The Mighty Orchid King | Interview | New Album, Mycelium Music Volume I: “Pinedemonium Awakes”
The psych collective The Mighty Orchid King recently released their second album, ‘Mycelium Music Volume I: ‘Pinedemonium Awakes,’ a follow-up to their debut album from 2020.
The Mighty Orchid King are on a mission to rewild our streaming platforms in 2022. Developing the “eco-anxious psych” of debut album ‘The Doctrine Of Infinite Kindness,’ their new record attempts to invoke an entangled musical ecology: a universe of interconnected and flowing songs and stories modelled on the symbiosis of the forest. But as the pine demons imply on the track ‘Symbiomedome,’ this is no pastoral idyll: “we’ll offer our hand but here be warned, you might find us macabre.” Sometimes the segues are smooth and flowing, sometimes they are jarring and strange. The album takes you on a trip to Pinedemonium, an abandoned pine plantation ruled over by an enlightened but occasionally hubristic mycelium king and populated by the spirits of hunted living things it has consumed. Dig down in the dirt and meet the ghosts of Reynard The Fox, (staunch anti-imperialist), The Elm Tree (nature’s trespasser) and The Orchid (the original tree-hugger). Like in John Milton’s capital of hell, the spirits who dwell here have lost their paradise: the common land. But their omnipotent foe is capitalism and its many agents, and their sin is trespass.
“Our attempt to create an entangled musical ecology”
Would you like to talk a bit about your background? What bands were members part of before and how did it all collide to start The Mighty Orchid King?
We’ve often described ourselves as a collective and the cast of musicians from one record to the next tends to change quite a lot. On this album we had the original trio of Jonny (vocals, drums & guitar) Martin (guitar & vocals) and Pete (trumpet & vocals). We all went to school together and back then we just jammed for about 5 years without ever making any songs. Also on this record we have Marcelo on bass and sax who has a “cinematic-rock” band called The Vone, Michael on guitar who has a “cow-fi” project called Symbol Soup, and Ian who plays cello and is in a band called Vipera. Will is our in-house engineer/wizard and also played some keys and sang some BVs on the record.
How would you present some of the main influences? What in particular influenced you by certain artists?
A few years ago we decided to perform The Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’ medley live to mark the 50th anniversary of the record. It was joyous bringing that psychedelic symphony to life and we got such a thrill out of sharing our vocal duties and trying to really jump into the crazy characters on those songs. That certainly felt like the seeds for what we ended up creating on our new record. We wanted to make something that jumps around a lot but is cohesive and segued.
More recent examples like King Gizzard’s ‘I’m In Your Mind Fuzz’ and ‘Nonagon Infinity’ were touchstones too as well as any live performance by White Denim (although we’ve long given up on coming close to their virtuosity!) We’ve been listening to a lot of Yes and are very drawn to the grand symphonic scale of their work. The Beach Boys are a constant influence from a vocal perspective but I think the sketch-like nature of some of the album was a specific nod to the ‘SMiLE’ record.
There were also bands / voices we tried to emulate on specific moments of the record to try and match the vibe of a character. We listened to a lot of The Doors throughout the composition of the record, and loved the idea of Reynard The Fox being voiced by either Jim Morrison, Iggy Pop or Mark Lanegan.
What was the creative process for ‘Mycelium Music Volume I: Pinedemonium Awakes’?
Early on in the process we had this idea of making a complete “ecology music,” which turned into a mini library of research. For weeks during lockdown my morning routine was making a big pot of mushroom coffee and reading for hours. I’d try to schedule in a few breaks every so often to scribble down bits of ideas and lyrics that were emerging from the books. Interspersed with all the books about ecology, I was trying to wrap my head around Paradise Lost by John Milton. I was really drawn to the idea of mimicking this epic writing style and so leaned quite heavily on the archaic iambic pentameter throughout the lyrics. It was the first time I really tried to follow a specific poetic framework in my lyrics. And ‘pinedemonium’ comes from the poem too; Milton’s capital of hell is called “pandemonium.”
Suzanne Simard’s work on the “wood-wide web” and Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life introduced the subterranean mycelium world, and it felt like there were endless possibilities for a musical structure which followed this fascinating network. Anna Tsing performed a similar act of biomimicry in her book The Mushroom at The End of the World. Like her, we wanted the very essence and structure of our art to reflect the subject matter. Soon after, we read Nick Hayes’ Book of Trespass, about the long struggle for land rights in the UK, and we started imagining these more-than-human allies to the cause; mushrooms, flowers, trees and animals all trespassing across private land owned by aristocracy. The ideas took shape during long walks, runs and bike rides around the St Albans countryside. There’s a track called ‘The Bowels of Symondshyde’ named after a pine wood near us. That place is the magical, strange heart of this record.
Inspired by the way that mycelium seemed to connect disparate elements, I took a kind of composting approach to the composition of the record. We had lots of old decaying matter to pick through: hours of jams we recorded over the years & half starts of songs on my computer. I used to treat a lot of this stuff with a reverence that meant we never got any of it finished; the jams seemed so pure that nothing I added ever felt good enough. But I just started glueing different things together and seeing what strange forms emerged. It was liberating deciding to have lots of really short sketch-like songs. I’ve always found it stifling following traditional song structure and feeling a need to have lots of repetition. There are some recurring motifs on the record, but we try to treat them differently every time they appear.
How would you compare it to your debut, ‘The Doctrine of Infinite Kindness’?
There are connecting threads between the two works but the debut now seems to me more like a pick ’n’ mix of songs compared to the world we’ve created on Mycelium Music. My approach to lyrics have changed quite a lot since then. The title of the debut was inspired by Jack Kerouac, and for years I felt the only way I was comfortable to write lyrics was using his spontaneous prose method. I didn’t trust myself to pick a subject and write about it for a whole song, so all the lyrics ended up being a bit more vague and mystical. I still like using that approach but now I feel more inspired to tell stories and consciously incorporate ideas from things I’ve read; a bit like Bowie’s cultural magpie approach.
There seems to be a concept behind your album. Would you like to share what’s the story behind ‘Mycelium Music Volume I: “Pinedemonium Awakes’?
The album forms the first volume of ‘Mycelium Music,’ our attempt to create an entangled musical ecology, a universe of interconnected and flowing songs and stories modelled on the symbiosis of the forest. We start in the city where things have taken a dystopian turn. All traces of the natural world have become a distant memory for the majority, a privilege afforded now only by the small group of landowners. The human characters of the tale keep hearing strange messages and invitations sent from a faraway wood. Eventually they decide to escape the city via the River Lea which by some otherworldly force pulls them upstream to the Pinedemonium. There they encounter the Mycelium Man, Reynard The Fox, The Elm Tree and The Orchid who tell them about their cause to reclaim the common land.
What about ‘The Doctrine of Infinite Kindness’?
There was less of a narrative arch to the debut, but there are some themes which run throughout. One of the first lines on the record is “I don’t want to see what’s in my head, but I can’t leave until I find it” and I think this generally summarises what is quite an introspective record. Most of the lyrics were written in the spontaneous freeform style that I mentioned before, and often I would try and get into that state by meditating first. But I was feeling conflicted about these spiritual pursuits that on the one hand offer some respite from the turmoil in the world but also feel like a kind of luxury, a way of hiding from it all. So there is a contradiction throughout the album between the bliss of early mornings, meditating, reading and running and then the ‘real world’ that arrives the moment you switch your phone on.
Tell us about the instruments, equipment and effects you use in the band….
Here’s an in-depth scoop on Martin’s guitar sound….
I play a Jazzmaster but it has a humbucker in the bridge. Bought this about 10 years ago from a friend for £150. It says Fender on the headstock but it definitely isn’t one! Not really sure on its origins, maybe a squire body with a new neck. Plays nice though. I’ve always liked vox amps and a lot was recorded on an AC30 with a lot of other parts done through a fender blues junior.
I love pedals and am pretty much addicted browsing reverb for obscure stuff but we really didn’t use too much on my parts. Most of my parts were played through an amp pushed hard with a slapback delay. MXR Carbon Copy is a favourite. Big Muff and and Fulltone Ultimate Octave were used for the fuzzes with sprinklings of an EHX Small Stone and wah from a standard crybaby.
Can you share some further words about the recording and producing process for ‘Mycelium Music Volume I: “Pinedemonium Awakes’…
We did three days of live tracking at The Bookhouse Studio in South Bermondsey, London. We are good friends with Tom and Ian who run it and they bailed us out last minute when our original recording plans fell through. So we worked in a bit of a frenzy over a weekend doing ultra long days to get all the essential stuff done. I just couldn’t switch off at all for the whole thing. I was in such a hyper-focussed state and hated taking breaks and wanted to keep doing takes! Days 1 & 2 were all full-band stuff, making sure we got solid drum takes. Then Day 3 was brass day, plus a bit of guitar overdubs & backing vocals. All the lead vocals we did at home over the following months and all the other overdubs including cello, percussion & 9 million extra guitars we did at Will’s home studio, Logue Audio.
A couple of moments really stand out still. Recording the Reynard tracks we just hit a different level as a group where we’d been playing endlessly for hours that day and were ready to let loose a bit. A lot of the album structure was quite stifling and hard to track – ‘The Ancient Bliss’ & ‘Two Trees’ in particular felt like we’d never get them right – so it felt good to turn the click off and have some real improvised chaos in the middle of the record. Will playing the piano for the reprise of ‘The Ancient Bliss’ at the end of that jam was an idea some of the guys had in the studio and it felt like such a dramatic mood shift. That was a great moment. I also vividly remember getting to the end of the last “chapter” which was maybe tracks 18-21 and feeling so sad when everyone said that was the take. I thought I was going to have a few more passes and hated the idea that we were finished with drums for the whole album. You prepare and practise for so long to make these things and it feels very strange when it’s suddenly over. It’s a magical, utopian experience getting to work in a studio as a group for a few days and it was really bittersweet when we got to the end.
“We always wanted to make this project a crazy spontaneous collaborative thing”
Would you say there’s a certain creed in your band?
There are certain philosophies and ideas that we’ve talked about with the band for a long time but a lot of them are more aspirational than practical! We always wanted to make this project a crazy spontaneous collaborative thing but we’ve found that this is just a difficult thing to do on top of everyone’s other commitments. For whatever reason we’ve found that we need someone to be a leader and take the reins. But even though I end up shaping a lot of the ideas on my own we’ve still managed to keep the organic jam aspect of the band alive. Lots of the ideas on the new record started out as jams we had years ago. Another key principle is staying true to the themes of our music and being as ecologically responsible as we can. We held off making merch until we were able to afford eco options of vinyl and we’ve done an on-demand approach for organic t-shirts.
Are you planning to play some gigs? Do you often play live? Who are some of your personal favorite bands that you’ve had a chance to play with over the past few years?
On the release day we played a launch show at The Victoria in Dalston where we did a full play through of the record. That felt like such a cathartic way of finally getting this thing out of our heads and into everyone else’s! We’re definitely trying to play more gigs outside of our London bubble. The economics of touring just don’t really stack up as a weird DIY band like ourselves and it’s hard to convince promoters further afield to book us when they need guarantees of big audiences. But since the record came out we’re starting to see numbers of listeners pick up in other cities so we’re hoping we can start playing in some cool new places soon.
We’ve been lucky enough to play with some great bands over the years. We supported DZ Deathrays and The Wytches a few years ago, and played a couple of shows with Sick Joy before those guys got big! More recently we’ve played with some incredible new artists like SLANT, Somnians, Gene Pool, Muttering, Bison Face, Cloud, WIINK and Blaydek.
Let’s end this interview with some of your favourite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?
‘SMiLE’ by The Beach Boys is one of my all time favourites and unfairly overlooked because of ‘Pet Sounds’! A couple more recent records that I couldn’t stop listening to for months was ‘Laughing Matter’ by Wand and ‘First Taste’ by Ty Segall. The new jazz scene in the UK is massive at the moment and we’ve been really inspired by that. Huge fans of Shabaka Hutchings and listened to The Comet Is Coming’s ‘Trust In The Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery’ a lot as well as Sons of Kemet and the most recent Shabaka & The Ancestors record. Also really enjoyed ‘SOURCE’ by Nubya Garcia and ‘Yellow’ by Emma-Jean Thackray. Other all-time band favourites include ‘Bon Voyage’ by Melody’s Echo Chamber, ‘Orc’ by Thee Oh Sees, ‘Can’t Buy A Thrill’ by Steely Dan, ‘D’ by White Denim, ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ by Pink Floyd, Them Crooked Vultures self-titled, any and all volumes of Desert Sessions, ‘Era Vulgaris’ by Queens of the Stone Age, ‘Crack-Up’ by Fleet Foxes, ‘Lonerism’ by Tame Impala, ‘This is Happening’ by LCD Soundsystem and many more….!
Thank you. Last word is yours.
Thank you so much Klemen for inviting us and supporting our music. We hope you enjoy the record!
Klemen Breznikar
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