Interview: Philco Fiction

Published on October 1st, 2012 | Jonny Abrams

Rocksucker was really quite taken with the barmy, ornate electro-pop of Philco Fiction’s debut album Take It Personal, so Rocksucker fired over some questions to frontlady Turid Solberg – her of the “seductively intense vocals” as described in our review of the LP – to find out a little bit more about how the Oslo three-piece operate.

These guys are playing a Rough Trade East in-store on Tuesday 9th October and then at the Old Blue Last the following day, so if you’re a Londoner who happens to love convergences of lush sophistication and borderline bonkers electronic melodrama…well, you know what to do. Check out this choice cut from Take It Personal and see if we’re not right…

Congratulations on an excellent debut album! Have you started thinking about your next one yet, or is it way too early to be asking that?

Thank you! The future is on time and new music is on our mind. We’ve started to experiment with sounds and sculptures, and we are crazy excited about it.

What, if anything, is the album’s title a reference to?

Gang Starr’s song by the very same name, and personal taste.

How do your songs tend to come together? Do you start with a melody, or a backing track, or even a lyric? How do you divide up the songwriting duties?

“The songwriting duties” – haha, I like that..And we are 10 years old again. We used to vacuum the living room for pocket money, now we vacuum music. We love our new duties. It can start with either of those three elements. But the melody is the mountain. New rules tomorrow.

There are a few references to eating and drinking across the album. Was this intentional?

Yes. How to prevent digestive diseases. Make music. Share Music. Listen to music. Drink water. Soul Kitchen.

Whose idea was the ‘wedding’ video for “Finally”? And indeed the military-themed video for “I Want You”?

A shout out to photographer Simon Skreddernes. The idea came to Andreas, Simon and Turid Alida on a sweet ‘n’ dark Saturday night in January this year. The next Sunday we arranged a wedding out in the woods close to where Turid Alida grew up. A small tragedy within the family. David Laurie was the brain behind the “I Want You” video, in deep collaboration with Google.

How did you enjoy meeting Snoop Dogg’s hologram? Was he a nice hologram? And how about his lion?

Oh, we enjoyed it very much thank you. It was all reggae and blues.

Are you fans of Mew, in particular their Frengers album? Parts of Take It Personal remind me of it/them…

Maybe we are, but we don’t know it! Must admit we haven’t listened to their music that much.

Have you heard Team Me’s To the Treetops! album from earlier this year? If so, what do you think of it?

“Show Me” is a beautiful piece of work. We shared stage with them at SXSW this year. Love the energy. Great people!

Philco Fiction… Bananas (Img: Sebastien Dehesdin)

Are there any obscure and/or up-and-coming artists that you’d like to recommend or give a shout-out to?

Ok, let’s talk local heroes. I think a lot of people are already shouting out. But Susanne Sundfør is ready to rule the world. She’s an amazing artist. And Deathcrush, Cold Mailman, Lars Vaular, Sandra Kolstad, Ontz, Shining, DU, Splashgirl & Maribel. Small country, many lovers.

Finally, if you had to spend the rest of your days in solitary confinement, with just the entire back catalogues of five different musical artists for company, whose would you choose?

Tom Waits, Michael Jackson, Olivier Messianen. Oh, this is too crazy difficult for a Sunday morning. Jack-in-the-box for those last two. Solitary surprise. Let’s hope it’s not Anastacia.

Take It Personal is out now on Brilliance Records. For more information, please visit philcofiction.com

The band will play a Rough Trade East in-store on Tuesday 9th October, followed the next day by a show at The Old Blue Last in Shoreditch. Click here for more information on these events.

Artists: philco fiction

About the Author

Jonny Abrams Editor of Rocksucker and the website's founder, Jonny is passionate about the music he listens to, both good and bad, as well as interviewing his favourite musicians.