More about: Connan-Mockasin

Connan Mockasin is back on tour. The Te Awonga, New Zealand native, currently living in Tokyo with his girlfriend and new born baby, is preparing for a Rough Trade instore when Gigwise meets him.

And it's a pleasure to Connan, the man behind Jassbusters – an album that we've been more excited about than most this year. The album, which follows his amazing 2011 debut Forever Dolphin Love and 2013's Caramel – both modern psychedelic classics with absurd wig-outs and tantalising melodies, is great. The earlier two studio LP's do include a strong imaginative narrative, far removed from normative subject matter for a song: debut album Forever Dolphin Love involves a dolphin, a man being in love with said dolphin, a car race and ultimately a car crash, writes The Guardian. Meanwhile, Caramel starts off with a guy with a deep voice called Boss who is in love with the Dolphin, and the story goes from there.

Anyway, Jassbusters' themes sit firmly within Connan's oeuvre. Having first publicly cited Jassbusters’ frontman Mr. Bostyn – Jassbusters are a band of music teachers were spawned from Bostyn 'n Dobsyn: a series of comics and short films invented by Connan, his brother, and close friend 20 years ago in his hometown – on his debut album hit track 'It's Choade My Dear'; it makes for a remarkable continuity in the artist’s output to see it out now. It’s remarkable seeing Connan take heaps of material from back in the day and bring Mr. Bostyn so wholeheartedly into the limelight. It’s such an embrace it makes Connan Mockasin’s only third studio album of the decade a record by his imagination band Jassbusters.

In tandem, the artist’s put out a new Bostyn 'n Dobsyn melodrama – filmed in just a few days in LA, with the help from friends including Playboy model girlfriend Hiromi Oshima – and rehearsed and toured a Jassbusters live show. The multifarious output, orbiting through arthouse cinemas, is subverting the usual confines of a studio album – nothing ordinary can be redeemed from this Jassbusters moment in Connan’s life. And we say cinemas because it’s too early to say the whole thing can be experienced at home presently. The only way to see the melodrama thus far has been to attend the Connan Mockasin tour which has been around cinemas in North America and Europe. It’s seen the Bostyn 'n Dobsyn first episode ‘Belly Bubble’ screened before a live set by Jassbusters, and the night is capped off with a Connan Mockasin set, consisting of all the hits from the first two albums.

When he’s on stage as Mr. Bostyn, Connan’s nothing if not committed: Alex Ferguson-esque 80’s specs, a mullet and oversized leather jacket fit the confused mid-life crises character he’s playing. This look extends to the album cover – a sleeve for a record put out by Mexican Summer worldwide – and the melodrama. It’s consistent and memorable.

As for the events in the first episode, we don’t want to give too much away, but Dobsyn’s awkward interaction with a pupil, whom he thinks is named Josie, is at its heart. As it prevails, we sense Mr. Bostyn's lost his way slightly, having "played with people of note" once upon a time. Moreover, the teacher appears to be losing his foothold in his current family and in the process of adjustment. It’s deadpan, black humour to some – the UK audience at the Barbican laughed the most on the whole tour we’re told. But Connan stands by the melodrama definition when asked about its black humoured undertones.

When the band come on – the band are told to play like teachers by Connan to become the characters he’s invented ("Just be music teachers … Do it how you think they would do it") – Connan as Mr. Bostyn is centre stage. The singer takes the role play well, holding his own as the teach and even takes a moment to introduce the next band Connan Mockasin as if he’s a different person. By doing this, the creator is his own support band, with two distinct sets of material. It’s brilliant to witness.

The album – as mentioned above – is great too: earworm melodies, it’s the first live band recording Connan’s ever done, there’s a James Blake guest vocal, and it's a consistent ambience that you can sink into, driven by Connan's hazy vocal and inimitable guitar style. What a gift. And what a pleasure to chat with Connan Mockasin at Cafe 1001 in Brick Lane about its creation. We chat Jassbusters, the melodrama, an upcoming cassette 8 track album called Ade, working with James Blake, and more. Read the transcript below:

Gigwise: Hi Connan. I’ve just been listening to your mixtape online - Jim Chicken [a compilation of Japanese bands]. Has it rubbed off on you as your discipline as a guitar player for the new album?

Connan Mockasin: I’ve no discipline as a guitar player. I played guitar obsessively for two years when I was 10 or 11. I lost interest, was obsessed with it too much.

GW: You looked as if you were really into it at The Barbican, though…

CM: I love it if I’m on stage. It’s because I’ve put on so many hours when I was a kid and I can express through it. But I never play it unless I’m recording or on stage.

GW: I suppose each live set can be quite different as a consequence?

CM: It’s new yeah. I try and just let something flow through.

GW: Is James Blake’s approach similar? [Blake recorded on the track ‘Momo’s’ on the Jassbusters album]

CM: I think he is. We appreciate each other. I like the way it’s almost like it’s not him playing. But he’s played enough to - technically - figure somehow to do something that you don’t know.

GW: Did it feel exhilarating like that in Paris when you were recording the new album?

CM: Yeah. Yeah… And I leave all mistakes: there is no editing; no overdubbing of vocals. I made up the lyrics on the spot and leave them. I hate the idea of going, ‘oh now I need to write proper lyrics’. You just freeze up and it just becomes too bored.

GW: How did James Blake come to be on the record. Was he in Paris?

CM: No. That was the only thing that wasn’t done there. I went back to LA straight after Paris and James and I were in the studio and he asked if he could listen to some music from what I was doing when I was there. It [Momo's] was the first and only track I played him. He grabbed the mic and just sang all over it and it sounded beautiful so I thought that I should keep it if it’s beautiful.

GW: I can hear what sounds like tape running faintly in the background on the Jassbusters album. What is that?

CM: I’ve been getting into DAT recording. I was trying to get it sharp as possible. I like recording on DAT because you don’t have any temptation to edit and it’s fairly smooth. We recorded an improvised album with my dad this year, over just a few days. That was on cassette 8-track, and that sounds really nice.

GW: What did you like about the studio in Paris? [Jassbusters is Connan’s first record in a proper studio]

CM: I got introduced to that studio through Charlotte Gainsbourg, [with whom] I recorded stuff that people will never hear, unfortunately. [But] I really like Renaud Letang - it’s his studio - and his engineer Thomas Muller. I loved their studio as it’s got a really nice atmosphere, and I thought if I ever do a studio album with the band, a live recording, I’d do it there.

GW: Considering you’ve a band playing on the record and not done it all yourself like the other records, was it hard to relinquish control?

CM: No because I love the band so much I wanted them to put their personality there. Otherwise there’s no point in having a band play. I’d do it all myself.

GW: On the other records is it all you?

CM: Yeah.

GW: Drums as well?

CM: Some. Matthew Eccles - my current live drummer - plays the drums on Caramel. On the record before, I play some of the drums and I have other people playing too.

GW: Bostyn crops up earlier in your work too on ‘Choade’. Is there a logical connection to the current narrative on Jassbusters?

CM: No. I don’t know why I sang it. That record was never meant to be released or heard by anyone. But my mum said I should release a record (I wasn’t in the industry at the time). My mum said, 'you should make a record for yourself. It’ll be a nice thing'. And since she talked me into it I did it whilst I was at home in Te Awonga. With the lyrics, I was just being silly with whatever came to my head and Bostyn 'n Dobsyn is always in my head so that’s why it’s in there.

GW: Are you trained in jazz at all?

CM: No. I don’t know anything about jazz.

GW: Oh, I think I read a review that said you were jazz trained….

Someone caused that rumour. I don’t know where that came from. I left home and moved to Wellington before moving to London. And [years later] somehow a rumour went around that I went to jazz school there. So I wrote to the university asking for my degree (because I never went to any university) and said, 'people keep saying I’ve got this degree at jazz school so can I have it? Can I see it?'. They didn’t write back.

GW: Ha

GW: Now you’ve had distance from Jassbusters, does that change the way you hear it?

CM: Two years. I’ve had distance from it for two years. Yeah so leave it for two years. Don’t listen to it. Then you don’t touch it. Rather than being there when everything seems like, ‘aw that’s not good enough.’ If you leave it and listen to it two years later you’re like, ‘it’s fine, don’t touch it. Put it in the fridge.’

…Talk turns back to LA. Connan has just left having moved to Tokyo for the last few months which he says is amazing but very different.

GW: What was it like being in LA? Do you have to work hard to find a corner with people you get along with, considering there's lots of people there angling for fame?

CM: I wasn’t there for anything apart from being with my girlfriend and I had nothing to take or gain from being there.

GW: Do you think people find that refreshing maybe?

CM: Yeah it’s weird, I mean my girlfriend [clears throat] she’d been working for Playboy for 14 years and so we would go to your typical Los Angeles parties - Hollywood parties - and we’d go to The Mansion all the time and it was really funny. I don’t care if anyone’s trying to [angle for fame]. It was fun I had a really good time. I saw a really sad world. But also a really funny [one].

GW: Are there any collaborations coming up we should know about?

CM: I want to do this record with my dad and my band we did this year. 

GW: What is the dad record name?

CM: Ade.

GW: Is that your dad's name? Is it out soon?

CM: Yeah. I don’t know what we’ll do with it. Hopefully it'll be out soon. Could do it tonight.

GW: How has the Jassbusters tour been?

CM: Lovely. This whole tour has been seated. It was also the screening of the first episode ‘Belly Bubble’ – the first episode of Bostyn 'n Dobsyn. So it’s all movie theatres and theatres that you can sit down and watch it because you don’t want to stand. And Mr. Bostyn’s band Jassbusters, which is the support band, I come about as myself after which you’ve seen. It's what we’ve been doing over the past month.

GW: It’s great not repeating your tracks. Is it nice to have a new creation?

CM: Yeah, had to, because I haven’t been touring. I’ve played the occasional concert, but I haven’t been touring for nearly four years. And it bores me doing the easy venues that are easy for the agents to book. The ones they book because most of them don’t want to work.

GW: You keep an eagle eye on all aspect of what you do, then?

CM: I’m learning that you have to, unfortunately. Yeah, It depends there’s a few people out there that are excited to [...] It just bores me. The cycle of a record bores me.

GW: The way that people in the music industry talk about music must get annoying for you too then?

CM: Yeah I find the industry tedious. I try and keep a distance from it as much as possible. It makes me cringe.

GW: How do you avoid getting sucked in?

CM: If you’re making something you make it when you feel like doing it. And it’s what you want to hear at the time. It’s not to press what’s going on. And you don’t want to start something because you think, 'oh I should make one because it’s the right time'. Doing things when it naturally feels right. And if I don’t feel like making music I won’t.
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It seems Connan's sticking to his guns pays off. After a five year wait between studio albums, Jassbusters, the spawn o Bostyn 'n Dobsyn, is an immensely imaginative, release that stands head and shoulders above most things we've heard this year.  We look forward to seeing more episodes of Bostyn 'n Dobsyn.

Jassbusters is out now on Mexican Summer worldwide

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