Andrew McLellan is Cured Pink and some of his music could give your brain an amazing case of gravel rash. The Brisbane based experimental musician and engineer has for a long time worked as a solo audio provocateur with harsh field recordings, installations, avant-rock, dance music and power electronics. Music that is often considered ‘challenging’ but also an essential remonstration of what is the status quo.In the past McLellan has made excursions into the world of collaboration with Soft Power, Greg Boring and Kitchen’s Floor and a band form of Cured Pink plays in a similar percussive, dubbed out manner as early Cabaret Voltaire, PIL and This Heat.But for ’11 Put Aside, the second release for small Melbourne label Another Dark Age McLellan is back into solo experimental mode again.We caught up with McLellan before the album release.Noisey: This recording was done for the most part under a solo guise. Were you also playing as Cured Pink as a band around then as well?
Andrew McLellan: It's been a project oscillating between different flavours of the month since 2007, perhaps earlier. The bulk of these recordings were made "pre-current-accessible-band-iteration" over 2011 in Indonesia. But there's a series of Australian and Indonesian 2011 shows on there quite heaped together. All the naive risk/danger stuff that changed the world such as car-suspension-springs and big scary chains and small weird yelling. Virtually the week I returned from Indo I was at a POP concert and thought "what if I put effort into things again?" The following week the band started with Glen Schenau and Mitchell Perkins (Per Purpose, Psy Ants), then Stuart Busby (from the Deadnotes) popped on about a year later. As for the dancefloor banger on side-a, well strictly speaking that is solo material performed under my Facebook name.The b-side was recorded during your time in Indonesia. Is this from the same sessions as the Dudu Bami tape?
Your inklings via research prove correct. The Dudu Bumi cassette was a lot looser, mostly field and home/small studio/jam studio recordings - building metal junk contact mic things and shoving mics into bamboo orifices. The b-side were mostly recorded in a studio I hired and recorded on the back of a big session with Senyawa where I produced an LP that was released as an Australian tour cassette when they toured with RegurgitatorAs someone who has spent time in a country with the world’s largest Muslim population, how do you feel about Australia's current Islam-phobia/paranoia?
As disgusted and frustrated as all sane, rational individuals the world over may feel right now. When it comes to such base fear and ignorance do I even need to offer my perspective? Am I enlightened because I have spent time outside an Anglo annex? I don’t even want to dignify such dumb-fuckedness by confirming I met some of the most benevolent and enthusiastic individuals of my life "over there," or that I never felt in danger which is more than I can say about walking many Australian streets. "Oh if only everyone spent time there, their perspectives and profile pictures would change forever as they patronize everyone by considering the 'nice ones!'" But entering the country via Bali an orientation exercise… sitting on the plane with ‘Australian-Made’ tattoo canvases confused why you'd go into another part of Indonesia that doesn't offer the frivolities of Contiki Tour packages at gift-card prices.What’s coming up?
The LP as a band with the other dudes is being mixed. I have to get that over to RIP Society soon and see if Nic is still interested. It will have all the hits on there “Progressive Parenting” and crowd favorite “Achievable Sex”. If anyone liked our Body Body Body single last year it will have the same Perkins-signature-funkness, perhaps a bit more thought. Also a cassette release for both solo and band projects on Room 40's A Guide To Saints at some point and a remix of “Multimedia Man” for their forthcoming EP.
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Andrew McLellan: It's been a project oscillating between different flavours of the month since 2007, perhaps earlier. The bulk of these recordings were made "pre-current-accessible-band-iteration" over 2011 in Indonesia. But there's a series of Australian and Indonesian 2011 shows on there quite heaped together. All the naive risk/danger stuff that changed the world such as car-suspension-springs and big scary chains and small weird yelling. Virtually the week I returned from Indo I was at a POP concert and thought "what if I put effort into things again?" The following week the band started with Glen Schenau and Mitchell Perkins (Per Purpose, Psy Ants), then Stuart Busby (from the Deadnotes) popped on about a year later. As for the dancefloor banger on side-a, well strictly speaking that is solo material performed under my Facebook name.
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Your inklings via research prove correct. The Dudu Bumi cassette was a lot looser, mostly field and home/small studio/jam studio recordings - building metal junk contact mic things and shoving mics into bamboo orifices. The b-side were mostly recorded in a studio I hired and recorded on the back of a big session with Senyawa where I produced an LP that was released as an Australian tour cassette when they toured with RegurgitatorAs someone who has spent time in a country with the world’s largest Muslim population, how do you feel about Australia's current Islam-phobia/paranoia?
As disgusted and frustrated as all sane, rational individuals the world over may feel right now. When it comes to such base fear and ignorance do I even need to offer my perspective? Am I enlightened because I have spent time outside an Anglo annex? I don’t even want to dignify such dumb-fuckedness by confirming I met some of the most benevolent and enthusiastic individuals of my life "over there," or that I never felt in danger which is more than I can say about walking many Australian streets. "Oh if only everyone spent time there, their perspectives and profile pictures would change forever as they patronize everyone by considering the 'nice ones!'" But entering the country via Bali an orientation exercise… sitting on the plane with ‘Australian-Made’ tattoo canvases confused why you'd go into another part of Indonesia that doesn't offer the frivolities of Contiki Tour packages at gift-card prices.What’s coming up?
The LP as a band with the other dudes is being mixed. I have to get that over to RIP Society soon and see if Nic is still interested. It will have all the hits on there “Progressive Parenting” and crowd favorite “Achievable Sex”. If anyone liked our Body Body Body single last year it will have the same Perkins-signature-funkness, perhaps a bit more thought. Also a cassette release for both solo and band projects on Room 40's A Guide To Saints at some point and a remix of “Multimedia Man” for their forthcoming EP.
"’11 Put Aside" is available for preorder now with free mp3 download code delivered shortly before release.