Farflung

Farflung is a space rock band from USA with a long history and many albums. I got in touch with them. Tommy Grenas and Michael Esther answered my questions.

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Your biography has been covered in your ProgArchives profile so let's bypass the biography details. But why did you choose that name and which bands were you influenced by ?

Esther: The name Farflung is still a bit of a mystery even to us.......it involved a very late night and a pack of playing cards some black Tea..........

Influences...... there are so many... from Psych to Punk to beyond......

Grenas:  You know I think it fits perfectly with the lyrical and etherial content.  I have  no recollection of the origin. Maybe it named itself?

Please tell us more about your first album 25,000 Feet Per Second from 1995

Grenas:  Go in bang it out in a couple of days. Before the luxury of protools. It can't get more raw than that. It's almost a live lp in some ways. We had a lot of fun at the birthing.

Esther:  I remember this being a very enjoyable session..... We were on a very tight budget. We recorded the album over dubs and all in one weekend consisting of two 12 hour sessions. it was recorded byTom Grimley at Poop Alley.

Please tell us more about your second album Raven That Ate The Moon from 1996

Esther:  This one is a bit of a blur to me...... ........ heavier sh*t started to creep in ...... but I must say I listened to the album for the first time in years before we left for Roadburn last year and I thought it really captured the moment that we were in...... dystopic, heavey....... hahha!

Grenas:  Same again but as Michael said,there was a lot of brain expansion and murkey voyages.... that one was pretty stream of consienceness. Strange times.  

Please tell us more about your third album The Belief Module from 1998

Esther:  If things were heavy around the time of The Raven they were heavier during The Belief Module..... We took more time recording this album but were limited by the equipment we were recording on.....I think though that in the end that is the charm of the record.

Grenas: In a record store in Ventura with proprieter and lowfi extraordiaire casey staples. The situation was again live and budget and very loose ideas. The store held a cashe of interesting noisemakers and devices used in the sessions....all fed into an archaic reel to reel player with a semi gauzed tape. In between songs some muffled bleeds are still present.  We left that in. It was nice revisiting it on the reissue. It had been a while since I experienced it as a whole and it came thru like a low find cosmic voyage.........

Please tell us more about your fourth album 9 Pin Body from 2002

Grenas:  A comp of tracks recorded at my studio the antechamber in highland park by len del rio.

Esther: This was mostly culled from The Myth of Solid Ground sessions that were recorded after the Belief Module sessions....

I had left the band by 2000..... so this came out in the period I wasn't an active member......

Please tell us more about your fifth album When Science Fails from 2002

Esther:  I leave this one to Tommy..... While we were on tour we were talking about this album and I guess some of my guitar is on there..........

Grenas: Brandon LaBelle and me always wanted to do a conceptual soundtrack. I have friends in Lubjuania Peter Bratz and Maya Wiesse Who are independent film makers and had asked for a couple of tracks which were used in a film called guardian of the frontier. We just continued the theme till we had created the lp. Other musicians were Scott Rushe guitar and Ryan kirk bass. Michael was on a little hiatus at that time though I think he played on a piece called "Something in the Water" which was recorded earlier.  I always hoped this lp would represent the diversity of the psych spectrum to flung listeners from a stripped down more atmospheric place, it was a good place to have this release in our history as it marked a movement from brandon to his new venture in artistic fields afar and a primer for new twist that became the wound album. I like the fact that every lp we have done while being cosmic supplies a different vibe.

What were you up to during the six years between When Science Fails and  A Wound In Eternity ?

Esther:  We were all working on different projects...... We started to work together musically again around 2005, both Ryan and I played shows with Grenas's band Anubian Lights, there was some stuff with Damo from Can. Grenas and I worked on some experimental film pieces for Roedelius of Cluster. I was working on an on going project with Jean de Bassecour called Le Momo Sonic. Ryan and Grenas had a project called Suns Lungs that I played guitar in.......after that album was caned we decided it was time for a new Farflung album so we began the'Wound' sessions

Grenas: As Michael says

Please tell us more about your sixth album A Wound In Eternity from 2008

Grenas: Wound had to be a powerfull return. Long hours and heavy sessions.we wanted to play again and have fun on the road ect and we knew that wouldent be possable without a new lp that would get noticed and raise the name amongst a new generation of spacerockers. It's Tight machine that lp but in the tradition of flung it's another slice,as the next one shall most likely be.  

Esther: This was a lot of fun to record without very much pressure..... we took a year to record it

What is the latest update on Farflung ?

Esther: We just finished a very successful European tour. We are working on a new album and we have a series of split 12 inches that will come out in 2011.

How is the creative process in Farflung from coming up with a theme/riff/idea to you get it down onto an album ?

Grenas: Me and Michael with guitars trading off ideas. The jams resulting in songs. The songs inspiring lyrics, Michael laughing at my bad vocal takes, smoking eating mixing fixing. Figuring out who the hell is going to put it out...........

Esther: It usually starts with me and Grenas trading riffs and as the recording process starts we make adjustments....... kind of boring hahhaha.........