Home Improvements

by Jon-Paul Waddington

Former 808 Stater Graham Massey has finally finished tidying his Toolshed. Jon-Paul Waddington has a peek inside.

The music industry in general, and music journalists in particular, love categories. Every new release sees scribes racing to be the first to match music with its easy-to-comprehend description. Which, if we're honest, is a lot easier for your average hack than trying to actually describe the music using an original sequence of words.

Fortunately, every once in a while, an act comes along that is beyond categorisation. Born out of Night & Day in 1999, the loose-limbed, avant-garde project that became known as Toolshed started out as a sort of experimental club night-cum-kibbutz - with a range of Manchester musicians flocking to become house band of the night — under the watchful eye (and computer programs) of 808 State's Graham Massey. Vocalist Seaming To, drummers James Ford and Richard Harrison and bassist Paddy Steer (who also play as the equally leftfield Homelife) played alongside jazz violinist Graham Clark, Dave Walsh and Pat lllingworth - but that was only part of the story. Whether playing at the request of Nitin
Sawhney at the Contact as a 28-piece big band or at the South bank's Ether festival with four drummers, Toolshed have become a fluid, forward-thinking and, above all, entertaining live act.

But other than a self-titled EP in 2003, there is little documentary evidence of this strange beast. Until now, that is...

"It's been a very long road to get this album out," sighs a happy-sounding Graham Massey in his Chorlton home. "Some of it was actually recorded back in '99 so it's been over six years in the making. But it's been kind of sat on the shelf for a bit, so it's odd that it's finally coming out.

"It's a relief that it's finally seeing the light of day," continues Massey. "For me, it's more of a scrapbook of the last six years than an album. But I suppose at the end it doesn't really matter with music. The acid test is whether it actually works or not. "

And it does. As challenging as much of today's music is disposable, Toolshed take elements of free jazz, progressive rock and, well, everything else you can think of to make an album that truly can't be labelled. Taking inspiration from Miles Davis, Ennio Morricone and Sun Ra, it's as far away from skinny ties and leather as you'll get - and perhaps a fairly accurate reaction of where Massey is at musically?

"I think it's the pure intent of making the music you want to listen to," says Massey of the eponymous debut album. "Most real people's record collections are pretty mixed bags of things, and our generation of musicians are almost the first generation to really reflect that."

But while the music on this album may come as a shock to those who just know Massey's work with 808 State, if you ever heard Biting Tongues (the Factory-signed post-punk band that preceded the dance legends), it shows a logical progression. From punk, via acid house, to a more 'anything-goes' musical palette - it all becomes clearer now.

"Some of the guys on the record, I've been playing with for nearly 20 years now," nods Massey. "So it's easy to say 'oh, let's make it sound a bit like this, or a little like that'. But what was really interesting was playing with young people again. They were all interested in music, but didn't have the baggage: for us growing up, prog or jazz or whatever had enormous amounts of baggage. Punk was meant to have wiped that out, but I don't think it ever did for a lot of people. Music doesn't live in chronological order..."

Which is one of the strengths of the album. Once, the genres that inform Toolshed would have been dismissed out of hand, but we live in an age where people are likely to own music without prejudice. But as Massey reminds us, it's musically not that different from how 808 State finished up.

"I think anyone who saw 808 in its later period would recognise that it's in fact almost the same thing. We'd gotten very organic as a band - people like Paddy [Steer] were playing bass, and we had live drummers. It was addressing different material, but it was heading the same way."

So it's apt that the Toolshed album veers between live performance (most from the above mentioned Ether festival) and studio recording. So much so, in fact, that it's hard to tell the difference in places.

"Well, the honest reason is that if I could have afforded to get a live band in the studio, I would," laughs Massey. "But just for organisational reasons, it's hard to get that many musicians in one place. We had a 28-piece band in one set and that needed Arts Council funding..."

Of course, when the whole ethos of the project is based on the fluidity of performing live, it could have been something of a risk to tie it down in a restrictive format.

"In a way, but we've managed to find the right mix. Having said that," chuckles Massey, "I found it difficult to cut it down - so much so that I had to get someone else to do it. If I had my way, it'd be an album that never ended - it's bad enough that it's a double album..."

So finally, six years on, Toolshed have managed to get their frankly bizarre, yet wonderful, sound on vinyl. But as always, Massey's already looking to the future.

"The one thing I hope for from the album is that we'd be able to get, say, a festival tour in the summer. We played the Imago Film Festival recently and we found that people came to us with a completely fresh outlook, so maybe Europe is the way forward. After all, we don't really fit into any normal UK scene do we?"

Toolshed is released Monday 5 on Twisted Nerve.