Psymon Spine in Conversation with FAULT Magazine
Psymon Spine
Psymon Spine are here for a good time and a long time. Since 2015, the (mostly) Brooklyn-based band have been gleefully squeezing out delightful droplets of psych-infused dancetastic indie-pop, which is definitely a thing now we’ve said it. They sound a lot like that itchingly cool song that got stuck in your head while it gyrated your hips at a friend-of-a-friend’s squat party – but without all the boring scenester bullshit that usually goes with that sort of thing. Crucially, the band don’t take themselves too seriously, which is all the more impressive given that they’re not afraid to go deep with their lyrics and border on the obsessive with the effort they put into producing their recordings and live shows.
Their latest album, Head Body Connector, features tracks written by former Psymon Spine mainstay (and ongoing collaborator) Sabine Holler, who moved from NYC to Berlin just before the pandemic hit. The result is a record that craves direct experience: human connection (even across continents), live performance, and, above all, some old-fashioned, hips-on-a-swivel dance moves. We spoke to one of the founding members, Noah Prebish, about the new album, collaborations, and all things Psymon Spine.
FAULT: You wrote a lot of Head Body Connector during the pandemic, at a time when our bodies largely kept going through the motions while our heads were seemingly stuck in a temporal vacuum. A lot of artists released material into the ether then, hoping that their introspections would resonate with kindred (and, let’s be honest, captive) spirits. Why did you wait until now?
Psymon Spine (Noah): I would be lying if I said that putting it out this long after lockdown was an intentional choice. We work slowly and the gears of the indie music world turn even slower… That said, I think it would have been a mistake to release this particular record during a time when we couldn’t tour; we had the live show in mind the whole time we wrote these songs. Also, we already released a record once during a global pandemic and cannot say we recommend it.
You put a lot of emphasis on production, and the combination of that with thought-provoking album art, vinyl releases, and creative music videos means that every one of your releases comes across as a meticulously designed piece of art. That’s offset by the more chaotic nature of a live show. So which do you prefer: recording or performing live?
Thanks for saying so! Both of those worlds are really important to us, but in the past we tended to prioritize studio recordings, and then go through this weird process of trying to learn how to play our own songs, like a Psymon Spine cover band. It required us to use a sampler or laptop on stage, which can be kind of fraught and distracting for a 5-piece band with no tech crew. We were all living in fear of the computer or sampler not working – which they often didn’t.
We intentionally arranged this record so we could play it without a backing tracking, so we could cut loose, get off the grid, mix things up more. We’re still MIDI dorks and will probably reintegrate more electronics at some point, but that’s how we’re doing it now and it just feels right.
Nowadays I’d say it’s an even split between live and studio, in terms of enjoyment. There are good and bad days in both, but we’ve married them in a more intentional way now and tour is way more fun because of it. Come see us live! It’s a gooooood time.
What has been the highlight of your career so far?
Probably playing with Hot Chip in London or meeting the president of Slovakia at Pohoda Festival after drinking a bunch of tequila.
You’ve been working with Sabine Holler for some time now. What are the challenges/advantages of co-writing material about human connectivity with someone based in another continent?
When you start on the same continent and then move to remote collaboration, it mostly feels like an obstacle. We miss Sabine like crazy. That said, she is living her best life in Berlin and we would never be so selfish as to ask her to toil away in our ridiculous country (which treats its immigrants horribly) than to live comfortably in a city that values public spaces and sells €3 doner kebab.
And on the bright side, the songs she wrote about being far away from her friends are beautiful and would presumably not have happened if she still lived in Ridgewood, Queens. For those in NYC, she’ll be visiting and joining us on stage for our album release show at Baby’s All Right on March 23.
Who else would you like to collaborate with and why?
We’ve been lucky enough to collaborate with a lot of our musical heroes already. Beyond those, I’m sure we all have different answers for this, but some top choices would be Dave Fridmann, Soulwax, Metronomy, James Murphy, Stereolab, Wet Leg, Faye Wong, A Certain Ratio, Haroumi Hosono etc. etc.
A lot of bands take a volume-based approach to releasing music (i.e: the more, the sooner, the better), whereas your approach is clearly a lot more measured (two major releases since 2015). Given the propensity for instant gratification among younger music fans, in particular, do you ever worry about losing momentum or perhaps not getting as much attention as more prolific artists?
Honestly, maybe our band just wasn’t made for the TikTok era. Eeeeeeek! We tend to work pretty slowly and overthink every tiny decision, although we are really trying to stop doing that second thing.
The short answer is yes, we do worry about that, and are trying to find a middle ground! Technical difficulties, please stand by!
If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
Peter and I are both visual artists outside the band, and Michael is really good at drawing too, but he did once tell me he wanted to be a mailman. Maybe I would follow in my dad’s footsteps and study lizards.
Who is overrated/underrated?
New York City is overrated. New York City is underrated.
You’ve got a US/UK/European tour coming up soon (March-June ’24). The schedule for that is crazy: you’re often playing gigs on consecutive nights in different states or countries! Was that a decision made out of necessity or do you just hate sleep?!
We love sleep so much. It’s an unfortunate reality that we often have to forgo it on tour, and I get a cold literally every time we tour, but that’s showbiz, bb. The ultimate dream would be to do a week of shows in each city – London here, LA there, maybe somewhere fun like Lisbon after that. That said, our tour schedule this year rules. We’re so stoked to visit some incredible cities, some (like Warsaw and Prague) for the first time.
What is your FAULT?
We think too much. Or do you mean ‘what did we cause’?
Either? Both? Interpret it however you like. Dealer’s choice.
We caused our album to take 4 years to come out by thinking too much.