In an unusual maneuver for a band finding their footing, Manchester quartet Mandy, Indiana ventured into a cave to record part of their now critically-lauded debut album, I’ve Seen A Way. The idea was to capture reflections and expansive sonic moments that would elevate their furious clash of experimental noise rock, industrial electronica, and breakneck dance beats. But producer and multi-instrumentalist Scott Fair said it was the hardest day of recording he’s ever experienced in his life.
The band spent five to six of their eight-hour recording block at the Wookey Hole Caves in the UK’s West Country merely loading in and out of the complex network of tunnels before they settled into their uniquely acoustic recording cave. As they hauled everything from a Tascam mixing desk and drum kit to outboard gear and heavy cables 200 feet underground, there was a distinctly foul odor in the air, seemingly soaked with the stench of death that stuck with Fair.
“They age their own cheese in the cave as well. So there’s this corridor we passed through that had all this decaying cheese,” Fair says on a Zoom call. “I’m not a big cheese guy anyway, but this smelled pretty disturbing. And when you’re carrying heavy gear through these narrow tunnels and you pass through this cheese tunnel, it was like…’What the f*ck?’ Some of it looked like dead, decaying bodies. It was fuzzy and like Beetlejuice or something.”
The harshness of aged cheese, molding on the outside as enzymes and bacteria work their magic to create a flavorful and innovatively aged cheddar on the inside, seems an apt metaphor for the music of Mandy, Indiana. This harnessing of uncomfortable, off-kilter sounds, finding harmony in what’s harsh on the outside, but gratifying within, is the lane in which they operate.
I’ve Seen A Way (out now on Fire Talk records) is unapologetically aggressive and propulsive. Vocalist Valentine Caulfield sings in her native French without sparing any pointed decry at misogynists, racists, corrupt politicians, and others of the same heinous ilk who continue to pollute society. Whether you can understand her lyrics or not, the potency of the message is palpable.
With its eerie hiss and sinister synths, “2 Stripe” especially feels like being in that cave. Caulfield’s vocals ricochet off the contoured ceilings, while Alex MacDougall’s bass drum pounds in the background. Meanwhile, “Drag [Crashed]” is perhaps the best example of the full breadth of the band’s unique process. Tracked both in the cave and also in a crypt, Fair says they pooled the tracking from “a collage” of different locales and assessed how each version came across. In the end, “Drag,” felt like it belonged in two distinct spaces.
“The crypt had harder and quicker reflections,” Fair says. “A low ceiling and pillars that were throwing up different delay times. It was much more confined and immediate. Whereas the cave was very expansive, reflections were much longer. More bass resonance. So we’d say, ‘this space lends itself acoustically to this track really well, or this section.’ A track like “Drag” changes a few times so there was an opportunity to be like, “this part is crypt and this part is cave” and then switch between them, changing a preset of a space. We had those options and used no plug-ins, just trying to use the natural sound of the space.”
The more you listen to Mandy, Indiana, the more the lacquer of its initial contentiousness fades away and the journey becomes clearer. The vision of dancing to pulsing beats and flashing lights in a warehouse club comes to fruition on the album’s winding way. And while perhaps lacking in approachability at the onset, Fair explains that the band is a vessel for them to vent their frustrations at the ills of the world around them.
“We don’t want to live our lives being angry all the time,” he says. “So we channel our anger into something productive and meaningful, because you need to have somewhere for it to go. It’s better if it’s an external exercise instead of just trying to be bitter. Certainly there’s ways you can exorcise demons that can be entertaining that are not just bleak or nihilistic. That’s why these sort of rhythmic and danceable elements of our music come to the fore. It’s a way of bringing people together and channeling this energy into something positive.”
In conversation, Fair is affable and grateful for the ride that Mandy, Indiana is embarking upon. When we speak, he’s beaming at their first US tour that will be announced the next day, with the band making their first-ever stops in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Brooklyn this coming December. This will follow a range of European summer dates as well.
He says the short initial tour into America is a first dip into the water to gauge where the band is at. And it’s another space for Mandy, Indiana’s music to move through, just like each track on I’ve Seen A Way manages to feel like distinctly different physical environments. Disorienting at first, but centering the more you listen to it; finding catharsis in the chaos of the world around it despite the uneasy feeling that things are falling apart before our eyes.
“To put it quite frankly, it doesn’t look like things are gonna get any better in the imminent future,” Fair says. “So there’s gonna be a lot of need for the shoutings of Mandy, Indiana.”