Pinkshinyultrablast: Achieving complexity and going electronic

Image: Pinkshinyultrablast

In January, St Petersburg shoegazers Pinkshinyultrablast dropped their debut album Everything Else Matters, eight months on and they're already tieing up the loose ends of their second. 

It's not often that you hear about Russian bands anchoring on the cutting edge, yet Pinkshinyultrablast have widened the media's musical scope towards the Balkans beyond Pussy Riot, with their innovative exploration of glistening shoegaze and densely layered dream pop (listen to 'Umi' below). 

The band extracted their name from Astrobrite's 2005 album, an American shoegaze project that's clearly influenced aspects of their work. Vocalist Lyubov Soloveva reveals that they're readjusting their sights for the second album, "We're trying to weave away from the whole shoegaze side of it and explore more on all levels, and in general we've been moving more towards complexity." 

I caught Lyubov on a Wednesday afternoon over a call to the band's native St Petersburg, Russia's second largest city that boasts a plethora of extravagant landmarks. It's not an immediate point of reference for its live music circuit, although it's hard to imagine the port city on the Baltic lacks musical inspiration. 

Lyubov confirms the band are busy with the album, "We're going to be done by the end of August I think. On our end we're going to have to kind of rush it a little bit because everything else takes a long time."     

It's a remarkable turnaround when considering their debut album took almost six years to drop, though the success of that record has clearly had a bearing on accelerating the recording process of the second with label Club AC30. "It's different now because we have a label and a manager. It's not that we're good financially, we're not." tells Lyubov.

"No one is helping us and we want to make own our record so it's not like we're accepting help because if we were accepting help it would make us not own our own music in a way. It's still a struggle, it's clear, we still have deadlines." 

"We recorded in June and everything else has been post production pretty much, we still need to record a couple more songs vocals and guitar parts. Post production takes a lot of time, even the keyboards part. I would say the recording is the fastest of all processes then mixing down takes some time too."  

Have you got a title for the new album yet? (Listen to new single 'Kiddy Pool Dreams' below)

No we still have to figure all of that out, we're seeing things differently so I think it's going to be harder this time around. There's some disagreement on that part but it's all friendly and those are interesting conversations.

'Everything Else Matters' was inspired by nature, is there a particular inspiration or concept to this album?

I don't know if there's a lineage, sometimes it comes around as a problem for us. I think our starting point is music itself and not the subject matter so much. Sometimes it is hard to figure out the subject matter until the music is in place.

We're trying to be more mature with the subject matter and trying to figure out how these things come together. For the most part, the subject matter is on my end, but at the same time it's a weird dynamic  because it has to be approved with all of the other members of the band and sometimes it's tricky.

How do you all come to agree on the subject matter?

There's a weird dynamic of all the other members of the band approving or disapproving of me and that makes it really difficult. I just feel like I have to deliver something that everyone's going to agree on and I feel a little bit constrained, maybe it's too personal. It's just like you've caught us in the midst of this process, so I guess I'm articulating some intimacies.  

When playing live you appear to be consumed and immersed by the music. Is this a factor in the recording process? 

I mean the music is totally collaborative like that's a thing. It is really immersive, emotional and flowing initially in the creative process but when you're recording its just like pure math and pure calculation. 

How have you expanded and experimented with your sound on the new album?

There's more complexity on all levels. The guitar is more complex and some of the bass parts, the keyboards and post production.  With the single there's a B side which is purely electronic and the album is going to be more electronic. We're still moving towards that direction of engaging a lot of keyboards and the capacities of samplers. That's more pronounced now. 

I feel like it's still natural and it's different for each one of us as we grow in our own direction and explore our own points of interest. But definitely for our guitarist, he just wanted to explore more and not just play two chords for the whole song and stuff, so there's that like semi-technical or compositional movement. Our keyboardist, he's getting more into exploration of electronic music and our whole new sound.

What about you personally?

For me, I mean just the developments of my voice and subject matter wise too. I'm just trying to explore so it's hard to say exactly. It all becomes one thing where all of our creative energies and explorations just combine and we're trying to navigate what it's going to be like.

You mention the development of your own voice. Will that become more pronounced with the new sound?

It's something we should figure out together right now, I want it to be more pronounced and sort of closer not in a 'devo' way. Even when you're listening to Bullet For My Valentine, I know that's a random example, the vocals are really close and I just want the texture of the vocals to be more pronounced and for it to be less muddy.

Our single won't be like that, they're going to be immersed and high out and kind of like way 'reverbed'. For the album I want that not to be the case, we're also mixing live and the reverbs were used live so it was kind of hard to navigate. 

You've previously expressed that the scene in St Petersburg is boring. Do you experiment with your sound by playing live there? 

We don't really play live here much. We explore during our practice and we take our time to figure out how we're going to do live sets. It doesn't really have to do with local scene or anything.  

I'm not here all that much, we're not all that engaged in whatever is happening here, it's not a stance it's not snobbish or whatever and that's just the matter.

You're touring the UK again this Autumn, has the band considered relocating to get engaged with a live scene? 

With five people in the band everyone has their own life and ideas about what they want to be doing. It's actually really hard to be constantly considering each other so it's just a bit stressful sometimes. 

It coincided at one point, the fact that we got signed is sort of us just having more and more time to focus on the band. It's really hard for me because I had a job, I was doing grad school and with doing practices it was just so hard. At that time we weren't touring, it hasn't been all that long but I'm not sure how it's going to work in the future. 

What can you reveal ahead of your upcoming tour, we've also seen your playing Liverpool psych fest? 

That's going to be our first show, I really like Liverpool and I really want to go back there. We're going to Glasgow too, it's going to be our first time in Scotland so that'll be exciting. 

The album will be in place by the time we tour so it'll be like pre-promoting the album or something - just sort of the usual PR for people not to be forgetting about us. The album is one its way and we're probably going to play most songs from the album. 

Pinkshinyultrablast play in Manchester at Night and Day Cafe on Tuesday 29th September 

Read: Pinkshinyultrablast UK headline tour

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