When you think about it, romance, in both word and mood, is something of an empty vessel. It can assume many colors and shapes, and take on varying degrees of intensity. Even the music we associate as romantic is malleable and dependent on the individual. For some, it’s the smoky strains of sultry R&B. For others, it’s the cool contours of smooth jazz or the grand, sweeping gestures of classical music. For Josh Mckay, however, the sounds of intimacy and sensuality are many, not the least of which is his beloved Radio Shack Moog and the “orgasmatronic squarewaves” it produces.
Since 2012, Mckay has been known predominantly for his work in Deerhunter where he holds down bass duties. But he’s been writing songs since he was 10-years-old for a wide assortment of projects and group experiments. His latest musical endeavor, which we’re excited to premiere today, is The Corsican, a solo venture which, amazingly enough, he’s been working on since the turn of the century.
And, man, what a debut he’s constructed! Consisting of two tracks, The Valentines Single shows his extraordinary range as a songwriter. But beyond that, it shows Mckay’s commitment to romance as both a philosophical ideal and a driver of passion. The A-side, “Fever Believer,” is exactly what the name implies—a fervid scorcher complete with red-hot rhythms, propulsive drums, and Moog freakouts aplenty. By contrast, the B-side, a cover of Welsh auteur Stuart Moxham’s (Young Marble Giants, The Gist) “Love at First Sight,” is more subtle and subdued, yet no less enchanting. Together, the two tracks form a wondrous, multi-faceted look at the nature of romance, while also completing Mckay’s long-held desire to debut The Coriscan with a Valentine’s Day release.
Listen below.
Ahead of today’s release of The Valentines Single via Chucklet Industries, we spoke with Mckay about the motivations behind the project, his abiding love for his Concertmate MG-1, and what, if anything, his time in Deerhunter has taught him about songwriting.
How long have you been writing music as The Corsican?
Thinking back, it must’ve been just after the start of the century that I began labeling some of my new stuff as The Corsican. I’m constantly writing, and have been that way since I was 10-years-old. And along the way I’ve ended up with a ton of secret names and “embodiments” that I’ve used to label any new material, considering the range of stylistic obsessions I have. In the early aughts, I noticed a pretty healthy stock of adrenalized guitar songs, possibly a counter-balance to some pretty bleak music that was my focus at the time. And I noticed a new voice emerging, and while trying to identify the sort of… I don’t know… “background” I guess, of this new kinda loose and romantic voice, I was flipping through my Moleskin and saw where I’d jotted down “The Corsican,” after an observation my poet friend Samantha had made.
So yeah, [I’ve] been filing away anything that falls into a certain archetype of feel, under the jurisdiction of The Corsican. I’m a longtime fan of the intensity of Corsican folk singing, and just the intensity their history bears out. Napoleon was Corsican. When I Googled my name, that’s the one thing that came up—a biography of Napoleon. Oh, and a Cheech & Chong movie called The Corsican Brothers, which is about these twins who feel each other’s physical sensations in a shared way. Cross-touch symphasia is what that’s called, I believe. Still haven’t checked that movie out yet. Note to self [laughs].
What motivated you to start the project?
So I guess the reason I’ve broken the ice this month and I’m rolling out the debut is because for years I’ve wanted to debut The Corsican with a Valentine’s 7″ single. And each Christmas for the last five years I’ve suddenly remembered the clock is ticking to get something like that together, and I’ve looked around and realized I didn’t have a drummer or a proper demo to show anyone and just basically had missed the window. Until this year, where like during the first week of January I noticed a special deal going on for a limited run of blank label 7″s, from “reclaimed” vinyl, which guaranteed the chance for some candy Valentine’s colors, and no sooner had my adrenaline started pumping hot for that idea than an old friend, Keith Crutchfield, who I played with in my first ever Athens band, Beekeeper, called me up the SAME DAY to let me know he was moving back to Atlanta and looking to bash some drums! It was some kind of cosmic bolt of validation, no fucking question about it to me.
And I had already gotten cosmic clearance from the author of the B-side, a cover song I’d always wanted to do. I’d sent a demo to Stuart Moxham, ex-Young Marble Giants, a couple of years before, to get his approval of a lyrical re-write that had been the crux of my motivation to cover the song. I’d always adored the mystique surrounding Stuart’s brief incarnation as The Gist, his solo debut after YMG ended. Like YMG, The Gist only made one LP, also for Rough Trade, but it was his incredibly warm trio of 7″ singles he put out during that time, all love songs, that I fell for and have always cherished in my collection. Anyways, I’d read somewhere that he was critical of “Love at First Sight” for the fact that he’d only gotten one verse finished before it got recorded, and that he wished it had been developed a little further lyrically.
That was my challenge to myself—make it good enough for Stuart’s stamp of approval. I’ll never forget that period. I sat waiting for a response from him which didn’t come with the usual speed of the internet I can tell you for damn sure [laughs]. But then late one night I heard back from him finally with the green light. Ah! so great!
So then after getting my masters to the pressing plant in a sleepless week of last-minute sessions, I reached out to my old friend Henry Owings for wisdom on making singles and he replied by inviting me to be a part of the Chunklet catalog. Everything has clicked into place since! His help has really been invaluable, and all the pieces are being assembled for a shipment in time for Valentine’s Day as hoped. I also need to send a big shout out to Kindercore Vinyl for making everything so easy and solid, under such a time crunch. The vinyl’s got a hot, sweet, and creamy taste, and gets your saliva squirting if you turn it up loud enough.
Yeah, so that’s some background. For this record, I didn’t have time to get a band playing the songs, just me and the drummer are here for now. But the band is taking shape and there will be more coming soon.
You mentioned The Corsican fits a certain archetype. Does that mean we can expect other solo ventures down the road under other aliases?
Yeah, there’s a mountain of unheard songs that I’m always chipping away at while I work out suitable recorded versions and am getting collaborations going, especially with friends who play drums, which is my most consistent need. Though I’ve ended up with a ton of “solo” material due to my time in isolation, without any bands since I joined Deerhunter in 2012, I’ve been actively assembling collaborations to get the material outside of my head and into other people’s hands lately. My other main thing underway is called A.T.E.M. (formerly Abandon the Earth Mission), which is the spectral opposite of The Corsican in pretty much every way. I hope to release some of those recordings in the next couple of months.
Henry sent me some press info on “Fever Believer” that said the song was inspired by a daydream you had. What was it about that specific vision that motivated you to write the song? Is that merger of dreams and music something that happens often when you’re writing?
Absolutely. I can’t count the number of songs that I’ve groggily sung into my voice memo upon waking in the morning with them playing out in full. And then the other consistent setting for breakthroughs I find happening as I’m sitting in silence, in that theta state maybe, and a daydream on a simple tune or lyric is suddenly fleshed out with an ambiance or counterpoint of some new ingredient that comes as a surprise, like the Ricky Wilson-y guitar thing that I starting hearing in my head while the shouty vocal part of “Fever Believer” was looping, and sounding like Joey Ramone-y originally as I recall. At least that’s how it sounded on my first voice memo. I don’t really think the Joey vocal thing survived all the way to the recording for the 7″ though, huh? But yes, rather than always nailing myself down to tactically building a song up with a pre-conceived intention on the multi-tracker, I much prefer to “hear” a song in my head until the whole thing is playing, over the course of weeks months or years [laughs].
Tell me about your Radio Shack Moog! Aside from the nostalgia of being your first instrumental purchase, what do you love most about it?
Oh man, it’s just such a long love affair! I mean when I first got it in high school—from the mall in tiny Wichita Falls, Texas no less—it became my entire palette! I ditched the piano and classical guitar that I’d cut my teeth on and set about arranging my songs for ALL-MOOG all the time. Bass on Moog, chords and melody on Moog, Moog-y percussion and kosmische ambiance, etcetera etcetera.
And I should mention this single is the first 7″ I’ve made since my first ever musical debut, which was a 7″ that I made on that very Moog with my brother, Mischo, on drums in high school. Our first “band.” Well, technically our first band was a Ramones cover band but… [laughs].
So it’s a funny full-circle thingy that the Concertmate MG-1 is still oozing out all over my songs to this day.
What in your mind makes “Love at First Sight” a perfect song?
Hmm. Well, for starters let’s talk about the intro to the song—the transportive (no pun intended) collage of dictaphone street sound recordings, the crows and whatnot, coupled with a very romantic 4-tracker move in the sound of the rolling percussion-train rhythm gaining speed, via a hand on the tape speed knob. It has this immediately immersive, daydream-like quality that takes hold of you. And then the arrangement unfolds with perfect economy—the soft finger-plucked guitar shapes, the lonely dancehall organ, the lovers-rock bassline, and finally that gorgeous bittersweet opening vocal melody lifting it all to the next level. The interlocking pieces are so right and natural together; it’s one of those songs that can just loop on repeat, always satisfying when the cycle starts back around. For that very reason, I chose to challenge myself with making some new landscape, structurally, by drawing out certain moments in the melody for there to be some deeper emptiness, or sense of the space between the two characters and the grey, dismal environment of an old underground commuter station somewhere.
You’ve been a member of Deerhunter going on 8 years now. What, if anything, has the experience taught you about your own songwriting?
That’s a good question… I guess off the top of my head I’ve learned to counter my own generally dutiful approach to getting everything in order with my arrangements and instead I am taking a little less care as I enter the recording process. Like, embracing the chaos of ill-preparedness and the kind of nervy desperation/inspiration that has been the climate of Deerhunter’s work most of the time [laughs].
A lot of people consider Valentine’s Day to be this sort of highly commercialized Hallmark holiday. Why do you think it became so integral to The Corsican and to this release in particular?
I don’t know, it’s all in a kind of dumb romantic spirit. I mean my Corsican material is pretty dumbly romantic half the time and it’s certainly very dumbly romantic to be putting out 7″ singles in the 21st century. And I’m very romantically attached to my singles collecting, especially all the Rough Trade records that I began to get in high school that make up the majority of my years of collecting. So yeah, I’ve always known that The Corsican HAD to debut like this. My only thing was always wanting it to be a die-cut actual purple heart-shaped vinyl with only the song titles on the label just like a giant candy heart, but I will have to save that for next year!
You’re still in the process of putting a band in place for The Corsican. What would you like to see the project achieve in the coming months?
A ton of fun and two albums done, that’s what I’m shooting for. I’ve been sitting on these songs so fucking long they’re practically growing… I don’t know… BARNACLES!