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NZCA Lines is a British synthpop band founded by multi-instrumentalist, Michael Lovett. His third album, Pure Luxury was released on July 10, 2020 via Memphis Industries. The new album release trails earlier material that found Lovett performing at Glastonbury Festival, opening for the likes of Connan Mockasin and Django Django as well as performing guitar/synthesiser on the Christine and the Queens’ recorded material – most recently on the ‘People, I’ve been sad’ single as well as on the debut LP.
Hello Michael! The last time I saw you it was Thanksgiving! A lot has happened since then, how are you finding being in America during this time? Hi Heather! Wow yes – that was quite a feast I do recall. It feels like centuries ago now … I was in the middle of Metronomy’s UK/EU tour for Metronomy Forever, and I’d popped over to NYC for a week to see my girlfriend (now wife!). So, we actually got married in March, in Austin – just before everything went south. Thankfully the wedding went without a hitch (that’s not a pun), and we did some more promo stuff as a band, but a week later when we were preparing to leave for London, everything had to be cancelled. With everything being so uncertain – and not wanting to fly – we decided to stay in NYC. It’s been mad, to be honest, as I’m sure you’ll know. The main problem was being in this dangerous situation and there being no access to things like sanitiser, masks, plus being in a city like NYC that’s so dense. However, what’s been amazing is seeing how seriously New Yorkers ended up taking the situation, and the amount of solidarity that still exists there even though everything’s calmed down a lot.
Tell me about your time in the USA…My home is still in the UK, I’ve visited NYC a lot over the past few years, because of touring but mainly because of this long-distance relationship! I’ve also been to LA a couple of times for writing/producing sessions. It’s been great spending this time in America – especially during these very transformative and tumultuous years on both sides of the Atlantic. As a musician you’re able to absorb things from your experience that take a while to process, but that ultimately come out in your music. I’ve also found the experience quite freeing … like having this connection to a new environment so far from home helped me be myself more, somehow.
“When I think of pure luxury,
I think of penthouse suites,
rooftop pools … these things
don’t bring happiness”
You’ve been quite active on social media, performing sessions – how have you been staying creative during this time? I was already thinking about the necessity of doing live sessions and interacting more through Instagram before the pandemic hit Europe and the US, so I started doing live streams pretty much immediately. Initially, they were quite lo-fi, just the phone’s mic, a drum machine and a keyboard, then eventually I got some proper influencer gadgets and upped the production value. I really enjoyed this process, especially connecting to people during this specific time, chatting with fans of my music and friends who happened to watch the streams. Because I’ve been working up to the release of Pure Luxury since late March, my time has been focused on rehearsing/performing music and generally getting the release together, as well as figuring out music videos in ‘COVID times’. It’s a full-time job! That’s where the creativity has been focused – I find it hard to start a new project until I’ve released the record, so now I’m looking forward to writing more. It’s definitely been helpful having this work to get on with during this period though – I might have gone mad without it.
What are you foreseeing for the future of the live music scene, post pandemic? That’s a big question! Obviously, I wish everything could just return to normal, like nothing ever happened. This is very unlikely. I know the UK is about to start some concerts (in August) so we’ll get a sense of what’s happening. But having just taken a flight from JFK to Heathrow, everything felt so far from normal, I can’t imagine resuming the touring life I’ve lived for the past six years particularly soon. Live music is a feast of contamination! But part of me also wonders whether we’re being overly fatalistic. Seeing how relaxed people seem to be in England right now – everyone wants to ‘get back to normal’, so maybe the gigs will too. It will all depend on whether infections rise again.
“but ultimately the game is up,
and people will eventually see
you for what you truly are.”
What does ‘Pure Luxury’ mean to you? It’s such a strange phrase to me. It signifies something we are supposed to desire, which in itself as a signifier of success, achievement … but at the same time, it’s so vulgar. When I think of pure luxury, I think of penthouse suites, rooftop pools … these things don’t bring happiness. In particular, I think of that photo of Nigel Farage shaking hands with Donald Trump in front of his gold door. Does anyone know if that door is actually gold? Solid gold? Just gold plated? Or maybe it’s just imitation gold? Either way, it represents their insecurity. Also, the phrase is an oxymoron. There’s nothing pure about luxury.
In relation to ‘Larsen’ – “the world was seemingly being hijacked by liars only interested in serving themselves and their rich friends” – what message do you have for any ‘rich liars’ that may be reading this…There is a limit to the amount of shit people will take … as younger generations become more educated and grow up with different expectations, they will bring to an end the world which your empires are built upon. You might be trying to squeeze the last drops of profit from the old sources, but ultimately the game is up, and people will eventually see you for what you truly are.
What are the main music and sound influences for Pure Luxury? A wide range of stuff … I’ve read some people mentioning Beck, and this is definitely an inspiration for the record, in particular, ‘Midnite Vultures’. I guess it’s that late 90s sound where people were putting together these really eclectic productions, at the border of analog and digital, so it’s really hi-fi and studio-quality, yet also way too detailed to have been recorded on tape. Cornelius is another example of this. I wanted to really study the way those albums were put together, the crunchy drum sounds, the amount of space everything has and the drama that comes with playing around the stereo field of a recording. However, I was also listening to a lot of the music that they were referencing (and sampling) such as extended disco 12” records, Shep Pettibone 80s mixes, stuff like Evelyn Champagne King and Sister Sledge, p-funk stuff, early 90s hip hop like Camp Lo. I became really interested in the idea that you could make an album inspired by this sample-heavy music, yet include tracks that themselves could have been sampled to make those tracks .. if that makes sense. ‘For Your Love’ is an example of that. The strings in ‘Primp & Shine’ are actually based on a sample from my track ‘Okinawa Channels’, off my first album.
Listening to the album, it sounds like there’s a nod to disco. I’ve heard a lot of people say they’ve been listening to disco music during the pandemic, why do you think this is? I’ve always wanted to make some music that references disco – it’s such a fun, satisfying genre. That’s interesting more people have been listening to it during the pandemic – I guess it’s just a very enjoyable style, no strings attached (ha! another pun!), it’s about pure sensory enjoyment and the lyrics are generally about love. That’s quite reassuring.
Something I often think about is censorship – do you find this affect your work at all? Hmm, that’s an interesting question. I’ve never thought about this, but I guess … making this album in particular, I was trying to censor myself much less than previous albums. Usually, there’d be this voice (whether internal or the voice of a collaborator) warning me off doing certain things, saying certain things in lyrics .. certain musical ideas that might be ‘cheesy’ or ‘too much’. There’s a lot of fear wrapped around that approach. Obviously, we have to remain self-critical when creating something – I’m definitely very self-critical – but for this album, I wanted to allow myself any impulse that came along. Often this would be pushing myself to try something bolder. In the case of lyrics, it’s meant Pure Luxury has some very emotionally open songs that I’d have been afraid to release on previous albums.
The visuals are so fun! Talk to me about the visual process for Pure Luxury…Thanks! I’ve always placed a lot of importance on the visuals for my music – I directed the video for ‘New Atmosphere’, and have always been heavily involved in the videos and artwork – but for this album, I really wanted a complete break with what I’d done before. The music I’d made really felt colourful to me, and also that I needed to place myself in the centre of it like I hadn’t before. For the artwork, I had this idea for a ‘trash man’ which I sketched out, I loved the idea of referencing these 70s/80s album covers with a suave singer reclining, but then subverting it. I was super lucky to work with Aleksandra Kingo on the whole shoot – her style totally gels with what I wanted, and she has this amazing team who pushed the concept way further than I could have imagined. It’s the first time I’ve done a proper shoot for myself actually … with a stylish, hair & makeup .. retouching! In terms of the ‘Pure Luxury’ video, I’d always imagined the song with a kind of 1960s go-go dancer backing, but then had some ideas for the video concept and developed this with director Alina Rancier (my wife), who again helped transform it into something I couldn’t have imagined. For this album I set out saying ‘I need to be dancing in the videos’… I’m not a dancer at all, but we managed to get me moving somehow. Luckily we have amazing, talented friends who helped us bring ‘Pure Luxury’ to life, but it was a labour of love. Me and Alina moved all the lighting rigging ourselves in a U-Haul. It’s very DIY.
Lets’ revert back to simpler times…tell me about your early life, your life/career journey to where you are at present… Ah, simpler times. I grew up in Devon, which is a very pastoral county in England, all green rolling hills, clotted cream and sheep. My childhood was pretty idyllic in that sense. I went to a Rudolf Steiner School until I was 12, which is an alternative school-based around the anthroposophical teaching of Steiner, so you basically spend a lot of time outside, drawing and building things. It can get a bit weird, but I value my time there. Fun fact: Ruban Nielson from Unknown Mortal Orchestra sends his kids to one, and the Multi-Love font is the Steiner font (also called Walford). I played in various bands growing up, and went to art school with the specific intention of meeting musicians because I figured the only good bands had met at art school. I went to Falmouth, then Edinburgh College of Art and Camberwell College of Art in London, and I sort of achieved my goal – I met some amazing musicians and lifelong friends, but ironically it took me moving to London and playing in my brother Gabriel’s band Your Twenties to meet Charlie Alex March, with whom I made my first two NZCA LINES albums. We were housemates first, and through that started working on some songs I had from my indie band days, turning them into something else. Through being in that environment I ended up recording with Christine & The Queens on her first album through my friend Ash Workman, who produced and mixed it, and then joining Metronomy as a live member and now full-member. Joe (Metronomy) is from Devon too, and they needed an extra pair of hands on the Love Letters tour – luckily he thought I’d be up to the job! I feel very fortunate I’ve somehow been able to make music my life, at least so far.
“I sort of achieved my goal
– I met some amazing
musicians and lifelong friends”
What has been a pivotal moment(s) in your life/career? I think deciding to leave the Fine Art degree I was studying in Edinburgh and move to London was a pretty major step. That enabled every opportunity I’ve had since, really – but in terms of pivotal moments, being invited to record with Christine & The Queens, who was then pretty much unknown, and to be asked to play with Metronomy are obviously life-changing events. Moving in with Charlie too – without him, I don’t think I’d ever have made a first album. In terms of a single event having a lasting impact though, it might have to be playing SXSW in Austin, 2013 with NZCA LINES. I met Alina there, and we started our (insane!) long-distance relationship. As I said, we got married this year – in Austin! It was beautiful. Really I owe it all to the PRS Foundation in the UK – we only went to SXSW because they gave us funding.
“For this album, I needed
to try pushing myself to complete
something mostly alone”
Pure Luxury is written and produced almost entirely by you, do you prefer solo working? For this album, I needed to try pushing myself to complete something mostly alone, probably on some level to prove to myself I could do it. That’s never a great reason. Despite doing most of this work solo, I’ve actually received a lot of help in terms of outside feedback and advice which has been invaluable to making the album. Despite not being directly involved, Charlie gave me some feedback early on that was super important in terms of finding a direction. I do love working solo in the sense that you are your own obstacle, and I’ve undoubtedly grown through the process of making Pure Luxury. But you always need some outside input – always.
How important is collaboration to you, and in what ways do you collaborate? I think ultimately collaboration is invaluable – working with other people can take you places you never dreamed of. It can also be frustrating, of course. I was in a band in my early 20s called Taking Tiger Mountain with some good friends of mine, and we were all writing music – it was very creative, and lots of the music was good. But it was difficult to focus, and the diplomacy sometimes watered things down. Ultimately I quite like it when bands are dictatorships. I’m quite comfortable in Metronomy knowing that Joe makes all the music, because he excels at that and it’s his vision. My relationship with Charlie worked for making NZCA LINES music because we each had a different skillset, and he could temper or expand upon my ideas. Pure Luxury works, I believe, because I’ve been able to pursue my vision throughout the whole process – however, in this instance you need to become your own worst critic, and that be painful at times. I’ve done some producing and writing with other artists, and that can be wonderful, often because of the sheer speed – you can come up with one or two songs in a day, whilst by myself I might take weeks!
How do you get into your creative flow? I find that I need some kind of a crutch or foil to get started – this might be a new piece of equipment, a new way of working, or simply a time limit. It can be tricky at first to keep going when something isn’t immediately ‘good’, but you need to give yourself that space. I think so long as I feel like I know what I’m doing, I won’t make something good – there needs to be an element of adventure and discovery, otherwise, there won’t be any excitement.
Talk to me about feeling ‘stuck’ – does this ever happen to you? How do you overcome it? Yes of course, I think it happens to everyone. I can feel really awful at times. Often the solution is to take a break, maybe exercise, perhaps take some time off. Other times it’s setting a schedule. At one point in the process of writing Pure Luxury, I was trying to make one thing a day. Just a thing – it didn’t have to be good, but I had to be able to listen back to it. Some of them were crap, but some of them turned into songs I used for the album.
Do you feel completely free to create the music and work that you desire? I believe I do, yes, and I’m lucky in that respect. However, that desire could also be to make a cynical pop song that panders to every cliche in the book! I’m in a position where I’m releasing music on an independent label with small budgets, and everything is quite DIY – although I try to make it seem as un-DIY as possible – and the plus side to this is creative freedom. I can pretty much do whatever I want, especially in terms of the visuals. Musically, I do still feel the pressure to write music that could be played on the radio, but that’s not a bad thing. I like a challenge. The song ‘Pure Luxury’ was originally about 5mins long, and I had to do some difficult editing to make it radio-friendly, but I think that made it a better track.
What’s your favorite part of the process? I think the moment when you’re working on something new and it’s so exciting that you’re kind of high – that’s the best part. So long as you can capture that, everything else will ultimately be ok.
Who’s your biggest influence, and why? I don’t think there’s one artist who I could say has singularly influenced me the most. Over time I have gained insight and inspiration from Scritti Politti, Prince, Phoenix, Daft Punk, David Bowie and David Byrne, alongside directors like Wim Wenders and Chris Marker.
“Be nice whenever you can,
and treat others as you’d
want to be treated yourself.”
What advice can you offer other musicians and artists regarding making their practice profitable? It’s very difficult to make an artistic practice profitable! I’m fortunate that in addition to my own projects I also tour with an established band, so there has been some stability of income there. However – COVID obviously put an end to that, at least for the moment. I think being versatile is very important – if you’re a musician, learn how to produce and record yourself. That way, you can make music for film/tv/advertising from home, and produce for yourself and other artists, when you can’t earn money playing live.
What advice would you give your younger self? Don’t worry so much about what other people think!
What’s the most interesting fact that you discovered recently? There’s this parasitic fungus called cordyceps. It grows inside a host animal, such as an ant, eventually taking control of that animal’s limbs and forcing it to climb up to a specific height facing a specific direction, whereupon the fungus kills its host. Spores then grow out of the ant and poof! They scatter over the ground and plant more cordyceps. It’s crazy – it’s like the fungus is sentient.
What emotions do you aim to evoke when people experience your work? I think excitement, joy, wistfulness, introspection. I’d be happy if they experience those emotions.
What’s your philosophy for life? I’ve been thinking hard about this, and I guess ultimately it’s simple: be nice whenever you can, and treat others as you’d want to be treated yourself.
