History Of Violens

Whilst their NY peers have been lauded as Brooklyn’s next big thing, VIOLENS have quietly set about making an album of space-pop brilliance. Harriet Gibsone finds a band ready for their turn in the spotlight.

Miami-born Jorge Elbrecht, Violens’ frontman, is currently sipping a double espresso so he can “hopefully be making complete sense” when The Fly speaks to him about the band’s debut album ‘Amoral’. That’s because this compulsive creator doesn’t really know when to stop. Despite being on the verge of releasing his debut album, which has followed a pretty unrelenting succession of mixtapes, remixes and EPs, he’s been working all night with a new Brooklyn band on their new album. “I get kind of like obsessive, it was that sort of clichéd studio behaviour, but I’m not really that good at hanging out, you know?” Ebrecht says. “My friends were like, ‘let’s go up state there’s a lake, we’ll go on a boat ride or go skiing’ and I’m like that sounds awesome but I’m going to be bored out of my mind! Sometimes I’ve had enough of sitting on front of a screen but the idea of locking myself in a cottage for two weeks is not appealing at all.” Forming in 2007, Jorge, accompanied by Iddo Arad (synths, vocals), Ben Brantley (bass) and Kris King (drums), Violens have taken a while to unveil their striking collection of chillingly eerie synth-pop, which fuses an 80s Prefab Sprout-y buoyancy with a romantic, gothic potency.

When they first appeared on the map, a host of acts from New York, or Brooklyn more specifically, were garnering much attention that encouraged critics to believe there was a new daring and organic school of young musicians being born from the area. But whilst Amazing Baby and Boy Crisis have fallen by the wayside and MGMT and Yeasayer have been propelled onto Radio1 playlists, Violens still remained in the wings, waiting for the wash of hype to pass. The singer, who currently dates Chairlift’s Caroline Polachek, is quick to point out the pros of being associated with such a wave. “Everyone I’ve talked to about the Brooklyn scene has had different thoughts on it. Some are like there’s definitely a scene and others are like I don’t know, it’s the media trying to create something,” Jorge admits. “And I think that media’s actually helped a lot of bands so it’s hard to say. In my personal experience I moved to Manhattan when a lot of that press happened. So I felt like we got kind of included but not really, but since I’ve moved back to Brooklyn a couple of months ago I just feel like hanging out and going to see shows. Going to see those bands I started working with and people who are in my neighbourhood – it feels like more of a team.” The album itself is stamped with Jorge’s incredibly slick production skills, and creates a synthetic melancholic glide on tracks like ‘Violent Sensation Descends’, whilst the shimmering, Marr-like guitars and pulsating Depeche Mode groove gives the album an immediate sombre and nightmarish impact. Is the subconscious state something that the band are particularly inspired by? “The thing with dreams they’re sort of a wild card – you can have a nightmare or an amazing dream. That channel you go into is appealing to me and it’s just such a rich source for art in general, like any kind of imagery.”

“The songs I’ve done that I like the most have happened in a half asleep state and songs like ‘Violent Sensation Descends’ happened when I was half asleep and the melody popped into my head. The idea that it’s floating around in the subconscious and grabbing it in some way – It just seems like as a songwriter it’s your duty to flag it down that way and do something with it.” Strange and unnervingly compelling, it’s your duty to own this album.

‘Amoral’ is released on Static Recital on October 4th