Foam party

Foam have always been the most open minded pups in the local music litter. While others bellyache about the lack of opportunities available to bands based in Northern Ireland, the Portadown duo of Al Brown and Geoff Topley have – between night-shifts lugging boxes – managed to keep to a self-imposed schedule that demands they release at least two albums full of self-penned, self-recorded new songs every year.

In the past four years they have put out eight albums containing well over 100 new tunes. And if this has sometimes meant that quality control has had to take a back seat to creative impatience, then it’s been a small price to pay for being able to watch the development of a consistently brave and inquisitive band, who every now and then come up with some absolute pearls.

From the rudimentary debut Take Good Care Of It, Babe, where the duo were clearly attempting to get to grips with equipment they could barely switch on, never mind play, and up to the latest Foam record Let It Happen which is easily their most accomplished yet – you can hear a band slowly making themselves up – getting better all the time, always keeping their eyes open for new ways to improve. When it came to ways in which the music could be developed it seemed that all options were considered.

So when out of the blue, they were contacted by singer-songwriter Lynn McKenna, who after hearing some of the pair’s previous records decided she’d like to get involved, there was precious little brow-beating or anxiety – all of a sudden Foam were now a trio.

“Call it fate if you want,” says Geoff. “We never advertised for anyone else, never really spoke about it to anyone. But we’d definitely been thinking about it.”

“Some of the older songs are really good, but we’ve always thought that our best songs are in front of us,” says Al. “ I feel that now more than ever. I think that there was a danger that we’d just spend the next few years making the same album unless we got someone else in. It’s been an idea that has been flying around for a while. When we wrote ‘Condition Of The Heart’ we toyed with the idea of asking Audrey from Lima to sing one of the tracks. So when Lynn got in touch we just thought that we really had to give it a go. We’re at the stage now where we can cope with someone else contributing ideas to the band.”

For Boards Of Canada fan Lynn, the process of integrating with such a tight unit has been surprisingly effortless.

“It was strange at first and I didn’t really know what to expect – I was told that all they do is sit in a room wearing headphones playing music. But they were great and we had a great conversation. After I found out that Al liked Aerosmith we got on great. Now we all sit in a room wearing headphones and playing music together.”

Geoff is quick to point out that the change has come about at a time when the band had released their best album to date, but since Lynn has joined – adding vocals to some Foam instrumentals and helping to rework older tracks with imminent live shows in mind – the atmosphere within the group has changed profoundly.

“It feels as if it’s the end of Foam part 1. We’re actually thinking of going back through all the previous albums and maybe putting them on a Best Of. It’d be a cracking wee album. We’re itching to start writing and recording with Lynn. It’s a really good feeling having her in the band at the minute. I had a bit of a debate with myself about changing the name and decided against it, but the whole mood in the camp has changed since Lynn became involved. It’s so much more optimistic now than it was before. At the minute we’re just open to all sorts of new ideas and approaches really. If you listen to a lot of the early cds the songs are all there but they don’t sound that great. The longer we’ve been doing it, the more adept we’ve become at using the equipment and I think as well, our musical tastes have just generally become a lot more varied. I definitely think that it’s onwards and upwards as far as we’re concerned.”