Interview: Best of Feelings
The cosmopolitan group Best of Feelings describes their new album Mild Myopia as a collection of songs that convey the state of blurriness one gets by moving from the outside summer light to a dark room. The album’s lyrical themes reflect this dizziness, covering gratefulness and thanksgiving, indifference to inner-city political upheaval, unfair distribution of wealth, mind-altering substances, distance in relationships, dreams of video game consoles, painful doubts, freeing your mind, conscious breathing, tavern drunkenness, and attraction to darkness.
The album was originally intended to be a messy collection of B-sides and outtakes but turned out more cohesive than expected. The magic is that all these disparate leftovers fit together almost by chance, like musical meatloaf. The band structured the meatloaf into three equal slices. The first slice is a selection of experimental home demos impossible to recreate in the studio. The second slice is a few digestible songs recovered from an overtly ambitious studio session in Barcelona. The third slice is composed of fresh off-the floor studio outtakes recorded in a garage on the outskirts of Seville. Any layer of the meatloaf can be swallowed first or last. Each leftover has pieces from the others as they were baked out of the same mould. This mould is Best of Feelings.
We had the pleasure of checking in with the band and they were kind enough to grant us an exclusive interview.
Hi Santiago, Michael, Gonzalo and Zef. What is Best of Feelings?
BOF is our little song-making bakery, originally consisting of the four of us, but always evolving and inviting others to join. We’re a morphing band of part-time musicians with a full-time passion for music making. We all come from different backgrounds and landscapes… Spain, France, Slovakia and North America.
How did you guys meet, such an international group?
Zef: Michael and I first met circa 2008 when we were both living in Montreal, our respective bands at the time were sharing a rehearsal space. There was a giant musk ox head mounted on the wall, from a real musk ox that someone hunted. We met under that beast’s head… A few years later we ended up playing live and recording in the project Harvest Soon. When I moved to Barcelona to be with my wife, I met Santi. We recorded demos in his late grandpa’s 8th-floor flat. It’s called Buels, a legendary place. I met Gonzalo soon after, he’s Santi’s cousin. Gouns is from Seville and we ended up recording there… three times. That sunshine really inspires!
Where do you record? How do you do it if you’re so far apart? Internet?
We very rarely collaborate online, I think it’s because we all work our day jobs online and prefer not to see computers or screens in our leisure time. So we prefer to do things analogue. I know, it’s not ecological, we fly a lot to be able to get together and record together at home and in studios. Mike has flown across the Atlantic 4 or 5 times, just to be able to play and record with BOF. He even made a calculation of our ecological footprint, there’s a video about it on our YouTube channel. When we choose a studio we prefer recording to tape and recording the bed tracks live off the floor. It’s way more fun that way and that special synergy is captured. For us it’s all about the experience.
When listening to your songs I hear a wide variety of influences, from ‘60 to ‘70 pop, to psychedelic, to dream pop. How would you describe your sound?
Zef: Well, we use mostly vintage gear and we always prefer recording to tape rather than digitally, so immediately there is that ‘60 or ‘70s texture… We’re big fans of music made in that era and when we compose or improvise those influences inevitably reverberate in our sound. We all grew up in different times and places but the Beatles are our middle ground, haha. I think we all wish we were living in those golden days for pop culture.
Mild Myopia is the title of the new LP. We’re living in times where lifting our eyes from our phones and computer screens is becoming less and less common. Is that what you are referring to?
Mike: It could be, but not entirely. The title comes from Zef’s brother Mat, a talented filmmaker and owner of the 5443 channel on Vimeo (check it out, it’s full of fake film trailers and nuggets about colourful Montreal characters). Mat also came up with the cover idea. He told us that back in Montreal he was making a series of abstract images by plugging his VHS camera into a projector and turning it towards the projection itself to get feedback visuals. This experiment created random patterns and the picture on our album cover is one of them. The picture conveys mild myopia, a slight alteration of vision, which could represent hallucinatory vision during a jam, or the squinting of the eyes from a setting sun in late summer heat, etc.
Best of Feelings, what is your favourite feeling?
Zef: One of my favourite feelings is that sense of focus and connectedness with your bandmates when you are improvising in the studio and something clicks… you’re all on the same wavelength, the rhythm becomes effortless, the melody and harmony flow without prior discussion and a feeling is born, maybe even a song is born.
Santi: Shitstate.
Mike: The best of feelings usually comes before or after the worst.
Gonzalo: Zzz…
What are the next steps for BOF?
Recording more music, getting together and having fun. This is just the tip of the iceberg, we have dozens of songs in the works and the ideas keep flowing… We don’t expect it to stop any time soon, we need BOF like we need sleep, haha. It’s the perfect escape from our 9 to 5 lives and we hope it inspires others to escape as well. Finding the time to rehearse a live set and perform some of these songs for people would be a dream come true. We’ll see where the future will take us.
Any concluding words?
We’d like to thank Fernando at Pancake Analog Studio (Dos Hermanas) for his patience with us and also Jose and Ismael at Aclam Studio (Barcelona) for their professionalism. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this album. Thanks to Nawal for the backing vocals on “When The Air Cools”, to the members of Karavana for vocals on “N64” and to Alexia for singing on “How To Be Free”. Last but not least, thanks to Mat for the album artwork.
Take every BOFfortunity to enjoy the good feelings in life and share them with others, whether it’s through music, other forms of art or just a good attitude. Have faith and patience and everything will work out. We usually go into the studio totally unprepared, and songs seem to emerge because we take this philosophy with us.
Have a listen and connect with Best of Feelings:
https://linktr.ee/bestoffeelingsmusic
