Day 2: Minimalism
We shall strive to remove excess.
15 year old James loved vinyl.
It was love at first listen. The moment he heard an original ‘Hard Days Night’ Beatles record, that was it, he was hooked. It was an experience like no other. How did the music come out of this round plastic pancake? It was magic and he wanted more.
Fast forward. 17 year old James, a fully fledged vinyl convert now, wanders into his local record store for the umpteenth time. The sun was shining, he was calm and composed. The goal was simple – purchase all The Police albums he could afford.
Turns out the record store owner did not share young James’ burgeoning Police fandom. The shop owner sent a cutting look of disdain across the counter as James’ handful of £2 Police albums were shoved into a bag…
But James was unphased. In fact, he was thrilled. The entire Police discography for under £10. Result!
Wait…I thought this day was about minimalism?
MINIMALISM
Some minimalism from Japan. Look at all that empty space. . .
Although minimalism can conjure up images of whitewashed empty rooms and monks, when we talk about minimalism, we are actually referring to concepts like being intentional and focusing on the essential. Less is more.
Here at Toucan Echo, we love sparsely populated bands that still manage to sound huge.
During my teenage years I listened to classic rock and pop punk, Guns N Roses, Green day, that sorta stuff, and just wanted to make a lotta noise. The louder and more brash, the better.
But The Police fundamentally changed my view of making music. They opened by eyes to something – that leaving space, and having subtlety in music doesn’t make it small. It can be an asset and a unique part of the sound.
Take The White Stripes as another example. Their lack of a bass player would be seen as a disadvantage in most rock bands, as they wouldn’t be able to fill out the sound. But they compensate for this in other ways, which in turn makes their sound unique. And even without a bass player they made great records, played electrifying live shows, sounded seismically huge, and always stayed as two people.
So, two and three piece bands fundamentally changed my taste in music. I decided, around age 18, that I wanted to make music with mostly clean guitars, space, textures, and MINIMALISM to be part of the music we made.
Minimalism and Toucan Echo
So Toucan Echo are a two piece out of choice. We have previously played in 4 piece rock bands, and whilst it’s difficult to sound quite as huge as a two piece, we love the limitations and freedom that this line up brings.
It means when we play live we can improvise around our songs freely, as we don’t have to negotiate with a other band members what song or chord to go to next. We just GO. It also means:
- We can play with feeling and expression, as we don’t need to fight to be heard around over too many instruments.
- We can allow more space for the underlying lyrics and message of the song to come through.
- Our soundchecks at gigs usually take under 5 mins. So more time for some pre-show beers. It’s great.
So, without further ado, here’s some examples of minimalism in our music:
~~~MUSIC and VIDEOS~~~
Weightless
Weightless is a song from our first EP. Harry and I wrote it together almost on the spot when we needed an extra song to finish the EP. We actually said “lets make a moody ‘the war on drugs’ style track to go here”. We finished this song in an hour or two.
The production here is minimal – drums, bass, 1 guitar, vocals. It also relies on one repeated riff for most of the song, giving it that calming, almost meditative feel. A good example of less is more.
I wrote the lyrics for the song on the train up to London after writing the music. It is about those people who are just core to your life. They make you so happy, so secure, that you couldn’t live without them.
Working From Home
Minimalist grit baby! Recorded live in Harry’s living room, another one that I wrote almost on the spot on my acoustic guitar when I was, ahem, working from home one day and feeling quite hung over. And as a result, the song is quite apathetic.
We turned the bluesy demo into this more White Stripes esque rock song, purposely making it loud, grumpy and ragged.
It’s a song about feeling stagnant, frustrated and anxious. The ‘narrator’ of this song is having a weird out of body experience where an imaginary head outside the window is looking in, hurling criticism at them.
Writing songs is better than therapy, promise. Cheaper too.
Want some sparse blasts from the past… and present? Check out this ‘Vintage Minimalism’ playlist I made for you.
enjoy the learning about minimalism? lets talk about it at james@toucanecho.com