Whitehorse: Back In The Saddle

While Melbourne doom overlords Whitehorse have always been an evolving beast, the band’s current line-up is one of their most stable yet, writes TIM SCOTT.

It takes a while for the sludgy doom of Whitehorse, to wash over you. Like watching a sloth swimming laps in a Rotorua mud pool, it's a slow, punishing and uneasy experience.

Their 2006 album Fire to Light the Way/Everything Ablaze, released as a 12" by Belgian label Conspiracy Records, was all about down-tuned guitar chords rung out over flourishes of electronics that lent a feeling of claustrophobia and agitation before demented howling vocals came down like a knee drop to the chest.

After a period of absence, the Melbourne doom/sludge overlords are back. Led by founding members vocalist Pete Hyde and electronics manipulator Mark Groves, as well as long-term drummer Rob Mayson, the current line-up also includes newcomers guitarist Adrian Naudi (Falllout/demonther) and bassist Pete Mclean (Gaslight Radio).

Whitehorse has always been an evolving beast – they’re in a constant state of flux with ever-changing band members – but as Hyde explains, the current line-up is one of the more stable they have had.

“One of the problems with having so many line-up changes is that things always seem half-finished,” says Hyde. “But I think the difference with this line-up is that we’ve had the chance to develop the sound a lot more. It's been good writing stuff with Adrian. We have barraged him with a bunch of ideas that we have been discussing. We have changed the length around and have written a song that doesn't even hit the four-minute mark which is pretty strange for us.”

Though Naudi has a long history of playing in fast thrash bands such as Fallout, Whitehorse is the first “slow” band he has been involved with. “Adrian has mentioned to me specifically that it has taken him some time to adjust but he is really enjoying it,” says Groves. “Of all the songs we're writing at the moment, the ones that we agree are the best are the ones that have a real depressive quality about them.”

An while the band uses elements of noise, Groves stops short of calling Whitehorse a “noise band” per se.

“While I am using a lot of the instrumentations and processes that are really familiar with harsh noise - things like contact mics and extortion pedals - I'm using it in a way that provides more space. I'm going for reverberance strikes rather than extended noise.

“It's been good,” he continues. “I'm really enjoying the process. After not thinking about sound in that context for a few years it's good to come back with a few changes, not just my interpretation but also compositionally. It has evolved since the earlier incarnations of the line-up.”

“Of all the songs we're writing at the moment, the ones that we agree are the best are the ones that have a real depressive quality about them.”

Still, Groves – who also plays in True Radical Miracle, experimental noise duo Dead Boomers and solo as Absoluten Calfeutrail - admits that volume is still an important factor in the band. “Yeah the loudness goes with the oppressive quality of the music we are trying to seek.”

While the band have developed a strong following within the doom/noise scene both in Australia and overseas, Hyde says they have really only played four shows out of Melbourne: three in Sydney, one in Canberra, as well as two-week tours of Japan and the US.

The band's 2007 US tour, however, proved to be both awesome and disastrous at the same time. Playing to enthusiastic audiences alongside bands such as Iron Lung and Angel of Decay, the tour was derailed somewhat by the hospitalisation of a former member. With one show cancelled and the last three dates playing with a member down, Hyde remembers the final gruelling show at a warehouse in Los Angeles.

“It all ended really abruptly,” Hyde recalls. “We finished and we all were a bit on edge. We had merch set up on this pool table in this lounge space but were told that we couldn't sell stuff there and that we had to do it in the alley. This alley is not the kind of place you want to be conducting business in. There were kinds of scary people lurking around.”

After the tour the band were spent to the point of almost breaking up. They took time out before another band, Collapsed Toilet Vietnam, evolved from the remaining members of Whitehorse. Whereas Whitehorse was heavy and epic in scope and sound, CTV took more of a hardcore punk approach playing short fast sets that rarely went for more than 10 minutes.

“A few of us had discussed a noisy, punky band, when we came back. It was an outlet where four of us could still play together and not take things too seriously,” says Hyde. “But I guess that while Collapsed Toilet has wound down, we still have a few bits and pieces remaining. I think we have cancelled more shows than we have played,” he laughs.

To coincide with a tour with Japanese friends Birushanah (dates below), Whitehorse are set to release a new short run cassette that comprises two live-in-the-studio pieces from the incarnation of the band that toured the States in 2007. The Birushanah/Melbourne connection is strong. John Box and Simon Robbins from Melbourne band Dad They Broke Me used to played in Birushahah when they lived in Osaka, and Birushanah have since helped a number of local bands including Whitehorse book shows in Japan. Hyde says this tour is about returning the favour.

“We hadn't really considered playing until Mayson suggested we do the Birushanah tour. The intention has always been there to do other stuff but we have been on an hiatus and everyone was real busy and not able to make things happen.”

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Whitehorse performs tonight (February 5) at The Arthouse in Melbourne with Birushanah and Dad They Broke Me. Other tour dates here.