More than a year and a half ago, Worst Case Scenarios, the debut album by The Kiss That Took A Trip, saw the light of day on the internet and as a physical release too. It was a difficult record: long, spacey, dissonant, and a mix of pop and dark which purportedly avoided gothic territory in favor of slow and meditative adult rock. It had a moderately successful response, with lead single Hi, America! reaching heterogenic audiences, and subsequent single Google the one you love going more off-radar (largely to its only digital release). It was, unexpectedly, the non-single track This is the furthest I’ve been from you which took the record from almost total obscurity to a broader audience. His post-rock structures and clean sound saw the song sonorize diverse clubs around Europe to the perplexity of his creator, and put the name of the project on the musical map. Now, when the second album is starting to shape up on the horizon (an early 2011 release is planned), we’ve taken some time to chat with The Kiss That Took A Trip’s only member, the elusive individual publicly known as Patuquitos.
Q: Last time we talked to you, we could tell it was the moment you were excited the most about a project. Do you have that feeling again?
A: Yes. I cannot dissociate excitement from an album release. It would be a horrific symptom if I was going to put something out and I was just ‘oh, ok’ about it. This is one of the hardest parts of the project: having it done and wait.
Q: So… what point is the process in right now?
A: Apart from minor mixing and equalizing corrections, it’s totally done. So we’re basically thinking about the proper artwork and presentation. It’s a tedious work. I mean, it’s a tedious work to get the thing printed and burned. Artwork design is a really exciting task, on the contrary.
Q: Next question is mandatory: how does The Dummy Family compare to Worst Case Scenarios?
A: That’s a tough question, because it really depends on the day. Sometimes I think about them as similar albums, and some days I see major differences. This album has less tension. It’s looser, it’s more effortless, and has found a reinvigorating way of building clean midtempo songs. At the same time, it has really fuzzy moments. I think it’s a slight progression from the previous album in terms of musical structures and arrangements, but a notable departure in terms of recording quality.
Q: It’s your first recording using more professional tools, ain’t it?
A: Yeah. The Kiss moved to Mac last year (makes victory sign) and it’s been a blast. I think that everybody should expect a lot of exciting things from this band in the future. All in all, the improvement is not still evident in this album, though. The reason behind it is the large amounts of work that had been done previous to the change of technology. I had to work really hard to translate the whole of it, and even after that sweaty labour some songs still carried vices from the past. I could’ve made the record from scratch, but the price would’ve been ridiculously high. Both time and effort. The real treat should be the next release.
Q: Did you feel you had to validate yourself with this album? Did Worst Case Scenarios reach the level of success you expected?
A: Hmmmm. In a sense, yes, I did. While I was proud of the record as it came out, it’s true that I had to fight too many circumstances not in my control, and that hurt the album a bit. Strange as it may seem, that weakness permeates the record and gives it an extra charm that I’m sure some people like. When I started writing for The Dummy Family, I was ready to feel the mighty pressure of the second album, but the songs came easy. Awkwardly easy, in fact. So I got rid of that need for validation very soon. Since the very beginning, I was anxious for people to hear the new songs.
Q: First you conceived The Dummy Family as an album. Later, as a series of EPs. And after that, you changed your mind again and went back to the album format. What was going inside your head at the time?
A: With regard to the EPs idea… I fell victim to my own impatience. I mean, it’s not like I chopped the tracklist in two halves and that’s it. There was a real concept behind each of the EPs, so I toyed with the plan of releasing them separately, so I could start showing the stuff. It was later that I realized I was going to sacrifice a lot of things doing it that way, and that the album meant more than the sum of its parts. I just told myself there was no hurry and stuck to the original plan. Plus, I went through a really inspired period that gave the album option a lot of weight.
Q: Any surprises the listener might encounter? Anything special to look forward to?
A: While there’s nothing really striking and the overall sound fits comfortably among the rest of the songs I’ve published, I’ve tried to create a sense of non-familiarity altering other parameters in a subtler way.
Q: For instance?
A: Track sequence. It’s a bit of an uncommon tracklist order that really works for me. There’s a couple of very short orchestral arrangements that are not as minimal as people might expect from me, too. And there are more prominent effects this time around, although never falling prey to effectism, I hope. It’s an album that can be listened in one sitting. Time flies by. There is not one song breaking the flow. I’m specially proud of this album’s trademark epic song, because it doesn’t feel like an interruption. Oh, and it kicks ass too…
Q: Talking about flow. Can we talk this time about a concept, too? You said in many occasions that Worst Case Scenarios was a loose concept album.
A: Yes, because I’ve always liked it that way. Albums merely collecting songs lack something. On the other side of the spectrum, pure concept albums take the risk of submitting the music to an idea, and I’ve always thought that approach definitely hurts the music. The Dummy Family feels like a bunch of songs to the ear, but they share an spirit of false happiness that works as the basis of what I’m trying to talk about, which is the concept of family nowadays. But I’m not being preachy about what’s family and what’s not. That’s an old sterile debate. I’m putting family on the table as a tool for control. Nothing puts you in a more submissive state than founding a family. I’m not saying, by any means, that this should prevent you from doing it, but I want people to think about the price they’ll pay before they commit. I see useless families every day that tie us all to the big machine. Their decision to found a family is affecting me in unconceivable ways, so I have the right to complain and be bitchy about it.
Q: Isn’t it a tad too specific theme?
A: It sounds specific because it’s an example. In the end, it’s all about control. Laws, the internet, big companies… (throws hands in the air). Also, I know it sounds paranoid. But I see it very fucking day.
Q: The need to convey a political message is still strong, then?
A: Well, it is, but… I’ve grown increasingly frustrated with it, because it’s pretty difficult, specially when you produce instrumental music. It’s not about possessing more or less ability to get the point across, but more about the effort/outcome ratio… I don’t know about it. The current state of the world is an inexhaustible source of dismay, and while not long ago that was the fuel for trying, now I perceive that as demoralizing. Lately I’ve been wondering whether I should make music to put my drop of water in the sea of change or to make the apocalypse more tolerable… (chuckles). I might ditch the political shit in the future, I just don’t know. Time will tell.
Q: Now that you mention your struggles with it, I have to ask you about the G. W. Bush clip we can find on the song Pillars of creation. Excuse the question but, isn’t it a little passé? I mean, there’s hardly a band with an interest in politics that hasn’t been already here…
A: You’re forgiven…
Q: Thank you.
A: That’s one of the classic Kiss comfort zones. I take great delight in rescuing any element that has just become an off trend and throw it to the audience to wait for the reaction. I like putting those speech clips out of context, and when I say out of context, I mean in a different time from when they would really be expected. Listening to G. W. Bush talk about their wish not to impose their view on other countries was outrageous in their time, but listening to it today, when the Iraq war has just ended (makes a funny face) and our little G. W. is not everybody’s favorite target, it renders itself as more insightful because that imposing of US views on other countries has indeed materialized, although not in the ways the ex-president was referring to. Just take a look at the European Union, it’s on the brink of turning into a big republican bad joke. I’m sure many people will go ‘Hey, ex-president Bush?, gotta be kidding me, that’s so 2004…’. It happens everytime. People get blinded by the surface of things, and if it’s a trend thing, you get the effect threefold.
Q: I don’t know if that makes you totally uninterested in style. I know you hate trends, but what about style?
A: The real problem is that, sooner or later, the style becomes trend. Period. I’ve seen styles like post-rock, which has been a huge influence on me, enter a stinky decadence that depresses the hell out of me.
Q: Wow, it’s a little unexpected from you to diss the post-rock movement…
A: Not at all. It became a joke years ago. In fact, when I wrote This is the furthest I’ve been from you I thought about scraping it.
Q: Really?
A: Yes, really. I thought it was too Mogwai in that moment.
Q: Why did you release it, then?
A: Because after multiple listens I started detaching it from the post-rock tag. It had personality and a very effective simplicity. The intertwining plucking guitars kind of tricked me into thinking it was something it wasn’t 100%. It’s post-rock, yes, but it’s not a lame copycat of anything. There’s an epic tune in The Dummy Family, the one I talked about before, called Birth and death of Jonah Two, which is very post-rock, but it definitely escapes from the clichés of the genre. My relation with post-rock is very loose nowadays, you have to stretch the tag a lot to suit The Kiss’ music. Although a few bands that usually find themselves categorized as post-rock mean the world to me, the movement is rotten today. It’s a parody. If you want to form a post-rock band it’s annoyingly easy: name yourselves As We Watch The Skies In Awe or The Earthquake Woke Me Up or something like that, pile guitar arpeggios upon guitar arpeggios just for the sake of it and find a drummer who masters martial style. That’s it. No more, no less. It’s so tepid. No aims but looking deep and coming up with longer song titles than your rivals.
Q: That was funny, but are you totally serious?
A: (Nods) Dead serious, man. It’s heartbreaking when you see collapsing something you loved so much, it’s… (interrupts himself) I’ve sometimes regretted choosing The Kiss That Took A Trip as the name of the project, because now, in perspective, it sounds too much like those bands, when it’s just an homage to Acid Mothers Temple, y’know.
Q: Let’s change the subject. Weeks ago you blogged about having many projects in the works. How true is that?
A: It’s true, but it’ll be demanding. Let’s hope I can keep up with them. It’s true that I have an EP in the works, one I referred to as ‘ambitious’ in that blog. It’ll sure come out, sooner or later, but I just don’t know when. It’s a project I don’t want to focus on. I work on it when I have the time and I feel like it. So when it’s done, it’ll come out. No hurries. It’s hard because it’s something I had never tried before, so I’m sort of learning as I write it. At the same time, yes, I’m working on another entry of Always in the wrong mood. And I’ll need help with that one. If I don’t get it, it might get cancelled. Or just delayed.
Q: May I go off topic and ask you about your other ‘band’, Victorian Bug?
A: Absolutely, because it’s getting bigger than I ever saw coming. Things are on a roll in the Victorian Bug camp right now. I’m about to experiment heavily with maths applied to music, as you’ll know by now. But before that, there’ll be time for one last recording session which I’m putting the final touches on. When the major work for The Dummy Family came to an end, I felt joyous and playful, so I ended pouring myself in new Victorian Bug tracks overnight. Just fun tracks. Nothing groundbreaking. Good old macabre noise fun. I think that Victorian Bug will increase The Kiss’ longevity. It gives me many much needed breaks.
Q: With that many projects.. how do you envision the future for The Kiss?
A: I’m not stupid. I’m wise enough to see a change is needed. In rock, if you keep still for more than six years… you’re history. There are gazillions of bands out there who can kick your ass. And they were born yesterday. I’m proud of having churned a decent number of releases under a distinctive style. But I think I can offer much more. Now I have the technology, a name, and the expectations, so I don’t see why should I stop here or why should I repeat myself. Life is too fucking short.
Q: Well, thanks a lot for your time.
A: You’re welcome.
![[untitled]](http://imgjam.com/albums/s25/25323/covers/1.50.jpg)
![[untitled]](http://imgjam.com/albums/s21/21399/covers/1.50.jpg)