Pure Reason Revolution - Interview

Pure Reason Revolution are finally back! We talked with Chloe and Jon about "Amor Vincit Omnia"

Hello how are you doing?

(Chloë) I'm very well and very happy to be interviewed by a Croatian magazine. I'm a huge fan of the Balkans.

Well, we are so happy that you are back with the new album. The tell you the truth, we were wondering whether the new album will ever see the light of day. First you've split with SonyBMG, and then lost couple of members. So was the second album traditionally difficult?

(Chloë) Only in how any album is difficult, especially where Jon is concerned, as he is an extreme perfectionist which means things always take that little bit longer. Having left Sony and joined an Indie label it gave us the freedom we wanted to go ahead with something new. We hope the results are worth the wait!

So now that "Amor Vincit Omnia" is finally coming out what can you tell us about it?.

(Chloë) I can tell you that it's a piece of work that we're very proud of, and, for us as a unit, something of an achievement. From the first few seconds of "Amor Vincit Omnia" it is obvious that your sound has radically changed. There's quite a lot of electronic sounds going on. How did that came to be? What made you go in that direction?

(Jon) Err… Well to us its not really drastically different…some of the first PRR demos we're all electronic actually…I've been ingesting a lot of electronic music over the last 5 years or so & I suppose that infected my taste…I'm always listening a diverse mix of music… we never want to become predictable as a band…& certain traits will always characterize us…..all my favorite bands have deveoled..err..not simply stuck with one formula!...you gotta fuck with the formula to keep things interesting for both us & them!... Our manifesto on creation of PRR was that there were no boundaries for making music…why should there be?...you can only create what ignites your inspiration…"rock" in the traditional sense doesn't really interest me anymore…

What were the main influences?

(Jon) Iots, Depeche Mode to Boys Noize, Joakim to Fleetwood Mac, Kraftwerk to ELO….mainly the 80's ELO records…some great vocoder stuff…Fleetwood Macs "tango in the night"…but I'm still dosing myself with hefty amounts of Yes, King crimson & Smashing Pumpkins…Corgans "future embrace" is a great record too…

Similar to "The Dark Third", there seem to be an ongoing theme through many of its songs. So what is the concept behind the album?

(Jon) Amor Vincit Omnia…LOVE…love conquers all…you're bankrupt without love…

We were also wondering of the album cover? Is there a meaning behind it, or its just a clever designing pattern?

(Chloë) I tried to incorporate the theme of the album, a paradox is made apparent when you listen to the songs. They talk of the failings of love as well as its victories. It is not all positive. Taking this into account I composed a heart, a traditional emblem of love and romance, whose intrinsic elements were the faintly grotesque.

Nudity, entanglement, confusion, discomfort paralleled with a quest to show unity and a form that defines love to others.

We are also particularly curious about "Disconnect". It is definitely not something we have been expecting to hear from you and we in the end have been pleasantly surprised by it once we got used to it. It almost sounds like Kraftwerk or Orbital. How did that happen?

Glad you like it… I wrote the song on an acoustic guitar - but then fancied arranging the song in a completely different way…The textures I experimented just seemed to really work for the song…i spend a lot of time on sound design…as I mentioned earlier; we place no constraints on creation… we were never gonna create a "dark third" part 2..that would have been like staying with a person you've fallen out of love with..…it was the epiphanous time to "remix" ourselves!

In the end, is it easier working with smaller label like Superball?

(Chloë) It's great being on Superball. They have more time for us than a major label. Hence we've been able to build up good working relationships.

You have always been very active through Myspace so what is your opinion on services like that? Also, what is your opinion on all the release schemes going around these days? Do you think the future of music is online or that these are just clever marketing plots that work in a certain moment?

(Chloë) Myspace is great because it's such an easy way for us to stay in touch with our fans and keep them updated with our news. Inevitably the future of music will be heavily influenced by the internet. 


Finally, what do you read and listen to lately?

(Chloë) I've recently got very into postmodern writers such as Kundera and Coetzee, and the last book I read was 'Everything is Illuminated' by J Safran Foer.

The thing these writers books have in common is the use of diverse and varied voices to narrate to the reader not just stories but the goings on at the heart of our being. They take us as a reader on a journey way beyond the narrative.

Good luck with "Amor Vincit Omnia" and thanks for answering these. Kristijan

(Chloë) Hvala lijepo!

kris // 01/03/2009