“Familiar warmth finds you.“
Welcome to In Conversation, a special interview column on the site where we sit down with artists and dive deep into everything music. Dobbin chatted to Joe House (guitar) and Aaron Buckell (guitar and keys) of Outlander at ArcTanGent 2024 on Saturday, just before their set. Photography © by Kieran C White, contact before any usage.
Dobbin: You last played ArcTanGent in 2022, what was that like?
Joe House: It was incredible. The band has evolved over the years, but we’ve always come to ArcTanGent as our UK festival of choice. We’ve seen Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Explosions in the Sky a few times, and all the big hitters in our wider scene, so it’s nice to be able to do it ourselves. It felt like quite a big milestone at the time. Aaron joined a year ago, just after the recording of the record, so wasn’t with us the last time.
Dobbin: I really love Acts of Harm, and it will certainly be one of my albums of the year. From your perspective, how has that release gone?
Joe: It’s been a really good response. It’s funny when you release a record – there’s all this build up, making it takes over your life, and invariably when it comes out, it never comes back to you immediately, and it takes a bit of time. People have to grow into it and digest it. There’s no moment where everything changes. It’s up in the air at the moment as to whether it will alter the band’s trajectory. We’re really proud of the songs, and I think it feels like our most complete and coherent release. The feedback we’ve gotten suggests people seem to like it, which is all we can hope for. Hopefully it leads to some bigger things down the line. And the reviews were good too.
Aaron Buckell: I think you sent it to me fairly early, and it went round out friend group. It was nothing but good feedback from them.
Dobbin: For the artwork you worked with Luca Bailey. Can you tell me a bit about that relationship and how it ties into the music?
Aaron: He’s a really good friend of myself and Aaron, and I’d go out on a limb and say he’s a certified genius.
Joe: For anything art related, he’d be by my number one contact. I met him a couple of years ago through a band called Total Luck, a cool band as well. Luca did all of their visuals. Connor, their guitarist, introduced us. It happened quite naturally from there. The album’s been finished since late last year, and to sign off the artwork was a bigger process. In the past we’ve worked with another incredible photographer, Richard Lambert, for The Valium Machine and Sundowning. He’s a street photographer in Birmingham. Luca does creative direction for a living, he’s just done the Swim Deep record and brought that to life. We’re really lucky he wanted to work with us.
Joe: We had some reference galleries which were relevant. We went to see the Daidō Moriyama black and white exhibition in January, his whole life’s work. It was such a massive influence on the way we wanted the album to look. If you see the insert, there’s a bunch of photos laid out, like a contact sheet, very much inspired by Daidō. Luca really embodied that. After his creative direction, we have Adam Moore, also really good at what he does, and has worked with us on all our records for our layout and typography. We’ve tried to keep that consistent across our catalogue. We’re incredibly lucky to have those two working on our records.
Aaron: It’s a passion project for them too, like it is for all of us, so everyone that works on it does so with a lot of care.
Dobbin: I wanted to step through it track by track. It’s big and expansive record but it’s also focused and concise. Starting with “Bound”, it’s a lovely opener with its two part structure and resulting dynamic range. It’s a great example on what’s going to play out on the record.
Joe: It started life as an interlude. Ian Grant (guitar and vocals in Outlander) brought us this chord progression, and the vocals were there pretty much from the start. Originally it was going to be this self contained thing, a minute or two long, and probably fade out. I started playing with adding a B section to it, and it then seemed too important to ‘relegate’ to an interlude, so we fleshed it out. We’ve always struggled writing shorter songs, so one thing we focused on with Acts of Harm was that aspect. “Bound” was the first time we tried that. Thematically, the whole record exists in quite a normal world. The themes are around normality grinding you down, and the things that surround that in day to day life, such as addiction, being worn out by work. “Bound” is written to be the start of a cycle – Ian says that it’s like the beginning of a bad habit, for say, a substance or similar. It’s the moment before the damage is done, almost the positive part that gets you into it. The track ended up being really cool, we did some stuff in the studio with Neal Kennedy (The Ranch Production House) that made the second half really pop. We added some interesting distortion on the drums as well for the ending.
Aaron: When it comes to playing it live, it’s about making it pop with that difference between the two parts. I spent about a day with Ian just trying to get the first line delivered, just far enough away from the mic, so that it comes through as intimately as possible. From there it’s just about growing that dynamic towards the B section.
Joe: It’s the first time we’ve used alternative instruments besides guitar. It’s got synth on it, which was added early enough that it informed the choices for the rest of the record. Ian has this shitty 80s kids keyboard, which we’re using live now as a silly decision…
Aaron: I’ve bought one for myself. It is actually one of my favourite bits of equipment.
Dobbin: If you press the wrong button will it play one of those silly beats?
Aaron: It’s got a drum machine, and right where my fingers go, there’s a “demonstration” button, which plays a whole song. So wrong notes, very likely to happen, and accidental songs, very likely to happen. We don’t run it on batteries, but it can.
Joe: it was the first thing that showed us there was a wider world outside of guitar.
Dobbin: “Want No More” was your lead single, a big eight minute single. You spend a lot of time where stuff is intense. The full song navigates a lot, especially towards the end. The emotional turn from “Bound” to “Want No More” is really important too.
Joe: It was definitely deliberately like that, for sure. On the record, as a whole, we tried to make sure there was a bit of everything we have done, and can do. So Sundowning / Unconditional was like a slow, rock record, about as rocky as we get. We wanted on this record to have a song with that sort of driving energy to it. To me, it felt like the single. It would be difficult to pitch “Lye Waste” as a single.
Aaron: I think the structure lends itself to a single – less about the sections, more about that verse structure. The end fades out into a big extended section too with Jack’s drum fills, spiralling into chaos and feedback. We spent a lot of that song, when we play it, just looking at each other whilst Jack goes off.
Joe: That song is about the grind. The suburban, probably inspired by Birmingham, haze of nothingness, where the same cycles repeat. You’re born there, you live there, you die there. Maybe some of the repetitive nature of the sections is fitting into that. We’re really into playing bits for a little too long.
Dobbin: Your previous records also hit on that theme – The Valium Machine and Downtime have covers that show urban settings that look disused, as if it’s strange to have people that could possibly inhabit them. Is that a big theme for Outlander?
Joe: We met in these places. A lot of the songs were written in an old converted tenement building, especiallyThe Valium Machine. It’s the same feeling for Acts Of Harm, where the songs are meant to sound cold, urban, and detached, and the artwork is supposed to enforce that too.
Dobbin: The next two tracks are a change of pace and both somewhat “interludes”. What motivated you to separate “II: Nuclear” from “Want No More”? It’s nice that they separate out a clear change in mood.
Joe: Not an exciting answer, but it’s party to make them more digestible. We wouldn’t have done it if it felt like it couldn’t be its own thing. I think there’s an error, it’s supposed to be “I: Nuclear” and “II: Habituation”… With both of those songs, they were both intended as “pressure releases”, as the preceding songs build this pressure. We took a lot of the top end out of “Nuclear”, almost downtempo. It helps the flow of the album too. Sometimes you listen to, say, a My Bloody Valentine record, and there’s a little interlude at the end of a track, and that’s actually your favourite bit. It’s nice to jump straight to it.
Dobbin: “Orbit” sort of an ‘extended’ interlude, by the abstract metric that records have ‘real songs’ and ‘interludes’. How did you see it in your heads? It’s racking up the streams, actually.
Aaron: That riff’s too good. It was a surprise how well it’s been doing on streaming.
Joe: “Orbit” is intended to be its own stand alone thing. We view them quite differently to the “Nuclear” and “Habituation” tracks. I see it a bit like “Ithaca” by Mogwai and “Recovery” by Duster. Those are two reference point songs. It was a challenge to distil what we do on this record into a short format, but that was a big goal of writing for this record. A lot of bands set themselves goals like that, and varying the song lengths was a big one for us. We also wanted to sound a bit more natural, like a band in a room. When we started, we were very much a down-the-middle post rock band, so “Orbit” is a cheeky look back to that. I really like that the record is an encapsulation of everything that has come up to this point, a bookend to the first eight or nine years.
Dobbin: “New Motive Power” is the oldest track, it was released as a single two years before the album. What’s the story behind that process?
Joe: We didn’t intend the album to take as long as it did. Our personal circumstances have changed a lot. Studio time is really expensive. People’s schedules have gotten busier. Ian tours, I live in London, most of the guys are in Birmingham – it makes it harder to get together. So when you’re trying to do something as draining and unrewarding as an album cycle, momentum can slip a bit. We went on tour with Bossk and wanted to have something to have out for that time. It did get a remix for the new record.
Dobbin: It’s a really different track – the mood transition is really sharp, almost the most dissonant moment.
Joe: Kowloon Walled City has always been a big reference point, as well as True Widow, where they’re not afraid to get a bit angular. That’s also where the new LP side starts.
Dobbin: “Lye Waste” is definitely my favourite track. It’s the biggest song, do you think it’s the record’s centrepiece?
Joe: On The Valium Machine, we also ended on a big song, but it didn’t really hit. But it’s actually a surprise that people have connected with “Lye Waste” – it’s long and a challenging one. Lots of people have said that’s their favourite song. It took a lot of writing, we hit four or five different versions before it got finished. When we were choosing the songs that we would play on the upcoming runs, it was the one we all wanted to play, but it’s hard to work into the set. A few weeks ago we were getting ready for the upcoming run where we’re playing the record in full. And we were like, why the fuck haven’t we been playing this song?
Aaron: It was big, wasn’t it? When we first brought it together with everything… For the ArcTanGent set, we knew we had to do it.
Joe: Once a record has come together, it’s impressive how it changes your perspective on things. You can say all you like that people’s opinions don’t affect what you do, but it just adds to the context. Lyrically, it’s about a moment of cathartic ruin, where things have gone too far. There’s a sort of emotional breakdown.
Aaron: It’s the back-end of the themes that “Bound” started, the record coming full circle.
Dobbin: And the emotional change as you get into “II: Habituation” is massive.
Joe: It’s meant to be sort of ambiguous. Those moments happen, and you can turn them into a positive, but you can perceive it any way you want. It’s just a moment of calm before the dust settles, and you figure our what’s next.
Dobbin: I want to ask you a bit about genre. Where do you sit with your genre classification? Of course, bands shouldn’t worry too much about this. But I think you’re conscious that post rock and shoegaze – the two terms I would use to describe you – have a lot of baggage.
Joe: Everyone in the band will give you a different answer. Personally, shoegaze and post rock are broad enough umbrellas now. It’s the same as saying you’re rock, or alternative. It doesn’t really mean anything beyond some arbitrary structural things. If you can put Slint and Explosions in the Sky under the same term, I don’t think it really matters.
Aaron. I’m more on your side, I think the umbrellas are big enough for where we sit.
Joe: Especially shoegaze – that seems to describe anything with any amount of reverb on it. Even people are calling Narrow Head a shoegaze band… If they are, cool, I guess shoegaze just means something different now.
Dobbin: It’s a vibe, it’s how it makes you feel, I guess. It’s a struggle as a journalist too – at the start of every post rock review, I always start with a caveat about the term, put the baggage aside, and move on. Have you heard of Swan Dive by Sympathy Pain? It feels like a post rock album out of the 90s with modern production. Very stream-of-consciousness, patched together from all sorts of sections, and you have to squint to see the band through the layers. They call their music “emotive drone”. Could you be an “emo drone” band?
Aaron: It’s definitely plausible. Some of the things that get banded around the practice room could ring true to that.
Joe: I’m happy for people to call us whatever they want. I’m glad you picked up with the 90s post rock, if there’s any part of the genre we really connect with, it’s that era. That said, This Will Destroy You, and – I don’t think this term applies to that band, but – the crescendo-y stuff, when I was first getting into this ArcTanGent side of music, I lapped it up. But it’s not aged amazingly.
Dobbin: I agree – that stuff is often too rote. I’ve always thought Outlander really cracked the subtlety of avoiding that crescendo. For example, how “Lye Waste” builds up and up towards its end, when you finally get there you do two massive hits, and it fades down. And the fact that you didn’t do it hurts so much more than if you had.
Joe: It’s so nice to hear that. How many times do you hear a band that plays a beautiful, quiet piece of music, and it starts building and building, and then all of a sudden the drums are like “bash bash bash”… I’ve seen it a million times.
Dobbin: It’s really tough, there’s a lot of bands I respect so much that sit in that style, but the difference is so subtle.
Aaron: We get off on the change between abrasive and intimate.
Joe: When that sort of thing is done well, it’s perfectly cool.
Dobbin: It’s context, right? I don’t want to be an old-head that says “well it was OK in 2005 but now…”, but it does happen. Especially when you take modern production and you just slap that on, that kills it.
Joe: It feels phoned in when bands do it. So, we’re always trying to make a non-obvious choice. Sometimes you have to take the obvious choice, but I you can find another path, you should take it. “Lye Waste” is a good example of this, and it took us so long to make. I’m sure there was a moment where there was a big crescendo-y section. It just wasn’t really “us”. We’ve found our little weird corner of the music world to inhabit, and the challenge for the next one is to see where we take it.
Dobbin: Some silly questions. Firstly, the band name – who picked that, and what’s the original reference, if any?
Aaron: You’re taking this…
Joe: I don’t really remember. We’ve been a band for a long time. There was a previous version of this band which was called Silverface, like a Fender. That was a terrible name.
Dobbin: I can’t help but think of The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind. Walking around that island, everyone’s mean to you, saying “Outlander, what do you want?”
Aaron: We’re big fans… or at least I am.
Joe: Most people say the TV show – that’s not something I’ve ever watched. And apparently there’s a book as well. I didn’t even know that… So, yeah, let’s go with that.
Dobbin: Binge, marry, kill for ArcTanGent headliners. This year – Explosions in the Sky, Mesuggah, and Mogwai?
Joe: I don’t even need to think about it.
Aaron: Neither do I. Both going to be the exact same.
Joe: Yep. Binge Explosions in the Sky, marry Mogwai, and kill Mesuggah. I’m sorry, Mesuggah, I’m sure you’re really nice, but not our thing.
Aaron: I’d want a long time thing with Mogwai. I can’t wait for tonight.
Joe: They’re one of the best bands that exist in the world, in my opinion. I’m sure all the band would agree. Explosions in the Sky might have been an influence on me when I was 17 or 18, but Mogwai are a constant, I’d always go back to. Especially when they were a bit more slowcore. The song “Now You’re Taken” is one of my favourites of all time. Heard them sound-checking earlier, sounded unreal.
Dobbin: I get the feeling if I name some metal ones, there will be less interest… Ok, how about 2015. 65daysofstatic, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and Deafheaven.
Aaron: I’d binge Dillinger, and marry Deafheaven, I think…
Joe: That was my first year. I’m sorry, 65daysofstatic. I’ve never deep-dived Dillinger, but I do like them. I’ve seen Deafheaven a lot of times, Sunbather dropped when I was about 18, quite a formative record for me. Some people compare not the sound but the feeling of Outlander to Deafheaven…
Check out our review of Acts of Harm and Dobbin’s live report from their show supporting Spotlights.