Please tell us how the Boat’s project erased ? Craig, how did you meet Andrew Hargreaves & Elaine Reynolds ? Please tell us about the whole thing and the genesis of Songs By The Sea : how you create did, how you recorded it etc. ?
Craig and i met at a art piece, and then i got a job at the same place, where we still work today. Elaine was a friend of mine who sings for Paulo Alto and solo as Esker. She had done some vocals for me in the past and we invited her to record with us. At first we had no intention of becoming a ’band’, we simply swapped tracks for remixing, a private project. Then we happened quite naturally to begin recording together, and before we knew it we had a lot of tracks. A compendium of which make up ’songs by the sea’. We record in various ways, from swapping loops to sitting in a room together and creating from scratch.

This first album was met with critical acclaim (« A huge recommendation » Boomkat, « well-crafted set of delicate mood pieces » Textura, « as warm and reviving as a shared hot toddy after a frosty night’s carol singing » No Ripcord...). How did you react to those very positive feedbacks ?
The music was created in isolation with no market at all in mind, we made it just to amuse our own creative urges. When the reviews got back to us it was nice as it always is when people say positive things about what you do.

Then you came back a year later (2005) with your second lp We Made It For You. In Songs By The Sea we can still see a connection with Craig’s Remote Viewer project, because it sometimes sound a bit like The Remote Viewer - in a more acoustic way -. In We Made It For You this connection cannot be made again. Elaine doesn’t sing on the record this time and you went further into piano and ambiant music. Can you explain us this new direction, and how you worked on this new lp ?
The connection (musically) with the Remote Viewer was not something that we ever thought about in the creation process. Obviously recognizable elements of the Remote Viewer were going to appear in our music, by the fact that Craig is involved in both projects. I think we were getting to know each other musically on the first album, once that groundwork was completed we could begin to explore new areas of the creation process together. The second album is the first such step. The album came about simply because Craig saved a piano ! If he hadn’t taken it in, it would have been destroyed.

We Made It For You is entirely dedicated to your friends and family. Is it a way of saying that the music doesn’t belong to you anymore or is it a real present to people that are important for you ?
As soon as any album is complete and sent off into the world it is no longer the sole property of the creators. When anyone buys a boats album it belongs to them. We just wanted to let all the special people in our lives know that we love them.

What kind of digital treatments do you add to the acoustic instruments you record, the piano for exemple ?
We use a lot of techniques to alter the sound of the acoustic instruments, our favorite being bad recording ! We use multi-track/samplers/laptop to arrange these recordings and add little effects here and there, nothing too special.

The music of The Boats is very fragile. Don’t you want it sometimes to be stronger ?
Sometimes the biggest emotions can be expressed with the smallest movements. Our music reflects this idea. We are interested in sounds existing in space, the space being as important as the sounds. A lot of music suffers from being too cluttered, and as such the sounds get lost in a sea of noise. Or maybe we just like small things ?

It seems The Boats are now playing live. How does The Boats’s live shows look like ? Do they sound very different from the record ?
The boats live was really a one off, for friends really. Maybe if we get another offer to do something more interesting we will consider it. The live show was chaos and funny. It was nice to be performing with friends for friends.
I hope the songs we played from the albums were recognizable, but mainly we improvised over familiar songs.

Do you think you’ll collaborate with singers (or musicians) again ? What are your projects with The Boats after We Made It For You ? Are you going to make a little break or will you keep on releasing a record per year with your label Moteer ?
At the moment we are mixing our new album, which hopefully will be released this year. We have added male vocals to this album ! From our friend Chris Stewart, Elaine is also taking on vocal duties. We hope you will all enjoy it.

interview stephane
by email
end of 2005