I was just sick of it and bored of that kind of thing.”

In 2008, Middleton told The Skinny, "I'm starting to feel like I've done as much as I can with this creative voice.” Looking back, “it seems stupid, I wish I'd never said that at the time," he tells us. "[But] sometimes you need to have that little line: 'No more of this; I'm sick of it, I'm gonna do this'. It made HDBA more fun, a little freer... and it was seven years before my next solo record so I did kind of stop.”

In turn, the break also brought new clarity and focus to his lyrical work when it was revisited, as well as helping to remove some of the worry that comes with expectations. “[The stylistic change] ties in with Bananas from last year,” Middleton says of his most recent album under his own name. “I was having trouble writing a new record because, well, the reason I stopped writing ten years ago was because I was sick of the caricature you make for yourself, you're sort of tied in by your own lyrics and what people say about you, and this whole 'miserabilist', depressing thing. So when I was writing Bananas I was trying not to write anything like that.

"Then one day I just gave up trying and started writing how I was feeling – you have to try and write imagining that no one else is gonna hear. I was trying to be quite honest, then realising a lot of my honesty was really depressing, but that's how I was feeling, so I've needed the strength to say 'Fuck it, y'know what, who cares if it's called 'miserablist', or everyone says it's depressing, it's exactly the kind of thing I want to write'. So Bananas is coming back round to embracing stuff that I'd been feeling quite negative about. It's what I'm good at, better that than trying to write happy songs anyway.”

And so, in opposition to that process, Guitar Variations avoids any deep meditations and instead focuses on the self-described 'deadlier side of guitar playing'. “What did I mean by that? I wrote it and it sounded good," he says. "It's probably because it's not deadly guitar playing... it's not exactly Joe Satriani. It ties in with – should I say this? – well, the album was nearly called Guitarrarism [sic]. I think I thought that was funny, but I took it out, I wanted something a bit blander. The LP packaging is really basic, I wanted it to be minimal, so I wrote that line when I had a different title.”

Elsewhere, the description advises listening on headphones during horizontal, heavy rain (or 'anything/anywhere' if that isn't available), hinting at an ideal ingestion environment, but also acknowledging the precious ridiculousness of that type of suggestion. This duality is the very cornerstone of an unlikely source of inspiration; “two or three of the album titles are from – and this wasn't supposed to be wanky – but I read Catcher in the Rye last year, and if I see a thing that I think would work well as a title, I just write it down.”

One of the titles is Bum a Ride, a track that contains something of a callback. “There's a song on the first album, H.D.B.A. Theme, that says 'Human don't be angry' with the same computer-generated voice [as the repeating 'Bum a ride'], so I thought it'd be nice to have a link back to that.” Come On Over To My Place, the album's only real lyrical song, “has been kicking about for years, and it's not heavy lyrics; it's quite open. I actually thought the melody was better without the words anyway, so I almost didn't include them... but it helps anchor the album a wee bit with my other work.”

The vocals are especially surprising when listening to the song while watching its video, a collage of found footage from the 90s, mostly calming landscapes overlaid with old performance clips. Three of the album's nine songs have videos, made by Middleton himself, something he sheepishly owns up to. “I don't know if you can tell, but I've never made a video before," he laughs. "They're pretty basic. I've got a hard drive full of mobile phone footage, like old Nokia stuff from tours over the years, really bad quality, Lego-style, blocky pixels. I quite enjoyed getting it all together and if you watch the video it changes the song.” The beautifully relaxing opening track, You'll Find the Right Note (Eventually), is combined with a quiet beach scene that runs in reverse. “I really like the way it goes to the music, I could watch it all day," says Middleton. "Not everyone likes it, Verena [his wife] says it's boring, but I like it.”

After a bit of time in Europe, Middleton is performing at The Great Western Festival in Glasgow (23 Nov), performing non-HDBA material. “I had the tour booked ages ago, and everything I'm doing live just now is solo. Someone pointed out it's quite confusing [having just released a HDBA album], and it is.” Later that day, however, he's heading over to Edinburgh as part of The Dissection – a series of discussions on classic Scottish albums – to chat shit about Arab Strap's fantastic Philophobia. “As far as I'm aware it's gonna be me and Aidan [Moffat] sitting on stage looking stupid, being interviewed about the record, talking about the writing and recording process, that I'm sure neither of us can remember. We'll talk about it then do some acoustic songs.”

There has been some speculation about new Arab Strap since their reformation in 2016, though there's been no news/shows since 2017. “We haven't split up since then so... and there might be stuff happening next year... it'll all become clear, I think.” So, take your pick of Middleton-related music and watch this space.

---

Guitar Variations is released on 1 Nov via Around7Corners Records
Malcolm Middleton performs at The Great Western Festival, Glasgow, 23 Nov, and discusses Arab Strap's Philophobia at Summerhall, Edinburgh, 23 Nov