Super sonics

“We definitely don’t want to be known as a dance act,” warns Torsten Kinsella, shrewdly abandoning that particular sinking ship. “If anything, what we’re doing is indie electronic stuff.” But neither label really does justice to the Super AD sound, a brooding, layered congeries of synths, guitars, loops and vocals which, after several years in the making, is now receiving well-deserved recognition in both dance and indie circles.

The Bray-based Brothers Kinsella, Torsten and Niels, began meddling in electronic music as far back as 1996. “We were in different rock bands, and we were having problems getting drummers, so we just got a drum machine and took it from there,” Torsten explains. “We then realised it was kind of a pointless activity playing [guitar music] with a drum machine, so we replaced the guitars with a groove box and gradually became more studio-oriented.”

This culminated in the brothers buying their own home studio with money they saved while laying wood floors for their father’s business. “It didn’t take us too long to learn the ropes,” says Niels, “and within a few months we were recording complete songs.” Super AD’s first break came when ‘Into Forever’ was playlisted for 8 consecutive weeks on London’s XFM in March 2000. Then another track, ‘You Must Be The Killer,’ was included on the compilation album 21st Century Ska.

This year saw them release their debut LP, Revive, on their own Revive Records label. Even before hearing the album, its roster of guest vocalists is bound to impress: Dodge, Colin Devlin, Brendan Murphy from The 4 Of Us and Ollie Cole from Turn. Whence these high-quality collaborations?

“We first met Brendan Murphy after doing a remix of ‘Mary’,” explains Torsten. “He came down [to our studio] with a guy called Pat O’Donnell who was producing their record. We just got on really well, and he helped us get the best out of the remix track. Then Brendan offered to sing on a track of ours, ‘Fools Paradise’. That was the first collaboration we did, and it worked out really well.

“Pat then had a few words with Ollie Cole who gave us some tracks he did with Swampshack and said, ‘have a listen, see if there’s anything you want to take.’ We chose a song which would eventually become ‘Sick of It All’ on our album. Something similar happened with the Devlins. We did a remix of ‘Static In The Flow,’ which they really liked, and Colin wanted to return the favour. So that was how ‘Headstrong’ came about.”

The use of vocalists and traditional song structure over a basis of deep electronica gives Super AD a very distinctive and unusual flavour on record. But they have only very recently begun to play live gigs, and after so many years in a hermetic studio environment, there were some difficulties.

“Our original live ‘concept’, which in retrospect was probably wrong, was to put ourselves in the background,” says Torsten, “to dress in black and let the visuals and music take over. Afterwards people would say, ‘Good gig mate, but it would have been nice to see you up there. Could you not have worn silver instead of black?’ So from now on, it’s luminous suits all the way!”

Speaking of the future, what does it hold for Super AD? “Well, definitely another EP release in the next few months,” says Neils. “Then we’ll continue writing and recording up to December, then compile the best of what we’ve done and go to British record companies with that.”

Unsurprisingly, the brothers aren’t particularly awestruck or wide-eyed when talking about these big record deals. From the very start, the two-person collective has been running exclusively under its own steam: an independent home-recorded album release; sleeve art designed by Super AD (with some help from their friend, the celebrated Bray artist Rasher); swirling psychedelic projections accompanying their live show designed by Neils; website (www.superadmusic.com) designed by Super AD.

Hell, do they need a record deal at all? “Well, of course!” protests Neils. “We want as many people to hear our music as possible. But we’re doing it because we want to do it, not because we want to be famous.” They may hae to settle for both.