Following his Preaching from the Pews entry on the band, Bill Cummings gets close and personal with Mike Lee of Letting Up Despite Great Faults for GIITTV Introducing.
Hey, how’s it going? Why the moniker Letting Up Despite Great Faults?
It’s a bit verbose but I think it illustrated what I was feeling when I started this band. And now it is a great reminder to let go any insecurites I have.
Describe your band’s music in five words or less for those that have never heard of you?
Indie electronic washed melancholic hope
Do you have any musical reference points? I hear the ghosts of 80s indie titans The Cure, and dashes of early shoegaze alongside more modern synth meets low slung guitars and dreamy melodies from M83?
There are the obvious ones such as The Cure and M83, but also lots of indiepop like Velocity Girl and Club 8 and electronic like Boards of Canada and Boom Bip.
If you were stuck on a desert island or a particularly long car journey ,which five albums would you take with you?
I’ll tell you what cassette tapes I made for our very first US tour: The Breeders – Last Splash, Smashing Pumpkins – Saimese Dream, Feist – Let It Die, Papas Fritas – Buildings And Grounds, and something you’d never guess: MXPX – Life In General
One of your songs recently appeared on a facebook app; good way of getting your music to touch more people or a bit tacky? Discuss!
I think it’s a nice bit of exposure for us and I’m happy we got the chance to be part of that. I actually use both Spotify and Facebook so there wasn’t a huge disconnect.
Facebook or Twitter?
We use both and it can be difficult to compare. With the internet so accessible, I don’t really feel the need to be exclusive in social media.
Paper Crush is your first mini album release over here in the UK. Over what kind of period did these songs emerge? Did you head to a proper studio to buff them up?
I wrote all the songs about a year ago. There were lots of transitions happening in my life, and those were definitely a driving force for these songs. Luckily I have a small home studio so I can basically record as I write. A lot of things you here are first takes.
There’s a hanging sense of niavety, disappointment, longing and unrequited love of the past that permeates the tracks I’ve heard. How wide off the mark am I here?
There’s a lot of all those that’s for sure. But I hope to not come off as too down, I think things usually work out ok, or at least your outlook can be changed to make things work for you. We all go through peaks and valleys, it’s probably just that I like writing more when I’m in a valley.
Teenage Tide and Sophia in Gold are the first tracks leaked out to the UK listening public. How do they differ?
They’re about different things. Sophia is being judged for who she is and she has to learn that perception shouldn’t affect her or she might be making the wrong choices. Teenage Tide is more nostalgic in sentiment and, at least for me, in sound as well.
How does the rest of the mini album shape up?
I don’t know how it will be perceived, but I tried to make it somewhat dynamic, though overall it’s a probably a little noisy. It’s all pretty upbeat, I wonder if you can hear some sense of urgency in it. I think I sometimes find it hard for me to take a step back and rest. I think it requires a ton more effort from me to write a slow, quiet song.
What are your plans? Tour? Album? Anything else?
Some extensive touring next year as well as a new full length album which should also be next year. We’re putting on the finishing touches to the album right now, but once that’s done I might start doing a few remixes that are waiting on my table. I always have fun with those so I’m looking forward to that.
