Pombagira Interview with Pete Giles: Extremity of Varied Forms
In 2011, London-based doomers Pombagira released an album called Iconoclast Dream. It was comprised of a single, 42-minute track, but really, they should’ve kept the title in their pocket for the subsequent outing — because as it turns out, the latest, Maleficia Lamiah, is far more subversive. The duo’s fifth LP overall, it answers the question of what comes after that single-song record, what you could possibly do after you’ve already pushed your sound as far is it can go? It’s an issue Ufomammut tackled with last year’s Oro two-parter, and their answer was to keep getting bigger, to release one album as two. For Pombagira, it wasn’t going to be that easy.
The two-piece of guitarist/vocalist Pete Giles and drummer Carolyn Hamilton-Giles would keep working in extended tracks — Maleficia Lamiah has two, its title cut and the subsequent “Grave Cardinal” — but for the latest recording, they adopted a far more psychedelic context for the sound. It’s not a complete reinvention, but for the first time in a career that goes as far back as when he played in Azagthoth with Napalm Death‘s Shane Embury in 1987, Pete uses clean singing on the songs, and the material as a result calls back to early psychedelic influences that Pombagira has adopted with striking ease as part of their aesthetic, from Maleficia Lamiah‘s deep-toned artwork to their promotional photos for the album, taken by Vic Singh, who also shot the cover of Pink Floyd‘s debut, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, in 1967.
And not only does Pete sing clean, but he works in an eerie falsetto depending on which of the album’s movements it seems to fit. The song “Maleficia Lamiah” sprawls its just-under-19-minutes in varied movements, Carolyn‘s drums backing bizarro synth and cawing crows in the post-midsection after what’s already been an alternatively driving and stupefying journey through the first half. What Pombagira make clear on Maleficia Lamiah more than anything is that they’re unwilling to be tied to expectation — even their own — and as the title-track winds up in a tempest swirl resuming the intonation of the name of the record, the only tenet Pete and Carolyn are adhering to is that which they’ve created for themselves.
Given the changes in approach Maleficia Lamiah represents, there was as you might imagine a lot to talk about. In the interview that follows, Pete discusses how Maleficia Lamiah came about following Iconoclast Dream, the band’s reticence toward playing live and how they’re handling the inevitability of bringing the new material to a stage, how the working relationship between the duo has grown over the course of five albums, where he thinks this new direction might lead them and much more.
Please find the complete 3,400-word Q&A after the jump, and please enjoy:
Tell me about the change between Iconoclast Dream and Maleficia Lamiah and what brought about the development in Pombagira’s sound from one album to the next.
Sure, I think the sort of transition is evident even in Iconoclast Dream. We were having in that one quite long sections that were quite psychedelic, but one thing that really stuck in my throat was when we started getting reviews for Iconoclast Dream, there was one of the salient things that people seemed to pick up on was the fact that, for then, it was very repetitive, which is something that I wasn’t particularly concerned about at the time, but for whatever reason, it kind of stuck with me. When we took a step back from wanting to play live shows and wanting to concentrate on putting new compositions together, then it was really an opportunity to see where we could take it. And also, for the fact that I’ve found more and more so that the doom thing in a sense was – I kind of felt like we were at odds with it more and more. Not just because we weren’t getting invited to play many shows with doom bands, but also because there was a lack of imaginative flair that I always look for in music that I listen to, and I wanted to take our music in a (laughs) different direction to what most people were currently doing. But I suppose that was the lead up to it, and of course with just how we put together, it wasn’t different playing – well, we weren’t playing any shows; we still haven’t played any shows for over a year – it just allowed us to really, really concentrate on the movements between the different sections in a song, with “Maleficia Lamiah” in particular. Where we wanted to go was we wanted the songs to reflect what I was listening to more and more so. I’ve always had a fairly expansive early ‘70s collection of music, and I suppose I just wanted to get back to emulating those people I really look up to who were pushing the very boundaries of what you could do with music back then, and something that seemed to be lacking with a lot of contemporary style music, even if it’s in a similar extreme genre of music, it’s still following a formula which has in itself become fairly tired, I think.
So there was a sense of having pushed that as far as it would go.
Yeah, I think that’s absolutely right. You still have to follow that up with something else in the future, so it’s just trying to find a new niche for ourselves. Steve [Mills] from The Wounded Kings put it really well when he said that Maleficia Lamiah is kind of a do-or-die album. For us, it was that point we’d reached where, if it really sank without a trace and it was totally questionable what we would be doing with the band sort of here on in. And to be honest, and approaching it like we have, to the point where people are saying it’s like a new form of music they’ve never heard before, which is the most astounding compliment to receive, that we kind of really needed to just put it all on the line for ourselves and kind of see how people responded to it. Fortunately, people have responded better than I could’ve ever anticipated.
At what point did you know you wanted to change direction? When the songwriting started, or was it something you knew going into it?
The main difference, to begin with, was just the fact that I was playing all six strings. So I was strumming the guitar, even though it’s obviously downtuned to A, but that means it’s a hell of a lot more noisy than it had been before, when we were sticking to the stereotypical power chord progressions. So with that in mind, yeah, that really opened up, but then of course my backgrounds has been for a very long time I’ve been with sort of extreme punk stuff and noise-not-music stuff coming out of Japan and whathaveyou, and I suppose in a sense, even though it’s a psychedelic take on that, we felt we were doing something pretty fucking noisy compared to what we’d done before, and then that takes a lot of boxes for us, because not only did it not sound like a doom band, but it also gave it that extra edge that even bands we were listening to in the early ‘90s, My Bloody Valentine, it really sort of resonated with that, as well as going as far back as The Byrds and stuff like that. I really love all that sort of West Coast psych as well. So it’s kind of our interpretation of that, I suppose.
And I guess the corresponding vocal change – I think that might even be the most stark difference of all. Can you talk about that a little bit?
(Laughs) Again, it was that thing where I’ve been singing 
extreme since ’85, when I started Azagthoth and got Shane Embury involved in ’87 and started doing Unseen Terror and all that stuff, my vocals have always been extreme, and then of course with Scalplock, it was also extreme, and obviously with Pombagira, I carried that on. But it came to the point where the vocals weren’t adding anything to the music. I could obviously do that to the songs, but it didn’t enhance the riff. So really, it was a gamechanger. I had to try it, to see what it would sound like. Of course, for us, it totally transformed the songs. I’m shocked. I thought we were gonna get a whole lot of flack for that, but people have, again, been very complimentary (laughs) with the change in vocal style. Of course, it has transformed the band, made the band almost not like we’ve been before. It’s like we’ve really done a sort of roundabout turn and gone in a very different direction, because of the stark contrast between even Iconoclast Dream and Maleficia Lamiah.
Tell me about the working relationship with Carolyn and how it’s evolved over these five records.
For starters, having had a background in crust punk stuff, the whole prospect of slowing down, downtuning, etc., that was all guided by Carolyn. That’s where her interests were. She was playing in a stoner/doom band prior to Pombagira and that’s how we met, because I was playing bass in her other band. So she really came to the fore with regards to not only introducing me to a lot of bands which I’d never come across before because it’s not what I was listening to, but also just in terms of style. Of course, across the past five years, that has changed significantly as I’ve found my own style of playing, I suppose, so when it comes to the writing process (laughs), it can be fairly tense at times. Because she doesn’t mix her words, and if I produce a riff or a vocal harmony which she doesn’t like, she tells me in no uncertain terms, and I might do the same if I hear a drum rhythm she’s doing that I don’t like. We have an ability to upset one another, and maybe at times that does result in us having to walk away (laughs) from rehearsal, because it gets to be rather tense, but then of course we’re adult enough to sit down and talk about that, and we’ll go back in and it tends to spark a creative flash, where we’ll realize that most of the time we were probably talking at cross purposes anyway, which is why we were getting frustrated with one another, and then we just move on from there. Most of the time, I concentrate on writing the riffs. I’ll produce a riff for Carolyn, and we’ll come up with ideas with regards to drum rhythms and she’ll then edit and amend riffs depending on how she’s feeling about them as well.
And in terms of writing in movements like you mentioned before, how did these songs come together? There’s that drastic change in the middle.
Yeah. The weird thing is, “Maleficia Lamiah” wasn’t meant to be on the CD version. It was gonna be the third track on the vinyl version. There were a couple of reasons for that. One was that I was writing it piecemeal, so I had one section, then another section, and when I put it together, Carolyn was just like, “What the fuck are you playing? This is totally different from anything we’ve done before.” But having a background of listening to progressive rock and krautrock stuff, the changes didn’t seem very dramatic to me. I think that’s probably the big difference. So putting it together, it was not an afterthought on how we were going to do it, but definitely when we went to record it in the studio, there was a definite need to remind Carolyn of the next section because we’d only finally got it all together probably two or three days before recording. And then it was only subsequently that I’ve – again, talking to Steve when he came, that he said, “Well look, I think this needs to be the title-track” – and I was like, “You know, I think you’re right. I think if we’re gonna push the boat out, we need to absolutely do it with something that is gonna be so dramatically different from anything we’ve done before.”
Has not playing live affected the writing process at all? You said lyrics came together at the last-minute. Has it always been that way, or is that new?
Usually the lyrics would definitely follow the riff writing, and it has tended to be fairly last-minute. I really like to leave it down and then write some stuff. What I tend to do is I overwrite the song, so there are more lyrics than we’ll include, then I edit and amend it when we’re in the studio, because you can only get a feel for it when you’re in the studio. At the time, we didn’t have a P.A. in the house, so when we did rehearse, there was no way of trying out the vocals. Now we have a P.A. in the house, so that dynamic will change in the future. But yeah, I mean, it’s not that we intentionally leave it to the last minute, it’s just part of the creative process (laughs). We
leave all our songs slightly open ended, not in the sense of it’s just gonna turn into a jam – which is what some people that album sounds like, but it’s not; every single part is structured and thought about and so on – but we still give it enough space to breathe, so if we feel like we need to adjust it in the studio, we have the capability to do that. Of course, it just being the two of us, it’s not like we’ve got to show someone else that idea, but when it comes to playing live, something like “Maleficia Lamiah” – we’re just starting to rehearse now because we’ve got a couple gigs coming up in the Midlands, sort of May time, so we’re just thinking about how to try and pull the separate sections of “Maleficia Lamiah” together so we can play it live, because as the title-track, we can’t really get away from playing it live, yet it does present, because it’s very structured and not having the ability to use samples, etc., with it just being the two of us, but we need to find a way of meshing the different sections together in a more effective way. The song as people are gonna hear it is gonna be slightly different. There’s gonna be elongated bridges to pull sections together and make it into a coherent whole. And I’ve done that. I’ve written those riffs, it’s just seeing what Carolyn thinks, because she hasn’t heard them yet.
You haven’t completely stopped playing live, then? Would you tour for the album?
Pretty much everything that we’ve recorded, we can reproduce live, so of course we could (laughs) — Carolyn can’t just bust out some Hammond organ, but all the songs we can reproduce pretty accurately, minus bird samples and that, but everything else can be done without a problem. Part of that of course is just down to the fact that we use a fairly vast array of different old amps, which only together can produce the kind of sound that we get on the album.
And that was the issue.
Yeah. That’s always been an issue with regards to playing live, like being asked to play abroad how we were recently invited to play SWR Festival in Portugal next year, but for us, we don’t have the option of just turning up and playing through some fairly standard Marshalls or whathaveyou. That just ain’t gonna work for us. We have to bring our own backline to make sure that we can reproduce what people are gonna hear on the album. So consequently that makes it slightly difficult with regards to landing shows. We can’t just fly in and do a gig, we’ve got to seriously think about what kind of gear is gonna be made available. I think the only possible exception to that is when we were in Seattle two or three years ago and obviously we had the opportunity to use Lesbian’s backline for a few shows, and they’ve got some great equipment, so we were able to pretty much what we were producing in the UK, but that’s probably a one-off, to be honest.
Would you hit a point where you’d strip down the sound to fit whatever backline you could get, or is it something you’d rather not do?
That’s not really something we’d do. We’ve been fairly hardline with regards to how we do these things. It would be like asking SunnO))) to come over, but all you’ve got are a couple of 5150s and two 4x12s. It’s just not gonna work. Likewise, unfortunately, the beast that we’ve created for ourselves requires at least seven or eight amps and of particular makes which together then make the sound that we produce. It handicaps what we can and can’t do, but to be honest, it’s not like we’re being offered (laughs) where these things are really up for consideration. We can afford to be hard core about it (laughs) because we’re not getting the offers. Maybe when we’re getting the offers we can still be hardnosed about it. SWR was probably the first festival that we’ve been invited to play in the band’s existence, and to be honest, there’s no way they’re gonna go for it, because it would cost such a ridiculous amount of money to travel down to Portugal. So yeah, it’s a problem. Obviously, the idea is we get to the point where people want to hear us using our equipment and would then move hell and earth to try and facilitate that. In a perfect world.
And in the meantime, that allows you to write more, doesn’t it? Does that give you more space to work creatively, since you’re not focused on rehearsing for shows?
We’ve been in a bit of a hiatus, to be honest. Since we recorded the album, we’ve recently moved and stuff like that, and our lives have gone in a slightly different direction, so consequently, the rehearsing of the band and keeping on top of that has definitely been second to just sorting out everything else that we’ve got going on in our lives. When it really comes to getting down and rehearsing, it’s not such a problem, but when we rehearse at home, we’re just using one Laney clip and a 4×12. It’s not like we need to fire everything up to get a sense of what it’s gonna sound like live. Our process is that we would eventually go into the rehearsal space and take probably not the whole backline – because I still don’t know if the rehearsal space would have a sufficient P.A. so I could hear the vocals – but we’d still take in three or four amps and fire them up and have it pretty loud so it gives me an opportunity to refine what we’re gonna be doing live.
So are you in a place now where you’re getting back to – if not rehearsing – at least writing new material?
I’ve already got three or four songs not in the bag, but definitely got all the ideas together. It’s just I’m not sure what we’re gonna do with those songs. We’d like to introduce one of the short songs, new songs, into the set, so we’re not just playing 20-minute-long songs, which I think is a total possibility. Also, it’s presenting another interesting thing, which is the songs as they stand are not particularly long, so I’m wondering whether the next album isn’t actually going to comprise of much, much shorter songs, between three- and five-minute songs, which for us would be pretty much a first.
Do you feel like the shift in sound has allowed you that space to rethink your processes?
I think so. It’s a strange thing. The thing that’s really changed is the vocals. I think that now it’s possible to write fairly groovy, psyched-out songs which aren’t necessarily as long as what we’ve done before, and I find that a potentially interesting challenge, to try and shorten it down and see where it takes us. I’m very conscious of the fact that we need to – when it comes to recording again – somehow we need to up the game from Maleficia Lamiah and as it stands, we’ve had 100 percent good reviews so far. That’s something that I’ve never been bothered about before (laughs), but it bothers me now because I’ve never been in a position where it’s been so unanimous with regards to the response from the press.
In a way it’s almost like you’ve started over.
Yeah. And I think that people that haven’t heard the band or thought about the band particularly have really picked up their ears and gone, hey, there is this Pombagira and they’ve done something kind of different, and Maleficia Lamiah is therefore kind of a standalone album. We run the label as well, so when it comes to the pre-orders, we’ve seen some people actually getting both, Iconoclast Dream and Maleficia Lamiah, and I think that’s an interesting thing to do, because Iconoclast Dream isn’t a million miles away from what we’re doing now, other than the vocals, really.
I think it’ll be interesting to see how this process develops. Usually by the time someone’s five records in, the formula’s pretty well set.
Yeah. It’s that formula which I’m dedicated to try and breaking every time if I possibly can. As I said, one of my bugaboos is when people say we’re repetitive. One of the greatest albums ever made is Sleep’s Jerusalem, and if you listen to that, just the simple song, it would seem repetitive unless you take notice of how they’re building up the song, and I think that’s been at the heart of everything that we’ve done, is to some way reflect that key aspect of Jerusalem. That’s one of my all-time favorite albums, of course, so consequently I don’t have problems with people associating us with a band like Sleep, but I do have problems with people saying with sound like Electric Wizard. I don’t think we fucking sound like Electric Wizard at all. But, you know, it’s just easy comparisons, but easy comparisons which take you in a totally different… When you listen to it, I don’t think people go, “Oh yeah, it sounds like Electric Wizard.” It would be kind of disappointing, because it’s not like that at all.
You run into people who don’t get it, I guess.
With Maleficia Lamiah, right? With reviews, I expected that people wouldn’t get it, because we were explicit right from the start: This isn’t gonna be an easy ride. We’re not making music that you can just dip in and dip out, it’s a five-minute song and you can be in the car and listen to that and go on about your business. You have to really sit down and embed yourself in it. And I suppose in that way, that definitely resonates with my early teenage years, listening to Pink Floyd or Amon Düül II and just getting stoned and not doing anything but listening to the music. Obviously those days are sadly gone, or hard to find now, because life tends to move so quickly compared to how it used to be.
