After a long hiatus, the news of a reunion by multi-limbed, psycho-beast, Sefelt, is certainly one for lovers of original, deeply interesting, post-rock music to take note of.   Damian Robinson caught up with core member Andrew Mahon to find out more about their reunion show, forthcoming music and how they plan to manage as a remote outfit.

Hi Andrew, was Dave’s (Fysh) return from 6 years in New Zealand the principle reason for Sefelt getting back together?

Yeah, we’d missed Dave.  Sefelt did a show about 5 years ago, without Dave, and although it felt good it just wasn’t the same. As soon as he came back he asked if we’d like to play music again, and we said yes immediately.

Was the plan to jam first or publically announce the bands return?

We kept things totally under the radar at first, and played music for the satisfaction of it.  After we’d played a couple of times, it felt like the music wanted to burst out of the practice room, and we all agreed that we wanted to share the music with other people

That’s interesting.  So it was easy just to pick straight back up?

Musically it was, but geographically not so much as we all live in different places.  What the distance does give us though is the focus to know that when we do meet its for a reason and to practice for 7 hours. The limitation helps us to keep focused.

How’s Sefelt sounding so far?

We’re really happy.  The music we played years ago sounds great and the new music is even better.  For me it’s interesting that we all have new ideas and inspirations which has taken us in new directions.  The new stuff feels heavier now and more danceable.

So we’ll hear new music soon?

Hopefully.  One song is finished and we should play that at the reunion show.  The rest are in their early stages, but we’ll definitely record and get something out as soon as we can.  Part of our agreement to get back together was not just to play music we played 15 years ago, it was about finding out what ideas we have now.

What’s the new stuff sounding like?

It’s got a real Krautrock feel to it, which is giving it a real drive and focus. Ontop of the focus we’re placing melodic, gentle, material which is almost soulful, say like Craibou.

Wow.  That sounds great.  Final question, tracks like ‘The last pylon’ or ‘Owa there’ were all blissed out, almost ‘Kid – A’ Radiohead pieces of layered musical textures, whereas ‘Righteous’ or ‘Beautiful beans’ were quiet hip hop with layered beats and a more cut and paste feel.  Are they difficult to recreate live?

Not really no.  The tracks were always played live, even when they were recorded, meaning there’s no studio trickery to worry about.  The hardest part, to be fair, is trying to dig out our old mini-discs and finding equipment to play the tracks on.  We’re really excited about the reunion and about playing live, it’s more about excitement for us rather than worrying.