Fans of BEACH HOUSE, MAZZY STAR, and Tashaki Miyaki shouldn’t be disappointed. This female duo from Tel Aviv, Israel caught my attention with their fantastic new video for the song “Sound Stain”, combining animated live action. The making of the video took a year to realize, with a crew of 40 animators!
This dream pop project consists of Hava (drums, vocals) and Talia (bass, vocals), urban nymphs that produce magical miniatures and haunting tunes. The title track showcases the mystery and windy melodies of THE APRONS debut album “Sound Stains”, which is available for streaming in full!
Hey, girls! I’m very glad to welcome you on behalf of IDIOTEQ. How are you doing?
Hi Karol. We are going great! Preparing for a show tomorrow in the north country. It’s our first time there so we are very excited.
Nice. I bet you’ll shoot me a review of the show the day after tomorrow, when we’ll still be doing this interview [smiles].
Let’s start off with your amazing video for the song “Sound Stain”, the true visual essence of dream pop [smiles]. Tell me about the concept, who produced it and all that stuff.
Thanks! we are really glad you liked it!
The whole concept came from the amazing Liran and Shay Goldberg. and this is what they said about the concept:
“The concept stems from the idea of the feminine quality and fragility of the 2 musicians- we wanted to visually translate it into an organic and fragile world.
That’s how we arrived at the decision to shoot the whole video in a magical forest, surrounding the girls with glasslike animals”.
Shay and Liran took over all the production process. They gathered a group of people, all volunteers, and together they made the magic happened.
There was a bunch of them actually, right?
Yes. In the shooting day there was a group of 15 people.
The animation process took a year and 10 different animators.
It made an incredibly good introduction to the band. Let’s go further. Please tell me about your beginnings, the original idea for this project and everything else that built the foundation of THE APRONS.
Well it’s a long story but I’ll try to sum it [smiles].
Talia and I (Hava) are friends for over 15 years, but only 5 years ago we starting playing together.
Talia already played in a band before and I was taking drums lessons. We played together and it was so much fun and pretty soon we had 2 songs. We started rehearsing every week and more songs came. After we got good responses from our friends we started performing and couple of years later we recorded out debut album, Sound Stains. We are now preparing to record our second album.
Do you have anyone else who’s helping you out with it? Or is it really just you composing? What about recording and production duties? I know that Yaron Melloul helped you out with the “Sound Stain”. What about the rest of the songs and your new tracks?
Part from Yaron Melloul’s help on sound stain and the tracks are written by us, including the upcoming album.
We recorded the album in a studio called Kitch and the producer was Danny Abargel, a friend and a talented musician.
We have also recruited Nadav Rebo, he plays accordion and Korg and he is a great addition on stage. We plan to include him in the next recording.
Do you have anything else recorded besides “Sound Stains”?
We have sketches recorded at home of some new songs. Usually we like them more than the final recording.. [smiles]
Tell me about your inspirations. What are some of your biggest influences?
Our inspiration are quite varied. Starting from THE BEATLES, through David Bowie, THE SMITHS, THE CURE, RADIOHEAD, (we even gave Jonny Greenwood a copy of our album we I met him in Israel [smiles]), BLONDE REDHEAD, SONIC YOUTH and, of course, NINE INCH NAILS.
Where did you meet him and how did you get the chance?
He was staying as a guest in a house in the desert, were my spouse is the chef.
I met him there and gave him the CD. I wonder if he ever listened to it….
Very cool [smiles] I’m sure he did!
How popular is shoegazing and dream poppin’ in Tel Aviv?
We hope so [smiles].
There has been a growth in the popularity of dream pop and shoegaze in the last few years, but still, the rock and folk music is much more popular here.
Any artists, labels or events you’d like to recommend to our readers?
Check out Tvika Force. He just released his debut EP.
We also love GEISHA NO.
Thanks! Are there any limitations for musicians due to the political situation in your country?
We don’t feel any limitations, especially in Tel Aviv. The only thing is that many artists don’t include us on their tours. But I’m not sure it’s all political reasons. Maybe we are too small.. [smiles]
Apart from its impact on music, does it bother you in general?
Sure it bothers us. All though we don’t feel it in our daily life, it’s always in the back of our minds. We truly hope this conflict will come to an end and the pursuit for peace will never stop.
How many shows have you played so far?
We think around 50.
Wow.. any special nights worth remembering?
In our first year we were invited to an indie festival. We were very excited since the was a big crowd and until then we had gigs only in small clubs.
After two songs. A bass string was thorn. We were quite panic and few minutes later a musician friend came running with his bass guitar and the show continued…
[smiles] What are the future touring plans for THE APRONS?
We are trying to book a tour Eastern Europe, and we fantasy to tour Japan [smiles].
Great! Who’s helping you out with the booking?
We don’t have a booking agent.
There are two guys working on the Eastern Europe tour.
Alright, before we finish our chat, would you ever consider adding more members to THE APRONS line-up?
At the beginning we thought about it, maybe adding a guitar, but the lack of it gave us our signature sound.
We love hosting musicians on shows and we have Nadav with us as a part of our band, but we don’t think about adding more members.
Unless we find an amazing harpist [smiles].
[smiles] This may be actually hard.
Where do you see your band in five years from now?
To stay on fantasy land, We would love to tour the world and to get signed on a label like 4ad!
What can the fans expect from you going forward in 2013?
The main thing is the release of the second album followed by a tour to promote it.
Thanks for the chat! Cheers from Poland! Anything you’d like to add?
Thank you!! it was fun!!
