Superdecalfabulistic

If one was to pigeonhole Decal as Ireland’s most prolific and successful dance duo, you’d still be well wide of the mark. While they have notched up nearly forty releases on a plethora of illustrious electronic labels, including Warp, Leaf and now Planet Mu, none of their records conform to any of the traditional templates of a dance duo as popularized by acts like Daft Punk, Orbital, The Chemical Brothers or Basement Jaxx. Sure, Decal have shared plenty of cracking dancefloor moments with us over the years, but that only forms a very small part of a multifarious output that defies lazy or convenient categorization.

Dubliners Alan O’Boyle and Dennis McNulty have now fashioned their most daring and unique release yet; their long-awaited third album entitled 404 Not Found – easily their most fully realized work to date and a dazzling sonic feast for the ears. In a word, it’s stunning, and they’re both immensely, and very justifiably, proud of their latest baby.

“We’re both really, really happy with it,” beams Dennis. “We put absolutely everything we had into it and it turned out well.”

Rather than being a collection of dancefloor-orientated pieces since their 1997 album Lo-Lite, 404 Not Found is specifically designed to work as cohesive album. “We spent the best part of two months actually putting the tracks in sequence so they’d all totally flow from beginning to end,” Dennis continues. “It is structured so that by the time you get to the end you want to start playing it again.”

Making a concise, perfectly-formed album was a core concern, rather than using the maximum length available on a compact disc.

“Editing is one of the lost talents in music these days,” muses Alan O’Boyle. “Everything goes on for far too long, so we were determined that tracks weren’t going to drag out any longer than they had too.”

While they have cranked out tub-thumping techno with the best of them, Alan and Dennis have never pursued any commercial formulae. “Obviously we hoped that our music would appeal to a lot of people but we don’t actually sit down and go, ‘Right, lets write a track that blows the socks off all the pissheads in the Kitchen on a Saturday night!’ O’Boyle chuckles. “Something like that is never, ever an issue. If you ever end up in a situation that it’s your livelihood then you are going to have to follow whatever got you there in the first place for the most part. Until you are as big as someone like Radiohead who can turn it on their heads and go, ‘Right, this is what we are doing now’.”

Decal’s success and longevity to date has chiefly been due to that most organic and natural modes of publicity – word of mouth, mirroring exactly what got them into this racket in the first place. Unlike the dance revisionists who view the birth of acid house as some kind of year zero, the pair were weaned onto music by something a lot more filthy and furious.

“When I was a teenager I discovered stuff like Fugazi, Big Black, Codeine, Slint and Hüsker Dü without ever reading a review of any of their records,” Alan recalls. “You discover these bands because they are good bands and people own and love their records. In one’s 20s, a lot of people become consumers and simply stop looking. I’m definitely a bit like that because clothes or lifestyle accessories wouldn’t be so important to me, but with music, I tend to go out and hunt down stuff because it’s so close to my heart and it’s so worth the effort.”

Decal’s deep-set passion for music of all shapes and sounds translates beautifully onto 404 Not Found. They eschewed the usual electronica tactics of playing and programming material into a sequencer and arranging the tracks with that as a base. ‘Juggernaut’ perfectly exemplifies this freeform approach.

“‘Juggernaut’ was done live from seven or eight different sources going into the desk,” explains Dennis. “It’s a kind of a technical smorgasbord of various stuff. It’s the real epic and the longest track on the album and it is also the lynchpin of the whole thing in many ways. We had to put it right in the middle. When we did it, we knew there was no where else we could put it. We couldn’t put it at the start, and putting it the end would have been a bit of a cop out. There is soothing music at the start rather than some eight-minute sound statement of ‘We’re here to wreck your heads!’.”

While 404 Not Found marks a few new departure into uncharted sonic seas, it sounds unmistakably Decal. “Our sound is just the way we work, the way we do things and the equipment we use,” offers Dennis in an attempt to nail down their oeuvre. “We use equipment we’ve been using since we started because we know it inside out. If we want a particular sound, we just go to it and get it. We are both musicians with a distinctive style and that seems to translate into electronic music or whatever we do. No matter what type of style we approach, those elements and sounds will be there. We’re constantly trying to add other things to the palette without taking away what we’ve got there already.”

“Background-wise, you must remember that we were both in guitar bands for years and we both played the guitar,” Dennis explains. “Keyboards aren’t really our first instrument. Also, we both used to program computers when we were kids and we still program computers, so we have that kind of brain and that analytical way of approaching things. Having said that, we’re both really conscious of not getting over analytical either. We switch off those thoughts off and let whatever comes out to come out. It is really hard to keep it loose when you work with electronic instruments and maintain the freshness. It’s very easy to loop something for four hours and drag all the energy out of it.”

“Still, all the electro and techno influences which we have subsumed over the years are there on the album,” opines Alan. “A lot of the tracks would have elements from those genres but not directly. Take ‘Fuzzy’ the end of which is very Detroit-y. If that had a 4/4 kick drum it would be a techno track but it doesn’t. A track like ‘Waiting (for a Long Time)’ with Alan Kelly singing is electro in its purest form in that early ’80s synth pop way.”

The wonderboy who also answers to the moniker The Last Post has been a long-time associate, playing with Alan O’Boyle in the early ’90s as In Motion. Such a collaboration marks a fascinating development in the careers of both artists, who have both enjoyed acclaim as integral players in Ireland’s very healthy independent scene. “You’ve got to remember that the backbone of all this is all the old fuckers like who have been doing it for years,” laughs Alan. “It came out of Hope (Promotions) in the early ’90s which was a total reaction to what music was like in Dublin at the time when it was all pony-tails and fucking leather trousers and all that bullshit. The people who are the backbone of this independent lease of life are fuckers like us, Jubilee Allstars, Joan of Arse and The Redneck Manifesto who have been at it for so long in one form or another. Once you keep your hands out of the machinery, and by machinery, I mean the mainstream music industry in all its worst forms, you’re going to be fine. You can put records out. You can make contacts with people from all around the world. You can have a good time. Now the proof is there to see and hear. There are so many Irish records coming out, and most importantly they are great records.”

While the DIY modus operandi flourishes, the original rebel spirit of dance music is being bottled like Evian water and sold as target-marketed packages like Creamfields and Homelands. Both Alan and Dennis believe that while dance’s popularity has proliferated quicker than you can say Judge Jules, it has become a victim of its own success in a bland corporate rave process.

“Clubs are becoming really boring and stale purely because dance music in terms of techno and house is pretty stagnant,” offers Alan. “The interesting stuff always comes from what’s going on in the peripheries. The problem is that you can put on someone like The Frames and sell out, or put on Dave Clarke and that sells out. So for the venue owners, there is no real need to venture outside what’s making the money. There are so few venues left in Dublin that there is no one left on the periphery willing to take a risk. That is why you always get the interesting stuff happening between Sunday and Thursday because Friday and Saturday are just for largin’ it. No one is going to open up a small 200 capacity venue when they can have a massive bar, not bother with any form of stage and fit an extra 100 people in? It’s just greed and it is horrendous and it will change pretty soon when the ass drops out of the economy and it goes the other way.”

We could argue the toss about the good/bad/indifferent state of various homegrown scenes for all of eternity, but what would O’Boyle and McNulty believe to be the main drawback?

“In many ways there are no cheap rehearsal spaces in Dublin anymore because property is at such a premium,” Dennis replies. “That’s why there are so many singer/songwriters,” Alan quips. “Seriously though, that is a problem. We need more bands! Because of the fact that bands can’t rehearse, there are a lot of kids just walking around with acoustic guitars and that’s really annoying and not the way it should be. Before when someone could write a few songs and sing, they’d go and find a bass player, a guitarist and a drummer.”

As independent veterans of hardcore, techno, electro and whatever you’re having yourself, Alan and Dennis are determined that they’ll always be around. “The thing we always say to everyone is that neither of us have any plans to stop making music, so we are always going to be doing it. We both have different strengths that work really well together. As we get older, our strengths develop in different directions. It would really piss off some people in the Irish music industry who wanted us to be the next Orbital in 1994 that we’re still doing it our way and I could name a few names. We’re still fucking here and we’re going to be here in another ten years when most other people’s careers are going to be buried, because its so easy for us to be here. It’s not a hard thing to do. We have our own studio. We have the means to record and release music. Why wouldn’t we? The music is always going to come out and I’m sure that’s going to be a thorn in the side of some people for a long time.”

Such a defiant attitude has more in common with Decal’s punk rock roots than any navel-gazing electronic scene. Regardless of the BPM count, do Alan and Dennis believe their music will be informed by that same idealistic and beautiful ethos?

“Oh yeah, big time,” Dennis instantly responds. “If you have the means to do it, do it!” agrees Alan. “Take our Dreaming of Electro-She E.P. as an example. The last track for that was written two weeks before we compiled the DAT and sent it off to be pressed. The turnaround of starting and finishing the record and getting into the shops was just one month. That is punk rock! We were completely independent and nobody else was involved except us. Take The Redneck Manifesto album I’m producing at the moment; we recorded it two weeks ago and last weekend we mixed it. The artwork was finished last Monday and its going off to be pressed this Friday. That is a turnaround from completely nothing to finished album in the shops within six weeks. In the last two years people have got their heads around that process and just done it. People look at us and think that if we’ve done it for the last eight years, they can do it too.”

Already, 404 Not Found has been hailed as a landmark album. Absorb, a leading UK electronica and dance web site, went as far as saying that it is an even better and more important work than the new Boards of Canada album. Long-time observers have also unanimously declared that Decal have made the album of their career to date, a ground-breaking tour de sonic force to be inspired by and very, very proud of.