This Game Respects Big Moves And Moves Like A Big Man, It Takes Time To Figure Out The Rhythm, And The Music Never Gets Shorter Or Deeper Just Wider, It Just Continues To Rise And Get More Beautiful." The most common complaint about Mr. Mole & Plague's music is its extreme brevity; an average of about 7 minutes per track, and on the three records that have been officially released, every song runs less than 8 minutes long. This, I suppose, is the ultimate reason for playing them as a trio, as these tracks seem almost never-ending when listened to in sequence. That said, the brevity of most of the pieces does not in any way compromise the quality of the music or its impact on the listener. There is also an abundance of subtleties on the record that are much easier to appreciate (to quote Aura): "If you read this kind of stuff but you have a little brain" you will notice "something that is right in front of you in that record". And the same can be said of the visuals. There is a lot of depth in the imagery on this record, to the point that a person's "brain will start spinning around like a spinning wheel when looking at it." Also, on a practical level, the trio do not have to travel with tons of equipment. They use only acoustic guitars, drums, keyboards, bass and vocals, and they only have to perform the show with whatever each performer brings (an acoustic guitar, a laptop computer with the visuals and sound reinforcement, of course). Furthermore, the majority of this group's fans are very young, and for their music to have any impact on them it must be consumed in a very simple setting with no distractions. These three pieces are like this. The music does all the heavy lifting, and the audience is left free to dream about all the other fascinating things that can be added to their own personal worlds, if only they could somehow get some of them back home again. The performances on these tracks will move you and stay in your mind long after they are finished. The most obvious and prominent influences on Mr. Mole & Plague's music are Japanese, especially Japanese from the late 70s to the early 90s, but we have a few things in common with the UK. The first being that we're both working with extremely limited materials, and so we tend to focus more on texture and sonic detail. We also share a certain love for the work of John Cage. The third way we're different, however, is that we don't know much about American folk music or classic country music. Neither does anybody else, really. And to be quite honest, most of the British folk-rock bands that I listen to these days have become pretty predictable - there's so much of it, and it's all pretty similar - so it's hard to get excited about them at the moment. There's only one band that I can think of that's a little bit off the beaten track, and that would be the band "Ordo Equitum" who's a bit more minimalist in approach and still carries all of its influences well. I guess there are a few other bands I might be able to recommend. The one thing I would have to say about our approach though, is that it seems to reflect a longing for the early 60s and early 70s, when music was more varied and not so commercialised, and the technology available was more limited, and so it's easier for us to create something from this place. We're three guys that happen to live in the same apartment building. We have a lot of time together while we're rehearsing and recording the music for each of these pieces. During this period we usually only work for a few hours a day, and in between recording sessions and rehearsals, we take turns playing improvisation pieces on our acoustic guitars, or play in a small rock band. For me personally this has been a really good way to get close to the music. I do a lot of improvisation at home too, by myself, which has helped me learn and find my own style. Being in a trio is a lot like being in a rock band. And although we all have our own ideas about what we'd like to play at rehearsals, we're not necessarily focused on coming up with the same stuff. There are times where we can't decide what we'd like to play, so we record some improvisations. Just trying to come up with ways to not do the same thing over and over is really fun. I think we like to have a lot of energy, and a lot of fun too, because making this kind of music is difficult. But this time can also be really rewarding. Our sound engineer - Mika - has been working with us for about five years now. He's an old friend of mine and comes from the same town that I come from, Helsinki. He's the only guy who has worked on all three of our records, but he still occasionally comes out to play with us too. He is, in my opinion, one of the most important people in our universe. He has a lot of ideas about music, and he's really easy to work with, but he's also very particular about what he does. This is exactly how we want it to be. It makes it more interesting when we are trying to get everything to work in a different way, but he's so good about suggesting things that you never would have thought of otherwise. He's been in charge of the recording process, even before we started making the records, and so he knows what we're going for in our work, which means that we know that we have the right people working with us to realize our visions. On the recording, we're always trying to come up with new ways to do things, and we definitely want to use everything that's in our own imagination. We're always looking for a different way of creating new sounds and exploring new territory, because there's so much out there already. It's like trying to find hidden treasure in a huge and very old city. "We've Been Using The Same Drums, We've Been Using The Same Guitar, This Way We Have A Certain Feeling That The Music Continues To Respect The Original Pieces." How many times can we keep going back and forth, going back and forth, and when are we going to just keep the conversation going? When are we going to go all the way? All the way, together? When can I hear your mouth say the word "love"? Just one more time? Because the way you say it, and the way that we feel when you say it, will definitely tell me where you are right now. If we just go back and forth this many times without going all the way, are you still trying to find the right language to describe this kind of happiness, and this kind of longing? Or have you given up? If you can't find the right words to tell me how you feel, then are you going to tell me at all, or are you going to leave this all up to me? Maybe we just don't want the same thing. Maybe that's why we have to keep moving. Do you want the kind of thing that just keeps you moving? And maybe it doesn't matter if it gets easier, as long as we get a little bit further with every movement. The kind of thing that makes you want to go all the way is usually the kind of thing that can't be repeated or captured, so maybe this is it. You keep moving, but I keep moving too. Or maybe we can move even farther away than we're used to moving, because this thing between us is something too powerful to ever lose. Maybe we have to see what happens as it happens, without words. Maybe we have to try to understand what's happening, right now, not with any words. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is it. Last fall I made these recordings, about a year ago. But then we played them out in public and recorded it as if we were rehearsing for that one time, and played them live. It turned out really good, so then we decided to cut a small record out of this performance. But this time we just used our favorite recordings, and we tried to create as much energy in the music as possible, and I tried to play the bass like I was playing it in the original recording for the first time. We didn't really decide what to do, or how to arrange the tracks, or anything. We just started playing, and a lot of those pieces are still missing words, which is the way we like it, and it's probably the most natural way of playing them for us. Now it's more or less finished, and hopefully it will be released soon. We might go back and release the other stuff too, if we can think of good titles for it. We can play with these things again, but we can't repeat them. I hope the listeners can get something out of these pieces too. It's up to them to decide if we're on the right path, but it's going to keep getting more interesting.