Three and a half years?

F - yeah, its living hell, nightmare of life, basically. there’s a lot of sad times to be had
W - I think there’s lots of things everyone can identify with at one point or another, y’know if you’re in a good mood, this record will help you come back down and if you’re in a bad mood, then maybe it’ll help you through that

Did the music come with the lyrics then? did you go in that direction

W - its all kind of mixed up together, its not like totally separate process.

cause the production on this album is very minimalist, and still very effective, do you think with it being so sparse you’re bringing out the words more?

W - There’s a fine line between minimal, sparse and lazy... so I see it as a very low-energy record and what I put into the music in terms was very little. i wanted to say as little as possible. I was at the point I wanted to stop. I wanted to make a record and at the same time retire from making records, so this was the best I could do. It was the least I could do and still say “this is a song”, there’s no chords or there’s just a bit of a humming noise or buzzing in the background, and it was like “that’s a track”, you know what I mean? I felt that wanted to make music that it would be hard to listen to, it would be ultra boring and indistinguishable. And I think that really allows a person to work on the singing what I wanted people to think about was the frame. you’re not looking at what is in the frame, which is Lovetta singing.

Last year you made an album, ‘When the Stars Refuse to Shine’ which was recorded at the same time as this album and the two sound quite different

W - I have to say that I got the name wrong. It was supposed to be “When Every Star Refused to Shine” and then a friend of mine, Davin, did the artwork and he said “what’s the name of the album?” and I couldn’t remember, so I said “when the stars refuse to shine” but its supposed to be called ‘When Every Star refused to Shine”. Basically its pieces from this record that we didn’t use, from the same sessions. When you put out a record of out takes and alternate versions, a year and a half before your record came out rather than waiting 10 years for the boxset, for the reissue, the bonus tracks, I thought this was new and exciting. release the out takes first. i thought that would be kind of funny. we end up doing a lot of music because we’ve got the studio, so its cool that someone who really likes His Name is Alive could hear that stuff .. its not like a big deal

So this takes us onto Time Stereo - can you tell us a bit more about how it came about?

F - it started as a tape label in 1994
W - we don’t remember
F - and basically it was tapes, you know, tapes with no catalogue numbers, no sequence
W - a lot of tapes had no titles either
F - yeah, no titles, some tapes had no music on them
W - there were at least two blank tapes! And one tape actually had no tape inside!! empty ... that was a good one!
F - and then with the advent of recordable compact discs, y’know. Tapes are still the mainstay
w - our slogan at Time Stereo is still “Time Stereo, your tapes” Time Stereo has really grown. Its run by Davin who I live with - he’s more on the art side - he’s more into hand crafted objects such as a whale table or a gorilla table... I eat off my whale table every dy. its a small table. Say you went to Taco Bell and you want to watch tv and eat, you can sit there and its a perfect height... that's Time Stereo!

There’s been a lot of records put out on Time Stereo, not only His name is Alive, there’s also a lot of the bands who have at some time played with His Name Is Alive,

W - Ian Masters who used to be in a 4ad band called Pale Saints, he’s put out a couple of things on Time Stereo and he has a label ‘Friendly Science Enregisterments’ and we’ve done a couple of things with him too. Its all pretty friendly.

i’ve been told you did some travelling around India...

W - That's one of the reasons this record took so long, I refer to it as a spiritual journey. I know it sounds funny, but it was. I went to India and Nepal for a couple of months and it was really great. when I got home I kind of felt like I should make a record, its been a while, so we kind of finished it up after that... how did it influence our record... I guess it got it finished I don't think it specifically influenced the songs in any way.. I would hate to hear songs with a sitar ot tabla on it. they’re the last two things I wanna hear

so we wont be expecting those on the next album then!

W - nope!

so what's inspiring you at the moment, musically ...

W - Lovetta?
L - travesties of life.. it was good, like Fred said, it was a kinda weird time and its been weird all the way up until now, to be honest.. its just coincidence and its constantly holding true, just the whole mood, on the record.

So you say it feels weird up till now - is it weird now, doing what felt weird then?

L - it just kinda feels scary, how it all turned out because up until now there’s been ‘Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth’ moments, and its been happening, to me specifically
F - on a regular basis
L - and now that the records out hopefully...
W - we can get it out of our systems, hopefully. Its like the record was a jinx that we brought upon ourselves

In what way?

W - I thought I was describing what basically was a bad mood at the time, but basically I was attracting them. I was really digging deeper. i think now we’re just starting to come out of it...

so what are we going to look forward to from His Name is Alive next? Any more box sets?

W - we’re working on a fancy box set with 4ad but its a big secret.

not any more! you’ve just told everyone who’s listening to AV Deck

W - that’s all I’m gonna say, but its gonna be really good! I think its gonna be the best! Its about one third finished in term of the extra tracks and extensive liner notes