Neu Holograms: ‘It’s A Really Shitty Form Of Employment’

What with the level of sparkling Swedish-based pop emerging in recent years, anyone might’ve envisaged the country as a virtual haven, whereby people lead rewarding, affluent lives. Several things can counter this unrealistic impression: one being an immersive listen to The Knife’s intensely dark ‘Silent Shout’ album, another a read of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, and the last being a glance over of Holograms’ back-story. Three of the band’s members work in a warehouse part time, in between converging and playing at an underground club in Stockholm - “It’s a really s**tty form of employment,” they tell us. “But we just wanted to play together.”

Everybody deserves a break from such levels of tedium; a balance between enjoyable leisure and mind-numbingly dull labour. Holograms began by meeting up and playing in Savage, a venue built on an old shipping boat in the country’s capital city. Now, there’s further light at the end of the tunnel, with prestigious label Captured Tracks having recently snapped up the band for a debut 7”, ‘ABC City’. “We sent our video to Mike [Sniper, label owner] and he instantly jumped on it and told us not to send it to anyone else.” The video itself is full of twilight skies, members of the band trudging around in the snow in areas around their workplace, as well as shots of them all playing strobe-heavy shows.

The song encompasses all the frustration of waking up early and taking off for yet another grim working day. Incorporating old-school punk influences (the band list Modern English & Siouxsie And The Banshees), as well as honing in on the sound of Nordic contemporaries Iceage (while the group admit; “we aren’t as abrasive as them”), there’s a raucousness, an urgency to their music that can only jolt you up from a dozing state. Electronic elements also appear from time to time, helping the band shake off any nostalgia accusations, instead building something entirely unique.

After putting the initial touches to a forthcoming full-length, the band come to London’s Old Blue Last to a DIY Presents… show. We can only pray that the venue’s thick walls can cope with the levels of noise emerging from the four-piece’s guitars. Even though financial concerns are already tainting plans to tour the States, you expect the band’s working days of warehouse chores to be nearly over.

Holograms play a DIY Presents… show at London’s Old Blue Last on 17th April. Their new single ‘ABC City’ is out now via Captured Tracks.

Taken from the April 2012 issue of DIY, available now. For more details click here.