:Łabandzi Śpiew Magazine: The Seismic Waves EN

ŁŚ Magazine - extra reading for your weekend, something like those broadsheet add-ons every weekend so you can spend some time over Sunday coffee. But this one is about music. And Mongolia. (hopefully, it's going to appear every weekend)

I discovered Mongolian The Seismic Waves via their album "Distorted Vision" released in October 2016 and I got excited about it with the first time I heard it. Now, after a short interview with Ulemj from the band I gladly found out that they are equally excited about making music. He told me a lot about the music scene of Mongolia, his musical inspirations and whose vision was actually distorted when recording the album. Fun to meet him (even if only on-line), bayarlalaa, Ulemj.


ŁŚ: Can you describe the music scene of Mongolia? People usually know only some folk, deep throat singers. What does Mongolian underground music look like? Is there anything you could recommend to us? TSW: As you might already know we are a big country with a small population. Soo, the music scene is very small and especially the underground music is minuscule. So it’s kinda cool that you know about us. Mongolia was under Soviet reign for almost 7 decades and during that time some of the most influential bands such as Soyol-Erdene came out, in the 70s. You should check’em out. People always think we’re more influenced by Chinese culture, but we’re actually more Russian and European. Our language sounds like nothing you’ve heard before though, haha. That was a little about Mongolia overall and its music scene. Like Russia the old Soviet time pop stars are still huge and the commercial music scene is very old. We’re definitely more proud of Mongolian traditional music in general, throat singing is pretty amazing. I have some traditional influenced songs, personal ones. As for the underground music scene, “Indie music” scene was pretty fast developing in the early 2000s, and now it’s somewhat uniform. Bands to recommend: new upcoming indie folk singer-songwriter Magnolian is doing really well, he got some sweet overseas reviews and played in a festival and stuff in Korea, Zandari. There’s The Colors. They played in V-Rox festival in Russia, same goes with Mohanik - they are somewhat pioneers of the indie music scene, 11 years. If you’re interested in more Mongolian traditional based music you should definitely check them out. “Amarbayasgalant” is the album. Other mentions would be: Futuroma (indie pop), Homosapien's (post-rock), The Tourists (hard rock). If you’re interested in hip hop music, there’s a beat maker from Uvs province which is very far from the capital city and he doesn't even speak english but he’s an amazing beat maker influenced by artists like Damu The Fudgemunk, Gang Starr. He goes by the name Bodikhuu.

Mohanik

ŁŚ: ...and where are you in there? Are you quite known or still very much underground? TSW: We are still very much underground, people don’t know us. I compose all my songs in my bedroom, and hope they won’t stay there too, haha. We started playing in march 2016. My bandmates are all my high school mates. So it’s a classic teenage “Let’s start a band” kinda story! As soon as we were formed, we got a gig at an Opening Concert for the only live music festival in Mongolia, which is Playtime. That was out first ever gig and since then we’ve only played maybe at 5 gigs or so. The feedback from the Playtime organisers was pretty good, they were shocked that we were so young and there are not many shoegazing, post-rock bands in Mongolia. ŁŚ: What are your inspirations? You sound as if you get them from various famous bands. Which ones are your favourite? TSW: As a typical 17 year old boy who was in love, I wanted to write a song for my girlfriend and that’s how it all started. I began listening to Mono (Japan) and really old traditional Mongolian songs. And Slowdive was definitely a huge influence on me, and they still are. I can really relate to them because they were the same age as me when they started. And both Neil and Rachel were really in love and I guess it's the roots of most songs in most bands. As simple as that. Favourite bands: Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine, Joy Division, Drop Nineteens, unhappybirthday.

"Distorted Vision"

ŁŚ: In October 2016 you released the album called “Distorted Vision”. Whose vision is being distorted?

TSW: “Distorted Vision” songs were all written by me in my bedroom and so I had no professional recording devices or equipment such as a sound card etc. It was really difficult to record and get the perfect sound that I had in my mind. And that’s why my vision of a perfect sound was distorted. There was always unwanted white noise, laptop fan noise or amp fuzziness, all songs are made with only two pedals. 

ŁŚ: My favourite track from “Distorted Vision” must be “Cosmic Lover”. How was it created? Who is the cosmic lover?

TSW: “Cosmic Lover” was created again in my bedroom. I used to watch a lot of space related documentaries about black holes, nebulae, the Milky Way, neutron stars, distant planets, etc. And that’s how “Cosmic Lover” was written. 

"Cosmic Lover" single

ŁŚ: This short album is still very diverse, some tracks are more catchy, some are very post-punk, other are rather dreampop or post-rock music. Which genre does suit you best? Do you prefer playing something over something else?

TSW: You are right about the EP album being diverse in genre. As most debut EPs, it's the collection of all the songs and genres we like and if you ask me now, we prefer more space music blended with shoegaze, like Golden Hair by Syd Barrett (Slowdive cover) which is the only cover song we love to play. ŁŚ: What are your plans for 2017? It’s probably not really possible for you to come to Europe, right? TSW: We have no plans for 2017. I’m sure I will continue playing and writing songs as it comes very naturally and it’s almost like a routine. I just keep on writing, no matter if the song turns out good or not. So yeah. Yes, you can say it’s almost impossible for us all to come to Europe because bandmates are all going to study abroad.

Read more about The Seismic Waves' "Distorted Vision" here. Check also out the band's Bandcamp and Facebook accounts.