Neu Misun: “The Album Comes First”

Misun are fun. There’s no getting beyond that. Put anything from their 2012 ‘The Sun’ EP on your stereo, regardless of environment, and you’ll find yourself midway through a flight to a tropical paradise. Claiming to be upholding ‘Aquawave’, tongues firmly in cheek, their recently shared ‘Battlefields’ and ‘Darkroom’ tracks add further movement to the DC band’s big momentum. Tom Watts spoke to Misun Wojcik, William Devon and producer Nacey (aka. Andrew Wallace) about their previous 12 months, which involved EP releases, CMJ showcases, and all that lark that you’re faced with as a new band. They spoke about - amongst other things - taking promo shots in cemeteries and how they initially came together as a trio.



So, how did you guys get together to form Misun?
Misun Wojcik: We were all working at a bar in DC called The Science Club and we realised that we were all working on music separately, so we just started trading music and then slowly we started meeting up. It was a very slow process.
Nacey: This was probably around 2010 and me and Will used to DJ there, we still do DJ there, and Misun used to wait tables there. We’re kind of into the same things and we slowly realised that. Misun and Will started recording some tunes and I found out about, then we started going for it together.

Were there any artists in particular that drew you together?
William Devon: I don’t know there’s anything in particular, no. I think it was more a conglomeration of all the music that we liked. We each have our own types of music that we like a lot more than each other, then there’s a bunch of crossover artists. More recently it’s been people like Grimes, more electronic based indie.

It sounds very cosmopolitan. How does it work, who takes control when you guys write and record? Is there ever any conflict?
MW: We fight all the time!
N: It really is like a free for all. We all approach it like producers and pick out sounds that we’re feeling that day and take turns on the keyboards, or writing something. It’s worked so far we’ve been lucky.

Your sound has evolved quite a bit since last year’s release, ‘The Sea’ EP. How would you compare your sound now to the ‘aquawave’ label you were given last year?
WD: Before, with ‘The Sea’ EP, we were working very sporadically throughout. It was as often as we could meet up. Now though we meet up on a regular basis. The ideas form quicker, things become more organic and things just kind of evolve. It’s not like a specific direction that we’re going in, it’s just going with the flow and developing faster.
N: Our workflow is really efficient now; we’ll let one person do their thing if they’re feeling it and the results so far have been great. I mean it’s still all over the place as far as sound, but we’re working on an album now and we have some stuff that sounds like roots-rock, some stuff that sounds like techno. I guess there’s a central theme going throughout, but we’re just trying to figure it out.

The songs that you’ve released so far this year, ‘Harlot’ and ‘Battlefield’, both sound very retro and soulful. Do you think that because your sound is different to a lot of contemporary music, such as EDM, that you’ll stand out more?
N: It was unexpected that that gained a lot more attention than some of the other stuff, I’m speaking personally, but the kind of retro sounding stuff got that automatic attention as compared to our other stuff. We like having a lot of contrast in what we do. When I first heard Misun’s voice, I thought it sounded really soulful and classic, and had that idea in mind of doing stuff that sounded like that, but it’s only coming back around now.

Who’s the Harlot in ‘Harlot’? Is she a real person, a fictional composite? Is it Misun?
MW: Harlot is definitely me! It’s not meant to be sexual, I think it’s more about seeing yourself in a way that other people don’t recognize yet, and that threatens them. I kind of meant it in the opposite way of it being sexual. A girl can so easily be called a harlot for any reason and she may not be. It’s an easy label to give someone who has inner strength and is different.

So kind of like Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls?
MW: Exactly! You got it.

Have you been noticing an influx of unfamiliar faces at gigs?
WD: There’s definitely been a lot more. It’s kind of crazy because, especially doing stuff on the Internet, a lot of the fan base isn’t based in DC. In fact most of the people who listen to our music aren’t from DC, so when people in DC hear about us they get excited that there’s another band in DC that people can buzz about. At our last show we definitely had a lot more people who came to see us that we did not know, and that was kinda cool.
N: When we did CMJ in New York we met a few people who had come out to watch us having only listened to us on the Internet; that was a nice first.
MW: There are a lot of French fans and some girl from Malaysia hit us up the other day. That was pretty cool.

What’s the setup when you guys play live? Do you play instruments or is it heavily electronic and sample based?
N: We’ve done it in a variety of different ways, its always changing. For our last show Will was on bass, I was on Guitar and Misun’s on keys, with a backing track. We’re talking about buying a piece of equipment that would let us run Ableton and do some more dynamic stuff in the live shows. It’s always changing.

What are your plans for 2013, are you touring or simply recording?
MW: The album comes first; we want to wrap that up. We might simultaneously release one or two more songs alongside that. After that I think that’s when playing some more gigs is going to come into play. We’re really looking forward to that – there’s studio time and there’s gig time! It’s fun to do both.

You guys mentioned how important your internet presence was earlier, but everywhere I’ve gone online I’m met by the same press shot of you guys lying on some grass. Do you really like lying on grass that much?
MW: Well Nacey is obsessed with trees, so that’s one thing to note. We’ve done so many photo-shoots and we’ve just stuck with the grass one… we have a lot of pictures. I dunno. It’s more up to the dudes, I’ve been happy with the pictures but the guys are more shy than I am. That photo’s in a cemetery by the way!

But it’s so sunny and you’ve got bubbles.
MW: We had bubbles and we had this idea of chasing each other and the bubbles around the cemetery, but then we thought it might be little too edgy. Great question - what is up with all those pictures?

As we mentioned, you guys have referred to your sound as ‘aquawave’ in the past, but if you could somehow actually record under water, would you?
WD: I definitely would yeah.
MW: Of course. You know that film out at the moment ‘The Impossible’, about the family surviving the Tsunami in South East Asia; I would love to do a crazy underwater song for that. Something similar to that, but not as threatening.

I see you guys as more of a Little Mermaid band, playing jellyfish like drums and stuff.
WD: That’d be pretty awesome, with all the talking cartoon fish hanging around.
MW: We’ve been talking about going down to the boardwalk and doing one of those things where you all dress up as if in a western and take a picture.
N: We’ve only got a few photos out there so we thought we’d give one of those a go.
MW: You just wait by your inbox because that picture is gong to be a doozy.