Imagine if Suicide had grown up in a land of shiny buildings and an efficient integrated public transport ridden by pulchridinous young folks with elfin cheekbones rather than on the grim and mean streets of 70s New York, and you’ve got a pointer towards the sound of electronic duo Society. The Quietus got in touch with the preposterously named Mustang Ford and Crack Francisco for the Escape Velocity treatment, and to find out all about their recent EP, Rules Of Attraction.
Hullo Society and how are you today?
Mustang Ford: I feel like I died and went to heaven, which is good because it means dying won’t be so bad.
Crack Francisco: The Society is good, just waking up.
Margaret Thatcher said there’s no such thing as Society. Did you form to prove the bitch wrong?
Mustang Ford: In a way, there is no such thing as Margaret Thatcher — she is just a mouthpiece for a lot of quite nasty ideas that lurk in the collective human subconscious . . . we formed to shine some light in those dark places of the collective soul.
Crack Francisco: Well, I guess there is such a thing as SOCIETY now. Better to get used to it.
If that isn’t the case, can you tell us a little of how you formed?
Mustang Ford: We met in a pharmacy, discussed string theory over codeine and figured that the world could only get higher from our musical union — we’re like a musical painkiller, an antidote.
Are you fans of cult film, Society?
Mustang Ford: I’ve not seen but I am aware of it, so I guess the answer is like, totally, man.
Crack Francisco: We’re definitely into the idea of rich people eating each other at some grotesque and decadent banquet.
How does your division of labour manifest itself?
Mustang Ford: In our society there is no division of labour, all people are free to do as they wish to our soundtrack.
Crack Francisco: This freedom he’s talking about exists in another dimension and is realised through sound.
Is ‘Future Days(Getting High)’ an addition to the great canon of songs about discovering the other limits of one’s gourd?
Mustang Ford: Absolutely. It’s all about mystical transcendence really, folding time and space to project yourself into a more perfect future. It is absolutely possible to fold time, it just depends on your perception. It will happen. It already has.
Crack Francisco: Yeah, it’s about positioning yourself spiritually where you want to be. Just forgetting about the mundane and opening up your mind.
Is it also a nod to Can? If so, why?
Mustang Ford: It was unconscious if it was, but Future Days is certainly one of the greatest albums ever made.
Crack Francisco: Can are pretty high up in our influences.
And a little bit about your current EP?
Mustang Ford: It’s our first pan-dimensional venture into the unknown, hopefully it will take you somewhere you have never been before. The track Drifting Down is full of subliminal messages designed to do just that.
Crack Francisco: This EP materializes our first close encounters of the third kind. We’re working on our second EP right now and are really excited about making a video for the track ‘Who Wrote That Prayer Inside Your Head’ — an artistic collaboration between two of our friends, the film director Pierre Debusschere and the British artist Sarah Maple.
What makes Society different from other handsome electro duos stalking the capital?
Mustang Ford: Maybe it’s that we don’t really give a shit about being a pop act — we are trying to create a sort of sonic poetry of our own and define a very unique soundtrack to our own little universe. Songs like Future Days are like a transmission from the outer limits of consciousness really, so maybe that sets us apart a little.
Crack Francisco: Yeah, we are trying to create something real, different and meaningful. It’s not just about ‘the beats, man’.
Why hasn’t Britain launched a convicing electro group in the last few years?
Mustang Ford: Because most of the music industry is riddled with posh kids trying to be cool, and sadly electronic music is viewed as the easiest route in. It shouldn’t be devalued by these people — look at the early work of Depeche Mode and compare that to something like La Roux, one sounds real and vital, one sounds totally manufactured.
Crack Francisco: We don’t really see ourselves as an electro group — our current sound is just the best way we can find to channel the sound of the void to the world.
What would you do to someone who called you ‘post-New Rave’?
Mustang Ford: Hit them with a poisonous flower.
Crack Francisco: Tell them to get into the New Grave.
What are your top Rules Of Attraction?
- Sing the love of danger and nurture the habit of energy and rashness.
- Whistle amongst the winds of fairgrounds.
- Provoke the human presence.
- Shake your crystal hips.
- Soak yourself in light blue sky-based paint.
Name three non-musical influences
Mustang Ford: Shiva. Transcendence. Clouds.
Crack Francisco: Alaska. The Future. The Past.
Have you ever been members of a Society, secret or otherwise?
Mustang Ford: In the words of Woody Allen, I’d never join a club that would allow a person like me to become a member.
Crack Francisco: I guess that pretty much says it all.
What is the ultimate ambition of Society?
Mustang Ford: In the traditional sense it’s about bringing everyone together in this big sort of conformist umbrella, but our society is about getting the sound of freedom out to as many people as we can — we are the anti-society society.
Crack Francisco: We want to travel at the speed of sound.
