First we talk of beans. If you could be any bean, which would you be? We go round the table: Green bean? Kidney? Baked? Other sorts of beans. This here is a group of people whose stage getup includes an assortment of costumes, wigs and masks, a fair amount of bare skin, a megaphone and general havoc. But DEATHRAY TREBUCHAY are very serious about music. All graduates of the Guildhall School of Music (except one Trinity College graduate), they are mind-bogglingly talented and versatile musicians, all from different backgrounds – both musically and culturally, who have come together to form an electrifying collective, reworking old Balkan and Romani folk songs with a blast of turbo punk, sung in Welsh.
This summer they’ve played Glastonbury, Secret Garden Party, Latitude and other festivals, bringing with them true anarchic spirit, always revitalising any space they occupy. Their gigs are an experience which could best be described as feral, and compulsively engaging. They are about to release their debut single ‘Number 6’ in February 2009, a tune so utterly impossible not to dance to, manically, that we forget we are far away from safe mainstreamland, in fact we’re nowhere near Kansas anymore, Toto. The single is produced by Seb Rochford of Polar Bear and Acoustic Ladyland. Recording it, they all agree, has not been an easy task. Deathray Trebuchey is essentially a live band, to be experienced as a multi-sensory treat, with the result hard to capture on a digital recording.
It’s difficult to ascertain who the frontman of this band is, or perhaps they all are; True, this is indubitably Llywelyn ap Mirrdin’s baby, his brainchild and vision. He’s reworked all the songs following an inspirational trip to Guca Festival in Serbia - a crazy trumpet-fest of gypsy folk and plum brandy - wrote the lyrics and basically got the whole thing together. He’s the one on keyboards, belting the vocals out on a megaphone in what was at first a made up language, and has now been reverted to Welsh, his mother tongue.
But the frontmen role could also be filled by the horn trio of Alan Hardiman, Jim Slade and Ryan Jacob. With a masked Jim on gut-wrenching sax, Alan’s raw and lawless trombone, and especially Ryan’s exhilarating trumpet - generally shirtless and in shades, and with all three positioned at the front of the stage, writhing and convulsing, they are clearly the heart of the ensemble. But it is also impossible to deny the role of the rhythm section, responsible for the energy and momentum which propels the songs up and out into an ecstatic trance, sweeping all who hear it along. Spencer Brown on superb bass perfectly compliments Guy Wood’s frantic drums, out of which he is said to emerge at the end of each gig, as if ‘he’d just run a marathon’.
All six members of the band make their living as professional musicians - teaching it, composing it, breathing it. They each have numerous projects on, from operatic compositions (Llywelyn), jazz outfits (Ryan, Alan and Spencer), drum and bass (Guy), much session playing for v. big names (all of them), and more, and more, and yet more. Meeting them is a daunting experience, from a spiritual perspective, as here they are - individuals who have not compromised their true calling to replace with mundanity. Yes, they’re lads, yes they are slightly wild, but they are certainly focused. After chatting for a while, once they’ve relaxed enough for their personalities to shine through, they are indeed luminous.
Not to say that the bean chat isn’t a strange start. But it doesn’t take much encouragement to get them talking Deathray – they are about to perform tonight at an exclusive benefit to save the Colony Room Club, a legendary Soho artisans’ hangout. The soundcheck they had just come from, they divulge, was classic Deathray – a surreal scene involving a high ceilinged period room, and Can-Can dancers swinging their legs in the corner. Getting on the bill for tonight’s exclusive shindig was complete arbitrary chance – they were head-hunted by a booking agent who had heard them on Myspace and, wanting to experience them live, had put their name forward. A fantastic opportunity to perform to a crowd of influential dandies of the arts world, this was too good to miss. Normally, they say, gigs are not quite as easily sorted, nor are they simple to organise, each member of the band being involved in as many projects as they are, and living in different parts of the country. But they still manage to play a few gigs a month. Sometimes several a night.
The name, Deathray Trebuchay, is clearly a meeting of the old and the new, a simile to the clash of traditional melodies and more radical elements of turbo punk. “The name was Jim’s idea,” says Llywelyn, “he’s endlessly coming up with bands’ names”. Though they all loved it, much discussion ensued, using logical rationale and lists of pros and cons. That is, until Guy, who resides as he currently does up in his dad’s farmhouse near York, and finds himself endlessly toing and froing to London and back, making close acquaintances of the staff at service stops, had a vision one such night soon after: coming back from a particularly debauched gig, catching 40 winks by the side of the road, he dreamt he was Moses, standing on top of Mount Sinai, and below him a sea of people, chanting: ‘Death! Ray! Death Ray! Death Ray Trebuchay!’. He then awoke in stimulated spirits, and immediately called a sleepy Llywelyn to inform him ‘this is a sign!’. Well, naturally, a profound an omen such as this could not be ignored, and the name was implemented at once.
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When talking of playing the parts composed for them, all three horn players exhale and gravely shake their heads. ‘Playing what he (Llywelyn) writes is not for everyone. It’s a completely new way of playing the trombone!’, says Alan, ‘by the end of the gig my lips are left on stage’ adds Ryan. Having composed and produced ‘The Crocodile’, an opera based on a Dostoyevsky novel, which had been shown both in London and Oxford, the Shostakovich influenced Llywelyn now says he would like to move more in the direction of musical theatre. But for now, the band takes up most of his time.
The others are also busy at work with their various projects - Jim has been working with avant-garde crooner Simon Bookish, Alan and Ryan are two thirds of The Horn Killers, Guy Wood is part of underground drum and bass production team Sion, Spencer plays with fusion jazz ensemble Porpoise Corpus, and that’s just for starters. This diverse group of musicians more or less knew of one another from college as well as professionally, and were collected by Llywelyn who knew the sort of talent he needed. When first adapting the Romani songs he had collected, the lyrical reproduction of the originals, he says, didn’t sound quite right performed by him. He then decided to develop a fictional language he can use instead, but in preparation for recording their first single he finally changed it all to Welsh, although the jury is out as to which fits the music better. A little discussion now develops around giving your own interpretation to a song versus the ready-made meaning.
The next move for Deathray Trebuchay is yet unknown – just release the single, play and look ahead. No action plan as such has been formulated, apart from next their next gig with fantastically odd Acoustic Ladyland on 17th January. This kind of music presents enough of a challenge just to execute it as perfectly as it is, but it is doubly taxing when attempting to pull off in a studio environment. Therefore, an album is in the works, but will require plenty of planning. They intend to try and produce it themselves, or at least have as much impetus on the outcome as possible. But the dynamic that clearly exists between these six individuals and the force that is created when they meet, surely guarantees an inventive, fresh and infectious result - probably as explosive as their very first gig, which, they all fondly remember, shocked them all in its spontaneous fiery seamlessness. But it is the technical and emotional effort required to maintain the standards of this band which is a testament to the dedication of its members, concludes Llywelyn. This one, he says, is for the love.
(www.myspace.com/deathrayband)
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