Man Without Country aren’t your typical electronic act or your average band. Not that they’re an electronic act or a regular band at all, not really. At a time when genre boundaries have become effectively meaningless, Ryan James and Tomas Greenhalf fuse electronic precision with a love of timeless melodies and James’ hypnotic, fragile vocals.
In one respect, Man Without Country are a traditional band: James and Greenhalf have the gang mentality of the best groups. Friends since meeting at Glamorgan University, they share a dry wit and eclectic passions. “We love bands like Blonde Redhead and The National,” says Greenhalf. “Electronic acts such as Trentemøller, Daniel Avery and Son Lux could also be considered an influence on the sound of the record.”
Their studio kinship means that, while James is singer and lyricist, it’s hard to establish who writes and produces what in their partnership. “The production side is part of our songwriting,” says James. “There’s no clear line where one stops and the other starts.”
Regular M83 singer Morgan Kibby provides the haunting female vocals on Laws Of Motion, taken from their second album Maximum Entropy, instantly supplying ideas after being sent the track. “We instantly went ‘Woah, that’s amazing!’ after Morgan sent her vocals over,” laughs James. “It was a perfect example of not overthinking songs. The initial creative idea can get lost if you work at it too much. It can turn into a totally different song altogether if you’re not careful.”
Such differences as there between James and Greenhalf can be heard on their respective remixes of their cover of The Beloved’s dreamy classic Sweet Harmony, which recently lit up the blogs; where James’ version is contemplative and trancy, Greenhalf’s is a virulent disco monster. “Jon Marsh from The Beloved likes our version,” beams James. Adds Greenhalf: “We wanted to pay homage, not totally revamp the original. It sounds like Man Without Country whilst retaining key parts from the original.”
As the album title implies, Maximum Entropy is loosely themed around the notion of entropy. “For a long time, we sent loose ideas back and forth,” says Greenhalf. “We were just experimenting, trying different things out. Once the idea of entropy emerged from Ryan’s lyrics, it gave us a central theme on which we built the tracks. The writing process gained a lot more momentum once this was in place.” “The idea of entropy is really cool,” adds James. “Both in terms of physics and how you can use it as a metaphor for so many aspects of everyday life. It’s a powerful word.”
Since their debut album Foe, Man Without Country have developed into a formidable live force, having recently wowed Berlin Festival alongside Editors and Moderat. After supporting M83, they embarked on a lengthy US headline tour. “M83 made us realise touring is about performance, not just playing the songs,” James acknowledges. “You want to create different atmospheres within your show. It’s overwhelming, how much our music means to people. Fans would travel six hours to see us play in the US, when we’d never played there before. That’s so special.” He recalls a sixtysomething fan who came to a Newcastle gig, who converted his grandson into being a Man Without Country fan – and whose wife made an embroidery based on Foe’s artwork.
Man Without Country have become men without limits.
Blitzgigs and Melt! Booking are giving away 1×2 tickets for the show..
To grab your free tickets, just fill out the form below with your full name and the answer to the following easy question:
What is the name of Man Without Country’s latest record?
Competition closes 12:00, Monday May 25th. Good luck!
[contact-form to=’winwinwin@blitzgigs.de’ subject=’Man Without Country’][contact-field label=’First name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Last name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Answer’ type=’text’ required=’1’/]You only need to click ‘Submit’ once, the website is just slow sometimes.[/contact-form]
