Lamplight’s Mijo Biscan tells DOUG WALLEN he finds it difficult to nail down the band’s antiquated sound without the aid of hyphens.

There’s a lot going on. Strings and woodwinds. Piano and harmonies. Guitar, drums and double bass.

But Melbourne’s Lamplight are equally adept at fully saturated, orchestral numbers as they are playing threadbare folk. On 2005’s The Fish Will Walk and last year’s self-titled follow-up, the whirling five-piece bust open a portal into the past. Between their most recent album’s parchment-looking packaging, pastoral imagery and haunting chamber vibe, there’s something decidedly antiquated about the songs – even if you catch the reference to Chapel Street on ‘Image House’.

Why release a single [‘A Sun That Will Not Rise’] now when the album came out last year?
We released the album in March last year and we did a single release back then for ‘Ship in A Bottle’. We got some triple j [airplay] and released a film clip that did really well on Rage. It was among their best clips of the year. Then we went to Europe, so we didn’t really take the time to release another single here. We went to [the music industry conference] Popkomm in Berlin and toured with Gotye and Claire Bowditch for a while and then did our own tour. I also did some traveling after that, so I didn’t come back until December. Then we decided to crank it up again and release the next single and do a clip and go on tour again.

Explain the rationale behind a radio edit and remix of the single.
Well, I was thinking about whether it was worth doing [financially], whether radio was going to pick up on it. Our goal was obviously to get it played on radio so that it supports the touring. I spoke to Wally De Backer [Gotye] because he’s got a great ear and the way he produces stuff is very radio-worthy. He gave me advice, arrangement-wise. The original version starts really quietly and just creeps in with acoustic guitar and vocals. One of his suggestions was to grab the middle section, which is this big 4/4 kind of thing, and chuck it up the front.

There was also the idea to completely remix it, to bring the vocals forward and also to go through the experience of working with another producer and mixer. So we got Franc Tetaz, who does Wally’s stuff and New Buffalo and Architecture in Helsinki. In a way, it was an excuse to work with a renowned producer to hear what they would do with that track, and also just as a learning experience for the next album. But he changed the mix quite a bit. The middle section in the original mix is everyone in there, all guns blazing, and he completely changed that. He pretty much stripped everything back so it’s almost a breakdown.

Your second album was recorded in several unconventional locations, including outside and at the Old Castlemaine Gaol [in Victoria]. What made you decide to do that?
I guess the concept for the album was for each song to sound very sonically independent. We decided to record in different locations that really suited the vibe of the song. The other part of that was to see how that environment affects your musical performance. Recording in the gaol, we had the natural reverb of a huge sandstone building. Also, I recorded my vocal takes down in the solitary confinement part, and it was just me and Myles Mumford, the engineer and producer. He was at ground level and I was down there, and there was no one else around. Being in this completely pitch-black, sensory deprivation-type thing messes with your head.

“We’re hemmed in by having a core set of instruments, but within those instruments, there is versatility.”

Another that worked great was the last track, [‘One Piece to You, One Piece to Me’], recorded around the campfire. We did about five takes and Myles just kept rolling. The last take was about half the speed of the first take, due to us just sitting there out in the bush with the silence and stillness and the wind blowing through the trees. It seeps into you and becomes part of the performance. And there’s the beautiful crackling of the fire. So we ended up using that last take, which is nothing like the way we perform it live.

Lamplight’s songs have been used in two films [Belladonna and short film That Blackbird]. Do you think there’s a cinematic quality to the music?
Yeah, probably more so on our first album. We didn’t have drums, so we had more orchestral instruments like timpani and big cymbal crashes. It could have something to do with the strings, and we use horns and choirs.

How did the songs end up in those films?
That Blackbird was a short film. [Director] Adam [Arkapaw] was studying at the VCA [Victorian College of the Arts] and he saw me play. The obvious trade was that he did our film clip for the single off our first album. And then Belladonna … Indiana had a small role in the film and she mentioned she plays in a band. [The co-director] said, “We really need a band for this wedding scene.” She asked us just to play something while we were there, and she really loved it. She got our album and asked if she could use three of the tracks. We’ve stayed in close contact with them, and they’ve done our [new] film clip, which looks really amazing. It was crazy to make. We built a studio, virtually, where I live, which is like a warehouse space. We were hanging upside down on a trapeze and had rain and all sorts of torturous shit going on. But they flipped it up the right way so it’s all backwards and weird. It looks stunning.

How did you put together your European tour last year?
There’s an Australian [company], Blind Beetroot. They have a website with resources for touring Europe. It’s just a Melbourne guy. He runs the Australian showcases at Popkomm, called the Great Australian Wave. There was an application on that website and I applied. I might be going back this year as well, shopping our wares on behalf of Lamplight and probably doing a solo thing. It’s a huge music industry conference, so the place was full of industry people doing deals. When I first got there, it was very disheartening, like the heart of the music was being torn out. People talked in facts and figures. There’s no poetry to it or anything. But the thing I came around to is that they’re there because they’re into music and they love it. It just happens that it’s their job and they have to make money from it.

With so many instruments at work in the band, how do you find room for everything?
In the physical world, we need to play on bigger stages. We’re setting up the single launch and we’ve got like seven people in the choir, four people in the horn section, and Luke with an enormous double bass and Kirsty [Morphett’s] keyboard. So we’ve got to try to squish onto the stage at the Northcote Social Club [in Melbourne].

But when you’re actually writing the songs, do things get lost in the shuffle?
That’s one of the things I learnt through mixing this single. I think a lot of it does get lost. We can probably think about arrangement in our songs a bit more. Having all these instruments happening is a big part of what our sound has become. It’s quite lush and dense. There’s also quite a bit of vocal harmonies – even when we don’t add a choir. When we add choirs and horn sections, that’s to give it more of a lift and a punch in places. To compare it to a rock band, Indiana [Avent] plays the violin and is kind of the melody instrument, like a lead guitarist. She also plays flute and clarinet, which play those roles as well. We’re fortunate to have a double bass, so we have a lot of sections where Luke [Richardson] and Indiana are both bowing, and string instruments and vocals together work really beautifully. So in lots of ways, we’re hemmed in by having a core set of instruments, but within those instruments, there is versatility.

Lamplight spans a lot of musical terrain, including folk, pop, classical, and even some Eastern European stuff. How do you describe the band when people ask you to?
It’s a really hard one. We describe it pretty generically as alt-rock or symphonic prog-rock or campfire folk. It’s really hard to nail it down without a lot of hyphens!

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LAMPLIGHT SINGLE LAUNCH

Sunday, June 7
Northcote Social Club, Melbourne, VIC

Sunday, June 26
A & I Hall, Bangalow, NSW

Monday, June 27
Jubilee Hotel, Brisbane, QLD

Tuesday, June 28
Main House, Bundagen, NSW

Wednesday, July 1
Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle, NSW

Thursday, July 2
Oxford Arts Factory, Sydney, NSW

Saturday, July 4
The Vanguard, Sydney, NSW

Sunday, July 5
The Folkus, Canberra, ACT

Saturday, July 11
Grace Emily Hotel, Adelaide, SA

Sunday, July 12
Wheatsheaf Hotel, Adelaide, SA

Saturday, July 25
Toff in Town, Melbourne, VIC
w/Kid Sam + Eva Popov