HOLY FUCK + RATTLE - URBAN SPREE - BERLIN

 

As the passage of time marches to its own relentless beat, it’s almost frightening to note that it has been six years since their previous set, 2020’s ‘Deleter’. Given the well-documented events that followed that year, the normally road-weary band - Brian Borcherdt, Graham Walsh, Matt ‘Punchy’ McQuaid and Matt Schulz - spent two years entirely apart from each other. In March 2022, they finally reconvened in an old village hall in rural Nova Scotia. The main purpose was to simply reunite and rehearse, but new song ideas soon flowed out of them. And that was the starting point for their upcoming album ‘Event Beat’.

 

“The catalyst for this record and the beginning of the recordings that we did was us just getting back together again,” states Graham. “It was something unique to us. It was all of us living together one in space and with no distractions and just working on music in the middle of nowhere. It’s a way I really like to work. For at least half of the songs on the record, it was just us holed up together. Which was great!” Intuition, muscle memory, an almost telepathic link? Call it what you will but the shared synapses between the quartet were soon fired up. “Having our own language that we can speak so easily together is really important to us,” asserts Brian. “We all have our own piece to bring to the conversation, and it's idiosyncratic to us because we’ve been dedicated to it for so long. Hopefully that’s encouraging to other bands who feel like they’re on a similar path.” Nonetheless, there were challenges. At one point a storm knocked out the power, forcing them to start up a generator. More importantly was the presence of a local who objected to the volume of their sessions. You can talk long into the night about musical influences, but nothing shapes the direction of a record quite like the practical obstacle of having to placate a neighbour.

 

“That became a production challenge,” notes Graham. “We still wanted to jam, but while being as quiet as possible. Matt couldn’t hit the drums really loud. So we made these more low-key ambient things. It was like, how quiet can we be and still do what we do?”

 

Between those spotlight moments and the vibrancy of ‘Event Beat’ and it’s clear that Holy Fuck are as relevant as ever. It can’t be attributed to any one thing. Perhaps it’s the conviction to keep going and sticking to their guns regardless of music’s latest trends. Maybe it’s the pure compulsion to keep at it even after many of their early peers have drifted away. Or it could be them setting an example to younger musicians that playing live off the floor can still be a creative thrill - as demonstrated by their incoming ‘At Work’ video performance series. “What I hope people take away from it is an appreciation is the togetherness and the humanity in the music,” concludes Graham. “Music should be played and enjoyed together. When that raw punk sound comes off the stage you should just enjoy it and relish that experience. It’s wonderful and awesome.”