Bio: ‘We had people saying things like, “We don’t like the suits.” I think they must have thought we were being ironic. Well we're not putting on a hoodie ... (more)
Bio: ‘We had people saying things like, “We don’t like the suits.” I think they must have thought we were being ironic. Well we're not putting on a hoodie and waving a glowstick. This thing, it is more than the suits; it's a lifestyle choice. It's important to us and if people don't get it they don't get Mirrors!'
James from Mirrors is not a boy you could ever see wearing a hoodie and waving a glowstick. Dapper, fresh-faced and sharp of tongue and mind even at this very un-rock ‘n’ roll hour of the morning, he is explaining why we’re sitting in the offices of Brighton’s venerable Skint label rather than one of the host of more metropolitan labels that descended upon England’s most exciting new electronic pop group at the beginning of 2009.
With him, and looking equally glamorous and businesslike in eyeliner and dark suit, is fellow Mirrors founder member Ally. ‘Skint made it clear from the start that they really liked what we were doing. A lot of A&R men want to put their own spin on a new signing. They get confused by a group who’ve actually done all the preparation.’
The preparation is key. That is, after all, the point of the mirror: the piece of glass we use to prepare ourselves to face the rest of the world. Unlike most groups in these slapdash, will-this-do? times, James, Ally and their two fellow Mirrors Tate and Josef planned their ideal group first, and then made the elegant, happy-sad, stylish and emotional nouveau pop to match. Music made on ancient analog synths but filtered through a 2010 sensibility, designed to look as good as it feels, and played by men who live their Mirrors dream group 24/7.
So be prepared for Mirrors’ first long-playing letter to the world. ‘Lights And Offerings’, which was produced by the group themselves in Brighton and mixed in New York’s DFA Studios by Rapture collaborator Jonathan Kreinik, is a sublime, ghostly yet warm, ten-track work of pop art poignancy.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s jump-cut back to the beginning of 2008 and the start of a beautiful friendship. Before forming Mirrors, James and Ally knew each other through mutual friends in their respective hometowns of Bexhill-On-Sea and Brighton. Despite James still being involved with indie-pop nearly-men Mumm-Ra, the pair got together at Ally’s place and started to talk about music, art, philosophy and life. ‘At that point we had no real intention of making something for public consumption,’ Ally explains. ‘But the working relationship gelled.’
James: ‘We got together through mutual disappointment. On a personal level, by the time the Mumm-Ra record finally came out it felt out of date. 'But in general terms we were disappointed in the music being offered to us, and even more disappointed in society around us. Everything has become boring, socially and politically. We were bored of our Blackberries and bored of our laptops and bored of groups making absolutely no effort to do anything creative. I wanted to build something from the ground up and create something entirely different.’
So the pair met up one day in May 2008 and plotted a strategy to transform all this disappointment into inspiration. They specifically talked about what an ideal group should be.
James: ‘The ideal group would have visuals as part of their live experience. It would have things going on on pavements. It would play in the middle of a room – why has every group got to play onstage? We were bored of seeing bands just plug in and play. A show should ideally be a fully interactive experience that would begin as soon as you entered the venue, which is what a Mirrors show will eventually become. We had a theoretical discussion about what we wanted a group to be.’
Ally: ‘And also about what groups used to be. Groups from the ‘70s and ‘80s were on a pedestal. Young people saw them on Top Of The Pops and The Old Grey Whistle Test and they wanted to be those people. Now, everyone’s your friend on MySpace and Facebook. When The Next Big Thing gets a new Hoover we're told about it. Well… you know what? You're not finding out about my new Hoover. We're preserving a sense of mystery regarding Hoovers and all Hoover accessories!’
Having extricated themselves from other commitments and recruited fellow synth enthusiasts Josef and Tate to their campaign against desperation and mediocrity, they came up with a name they could project their ambitions upon.
James: ‘Mirrors… I liked the simplicity of it. And it just seemed obvious. The whole idea of reflecting oneself.’
Ally: ‘And it leaves things open to interpretation.’
So began that all-important preparation – a year of it, in fact. Every detail of their ambitions, dreams and characters had to be injected into their sound and vision to set them apart. So yes… they made music that could be compared to OMD, Depeche Mode, New Order, the all-pervading Kraftwerk and even, in the beautiful elegy that is Hide And Seek, a heartwarming hint of Queen’s Radio Gaga. But they took their collective underlying influences from elsewhere. ‘We’re aware of all these comparisons,’ says James, without shame. 'But actually we’re just as influenced by post-punk, techno, German electronic music.... We love our XTC and PiL and Joy Division, but also Basic Channel, Wolfgang Voigt, Tangerine Dream... But they’re not as audible within what we do. And that’s absolutely deliberate'
They also set out to avoid the rave-era electronic sounds that every Tom, Dick and Kanye has hitched to pop’s bandwagon in recent years. Cue the extensive but fruitful search for old-school analog synths.
Ally: ‘This is my bread and butter. I could sit here and talk to you for hours about synthesizers and oscillators...’
James: ‘… But basically, we love old synths. We don’t have many instruments made later than 1982.’
Ally: ‘Most modern digital synths are just designed to recreate what the classic pre-rave era synths did. The originals play only one note at a time. They go out of tune. They’re a nightmare to program. But that’s why we like them. We don’t want everything completely polished and correct.’
Next came the visuals – self-produced and directed moving images to give Mirrors an onstage identity beyond four men playing keyboards.
James: ‘The visuals are vital because we wanted to make our show more visceral and exciting to look at. But we don’t want them to overwhelm the music. The first images we used were geometric shapes. But for Look At Me we used body parts, just filmed on a crappy old phone…’
Ally: ‘… And when you blow these things up onto a huge screen you get that nice, blurry, grainy vintage feel.’
James: ‘But it’s trial and error. I filmed my Nan the other day smoking a cigarette. I thought, “This is gonna be brilliant.” It wasn’t. But the main Mirrors visual vibe is quite slow and cerebral. Druggy… for want of a better word.’
Ally: ‘Allowing the visuals to wash over you and elevate the performance, as opposed to being something you focus entirely upon. It’s important that they’re homemade and look like it, because the drawback of an electronic show is that it can be too perfect. The visuals provide the human element.’
And then there’s the sartorial absence of a hoodie and glowstick aesthetic. Mirrors live to look good. All the time.
James: ‘Suits add a certain discipline. And it gives us an identity after ten years of jeans and scruffy hair. When we walk together down the street we look like a group. It’s a ‘50s banker kind of vibe. And, although Kraftwerk famously did the same thing, they actually took the idea from Gilbert And George… the whole idea that your art is your life. We love that idea – that you are what you make. So we don’t look like modern city bankers going to work – traditionally-fitted suits, eyeliner and slicked-back hair are all equally important to the whole aesthetic.’
So when it comes to record sleeves and videos, the group’s taste in art – the minimalism of Bridget Riley and Mondrian, the stop-go animated films of Czech surrealist Jan Svankmajer – also plays a large part. Their preferred sleeve designer is Jules Balme, the veteran graphic artist who designed classic sleeves for The Clash, Adam & The Ants and the Psychedelic Furs. And the video for first Skint single Ways To An End was shot at the legendary Duke Of York’s Picturehouse in Brighton, a listed landmark that will soon celebrate its 100th birthday.
Mirrors made their live debut at The Great Escape in Brighton in May 2009. The impact was immediate. ‘Whether we wanted it or not we became one of those hyped groups,’ recalls Ally, with admirable matter-of-factitude.
One-off singles Look At Me and Into the Heart followed, on Pure Groove and Moshi Moshi respectively, which led quickly to Mirrors’ commitment to Skint. ‘It all just fell into place,’ reckons James. ‘We didn’t have to pester people.’
Mirrors began work on Lights And Offerings with name producers including Richard X and Ed Buller. But, while crediting the pair with teaching them a lot about studio techniques and new technology, Mirrors convinced their trusting label bosses to let them produce themselves.
James: ‘We didn’t want to spend lots of money on an album and then, if it maybe doesn’t work, not be able to do another. This isn’t about making one record, throwing it at the wall and seeing if it sticks. We wanted to make something great that people could believe in.’
They have. ‘Lights And Offerings’ is a much-needed revival of primary pop elements – that inspiring face-off between art and heart, intellect and instinct, ideas and emotions, machines and a very human soul. An album that works equally as radio singalong, glitterball dance set, melancholy late-night friend and literate art statement. Whether as an increasingly feelgood live act or as makers of staggeringly good records, Mirrors have hit their stride and become that ideal group James and Ally fantasized about in their momentous meeting a couple of years ago. James is justly proud.
‘We’re ambitious enough to say that ‘Lights And Offerings’ is one of the best records made by a UK band in the last five years. We have a British sound and an attitude that no one’s had for quite some time. We're happy to say it… no one is as good as or as much of a full package as Mirrors right now.’
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