Best of What's Next: The Unwinding Hours

Photos by John Speirs

An electric guitar rotor is heard from the distance, as drums and a delicate, dissonant piano melody steadily marches on. This song, “Knut,” is the beginning of a new beginning, the first track of Craig Beaton’s first collection of music in several years. But its nine lone words are anything but celebratory: “If we can, we will / We must get out,” he sings, over and over. Beaton once played in Aereogramme, a Glasgow, Scotland quartet that featured melodies too somber to be called pub music and vocals that disqualified it from being post-rock. Following Aereogramme’s sudden split in 2007, Beaton and bandmate Iain Cook reunited to form The Unwinding Hours. The new duo released its self-titled debut in Feburary, much to the surprise of their former band’s small, devoted fanbase. Paste recently talked to Beaton via Skype about the emergence of The Unwinding Hours, Glasgow and aimless music-making.

Paste: How would you describe the current state of your local scene?

Craig Beaton: I’m completely the wrong person to ask. … When [Aereogramme] first started out, we were very much a part of the scene that was going on then. But then, I have no idea what’s going on in the Glasgow music scene. I couldn’t tell you who is the new up-and-coming band—I would have to lie completely. I mean, I do know that Glasgow is still creating fantastic bands. You’ve got The Twilight Sad, who I think are one of the greatest bands that Scotland’s ever produced. They’re just magnificent. Then there’s Errors, who are, again, on Rock Action. Desalvo are on Rock Action. There’s a whole kind of slower scene that I know is very popular, but I just don’t know anything about it.

Paste: Is the breakup of Aereogramme why you’re disconnected from the scene now?

Beaton: I think it’s an age thing, an energy thing. When you’re younger, you’re constantly out and you’re constantly feeding off things. But now, it kinda goes along with how The Unwinding Hours are. We’re just far more relaxed about it and maybe, to be honest, a lot more confident and assured about what it is we want to do and what we want to be. … I think also because Aereogramme—we were definitely never part of any specific scene. We were too heavy for the quiet bands and we were too quiet for the heavy bands. But this way, we can always rock in this no man’s land. The Unwinding Hours is just—it really feels like me and Iain. We just do what we want, when we want, and it’s extremely liberating now.

Paste: Is that ultimately what you and Iain want to be as The Unwinding Hours—just something to do at your own pace, on your own time? Or are there other aims besides that?

Beaton: No, it’s exactly that. Have you ever heard of a band called The Blue Nile?

Paste: No, I haven’t.

Beaton: Well, The Blue Nile—I would recommend you give them a listen. Again, they’re a Scottish band. They started in the ‘80s, and they’ve got quite an interesting history, but their singer has one of the greatest voices I’ve ever heard. The thing about The Blue Nile is, they only record and they only release an album when the time is right. When you know that a Blue Nile album is coming out, and obviously if you like The Blue Nile, then it is the most exciting thing, because it’s been so long since the last thing, but you know that when they do do something, it’s the right time to do it. That’s kind of thing we want to do. I don’t want to be part of the musical rat race that Aereogramme was stuck in, which was this cycle of touring and struggling to get attention and struggling to get to the level where we could support ourselves. That’s not what I think that we are in for anymore. We want to make the best music that we can because we love it and because we want to do it, not because we feel that we have to.

Paste: How does music fit into your day-to-day lives?

Beaton: I was definitely jaded by music. At the end of Aereogramme—I know I can’t speak for the rest of the guys, but I know personally I was becoming frustrated with the whole process. But the simple fact is, there’s still a passion and a joy that we find in music. I know it’s a cliché, but you know that saying—if you want to be a writer, you just write. You just write, because it’s something that you love doing. Obviously you think about it, but it’s something that comes from your heart basically. There’s something in there that you want to get out, and it’s the same thing for music. I thought that after Aereogramme I would never do anything [music-related] ever again. But as we just started doing demos with Iain, you just slowly remember just how much you love it. That was the only driving force behind the album—just the fact that we were enjoying making music again. We didn’t even have an aim for it. We didn’t even want to get a band together; that’s why we kept it just the two of us.

Paste: What other projects had you and Iain worked on in the past?

Beaton: In our long, bizarre history, Iain was the first person to help me record music, and because he had a four-track—a really terrible, shitty little four-track machine. I would go to Iain’s house and he was kind enough to help me record these songs, even though I’m sure they were absolutely dreadful. Iain is classically trained. He is an incredible musician, whereas I’m a terrible musician but I can write songs—which is sort of strange, but it’s just the way it’s always been. … That’s where I think our strength has always been. So we started a band, and we were pretty terrible—we could only go so far. Iain really wanted to concentrate on song scores—that’s his real passion, he works for a lot of TV companies—so then I started Aereogramme with another guy. We eventually asked Iain to join, so we came together again, and then subsequently came up with The Unwinding Hours. He’s the guy I’ve worked with the most, and he’s a pleasure to work with. I don’t think it would be anywhere near as interesting if he wasn’t on board.

Paste: Can you tell me more about how the songs surfaced?

**Beaton:** I think it’s strange the way that songs arrive, because for me, they just do. They just arrive, and it’s only because things are happening in my life. I have this little desire to write about nothing, but I can never seem to do it. I can only write about specific, personal things that are happening, so it took a while for anything to be written—because I was living a very, very boring life. And then when Aereogramme split up, I came out of a very long-term relationship. I think life just got a little more interesting again. Again, it just comes down to really not wanting to go near the usual clichés, but I think that songwriting is a very cathartic experience. When you need to write songs, that’s when they arrive. So really, there’s no other reason other than I needed to write, if that makes sense.

Paste: You were working on The Unwinding Hours debut throughout 2008 and going into 2009, right?

Beaton: Yeah. … Iain has his own studio on the south side of Glasgow. He works on his TV work throughout the day, and whenever he had the time, I would just go down there to record some ideas. I just wanted to record these songs, and I wanted to get them down as quickly as possible—and that’s how [the debut] developed. But it just slowly developed, a few hours every week for a year—and then suddenly, we realized we had something more substantial. That’s when we started to work on it. It was very, very relaxed. … Because you’ve got such small time frames, I think it means there’s less time wasted. You just go down and concentrate on it for a couple of hours, then you leave it and come back to it, then leave it, then come back to it. It’s a great way of working.

Paste: If I was to do the same thing—work on something just for a couple of hours, and then come back to it 24 hours later—I would see a lot of revisions that I’d need to do, and I’d be making a lot of changes. Did you find yourself doing the same thing witht the songs?

Beaton: It’s totally different for each song. For example, “Solstice” is one of the quieter songs in the album, and that was only the first take. We never recorded it again because the first take of the demo kind of captured something that, if I tried to do it again, it just would not be the same. One of the songs, we worked on for a couple of weeks and realized it was horrible. … The two of us realized we were totally uncomfortable with how it was sounding. It wasn’t us at all, so we stripped it and we started again—and that’s how we ended up with “Child,” which is one of the darker synth-heavy songs. It’s one of my favorites now. The process allows you the time to reflect on these things, to basically try anything.

Paste: Going back to the songwriting in the Unwinding Hours debut, I read that you didn’t add lyrics to the first track until the very end. I found that interesting, especially since lyrics were very prominent in Aereogramme’s lyrics. Why did you originally try to make “Knut” an instrumental track, and why did you decide to add lyrics at the very end?

Beaton: First of all, I wanted to do something that was essentially very, very simplistic, which was to take it from the quietest guitar part and slowly build it up, and then when you expect it to explode, it explodes. I didn’t want to be clever about it. I didn’t want to be complicated. I think we spent a lot of time in Aereogramme trying to go different ways, and trying to trick people and make people second-guess what we were about to do next. … Secondly, I just wanted it to be a powerful thing that just kept on giving you these moments, and then in the end, just when it reaches its peak, it gives you what you want. I wanted it to sound like a really glorious moment in a film, the kind of thing that when you walk out and you’ve seen a great film and you have that fantastic feeling in your chest. I think there’s only been a few songs that’s given me that, but I definitely had the feeling in the back of my head. Then, strangely enough, Campbell [McNeil]—the old Aereogramme bassist, a guy who we always really, really admired for his opinions and his intellect—he was the guy who just said, “Yeah, you need to put lyrics on that, you’d be idiotic if you didn’t.” I don’t really like explaining songs, but all I can say is that, the minute I started thinking about the lyrics, I had just finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. That was the most prevalent thought in my head, because the idea of the music, it really sounded like an escape. Like, I need to escape, a desire to escape, a desire to basically to get out.

Paste: Right, as the lyrics go.

Beaton: Yeah. So that’s why we added them. And I’m glad we did, I really am glad—because then we would have just been compared even more to Mogwai.

Paste: (Laughs) Right, right. The album was released under Chemikal Underground, the same label that signed Aereogramme. How did you end up approaching them with the new music, and what did they think of it?

Beaton: Chemikal Underground have always been friends. They’ve always been very, very honest and very easy to work with. There haven’t been many labels over the years that have been as easy to work with, because they don’t have any ridiculous expectations. There’s no need for us to start complaining and start blaming them for anything when they’re just an independent label—but that’s very important that it exists, I think. There’s very few genuine independent labels left, because it’s getting harder and harder. Chemikal always, always said the door is always open for us to release new music. So the minute we finished the album, Iain and I sat down and discussed the fact that we could let other labels hear it. But … we knew that Chemikal would never ask us to do anything that we weren’t comfortable with, which was basically going on tour for months and months and months, and realizing we were making the same mistakes that Aereogramme did. Because we worked with Chemikal before, we knew what pitfalls to avoid. Strangely enough, The Unwinding Hours is actually going to be the most successful relationship we’ve had with Chemikal, because we’ve avoided the pitfalls that we had before. Without Chemikal, people wouldn’t be interested in what we were doing. They’re fantastic guys, and I’ve got an incredible amount of respect for them.

Paste: What has it been like to tour as The Unwinding Hours this year? You’re going into a tour with a different set of expectations than, say, another band making their debut.

Beaton: It’s weird. I feel like we’re in the best position we’ve ever been in. Iain and I were very clear from the start—like I said, we didn’t want to go down the same route. I don’t think we can go out there and convince the world that we are the next big thing. However, like you say, we haven’t started from scratch. …I’ve realized that we’re really, really lucky. We can go back to Germany, and we can play in Scotland, and there is a lovely, lovely fan base that have carried on from Aereogramme that’ll be coming to see us. Because there’s absolutely no expectations, the pressure is completely—not there.

Paste: What’s next for you guys?

Beaton: We have another tour in Germany and Holland. We’ve got a bigger show in Glasgow in this beautiful auditorium. The ceiling’s painted by a fantastic, eccentric author called Alasdair Gray. We’re playing there, and we’re going to start working on the next album. One of the main things we’re trying to do is really try to write fast songs. I have this strange ability to only write slower songs, so I’m trying to do the opposite and go and actually writer faster songs. But it’ll still be us, since it’s only us.