Dan Hillier
Whilst the midlands math-rock trio finely established their sound and namesake with their wonderful self-titled debut, their latest record Lights Out serves the product of a creative metamorphosis. Instead of resting on their laurels over the course of the pandemic, A-Tota-So reinvented themselves, retaining the math-rock stylings that defined them all whilst moving down new musical avenues.
Yet, the biggest change to their sound however is the departure from their once purely instrumental focus. Each of the eight tracks on Lights Out features guest vocals from some of the best names within the UK and Irish contemporary scene, with the album boasting the talents from the likes of Damien Sayell (The St. Pierre Snake Invasion/ Mclusky), Ashley Tubb (Sugar Horse), Ellie Godwin (No Violet), Aisling Whiting (Sang Froid) and many others. The end result is an incredibly varied album that touches upon a variety of genres and sounds from all across the contemporary music spectrum in a way that’s exploratory, collaborative yet still focused and precise.
It’s truly an extraordinary album, one that almost serves as a who’s who of the best talent of the thriving scene this corner of the continent is host to. So with that in mind, and with the album out now via bUTTONpUSHER, we got in touch with guitarist Marty Toner and every guest vocalist to break down Lights Out, track by track.
Related: A-Tota-So – Lights Out | Album Review
Marty: “This was one of those rare songs that just seemed to write itself, during the first lockdown I was just writing a lot and playing a lot of guitar to stay sane. I was messing about in different tunings in parts and wrote this knowing I wanted to keep it pretty short and to the point, when we finally got together to rehearse again between lockdowns it didn’t take us long to get everything sorted in terms of arrangement at all and it definitely felt it needed some angrier vocals so we got Jake from an awesome Irish band called God Alone involved.”
Jake: “The lyrics to this song were created in a fairly abstract way which is the way I usually like to write lyrics. I started by going through books and magazines and picking out random words or phrases that I found interesting.”
“I then rearranged these snippets in a way that would make sense and fit rhythmically. I like writing this way as it leaves the meaning entirely up to the listener and could mean something different with every listen. I tried to make the lyrics and vocals are dark and cathartic as possible to match the dissonant and unrelenting instrumental.”
Marty: “This was just meant to be a dirty grunge tune and it’s one of the most fun to play , we love The St Pierre Snake Invasion and it felt like a no brainer to get Damien involved as we’ve been mates for a good few years now. It’s a song that really lets you get your rage out when playing it and it was nice to hear Damien do something out of his comfort zone on the record.”
Damien: “Marty asked me if I’d be interested in putting some vocals down for a song on the new record. He sent me the song, I liked it and had ideas for what I wanted to do pretty much straight away. Recording the vocals was a veritable nightmare. The ideas I had were difficult to actualize, a lot of the vocals I sent to the producer were flatter than the Netherlands. He worked wonders, and he deserves a medal.”
“The lyrics are about the horrible realisation that comes when an all night session of debauchery nears its inevitable conclusion. The sun comes up, you have to face reality, all you want to do is escape your thoughts and the decisions that brought you there, but you know deep down you’d do it all again because you’ve been kept in drink and conversation with people you love.”
Marty: “This song started life on my old battered classical guitar and we were messing around with vocal ideas along with my partner Zoe and proceeded to get very drunk that night with Aisling and a lot of different ideas where thrown around, when it came to recording we felt it needed a little something extra so we asked Zoe’s brother Realf if he would play some cello on it, he decided to also record some violin parts which really helped lift the track. We’re so proud of how it turned out in the end.”
Aisling: “’I Am’ was sent to me at the peak of the pandemic, it gave me a source of release that I didn’t think possible during such insane times. Being asked to weave vocals onto such a beautifully emotive track was an absolute pleasure.
I felt challenged to feed some of my peak pandemic low points into the lyrics of this song, but also wanted to ensure the concept of there being a light at the end of the tunnel, however long that tunnel may be.”
Marty: “This is our attempt at a pop punk banger hahaha, the first couple of minutes are just really upbeat and driving fun so we enlisted Kieran from We Come In Pieces as he is one of the funniest people we know and has a great delivery with his vocals, it’s just 100% Kieran and we love it, it’s a song about how corrupt the government are and how they should have all their heads ripped off, the end section is a nice little spaced out section which we wanted to use to create a bit of space in the album and we wanted to expand on that so you could really pick out lots of different little things when you listen to the album so we asked Josh from Poly-Math if he would add some keys in to really add some texture and extra layers to the ending.”
Kieran: “When I was kindly asked by our old buds to put vocals to this track, we were elbow deep into the pandemic and there wasn’t a whole load of privacy at home to go hooting and hollering.
“One day midweek while working from home, I was surprised to find myself with the house free for 3 hours during the day to make as much noise as I could muster and I had a fair bit of shouting to get out of my lungs. The camera went off and the mic went on mute during an illuminating regional conference call and I opened my phone with nothing immediate coming to mind. I don’t think a few verses on my quarterly KPI review was going to get the blood pumping. Or maybe you’re into performance management.”
“I had a look at the lads Twitter and was only too happy to jump on the train of bashing the British governments pandemic response, which to read Marty’s ranting was akin to doing the right thing after exhausting all other options first. Perfidious Albion.”
“With everyone being able to get right back into the swing of things now, hopefully we can get on the road and all play these songs together after A-Tota-So created this great project”.
Marty: “Structurally this one didn’t actually get finished until right before we hit the studio, I had a bunch of ideas for it and always knew that I wanted to get Brian from Ganglions in on vocals for this one as it had that kind of vibe which suited his style of vocal delivery.”
Brian: “I was in London during the pandemic when I wrote this and could feel the exodus from the city more and more each day. I was hearing about DIY spaces and independent music venues getting into trouble, losing their premises, unable to pay rent, getting scammed. All of that is featured in the song, and clearly I had a hopeful outlook for the return of people and music.
“The “footprints on the ceiling” line is a reference to a time we were touching up a venue with some paint and noticed the ceiling was covered with dirty footprints from people crowdsurfing. You could also say it’s a reference to the world being turned right-side-up again but I’d say you might be reading into it too much. Still, I’m glad A-Tota-So picked it as the title because it helps that stick out in my mind a little more.”
Marty: “This was a reworking of a song that we had previously released on a 10” vinyl with a Belgian band called SixHands but we were never 100% happy with how it sounded so we took the bull by the horns and made it the way it should have sounded to us and there was no one better than Jack from Irk / Platitude Queen to deliver his vocal ramblings, it’s completely changed the track and we love what Jack did over the music.”
Jack: “At its simplest, the song is about someone’s retrospective evaluation of a failed relationship, riddled with selective memory and underpinned by an unrealistic sense of unfairness. The narrator navigates a maze of memories covering all stages of the doomed romance. They desperately haggle with the imagined perfection of what once was, marked musically by the bouncy melodious gait of the song’s opening. At the same time, they invite disdain and disgust at exaggerated injustice at the hands of their parter; a once flawless beacon of hope, somehow willingly corrupted by unknown malfeasance. At this point, the tone of the music becomes more distorted, more aggressive.”
“By the end of the song, the narrator’s insecurities leave them exhausted. Only then, in the final lilting cadences, is there acceptance, and a way forward.”
Marty: “This was the track that started it all for this album, we’d been speaking to Ellie from No Violet back in 2019 about doing a song together at ArcTanGent but for one reason or another it just never happened and then COVID hit and gave us all the time we needed to make it a reality, we love Ellies vocal style and felt that it would really make a huge impact on this song so we were delighted when we actually got round to making it happen.”
Ellie: “I wasn’t sure how to write for a good while during the height of the pandemic, but Marty’s persistence and belief in my ability truly helped me through. I’m sure anyone and everyone felt a loss, whether it was a part of themselves or someone else. That’s what this song is about. I’m ever so grateful to have been asked to be a part of this album featuring a wonderful bunch of creatives and friends. A-Tota-So, you bloody well told me so. Lots of love lads.”
Marty: “This was written on another angry day in the OG lockdown, fucked off with the state of the world and i’d just had enough and just used that anger to write this song, I pretty much had everything written structure wise when I gave Ashley the guitar demo and his brief was just to scream over the end of the track but when he heard it he asked if he could just do something over the whole song so we gave him free reign and he delivered this monster which sums up a lot of the anger that we were all feeling during what seemed like never ending lockdowns.”
Ashely: “This song is about the lack of intricacy in the modern world. It seems we are forced to ignore nuance and are pigeon holed into something we don’t entirely believe in.”
“It comes from the feedback loops of social media. Where anger gets more clicks than understanding or concession. I don’t see the world in the kind of black & white terms these systems tend to enforce and this song is a celebration of the shades of grey we navigate through on a daily basis.”