“Anxieties on top of anxieties.”
Welcome to In Conversation, a special interview column on the site where we sit down with artists and dive deep into everything music. Dobbin and Max chatted to Chris Core (guitar) and Vince Knight-Schrijver (drums) of Din of Celestial Birds at ArcTanGent 2024 on Thursday, just after their set on the Wednesday. Photography © by Kieran C White, contact before any usage.
Dobbin: Your name is Din of Celestial Birds, and that’s cool, a post-rock-as-fuck band name. But increasingly in the band’s marketing, you’ve been messing with it and going with this “Birb” style. Is this a pivot for the band into a new direction?
Vincent: Like post comedy, post meme core…
Chris: Not really, it just has a good reaction from people. It gets people’s attention.
Vincent: I think the comedy can be quite refreshing, in a way, not being taken seriously all the time.
Dobbin: Is that a problem in post rock?
Chris: It can be quite serious…
Max: No jokes allowed. If you laugh at a post rock show, you’re banned, out you go…
Dobbin: Is the “your mother and I” sample in “” meant to be funny?
Vincent: Well, it is now, I guess. I think you’re picking up the wrong elements of what’s comedic and what’s not…
Chris: I think Andy grabbed that from Saturday Night Live, so I think it was supposed to be funny, at least at the time. The song is actually about dealing with a loved one’s addiction.
Dobbin: It’s a set and album closer, and that drop at the end is always cool. Speaking of the set, did you have a good set at ArcTanGent?
Vincent: I think so! I was running around trying to fix things up until the moment the drums had to start. I think Andy had tech issues, but me, no.
Chris: It went pretty smoothly, I think. The important thing is, did people enjoy it?
Vincent: I think the crowd did enjoy it, giving us lots of feedback.
Dobbin: Last year’s ArcTanGent set did have one tech issue where you pressed record on the audio for the live video one song in!
Chris: That’s right, and this time we may have done the same thing, but not making the same mistake again…
Dobbin: You played the bigger stage to, so possibly your biggest audience yet!
Vincent: I think the tent was full, people spilling out the sides…
Dobbin: In the past year you’ve done a lot: DunkFest, ArcTanGent twice, Strangeforms, Portals, Damnation, and the ArcTanGent warmup all-dayer with the likes of Hundred Year Old Man, Underdark, Pleiades, and A-Sun Amissa. What’s been your favourite?
Vincent: DunkFestival, by far. I don’t know if all European tours are like that, but from the moment we arrived we had a dressing room, beers, you name it.
Chris: Dunk was clearly very well established, they’re playing a quite new venue too. It ran like a well oiled machine. To be fair, all the festivals we have been to have run smoothly. For me, it’s a toss up between the first ArcTanGent, because that was our first really big show, and it was a lot of fun, and Damnation, just because we had a balcony looking over the main stage.
Vincent: Yeah, we had a great time watching Leprous with an amazing view.
Dobbin: You jumped on that line up to replace Tuskar who sadly had to drop, right?
Vincent: That was a funny story – I was getting the train up to Manchester, and all the trains had been delayed. I arrived at the venue fifteen to twenty minutes before I had to play. Nobody knew if I was going to make it. Somewhat stressful…
Chris: You were sending pictures of yourself on a train, not moving, saying ‘I’m stuck in Peterborough’…
Vincent: I didn’t even have a seat, the train was full! I was carrying all my drum stuff on the train. My car was due for an MOT, so I couldn’t drive it… but it went alright.
Dobbin: After ArcTanGent 2023, we did a post-interview, and I asked you who should play ArcTanGent in 2024. We predicted Hundred Year Old Man, and Torpor were also mentioned. Clearly we predicted well, so, who should play next year?
Chris: I think I mentioned The Grey last time – I’ll say them again. Where are they?!
Dobbin: They’re about to support Glassing in London, so they’re in the circuit at least! Maybe next year!
Vincent: I’d pick Luo, who played at Portals. They did some Final Fantasy XII covers which was really cool!
Dobbin: From this year, who are you excited to see?
Vincent: Animals as Leaders, I think I’ve seen them once before but that was a while ago. I’d love to bump into Tosin!
Chris: I’m really looking forwards to seeing Plini, Meshuggah again, and also Hundred Year Old Man and Fort. I did my clashfinder a few days ago and I had only one clash – Pijn and God Alone. I don’t know what to do there! I think God Alone have the silent disco set, we played with them a while ago which was great. So I can see Pijn in that slot.
Dobbin: On social media you mentioned this is your last big show for a while. What are your studio plans, what would you like to come out with, and when?
Vincent: We’re taking time to write new material. We’ve got some stuff already that we’re starting to practice, with the aim to record it in a studio some time next year.
Dobbin: Is Din of Celestial Birds a band that would do EPs?
Vincent: We have a lot of material right now, that’s almost a problem. Picking what goes onto an album will be hard, so maybe extra material would end up on an EP.
Chris: We’re all really busy outside of music, so a lot of what happens is circumstantial. Writing songs is one thing, learning them is something completely different, and recording is something else entirely. If we release an EP it’s because circumstance makes it easier to do so, but we’d prefer to do albums.
Dobbin: This sort of music, I think, best works in LP format – do you agree?
Vincent: A lot of our tracks are quite long, but they’re not ‘prog’ long. It’s nice to have a big flowing concept, and on an album you can form chapters. So yeah, so LPs are the way to go.
Max: “Binge, marry, kill” for ArcTanGent headliners – starting with this year: Explosions in the Sky, Meshuggah and Mogwai.
Chris: I think the answer for that, in terms of the way I’ve listened to their music, is: binge Mogwai. That’s how it was for me, I’m sort of on-and-off with them. I love them, but I don’t listen to them contently. You’ve got to marry Meshuggah, don’t you?
Vincent: I dunno…
Chris: …and that means you have to kill Explosions in the Sky…
Vincent: I was gonna marry Explosions in the Sky, you know, it’s something that can always be there, it’s reliable. Binge Meshuggah, because it’s so high energy – you want that intensity, that romance. And that means you have to kill Mogwai…
Max: If we go back and pick a more ‘out there’ line-up, 2015: 65daysofstatic, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and Deafheaven?
Vincent: I think I would… I do like Dillinger… who do I kill first? Definitely binge Dillinger – much like Meshuggah, it’s a short, high energy thing, so that makes sense. I don’t know who I’d kill.
Chris: I’d marry 65daysofstatic. Lots of cool stuff going on there. I really respect them for their No Man’s Sky soundtrack. I also love their tour that was very improvisational, using a lot of generative stuff. As a nerd, that spoke to me. So that means I have to binge Dillinger, so that means I have to kill Deafheaven.
Vincent: I think I agree with you on this one.
Max: Let’s go with an even wilder one: Coheed And Cambria, Meshuggah, and Battles, from 2019.
Vincent: I think I’d kill Coheed and Cambria. I did binge them, so I’ve done it already, it’s in the past. I’d still binge Meshuggah. So I guess I have to marry Battles… but that would be a kind of arranged marriage…
Chris: We saw Coheed and Cambria at some point supporting Deftones, literally a decade ago.
Dobbin: I hope someone wants to marry Coheed and Cambria!
Check out our review of The Night Is For Dreamers and our previous interview featuring the band.