ADAM D MILLS sits down for a chat with Sydney-based electronic/drone artist Paul Gough (aka Pimmon), who recently ended a long period of silence with 'Smudge Another Yesterday', his darkest and most personal album to date.

Things have been pretty quiet on the Pimmon front lately. What happened? You used to be so prolific.
I tend to work like this: I hit this point where it’s like an explosion, and I literally will spend a couple of years doing stuff every night. Not to say that it’s all gold, but there’ll be a fairly high hit rate of stuff I’ll put away in a box. I’ve got several boxes like this with sketches or ideas or parts of tracks that eventually will become something else. So what happened was I hit a point in about 2003 where I just stopped. And that’s for lots of reasons. One is that I’m very much still a consumer; it’s getting more and more of an obsession. I’m just really, really loving my music at the moment. So I got to this point where I felt I didn’t want to keep contributing, I just wanted to stop and have a listen for a while. I also think that I hit a bit of an emotional brick wall and I just didn’t feel like doing it for that reason. It all gets very complex.

Often I’ll say to my partner, “That’s it, that’s the end of Pimmon.” She’ll just start laughing, and she’ll say, “What, again?” It’s not that I dislike doing it, [but] at times it’s a struggle. I think fundamentally I’m really quite self-deprecating when it comes to my music. It’s a struggle for me to come to terms with the fact that somebody would like to listen to it. Which probably sounds weird, given that I’m quite happy to put it out. The issue for me is marketing. I hate all that. That’s not the kind of person I am. I feel like I’m showing off. So I think part of stopping was a part of me saying, “Come on, what are you doing? This is nuts.”

It’s the old art-versus-commerce quandary: how to get the word out to people without turning into a salesman. You can’t just sit back and do nothing, otherwise nobody’s going to know your music exists.
Exactly. That’s the dual edge of that sword. I think for me, having for many years done things, I just got to a point where I was like, “Is there actually someone who would buy this? Is there actually someone who might like it or understand it?” And that curiosity is probably the closest to a sense of ego that I have, that kind of questioning of whether what you do has some kind of validity. And maybe that fundamentally is something we all want to know: “Do I have some kind of mark to make?” I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad question to ask. I guess there’s still that sense of wonder. It’s been 10 years now, is it still valid? So that’s the interesting thing with this new release [Smudge Another Yesterday]. It was something I really needed to release, in a way. When it finally fell into place, it was a cathartic unblocking. Since that point of it coming out it’s been kind of a rebirth in a strange way. I felt the urge again.

“I think fundamentally I’m really quite self-deprecating when it comes to my music. It’s a struggle for me to come to terms with the fact that somebody would like to listen to it.”

Is the material on Smudge Another Yesterday all new stuff, or did you dig back into that box of ideas you mentioned?
There’s a lot of old stuff in there, but it’s all been reworked. One of my sons has always been pretty keen on being involved in naming tracks. He’s come out with some pretty bizarre ones. Not so much recently; this is years ago. I think it was probably just after [2003’s Snaps*Crackles*Pops] came out that he said, “I’ve got a really good title for a song … ‘Evil Household Ceremony.’” He would have been six at the time. And I just sat there and thought, “Where has this come from?” I wrote it down on a piece of paper. And then I just started working on [the song] and I had pretty much the version that’s on Smudge. So that’s quite an old track that was always going to be a part of the album.

Do you remember when you first decided to begin work on a new album?
Probably the thing that really started the album off is the first track ‘Come Join the Choir Invisible’, which has a very un-Pimmon-like sound. That came about during the quiet period. I was actually working then, but in a different way. A friend of mine was making a film that I contributed to the soundtrack for. A lot of the stuff I did ended up being more atmospherics. It’s a very dark movie, sort of a black comedy but very dark. This was an outtake from some suggestions I had for him. I’d misplaced this particular disc and I was just scooting through having a bit of a listen. When it came on, my first thought was, “Why did I put on something I must have found somewhere else?” I had no memory of doing it. As I sat and listened I realised that I had actually made it even though I had little to no recollection of it. And as I listened to it I had this flashback to one of the darkest moments in my life, and it floored me. It unlocked this emotional door. I thought, “That’s the start.” It gave me an idea of using my music for the first time ever as a way of starting on a new path. So that was a pivotal track for me.

It’s a very dark record, especially in comparison to your earlier work.
It was really interesting. When it came time to do the artwork for the release, I was speaking to Mark from Preservation [Records]. He spoke about it being this organic work, and the initial idea was to have a circle [on the cover]. He told me what he felt and I said, “I’m really interested that you picked that up when you listened to it because to be honest it’s about imperfection. It’s not about a perfect circle, it’s about something that’s dark and rotten and not right.” So you’re right in suggesting that it’s a dark release. It’s me going through some processes.

Do you think it’s a mood you’ll continue to explore?
No, that’s been dealt with. That’s where it’s been great. The album is kind of in two halves. I don’t want it to sound corny or cliched, but the first five tracks are the struggle, and the last three tracks, while they might still sound dark, actually aren’t. They’re a moving on kind of thing. But certainly the first five tracks are dealing with issues. I don’t know if people will even pick up that there’s a difference, but certainly from my perspective that’s how it is. And that’s the hard thing about doing music, that you really don’t know what the listener is going to perceive. I can’t guarantee that people are going to get what I mean, but I don’t necessarily think that I want them to feel a particular thing. And that’s why to me, knowing what it really means is not important. But as far as me as an artist goes, I guess it has been the catalyst to allow me to move on.

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Pimmon will perform at the Bon Marche Studio, University of Technology, Sydney, on Friday, June 19, 7pm. Supports by Chris Abrahams (The Necks) and Emily McDaniel. Tickets via pre-sale only: hello@preservation.com.au.