Very few music projects that get their start in high school, college or university stand the test of time and so when one does, you can be sure there’s something worth digging further into. This is the case with Charlie’s Hand Movements, the Essex-based duo Lance Keeble and Adam Gardner, who have been making music together ever since meeting at art college in 2005. Over the years, they’ve stayed true to their DIY roots by writing, recording and producing all of their own releases at home. Now, their onto their fifth album, Somethingism, an eleven-track record that was specially designed for vinyl pressing; as such, Keeble and Gardner distilled their usually sprawling and expansive psych-pop sound into more concise packages. This refined approach doesn’t mean that they’ve lost any of their existentialist art-rock magic, but rather it’s given the album a more focused vision. In fact, chaos still plays an important role in Somethingism as a counterbalance to the more intimate and introspective aspects of the duo’s songwriting. From vibrant pop-leaning opener ‘W D E K O’ through to folky ‘Ghost’ to ambient ‘Biological Timebombs’ and reflective closer ‘Endless Loop’, this album effortlessly moves through different sonic elements and themes, while keeping an instinctive, melodic core. Whether you’ve come across Charlie’s Hand Movements before through their momentous Nuclear Tapes, with all of its thirty-eight tracks, or recent release Heavy Days, we urge you to set some time aside today to dive headfirst into Somethingism. To help you along your journey, we caught up with Keeble and Gardner to discuss their decades-long creative partnership, their voracious appetite for sonic experimentation, how the vinyl format can shape an album and what it means to trust the process.
Welcome to Unrecorded! For those who aren’t already familiar with Charlie’s Hand Movements, can you introduce yourself?
Lance Keeble: We’re Charlie’s Hand Movements, we formed in 2005 after meeting in art college. We’re a psych pop/art rock duo with a mutual love of the album format, and have just released our fifth album, Somethingism.
Congratulations on the release of your album! How would you describe Somethingism in three words?
LK: Instinctive, ethereal and propulsive.
This is your fifth album under this project, so how do you think your approach to songwriting and recording has changed since your debut record?
LK: We’ve evolved considerably from our early work, working with more intricate textures and bolder melodies.
Adam Gardener: Yeah, I think we’ve naturally evolved a kind of shorthand between us and a way of working that only really comes from experience. Trying and failing mainly. I’d like to think the stuff we do now is objectively better than stuff from the first thing, but it’s all important. I very much believe that you learn a lot from getting things wrong, and we’ve got a lot of things wrong.
Something that defines this album is that it was planned out with vinyl already in mind. In what ways does it impact your choices?
LK: Choosing shorter, more succinct songs was at the forefront. Considering the two-side format was important too, the first side comprising of more pop-oriented tracks, the second more introspective and languid.
AG: We definitely subscribe to the belief that the sequencing and flow of the songs isn’t a secondary thing. Thinking of vinyl specifically, it gives you clear parameters to work within, and offers opportunities and barriers that are different from just throwing everything together. We’ve been prone to allowing projects to get out of hand in the past, so this was a way of keeping things lean.
At the core of Somethingism is seemingly a contradiction between “quiet intimacy and chaotic noise”, so was this always the intention or did this arise organically?
LK: I’d say it arised organically, it was just the way the cards fell. We had both written songs that fell into those categories, it was just a case of getting the running order right, flitting between the two.
Of all the tracks, is there one that is the most subdued and one that is more turbulent?
LK: ‘The Dice’ is a very lean, minimalist cut, certainly subdued. Turbulent would be ‘White Noise’, with its detuned fuzz riffs and icy vocals.
Although you describe your sound as psych-pop, there’s much more sonic diversity in the album than that, from the bouncing pop-rock of ‘W D E K O’ to the indie-folk undertones of ‘Ghosts’ to the ambient existentialism of ‘Biological Timebombs’. Do your listening tastes also reflect this voyage through varied genre elements?
LK: We’ve never been ones to stick to a particular sound. We like keeping the listener guessing. We listen to a lot of different music, and like each song to have its own sonic identity.
Thinking of closing track ‘Endless Loop’, with its sunny 2010s indie vibe, does this anthem about life’s inevitability indicate anything about the future of Charlie’s Hand Movements?
LK: I’ve always thought the last track of an album should indicate where the artist is goi ng next. ‘Endless Loop’ presented some challenges which I think we overcame, trusting the process and leaning on our experience to find the spark in the song. We’ll take that into our next record.
What else do you hope listeners will take away from Somethingism?
LK: I hope listeners give it time and listen to the full record on good speakers or headphones. Thematically it’s ruminations on the modern human condition, but with a sprinkling of hope that seeps through.
You can also find closing track ‘Endless Loop’ in our Outsiders Club playlist.
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