Album snapshot: Vaadat Charigim 'Sinking As A Stone'

Image: Vaadat Charigim (Credit: Goni Riskin) 

Tel Aviv shoegaze band Vaadat Charigim released the cosmic nuggets of their latest album Sinking As A Stone back in September. Not often recognised to the western hemisphere for its music scene, bands like Vaadat Charigim and the city's current generation of musicians are rapidly turning heads towards Tel Aviv.

Formed in 2012, the shoegaze band sing entirely in Hebrew, but they're quickly garnering international attention fixated on their absorbing sound. The densely textured guitar layers quite often lead to magnificent crescendos that shimmer radiantly with each and every guitar note. 

Keen to get a sense of the band currently sweeping the international scene, we spoke to the band's Yuval Haring, to get a greater sense of this evocative album that delves deeper than first imagined. 

What does the album represent? 

A progression into myself. Like a shedding of a layer I don't need. I feel it's similar to the first album in that it represents my way of thinking, seeing things, my own fears, but unlike the first one, it is truer to the abstract nature of those feelings and fears. 

Where does it stand musically?

I was listening to a lot of Tim Hecker, and William Basinski when we recorded this. I also took some of the stoicism and structure from Mogwai, which is a band I grew up listening to. I get bored by contemporary shoegaze.

I sometimes think the disadvantage of us coming from a scene with no other bands like us, because it is such a small and young scene (Israel, Tel Aviv), is actually an advantage. This is a shoegaze album, I guess, but a very weird one.   

Pick out a lyric from the album?

"Derech Yafo - Aliya , yordim lemata lashkia, yaldei imperia achrona". Which is a part from the song Imperia Achrona ("Last Empire"). It literally means "going down Derech Yafo St. , corner of Aliya St. , to see the sunset, children of the last empire".

When I sing it I feel like I am doing something truley endemic to my origins. I am singing about streets, and people I know, and moment in time like a sunset on a Friday afternoon when there aren't many cars in that area in south Tel Aviv.

Favourite song to perform? 

Probably "Neshel" off the new LP. It's very empowering to sing.

Tell us something we wouldn't know about it?   

We recorded the album at home during a long period of time, and during long periods of time you sometimes have time to experiment more than if you were, say, in an expensive studio with a producer on the clock.

So when we record a song we have like 5-6 versions of it, with different drumming and different guitars, and a lot of the songs on this and the previous record, are kind of "made up" on the spot, because we have that time to try things out.

Sometimes the drummer and bass player dont even know the songs when we start recording. First time they hear it  is when I bring over the guitar tracks.

Thanks Yuval!

Sinking As A Stone was released Friday 25th September via Burger Records. Vaadat Charigim head to the UK as part of their European Tour next year. 

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