Somewhere Between Lo-fi And Expansive

2024 saw the return of Splintered - the British noise rock collective who have largely been AWOL for the last thirty years. In their initial run between 1992 and 1996, they released four albums and recorded two sessions with John Peel. The band's new album Between Scylla And Charybdis is a rewarding blend of lo-fi and the expansive, and since its release in May of this year, it has gone on to be one of my favourite more formal rock-focused albums of the year. It’s a release that brings together elements of jam rock, moody punk-edged psych, and droned-out/murky art-rock/post-punk. Imagine if Pink Floyd appeared in the early ‘80s, and had more sinister/murky intentions. I tracked down the project’s vocalist Richard( Richo) Johnson for an email interview.

M[m] What are Splintered's origins? How did you settle on the name? And who was part of the initial line-up?

Richo We began when I broke up my former group, Playground, in 1989. I became dissatisfied with where Playground was going musically and basically proposed a new idea to the rhythm section that they thankfully agreed to. This was where Splintered really began, with Paul Dudeney, Paul Wright and myself discussing ideas for a sound already started in Playground but cranked into a heavier and more atmospheric space also open to greater experimentation. We still adhered to the classic rock lineup and got a new guitarist, James Machin, but everybody had to be open to trying different things out in the studio. For the first couple of years, this is how the lineup looked, but during this time I’d also got to know Steve Pittis of Dirter Promotions really well. He lived in the same town as me (Herne Bay, near Canterbury), having moved there from London, and clearly had many similar interests. He offered Splintered a couple of releases and joined us in the nearby studio, just to sit in on the sessions and get to know us better. As such, it was only a short matter of time before we got him involved on electronics, analogue synths and other such sounds. From my perspective, this helped lend weight to our not veering too much towards being akin to a regular rock group. Alhough I always felt Splintered have been blessed with an incredibly powerful and fluid rhythm section and James’ guitar work can either slice walls like cheese or head far beyond the stratosphere, and it was great to see the three of them show their chops, this still needed to be countered by Steve and myself wishing to pull everything apart or do decidedly non-rock work. This balance proved effective although, again, everybody was open to all the ideas and trying things out far removed from simply playing their main instruments. The fact we were all friends really helped as well. Even newcomer James quickly became one. We would socialise or go to gigs together. We also rehearsed once a week, so there was this tremendous dedication. Things have changed somewhat since then due to our respective lives having pulled us in all kinds of weird and mostly wonderful directions, but I think the chemistry between us was firmly cemented during this period and was so strong that when we get together now it feels like we’ve barely been apart.

The name Splintered just made sense to me as we’d initially ’splintered’ from Playground. It’s a good name, suggesting something irritating or painful that might get unwittingly lodged under somebody’s skin, so I liked that aspect as well. Although the name Playground was deliberately ironic, I wanted something stronger for where our music was now going. I still think it’s a good name and perfect for us.

M[m] I think the most impactful thing about the project sound, in general, is the mix of lo-fi and expansive - please talk a little bit about how you managed to get this balance so right?

Richo That’s really a question for the sound boffins in the group. I remain a complete layman when it comes to such matters and tend to simply fall back to my default setting of being a music fan with broad tastes who knows what he likes or not. I don’t think we deliberately set out to bridge a lo-fi approach with one that’s more expansive. In fact, when we were recording in mostly the same local studio during the initial period together, from ’89 to ’96 or ’97, I believe we were aiming for the best sound we could possibly get in spite of our limitations, although it’s clear we enjoyed trying to capture something raw or untamed and organic as well. With the most recent album, we had to record parts separately and remotely, partly due to obvious reasons when we commenced this work, but mostly because of pragmatics given the fact we’re no longer local to each other. These parts were still fed through a studio helmed by our bassist, Paul Wright, so I guess the sound is now defined by this different approach to recording. We also added Stuart Carter to the lineup on extra electronics, sounds and ideas, due to Steve not always being available when we started playing live again in 2015, so that’s subsequently created another dimension. I’m really enjoying this, though, and hope we can pull off more work yet. It seems like everybody is keen to do more, anyway. We all have lives and other commitments outside Splintered, though, so it’s not so easy. 

M[m] On your initial run of the project from 1992 to 1996 you released five studio albums -  please talk a little bit about each of these. And how do you feel your sound changed/ developed over these albums?

Richo The first album, Parapraxis, suffers slightly for being hastily released and the fact that Paul Dudeney went AWOL for a while due to personal reasons, leading us to draft in Stefx of Headbutt to complete it. While some of the songs on it are strong enough, it’s telling that one of them is also a revisit to an old Playground song and that another (to me at least) seems like an unfinished idea that uses a lot of loops to try and disguise this fact. All the same, the better tracks suggest an intensity and sound I believe was pushed further on the next album, The Judas Cradle. On this, Splintered seem more focussed or locked on to the same trajectory. The sound is more confident and I believe the fact we’d garnered interest from John Peel played a part in galvanising this as we never expected such recognition. This confidence or conviction in what we were doing just seemed to grow, too. As it fucking well should, to be fair. We were still rehearsing regularly, going to the studio to record whenever we could afford it, and getting on as friends. Everything gelled.

The third album, Noumena, continued to display this confidence opening up to our embracing a greater dynamism with the rockier songs and also countering those with others that had more electronics in them. We also expanded the line-up with guests Colin Bradley of Spleen/Dual on guitar and Paul Wright’s brother Steve on various gizmos. I always liked the idea of us being more than simply this already solid unit by including guests and collaborators who could bring different ideas into the fold. We were also interested in electronic rhythms at this point as well, so enjoyed the contrast. This album was followed around 18 months later by Moraine, which comprised two side-long tracks that returned to the basic five-piece line-up and eschewed the electronic rhythms in favour of something organic and semi-improvisational, although we typically did overdubs and added all kinds of other sounds, including some sparse piano and musique concrete elements that embellished the atmosphere very well. I still remain especially proud of this album as it seemed like a perfect rendering of what I always hoped we’d do.

During the same year, 1996, we also worked on some collaborative tracks with Germany’s Ralf Wehowsky I think a few of us felt recalled the spirit of Spooky Tooth’s one in the ’70s with Pierre Henry, although of course sounds nothing like that. This featured much in the way of RLW’s musique concrete work melded to a number of tracks by us that mostly returned to electronic rhythm loops (Paul Dudeney’s drums are on one song only) and us at our most atmospheric and hypnotic. Although it’s, to me, another standout album which sounds like little else (some have argued it predates the so-called post-rock sound by several years), it probably played a significant part in our reaching a standstill as we wanted Paul to reduce his drums to a series of loop sources. He’s a great drummer, so I’m sure he felt sidelined and frustrated by where we were heading since we discussed doing more such work (as evidenced on two tracks on a limited edition 10” the following year). 

So, although our sound remained firmly in place over the course of these albums, it’s fair to surmise we tried doing a lot with it, and by the time of the Splintered/RLW album’s release were quite distant from our more directly rock-based beginning. I believe we explored a lot more than most of a similar disposition and that, following our hiatus until 2015, perhaps came to realise this and appreciate it more individually. For me, the sound owes everything to the rhythm section and James’ guitar, but wouldn’t be exactly what it is without the electronics and other elements brought in by Steve and, additionally, Stuart Carter. I think it’s this realisation that helped the latest album fall into place.

This is all my own take on matters, of course. The others might see things completely different.

M[m] In 1992 you played a John Peel session - please talk a little bit about how this came about? And what was Peel like in person? How was the session conducted?

Richo  Actually, we did two sessions for John Peel’s show. The second was in 1994 and centred on material for the Noumena album. With the first one in 1992, he just phoned and left a message on the answerphone while I was at work that included a number to call him back on. He was very affable, but I think I was slightly nervous due to believing I’d make an idiot of myself and screw things up for us. For both sessions, which were also repeated, we went to the BBC studios at Maida Vale and sheepishly wondered how we’d landed there and felt out of our depth, but with the benefit of hindsight I can see the producer and engineers being pretty austere and workmanlike as they got on with doing what they’d done countless times already with various roughnecks before hoping to clock off and go home. I’m sure that’s one reason the recordings were done mostly ‘live’ and as quick as possible, plus why the engineers seemed unhappy when we demanded a few overdubs under the pretext this is how we always recorded and felt limited when we played live. John Peel famously rarely attended the sessions in person, however. I think he once went to one by The Fall, but was met with a mixture of contempt and respect by Mark E. Smith, so felt it best to avoid getting in the way. 

Despite our own combination of nervousness and sheer bewilderment, we did enjoy the sessions. I vividly recall Colin Bradley being involved in one of them, plus Paul Dudeney’s dad (who’d driven us there) joining in on one song on metal percussion, too. 

What’s interesting for me is that some people writing for certain ‘zines seemed to have something against us for doing these sessions. I always wanted whatever music I’m involved with, whether my groups or anything on my labels, to reach as far as possible, though. What’s the fucking point in just trying to play to twenty or thirty people?

 

M[m] You mentioned a gatekeeping mentality when Splintered did its Peel sessions - do you think this still exists within the project's fanbase? And what has been the response from old school  Splintered fans to the new album?

Richo I’m not sure what you mean by the ‘gatekeeping mentality’ exactly. Everybody in the group has very broad tastes in music and I believe shares a similar attitude to myself regarding whether something is popular or not. I’ve always been for artists operating in obscurity magically breaking away from that, but listen to plenty of music that will only ever have limited appeal. If Splintered had ever been afforded the opportunity to reach more people, we’d have taken it if it didn’t compromise what we were doing in any way. Doing the Peel sessions was evidence of this.

 People who’ve stuck by us over the years seem to have been very positive about the new album so far. I’m sure there are some detractors out there as well, but such people don’t register highly on the scale of those I care about, generally.

M[m] Are you open/able to talk about why the band stopped making music in the ‘90s?

Richo I never ceased making music, or being directly involved with it. Splintered came to a halt in ’97 yet were still committed to a European tour that same year. As said before, I feel a sense of disillusionment crept in from Paul Dudeney that then nourished a similar feeling in Paul Wright and James Machin. They even formed another group together a short while later, but to me it seemed quite basic and more ‘rock’, which might go some way to underlining why the split happened. I know I was pushing us to go further with the idea of loops, musique concrete elements, collaborators and so on, though. I think I was pretty arrogant when it came to some of these ideas, too, and lost sight of the fact we were a group and should respect the individuals concerned. We didn’t fall out or anything, but it was clear over half the group (and the most musical section at that) were dissatisfied with where Splintered was heading. This resulted in my pulling together a new group to oblige the tour that still included Colin Bradley and also saw me bringing in friends Stuart Carter, Hassni Malik and James Hodson (well, he was Hassni’s friend but could play drums). 

After the tour, I thought we could record an album together but Colin, who’d assembled most of the electronics the set had been built around, decided he didn’t want to do this so this brief version of Splintered dissolved into another project called Theme, with Stuart and Hassni initially but is now based around Stuart and myself, which continues to this day, alongside the reactivated Splintered. Theme has released several albums and has a new one out in 2025.

Returning to Splintered, however, I’d like to emphasise we never really fell out. I always liked everybody involved a lot and we each shared common interests and ideas. I think we could have got back together sooner, but our lives had pulled us in different directions over the years. When I embarked on the idea of finally trying to get us all to do something together again, everybody clicked both musically and personally. Again, we were all friends and it soon became apparent the ‘lost’ years hadn’t breached this. The only thing is that I think we’re now all older and understand what we’re trying to do together as Splintered better. We’re all relaxed around each other’s ideas and have a casual approach to what we’re doing. I believe our latest album is magnificent and our best work yet. The only pressure we have is my still suggesting we play live once in a while or do a new release!

M[m] I always had a soft spot for Theme's 2001 debut On Parallel Shores Removed, so it's great to hear a new record is in the works - any hints of what we can expect?

Richo Theme have produced many albums since the debut, plus played live a number of times as well, but it has to be said the debut bears little similarity to what we have done beyond. The music has gone in many directions since, although is generally bound to electronics, I feel the debut suffers for my trying to break away from what Splintered were known for too heavily. There are shades of both what was to follow and, indeed, even Splintered in there, but it’s got an entirely different feel to what we’re presently working on despite our always hoping to combine an atmospheric sound with something a little more unsettled whilst trying to avoid the usual tropes. The new material should be finished and ready to release in spring 2025. Guests such as Puppy38 and Zsolt Sores are included.

M[m] Please talk a little bit about how your 2024 comeback album Between Scylla And Charybdis came about?

Richo  When Splintered began playing live sporadically again from 2015, it was satisfying returning to old songs but not enough to compel us to keep doing it. As such, we started discussing the idea of working on new material several years ago and finally acted on it in 2021 when Paul Wright had access to a studio and began experimenting with his bass and some loops. He then sent these to me and I thought they were amazing and strong enough to get everybody involved. He might have sent them to Paul Dudeney as well, but the main thing is that we felt motivated again and everybody wanted to get involved as soon as they heard how things were developing. From this point on, we were once again only compromised by our respective other commitments, which is one of the main reasons this material took a few years to fall into place for the new album. There were other ideas and unfinished songs along the way, but the selection that made it on to Between Scylla and Charybdis seemed like the most natural fit together. Hopefully, some of the surplus material will form the basis for another release sooner rather than later.

M[m] What do you see as the themes/concepts regarding Between Scylla and Charybdis?

Richo From the standpoint of the lyrics, which is what I’m mostly responsible for, they are generally doing what they’ve always done and assume a more reflective position. When we started discussing new material, the pandemic was our backdrop, replete with its overwhelming sense of unease inducing everything from paranoia to conspiracy theories and a madness that saw people reporting their neighbours having parties should more than certain numbers of guests be in the home. What with a ramped up social media and a huge rise in self-appointed moral guardians, I saw this chapter in our history as some kind of beginning to where we are at now with wars raging, frequent riots, huge social problems, protests and people falling out with each other simply due to their possessing different opinions. All of this is nothing new, of course, but seems to have exacerbated in recent years. Around the same time as the pandemic I was reading books by the likes of Jonathan Haidt and Susan Blackmore’s The Meme Machine as well, so if we were to go a little deeper I’d contend the themes I explored concerned the way people behave when contending with the situations already described. The album’s title made sense in relation to this, but is actually Paul Wright’s and is based on the title of his sculptures on the cover art. As always in Splintered everything is collaborative. I even suggest others do vocals or add words, as they have done in the past, but for this album nobody else seemed to want to. Perhaps because of that, it has become our most conceptual yet.

M[m] What’s the meaning behind the water rushing over stone statues on the album cover about?

Richo Paul Wright is a sculptor and teacher, amongst other things, and I mooted the idea of our using one of his sculptures for this album’s cover, as we’d never done that before. He then agreed to this. He initially sent some photos a year or two ago, but when the album was coming together at the very beginning of 2024 I was returning to some early Pink Floyd and watched several documentaries about them where one focussed on the fantastic Meddle album and the concept for the cover. This led me to asking Paul to try taking more photos of a sculpture in a stream or with water somehow running over it. He liked the idea, acted on it and sent me another batch of incredible photos of his Scylla and Charybdis sculptures submerged or half-submerged in water. They were exactly what we had in mind. Everybody else felt the same way. I suggested the album be named after this, only with the ‘between’ added, and it felt like absolutely everything made sense. From the water being added to the sculptures to the title’s being apt for some of the lyrics and the concomitant exasperation and frustrations they touch on. Like blood, water is in itself powerfully symbolic and can be seen as a place where life starts or can end given its being a force for destruction. So, in a way, I was inspired by the cover to Meddle and we hopefully took this idea somewhere else, thus leading me back to the core theme of Susan Blackmore’s book.

M[m] I believe the album has sold well - so do you plan to do any shows with the material? And any hints at new material?

Richo New material will be coming, but firstly we’ll do an expanded version of the current album on vinyl next year. I hope we play live a couple more times next year, but we are going to appear at my next label event at London’s Cafe OTO on October 25th. 

M[m] Can you tell us a little bit more about the expanded edition of Between Scylla and Charybdis?

Richo Difficult to say exactly how it will appear yet, but at this stage we are discussing the idea of including the full version of ‘The Horrors of Linden’ on it and an exclusive bonus. We are working on ideas now. Beyond that, it’ll be a vinyl version of the CD released earlier this year. 

M[m] I know you released Turned Inside Out - a collection of long out-of-print material from the band. But have you considered releasing a box set of all your old albums?

Richo Turned Inside Out also included some previously unreleased material. I think there’s quite a lot of that in the vault, but it’s probably best left there for the most part. I do sometimes think of doing another such collection, but beyond that Steve Pittis of Dirter Promotions has long mooted the idea of doing a vinyl reissue of The Judas Cradle. The idea of further reissues is never far away, either. It’s always a question of time and funding if we’re to do this ourselves, though.

M[m] What’s next for Splintered?

Richo As I’ve already touched on, we’re a lot older and life has pulled us in other directions. Everybody except Stuart has their own family and different work commitments, so it’s never going to be possible to get together like we used to, unfortunately. However, everybody seems motivated right now and I think it’s important to keep that momentum going before it inevitably fizzles out again one day. I really hope we can get a follow-up to the current album out now that everybody more or less knows where we’re going. While I enjoy playing live once in a while, I absolutely love hearing what the rest of the group come up with that’s then shaped into new material. The chemistry’s there, so it’s simply a matter of our tapping into it. Let’s hope we can.

Thanks to Richard for his time & effort with the interview. Between Scylla and Charybdis can brought directly from Fourth Dimension Records Here

Photos by Stuart Carter using Onyee Lo’s video of the appearance at Cafe OTO in May as a source. To watch a recording of the set drop by here