Dion Workman and Rosy Parlane interviewed Dylan K. Nyoukis

Seeing Parmentier play in Wellington, New Zealand -- must have been 1997 or '98 -- goes down as an event of unexpected wonderment, simply because they created a spatial effect with sound that I have never experienced, before or after. I have often wondered how they did it, and asked them about it, too. But it does seem quite mysterious, how it came about.

I remember arriving late, and accepting a place quite far back in the room. It was in The Wellington City Art Gallery, the room on the right as you go in, which is a long rectangular prism, clean walls (reflective-like), and the PA speakers were about mid-height. It was a very long, tall room, and I think this had something to do with it. The PA was also the best unit I have ever heard the boys play through.
So they start, working toward... who knows? I close my eyes and inside my head appears a vision slowly blurred by my ears insisting that I take notice. The sounds creep up and start to take form, actual shape, tantalizingly solid, but slip away before conscious recognition. However, the shapes link subconsciously, like endorphins finding the opiate receptors of the brain. The sounds tear, beautifully brutal, like a capacitor in a synth being pushed until the dielectric fails and short-circuit is made. Truly unique, truly incredible about these precise, big, fuck-off sounds is that they shift not slowly, but insistently, from one speaker to the next, and then back, very fast, back and forth, back and forth. Gone before I can identify where they are. Like an idiot savant, rocking, fast.

I have to open my eyes and see what is happening; I want to see these sound photons. Roys and Dion are working away up front, but they offer no clues. I close my eyes again and look. Letting go, my mind goes to an unknown place, and I begin to move but my feet are planted to the spot. The sound is everywhere and precisely at one place all the time. And that is where I am. The sound moves around the room so fast, the only way I can take it in is to follow it, and it takes me... I have never had an out-of-body experience before, but I think this is my first.

After the show -- by the way I was completely straight, hadn't even had a beer -- I asked them what they did, after gushing how amazing it was. They didn't really explain, but said they had done their usual stuff -- played some tape loops they had put together over the last week, mixed it up and played it. I have my own theory though: long, rectangular, reflective room, high ceiling, a worthy PA, and tape loops of samples recorded and re-recorded in stereo so that the left and right channel were so close that they were only a phase difference apart. The error produced by the imperfect tape caused the phase to shift, and with it the perception of where the sound was. Like Steve Reich's early works, but with a minute phase difference and realized in a nice big chamber... Those Parmentier boys are 'kin amazing, I say. --Marcel Bear

Dylan K. Nyoukis: How did you two meet up?

Dion Workman: I should probably lie about this one, as it's not much of a story. The third Thela member and I had been playing together for a while and we decided we needed a drummer so we started looking around. There was't much, so eventually we turned to ads in record stores and papers and tried a few people out. We would only trial the jazz drummers but I can't remember why. Maybe it was because everyone else wanted to play hard rock or hardcore or metal or something, or maybe it was just pretension. This was in New Zealand so there was a rather limited population to draw from. At this time Thela's rock was a lot straighter than what we ever released, although it was very wonky, straight rock. The jazz drummers could not only not play the stuff but tried to tell us that it was impossible to play. They thought we couldn't keep time but that was their problem. We were a bit all over the place but the whole idea was that the drummer had to be able to follow our weird time signature wanderings and if it wasn't in any recognizable time signature then that was beside the fucking point. A friend from Wellington told us about this great drummer who had recently moved to Auckland (none other than Mr. Rosy Parlane), but apparently he had given up playing the traps for good. Our friend doubted we could get him back on them. With some difficulty we did manage to get him 'round to our place, and he played everything we threw at him straight off the bat. As far as I can remember we didn't even have to hassle him much to get him as our permanent drummer. Rosy and I clicked from the moment we met and the more time we spent together the closer our friendship became. On more than one occasion we've been beaten up for appearing a little too friendly, and even though our live shows consist of nothing but us smoking and drinking and twiddling knobs, we've been told that it's homoerotic -- it must be the style of our twiddling.

Yeah, well, you both reek of Issey Miyake. What's your take on this meeting of the minds?

Rosy Parlane: It's exactly how Dion says -- I was totally sick of being the little drummer boy and never wanted to go near the godforsaken things again until I was encouraged to go and have a knock with these guys. When I got there I was faced with two of the whitest, scrawniest, sick-looking fuckers I'd ever met. We couldn't get into the practice space so we had to sit there mumbling half conversations to each other for a couple hours. In fact I'm not sure if Dion said anything at all because I couldn't work out if he was Mr. Super Cool Guy or Mr. Super Shy Guy. Looking back I think he'd probably just had a bit too much herb for breakfast.

Moody model types and their filthy habits.

Rosy Parlane: We finally got to have a bit of a jam and the stuff they played was some strange-sounding shit -- sort of like The Gordons on Valium played by The Shaggs. They never really sounded the same after I joined, though. They figured out how to play in time with each other, which in hindsight is a bit of a shame.

Fucking bingo!

Rosy Parlane: I sometimes listen to those old practice tapes and it makes me all misty-eyed because it reminds me of the days when I could drink whiskey without shitting blood. I think my favorite of those old tunes was "Jefro," named after this weedy white guy called Jeff who had an afro. None of us liked him so we wrote a song about him.

Shall we talk ill of the dead? How did you get from the lard rock of Thela to where you are now?

Dion Workman: Thela was together for about four years and by the end of that time the band was secondary to my friendship with Rosy. When things started to go rotten it was natural for us to continue doing stuff together. The first playing we did as a two-piece was after we weren't going to play with the other guy anymore but hadn't told him (because we hadn't been speaking to him for some time, and also we didn't need to say anything, as the situation was well understood by all of us). Thela was booked to play at the What Is Music? Festival in Australia and a few days before, he decided he wasn't going, so Rosy and I went off and did the shows as a new (and at that time, nameless) group. Actually, I think we did all the shows as a three-piece with Anna Sanderson on second guitar.

Rosy Parlane: It was a quick and easy move for me, escaping from the drums again. After Thela spluttered to an end we didn't do that much music together for a while, apart from the one gig which was me on drums and record loops, and Dion on guitar with this doorbell chime thing jammed into it.