Zubrs, bad cinema and The Cronx: An interview with Samuel Holloway of Two Silhouettes.
Samuel Holloway releases Z-SIDES, his new, fifth LP as Two Silhouettes, on the 20th of June, exclusively through The Fearless Few collective via Bandcamp. An eclectic collection of outsider garage, rave, rap, pop, electro, R&B, drum & bass and experimental, Z-SIDES began life as unruly pieces of music from different score projects and unfinished works, caught in a net and gathered together ‘like a dysfunctional family’, with contributions from regular guest vocalists Clive Browne, Francesca Allen and Imran Rumjon, and new collaborations with rapper Dexter Sozay.
Here Samuel Holloway is interviewed by his friend and occasional collaborator, broadcast journalist and sound designer Josh Vardey. Holloway encouraged Vardey to go “as weird as you like” with the questions, which has resulted in this dubiously worded interview themed around one of Holloway’s passions: bad movies.
JV: Opening track ‘J-CON’ shares its name with a UK Cosplay convention. Which of the following characters does your Two Silhouettes persona most align with, and why?
- The satyr in Manos: Hands of Fate that three women attempt to massage to death.
- The double-decker bologna sandwich given to Joshua by Seth’s ghost in Troll 2.
- Johnny in The Room.
SH: ‘J-CON’ was actually named after Jennifer Connelly, as the track samples her as a teenager singing on a Japanese Technics hi fi advert! (link) I think the double-decker bologna sandwich resonates with me most, as I live for a good sandwich. Sandwiches are the perfect meal in my opinion — if society would let me, I would just put stuff in between bread for the rest of my life. And songs are just audio sandwiches when you think about it.
CliveTV (Clive Browne) has been collaborating with you since the start of the Two Silhouettes project and frequently pops up across your work. On ‘RAVER’ he claims to be a raver. How has your process with Clive developed? How important is collaboration in all your creative projects in general?
The process hasn’t changed much! Every year or two, I travel to whatever remote part of the West Country that Clive is residing in, and we collaborate really quickly. I bring him backing tracks and themes, lyrics, or he freestyles. I wrote the lyrics and backing track to ‘RAVER’ in about 30 minutes on the National Express to Taunton, and he nailed the vocals in two takes — which is standard for him. His speed and confidence constantly inspires me. We can make a whole album in a few hours. Having lots of collaborators on each Two Silhouettes album keeps it interesting. They can hit notes I can’t, or turn up with a cello. Plus collabs are a great way of just hanging out with friends.
Birdemic’s most iconic scene involves a group of people fighting off a flock of clip art birds with coat hangers. What are some of your most important tools? In what ways do they limit / expand your creativity?
Incredible film. It’s going to sound kind of boring, but my laptop is my ‘coat hanger’. I don’t have a proper studio, and my laptop enables me to produce in my bed, on the train, or in other people’s living rooms. Using just a Macbook, my cans and a Blue Yeti USB mic on the move is pretty liberating — sneaking in extra time to work on music, and enabling collabs that might not otherwise happen. Also, my coffee machine is pretty important. I’m thinking of upgrading to a Nespresso but I’m starting to think that membership might be some kind of cult.
Which has had a more formative influence on your work, Wookey Hole or Cheddar Gorge? Growing up in the West Country, what else led you into making music?
I don’t think I’ve actually visited Wookey Hole Caves since I was a kid, I hear they have a full time actor playing a witch now. Me and friends would often walk along the Cheddar Gorge clifftops with the goats, and it would occasionally feature in my lyrics, or we’d film a music video or film scene there. In the West Country, living in a village, it’s easy to fall into a trap of either going to the pub or watching TV. It’s a cliché, but creating music felt like an escape from that, and made me feel more fulfilled.
In Ricki — Oh, The Story of Ricky, a man kicks a dog in half. How do you let off steam?
What a scene. Well, as this interview acknowledges, I do like a bad movie. Me and two friends started a ‘Bad Movie Night’ during lockdown where we synchronize viewing a bad movie from our respective houses. And Zubr lager became our beverage of choice, it’s perfect for letting your hair down. Ricki-Oh was one of the most spectacular movies I’ve seen, though I’m not sure it even qualifies as a bad movie. I attended a Q and A with Edgar Wright, and he said a film can’t truly be bad if it’s fun, and I think there’s a lot of truth in that.
David Bowie said of Croydon in 1999: “I think it’s the most derogatory thing I can say about somebody or something: ‘God, it’s so f**king Croydon!” What is your attitude towards Croydon?
David Bowie needed to wind his fucking neck in. Actually, my first impressions of Croydon, AKA The Cronx, weren’t amazing as I only saw the town centre, which is like any other, but with trams. Before I moved there, we started to explore the outskirts and hidden parts, and I’ve been falling in love with it. It has axe throwing bars, road junctions that make no sense, and an inexplicable number of furniture stores where everything is decorated with crystals and jewels. I’m currently investigating where the local garage scene is, so I can cling to it like a bad stink.
Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (The Man Who Fell to Earth) is more commonly known as “Turkish Star Wars” due to its shameless plundering of footage from the Star Wars films. How do you approach sampling, and more generally in what way do outside influences, whether it’s other artists or films or locations, feed into your work?
Great question. Along the way I developed a code of conduct towards sampling. I personally don’t think that sampling should be too lazy or gratuitous. I prefer to sample older, more obscure music, and to learn about what I’m sampling, and take it in a new direction. I don’t like how some artists are parasitic about it. I read that Kayne West sampled Aphex Twin’s ‘Avril 14th’, and when Aphex politely reached out to him, he got a hostile reply denying it was his music. Don’t be that guy. Don’t be Kayne West. I’m always on the lookout for samples, and I keep a YouTube folder of things like a cappellas or beats from old movies that I stumble across.
In Fateful Findings, a man fails to keep a full cup of coffee from spilling onto his laptop as he slips into unconsciousness. What are some of the greatest creative challenges you face as a musician and how do you overcome them?
I need to get up to speed on Neil Breen films! Well, I don’t like to call myself a musician as people assume you can do stuff. I’m rubbish at guitar, lousy at singing, tone deaf, deaf in general, have no rhythm, no musical training, and a sometimes rudimentary grasp of production! But I was inspired by how Bristol artists like Tricky and Massive Attack started off as ‘non-musicians’ and found different ways of producing. My brain works very visually, I arrange and interpret audio by eye, cutting and pasting, doing lots of takes, and editing or effecting things to compensate for anything that sounds a bit shite.
The film Machete is about an outsider with a machete. What’s the background to the project name Two Silhouettes and where does it stand in relation to your other projects?
‘Silhouette’ is my favourite word as it’s beautiful to say, and it fit with how dark and atmospheric the first LP Slow-Burning Sessions was, and I guess I added the ‘two’ as the first album was mostly themed around relationships. At the start it was a little like a duo with singer Francesca Allen, but also a collective with regular contributors, and later we performed like a band with Kev Cousins on bass. Now my collaborators have family commitments, I’m starting to steer it towards a solo project. By third album Slipstreams, Francesca was responding more to upbeat tracks, plus I was becoming inspired by the Plastic People and CDR scenes and outsider house music. So I shifted it towards dance, and I started GREYFIELD WOODS as a downbeat, downtempo side project, an outlet for being a part-time melancholy bastard.
A lot of your songs seem to take place at night, filled with loving, fighting and drinking. What would happen over the course of your ideal night?
I’m a bit of a night owl. I like the wild stuff that happens at night when people cut loose, and I also like the stillness of being the only one awake late at night, with no distractions or responsibilities. My ideal night would be a gig with friends, seeing and hearing something new. Draught beer. Vegan fried chicken on the way home. Shout outs to Temple of Seitan.
Samurai Cop is best known for its infamous “horny nurse” sequence. What aspect of your music are you most proud of?
Great lead-in. I used to make a lot of music for the love of writing it, but I came to the realisation that I was producing a lot of songs that I wouldn’t necessarily buy myself, so Two Silhouettes was an effort to change that. So when I catch myself listening to my own music just for the pleasure of it, I know I’m doing something right. And a successful collaboration always warms my cockles. Plus it’s a way of keeping a diary. I listened back to my older LPs recently and they document all the big changes in my life.
In ‘ZUBR’, a critic says the Polish lager is “not the worst beer” he’s ever tried. What ambitions do you have for your art?
That critic that I sampled is the best! I guess I would like to be “not the worst” music producer in the world. The producer equivalent to Zubr lager: extra strong, animal-themed, and value for money.
Exorcist 2: The Heretic is thought of as one of the worst sequels ever made. How do you view your earlier Two Silhouettes work now and what lessons will you take from this album to the next?
This is on my to-watch list! I’m proud of my earlier work, though I had less of an ear for problem frequencies and getting bass right. I once had a track from Slipstreams played at The Dance Tunnel in Dalston, and it went from sounding perfect on cans to sounding like a massive fart. These days I’m better at mixing for club speakers, taming the low-end, and boosting the high-end. Twelve had an awkward track list with some of the strongest tracks and all the vocals pushed towards the middle and end. And my last LP, QUICKEN, had a lot of eclectic tracks. With each album it feels like I’m simultaneously making 2–3 different albums, which is kind my M.O., but I might rein that in, before my more purist producer friends get together and shank me to death.
Z-SIDES by Two Silhouettes is out on June 20th, exclusively through thefearlessfewcollective.bandcamp.com/music
