Ahead of their third Australian tour, Mike Sullivan of instrumental trio Russian Circles talks to Matthew Tomich about the songwriting process, expectations and working with Chelsea Wolfe.
SEE ALL RUSSIAN CIRCLES AUSTRALIAN TOUR DATES HERE
Russian Circles deal in polarities. From minimalist progressions to expansive crescendos, the Chicago trio’s sound oscillates from one extreme to another. Over the course of five albums and ten years, the they’ve made a career of defying the clichés of post-rock, eschewing delay pedal abuse and the loud/quiet/loud dynamic in favour complex song structures, gargantuan rhythms and unpredictable movements. For guitarist Mike Sullivan, it’s all about the emotion.
“That’s the most important part, the feeling of it.That’s the only real point — that it sits with you at an emotional level. Not just, ‘oh, that’s a cool riff, that’s a cool drum solo,’ but that it just kind of creeps into the dark spots settles somewhere.”
Those dark spots are most apparent on Russian Circles’ fifth record, Memorial. While the trio’s brand of post-rock has rarely been described is rarely described as uplifting, Memorial is easily the their most downbeat record. “It’s more melancholic, a little more bleak and more intense overall, and that’s pretty much the point,” says Sullivan. “The song titles have a meaning to us — cryptic meanings, different meanings to all of us in a way — but the whole point is how it makes you feel.”
