Precursed: Track By Track with Reformat

A record celebrating heavy metal, electronica, vintage pop and classic sci-fi, the new record from Reformat is a vibrant creation crafted in a place void of colour.

The latest record from the electronic-rock unit Reformat – the creative outlet of Luke Pajak, joined here by Ross Russel and Yard Art drummer Jay Russel – Precursed is a gorgeousness and technicolour offering rich with splendour. Should one imagine a record composed of the luscious synth leads of PG. Lost, the ingenuity of Three Trapped Tigers, the analogue emotion of Vasudeva and steadfast commitment to style enjoyed by Overrider and Com Truise, they would most likely envision a soundscape as vibrant as this wonderful record. However, despite it’s uplifting nature and it’s joyous approach to electronica, Precursed is a record not born in colour, but rather in monochrome.

Whilst it would be easy to say that Precursed was inspired by loss and trauma, it would be more truthful to say that the record was created in order to survive such events. Fuelled by anger and driven by grief, the record is Pajak’s way of channeling such mentally eroding emotion in a creative manner rather than turning to self-destruction. In fact, the record is a body of work that see’s one trying to resist the pull of nihilism. In an age where the most easy way to survive is to accept the misery now characterising modern living, Precursed urges one to keep their head above the monochrome mire and cherish the colour and beauty of life, as increasingly fleeting as it may be.

With that in mind and with the record out now via Fearbone Records, we got in touch with Luke to break down Precursed, track by track.

Related: Reformat – Precursed | Album Review

“One thing I’d like to say from the beginning is that the description of what inspired these tracks is really different to how they actually sound. When I explain what they’re about, you might expect something bleak and much darker. The experience is hopefully more uplifting than the place they came from, and that was really the point of making the music.”

Precursed

“The aim was to create a connection between the intro and outro so they bookend the album, despite it being a bad move in an age when listeners will skip after five seconds if they get bored. It maybe doesn’t matter to most people but we still think of an album as a journey, rather than just a collection of songs that will end up on random playlists.

While there’s no major concept, the beginning and end give a bit of context to what’s being expressed throughout. From my perspective, the position of these two tracks describes something about the cyclical nature of grief, and the way our emotions sometimes come in waves. The intro also features the voices and playing of people I’ve lost in recent years. We kick things off from somewhere a little dark and oppressive but end up with fleeting cathartic optimism by the final track.”

Obsolethal

“Musically, ‘Obsolethal’ is a deliberate knee to the bits after the listener has experienced the false dawn of the downtempo intro. On the whole I think it reflects a bit of the Faith No More meets Sonic The Hedgehog sound which we established on the first album. It also features Wayne from Big Lad, sprinkling some extra crunchy glitch throughout, for texture.

There’s only a few lyrics but they continue the themes established in the intro. The words are about the initial stasis of grief and the feeling that even though you’re treading water, everything around you is still moving. If you don’t start moving with it at some point, it gets harder to keep your head above the surface.”

Tsygan

“Tsygan was named after a Russian space dog who was later adopted by the scientist responsible for sending her into space. The song is partly about feeling like it’s the end of the world but you’re somehow seeing it from the outside looking in, so you survived the end but can never go back. It’s a metaphor for the disassociation I experienced when I was a child, where I essentially survived traumatic moments by existing outside of myself.

The lyrics are also about being young and in the orbit of addicts who lied to me and themselves. There was a subtle look of terror in their eyes—that I’d call them out and maybe even more terror that I wouldn’t and they’d spiral even more. Most of the time, the people in question didn’t know what desperate bullshit was about to come out of their mouths. Generally after those interactions, you’re left with the grubby feeling that they think they’ve duped you. The reality is, you actually just want the pain they’re causing everyone, by speaking, to end.”

Haruspex

“This track is one of my favourites despite it being one of the weirder ones. I especially like the contrast between where it starts and where it ends up. Musically it is inspired by early Squarepusher, Type O Negative and Faith No More, which is a contrast in itself. The lyrics came from a conversation I had with my friends when we were teenagers, which I heard again recently on an old home video.

A Haruspex was like a soothsayer who looked through the guts of the dead to predict the future. That name felt appropriate in the context of me picking over the old carcass of my life—as captured in 20 year old videos—to find out what went wrong and perhaps even deal with what’s coming next. The ending ultimately feels hopeful; hope that I can eventually take the advice of my past self and make or change “something real”. The message I take is we should try to be authentic and brave.”

Paroxysms

“For me, music is usually at its best when it’s an expression of something meaningful. There’s been a lot of meaningful (if shitty) stuff happening to us over the past five years, so I’m hoping some of it has at least been put to good use. Precursed is more emotionally direct than the first album… there’s more anger, frustration and sadness on the surface. We’re still a little experimental but I think there’s more immediacy too. We’re committed to delivering melody above all else but I feel like things evolve more quickly and impulsively this time. There’s still what I would describe as a typical Reformat sound. The palette hasn’t changed wildly (except I’m primarily using the Prophet 6 instead of the Juno 106) but all of the same sort of textures are in there. Overall though, it’s just a more abrasive collection of songs.

Saying all that, ‘Paroxysms’ is perhaps the most like something off our first album. (It also turns out it’s the most overused song title of the decade). The song has that familiar optimistic but melancholy vibe… the same chiptune flavours and spaced out sections, which are maybe a little less prominent on this album. I think there is an overall feeling of triumph in this track and while there’s no lyrics, the music expresses one of the scarce moments where I feel like I can manage what the world is throwing at me, in recent years at least.”

Dētrūsā

‘Dētrūsā’ is another of my favourites, mainly because I love the way the synths and guitars blend to create this raspy, mechanical riff… the noise it creates reminds me of an old dot matrix printer. They had a weird musicality when they were working, like a machine singing almost. The track also features more of Wayne’s glitch which blends really well with our own. The song itself is about feeling totally abandoned when life has overwhelmed me and as a last resort, using my anger at the situation to dig myself out of the shit. For me there’s a feeling of determination that drives the song and I suppose it’s both a bit of a celebration of being able to rely on myself—and also a sadness that I have to.

“The lyrics are pretty self-explanatory. At an exhausting time when stuff was going very wrong for me, I was feeling responsible for carrying the burden of others’ emotions and finally decided to embrace the anger and stop making myself available for that. I feel like the sense of release when the vocals come at the end of the song is like the reward you get for putting up strong boundaries in sometimes unhealthy relationships.”

Dead Place

“This song is about revisiting someone close’s home after they’d recently died and feeling like my tether to the world had been cut loose and I was at risk of drifting off into space but not having the strength to do anything about it. The stability of their love and home had been the only constant in my life while growing up in a broken family. Losing access to that place was a bit like losing access to my last few genuinely carefree memories. My ability to carry on with any sense of optimism was broken in that moment and achieving anything like the warmth of that place for myself just seemed out of reach… and still does a bit. Fuck me! I don’t think the song is as depressing as that makes it sound. Haha.

We wanted more lead vocals on this album but I didn’t really feel comfortable with being front and centre. We took influence from Air or Oneohtrix Point Never and approached the vocals with a mixture of heavily processed human voice and also some vintage speech synthesis. I like the fact that I can no longer remember where my voice ends and the speech emulator (built by my brother utilising the now ancient BBC Micro Speech software) begins… although on this track its mainly the emulator doing the talking. I’d like to claim this fascination with vocal processing was originally influenced by someone cool like Cynic but if I’m honest, it’s more that I’m a product of the nineties and Cher and Dane Bowers have taken up permanent residence in my psyche.”

Astromanx

“The main motif of this song was created over a decade ago–which you can actually hear sampled in the intro. I’d gone to visit my niece when she was a baby and was playing with a toy piano when I became captivated by the amazing circuit-bending-level wonkiness of the tuning. The pitch actually changed depending on where and how hard I hit the keys so I was having a lot of fun… certainly more than her! Haha. In my defence, it’s not often that you hear such a blatant disregard for chromatic tuning in the digital age.

After a while, I came up with this little progression which later took on various forms over the years until it eventually evolved into this track. A sample of my niece’s voice from that day is also buried in the mix too… she’s nearly a grown up now so it’s a nice reminder of her when she was tiny and barely talking.”

Sierra Oscar

“This song is lyrically about experiencing such a traumatic change in my life that it was just staying with me when I fell asleep and causing constant nightmares. For a while there was no escaping what I was feeling but thankfully in the end, creating this music was about the only thing which switched my mind off long enough to get a break from it. The whole album just became about finding peace and a release, which despite the frantic nature of the tempo in this track, comes through in the sound as much as the darkness, I hope.

Musically this song feels more connected to the nineties than anything from the first album… there’s almost a trance vibe to some of the sawtooth synths and the whole thing has a distinctly MDMA feeling to me. I think that’s partly down to the near euphoric relief I was feeling from escaping the constant dark.”

Prince Valium

“This track was kind of the blueprint to the album. It was the first one we crafted into a good shape and it’s the only one Russ and I actually managed to work on properly in the same space before we recorded. It was actually pretty close to finished in 2019 and I’ve felt like it joined me on a crazy journey through grief, poor health and the pandemic since.

It was written in response to huge loss and at a time when I felt things couldn’t get much worse. I was wrong unfortunately, haha. Conscious that this whole record was perhaps getting super depressing in a way, I wanted to try and share the catharsis I felt making some of the songs–rather than just burden the audience with my anger, anxiety and sadness. So it ends with a glimmer of hope, I hope!”

Postbreath

“As mentioned at the beginning, this is the counterpoint to Precursed. We ultimately decided to start with the darker track and end the album on hope. There was a time when I was going to switch these two around in the running order but the flow this way is more uplifting I think. I do like to end albums on a soother and this one is exactly that in my view.

After a lifetime of dealing with anxiety, I found that the feeling of impending doom subsides a little if I can cry… there’s something I find really sad about the vocals at the end of this song which describe that release. But then I’m also reminded a little of the ‘Club Tropicana’ outro so I smile through any tears. I’m not a religious person but the ascending synth keeps reaching somewhere so interstellar that it becomes almost heavenly. I suppose to me, this song is committing to eventually being able to smile at the happy memories. Not easy for a pessimist but I’m still trying.”