Alrightie… here we go again. THIS GREAT END is the third band featured in our sweet post rockish series called Lights And Air. Along with Post-rock PL we celebrate their first ever Polish post rock compilation.
Based in Wroclaw, Poland THIS GREAT END is an instrumental quartet “experimenting between space and walls of sound, embracing contrasts and diversity with two guitars, bass and drums accompanied by specific guitar effects”. Their own words give a sense of passion to their soundscapes that no doubt try to be tender and powerful at the same time. Play it below and create your own review.
Oh, and don’t forget to check out 2 previous interviews teasing this cool release: go here and here.
Hey, what’s up guys? How are you doing? It sounds like there is a lot going on around you at the moment, isn’t it? [smiles]
Hi! We wouldn’t exaggerate but frankly said: yeah, there’s a lot on our minds these days – we’re in the middle of mixing/mastering process of our debut long play record, booking fall promo gigs, rehearsing for shows to come and of course we’re writing new tracks for the second album which will follow relatively soon, we hope. New stuff will be performed live on upcoming gigs, as we’d like to get some feedback first. In the meantime we’re focused on our first photo session, making album art and finding a publisher. If there’s one reading this interview, we’d like to say hi! [smiles]
Whoo ho ho, hold your horses, boys. You’re mastering your debut album and writing for the second one already? How’s that?
Well, you see – we are eager to move on as fast as possible – given the first record is halfway there, we decided it’s time to start writing new material – first tracks we wrote came into being quite some time ago – around year or two; we’ve encountered some difficulties with actually entering the studio therefore we’ve been around these tracks for long enough – we’d like to create something new, something fresh. We are far more experienced then we were at the beginning – we got to know ourselves both personally and musically, we’ve managed to create some kind of chemistry between us; simply said – we’ve changed, and so did our music, to some extent of course. Therefore we spend every spare moment on writing new material, as we’d like to see what we’ve got left in store. In the meantime we’ll be playing new tracks on a couple of gigs to get some feedback.
Oh yeah, speaking of live gigs, what are your touring plans for this year? You mentioned a fall tour on your official website. Shoot us some details on that.
There are plans of our first nationwide tour later this year; it’d be debut LP promo tour. Perhaps we’ll tour a little abroad as well. At the time being we cannot share any specific details concerning our touring plans, however we’re very eager to collaborate with bands and clubs all over the Poland/Europe. If you enjoy our music feel free to contact us!
Alright, let’s dive into your new LP. Let’s start off with the package. Who did the cover art for your new album?
The cover art is done by Dawid Galczynski – very talented graphic designer and illustrator. He also happens to be our bassist [winks]. You see, we try to be as self-sufficient as possible. Together we thought both cover art and future gigs visuals should be heavily inspired by dream and journey themes. We’ll see how it turns out.
Do you already have some visuals ready? Have you heard about the recent turn taken by NEUROSIS, who actually gave up developing this part of live performance and let the music speak for itself?
Visuals are still in the making; we want them to be tightly connected to cover art, therefore it’s significant that design has work as desired on every device and surface. As we rely on ourselves we want to make both music and shows as unforgettable as possible. People are mostly visuals so we cannot skip such important matter. Speaking of NEUROSIS – whatever floats their boat; we still are at the stage of proving the world, and ourselves what’s our worth – we’re not thinking about discarding any good idea just yet.
Cool. Are there any essential shows you can’t wait to attend in the forthcoming months?
We cannot wait to play with THE SHAKING SENSATIONS (16.04) and THESIS (20.04), both great bands and awesome gigs hopefully; however the tour following release of our debut long play record will be the real kick – these shows are the ones we simply dream of playing, especially since we’re preparing something extra to make our gigs more interesting.
What about a label? Are you looking for one? How?
Well, we are using all available methods at the moment, although any necessary actions will be undertaken the minute we’ll have the long play ready and steady.
Hoookay, guys. What do you think about the Post-rock PL vol. 1 compilation initiative?
It’s great! We’re honoured to be a part of it, alongside many awesome bands we did or didn’t know. It’s incredible opportunity to get to know such splendid troups like THESIS, NAO, SERVANTS OF SILENCE, NAKED ON MY OWN, BLANK FACES, PAPERTREE and so on and so forth.
Are there any other Polish post rock bands that you miss on this set of tracks?
Definitely there’s a lot of very skilled and talented bands we don’t know of, we can only hope they’ll be discovered by the time “vol. 2” goes live.
You stated that the song put out on this release is your first song ever. Didn’t you have more tunes written already? How’s that?
Well, it’s our first track ever… to be recorded at studio. Earlier pieces were merely a demo tracks, recorded DIY way, therefore their quality left much to desire. On the LP you’ll find 9 tracks; we decided to discard some part of the materials, we chose what we believe suit the record best. Funny enough, the track found on the compilation is our latest creation. It has symbolical meaning as it’s kind of a border between LP and new stuff that’s in progress, we we hope it’ll be something new/fresh.
Tell me more about the meanings of these tracks. Did you apply a concept to it?
These tracks were written over quite a long time and a lot of things happened during that period. We didn’t pay much attention to tying them together; however as we added new tracks and titles we found kind of relationship between them. It wasn’t clear to us at first but when we came up with longplay title everything “magically” made more sense – it helped to determine both climate and visuals for the whole. We admit it was kind of random, however the more we thought about it the more sense it made.
How’s the Wroclaw’s alternative / post rock music scene? Do you feel lonely performing this kind of music?
The Wroclaw’s scene couldn’t be better. There’s plenty of awesome bands, such as IDIOTHEAD, HETANE, DIGIT ALL LOVE, ALL SOUNDS ALLOWED, BIPOLAR BEARS, THE MAGNUM FORCE, BLEEDING MOSES, BLANK FACES, PRZECIWZIEMIA and so on and so forth. Lots of both Polish and European bands pick Wroclaw as one of their stop during tours; that given we had pleasure of sharing the stage with the bands recognizable europe-wide and worldwide even: IMMANU EL, THE RED PAINTINGS, MENISCUS, TIDES FROM NEBULA, JAZZPOSPOLITA and such. It really doesn’t feel lonely at all [winks].
Cool. Are there any essential shows you can’t wait to attend in the forthcoming months?
We cannot wait to play with THE SHAKING SENSATION (16.04) and THESIS (20.04), both great bands and awesome gigs hopefully; however the tour following release of our debut longplay record will be the real kick – these shows are the ones we simply dream of playing, especially since we’re preparing something extra to make our gigs more interesting.
Any gigs you can’t wait to just see, as an attendee?
Well, there’s plenty of gigs we’d love to attend, both to come and the ones we’d just love to see in the future; it’s really hard to pick just a handful, especially given that our tastes vary thiiiiiiiis much.
Alright… before we wrap this up, please tell me.. what’s the ‘post-rock-pre-metal’? [smiles]
That’s an easy one [winks]. You see, it’s the genre we believe we fit in the best as our music origins from both post-rock and post-metal. We’ve got some post-rock freaks in our ranks as well as some metal-djent-whatever junkies too; not to bypass alternative and hardly-specified dudes – all in all it is what makes us, and our music what it is today: This great end reaching its finest.
Fair enough. You earned it, boys. Was I cruel enough to miss a subject you’d like to discuss here?
We’d like to share some of bands that influenced us a lot, as we find that interesting throughout interviews we read.
Radek:
The bands I’m influenced the most through the years are DREDG, CLANN ZU, GOJIRA, JAKOB, KATATONIA, MYSLOVITZ and recent finding, Russian band KIROV.
Dawid:
As for me I’m into such artists like PHILIP GLASS, MONO, OCEANSIZE and ANIMALS AS LEADERS.
Kamil:
I myself am very fond of post rock bands like RUSSIAN CIRCLES, GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT and TOUNDRA. The genres that influence me greatly are also prog rock and chillout.
Adam:
My musical taste revolves mainly around British scene. Bands such as OCEANSIZE, RADIOHEAD, COLDPLAY lately really caught my attention. On the other hand I’m also into THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, PERIPHERY‘s first long play record and Polish masterpiece: JAZZPOSPOLITA. We could go on and on forever, really. But we will call it a day. [winks]
Ok, let’s follow this path. Tell me about your non-musical inspirations.
Kamil:
I’m always greatly influenced by guitar FXs, I’m constantly looking for new sound and play with it. It’s best when I’m completely isolated, my imagination is really kicking in then and I can easily focus on the creative process. Movies, pictures, photos – they also significantly affect my ideas. However – rehearsals with This great end is what gets the job done.
Dawid:
Well, I’m not going to be original – inspiration can be found everywhere. It heavily depends on people, the way they process stimuli that find them every day. Emotions are great deal for me – my frame of mind often affects what I play… And it’s nothing original here either [winks].
Radek:
I’m getting in touch with my imagination mostly – often I visualize picture in my head and then I compose its rhythm and melody – in that particular order – both these stimulants draw forth emotions defined by them. Given I’m a drummer it’s difficult for me to somehow get my melodies through, however I’m doing what I can [winks]. Lately my inspiration for a drum beat was a randomly jamming fan at restroom in my work [smiles].
Adam:
As for me it’s really hard to tell – I’m often inspired by my memories, things that have happened to me, pictures I see in my head – feels like writing soundtrack to… my life, I think – heavily personal stuff [winks]. I’m somehow inspired by my work, by games I play or books I read. It’s really tough to pick just a handful of stimuli affecting what I play.
Tell me more about how music can be inspired by movies. Any examples?
You see, it’s all based on images, we think. You take, let’s say, one scene, one image from a movie, anything you like and try to replace its soundtrack, rewrite what you hear. For example: imagine there’s a man waiting on a platform, his train’s running late and it starts to rain – what’s the aura, what are his feelings? We’re brainstorming on how, musically, rain sounds like; we’re trying to describe feelings this particular man can be experiencing – maybe he’s angry, because he’s running late to an appointment, or maybe he’s waiting for someone he misses really much and yet the train’s not coming and he’s feeling lonely and sad more and more? We’re trying to describe it all using music, sound – the titles of our pieces are a guidelines to what one can see, what can he visualize while listening to our tracks, what emotions can they induce.
Do you have any favorite soundtracks? Would you love it for the exposure you get to different artists or rather for elevating an ordinary scene into something special (thanks to music)?
We rather dislike collective soundtracks – those are rarely made with some kind of concept.
We all love soundtracks made by Hans Zimmer (Inception kicks ass!), John Williams or some lesser known fellas such as Kenji Kawai (Ghost in the Shell) and Edward Shearmur (K-Pax – gotta listen to that, guys!), Philip Glass, Harry Gregson-Williams or Amon Tobin for instance – these are made explicitly for the movie/game/anything – take the scenes from the Indiana Jones movies for example – all the stuff that takes place there wouldn’t be as awesome if you’d cut out all the great music written by John Williams.
All in all, it’s also the music that gives soul to simple frames, scenes taken out of movies – would you rather watch Star Wars with no music or listen to its soundtrack while not seeing picture? [winks].
Alright, guys. What else? Is there anything you’d like to add to what we’ve discussed?
We think it’s time to wrap this one up. We’d like to thank you for having this interview, and we’d love to see you, and the readers, after premiere of our LP. In the meantime we invite all of you to “like” us on facebook and visit our website – www.thisgreatend.com – as we’re updating every news concerning upcoming gigs and LP itself often. Have a nice one!
Cheers!
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