Interview: Johnny Lynch, one half of electro duo Silver Columns

Published on Friday 14 May 2010 20:25

David Pollock talks to Johnny Lynch, half of the new electronic pop duo about to make waves on the festival circuit

• Silver Columns, fantastic new Scottish electro duo.

ANYONE who found themselves watching Silver Columns' live debut in Anstruther's tiny nightclub Legends in mid-March might well have been taken with a mixture of excitement and alarm. Excitement, because the packed-out crowd of a couple of hundred were treated to a truly thrilling first public set from quite possibly the most impressive new (half) Scottish band of the year. Alarm, because this is not what we might have expected from either of the men involved.

After a semi-concerted white label campaign during which their identities remained anonymous, the Columns were outed around the time of that show as Adem Ilhan and Johnny Lynch. London-based Ilhan has released three albums of electronic music under his first name on Domino Records, is a member of electronic post-rock outfit Fridge alongside Kieran Hebden – aka laptop legend Four Tet – and composed the score to Armando Iannucci's cinematic political satire In the Loop.

For Lynch, though, this is a whole new world. Under the alias the Pictish Trail, he's known as a singer of delicate folk-pop songs and as the organisational heart of the Anstruther-based micro-label Fence Records. That debut show was a highlight of Fence's annual Homegame festival this year, although the brand of definitively dancefloor-friendly electro-pop the pair play is a most un-Fencelike sound.

Listen to an interview with Lynch on the latest Radar podcast

"It's weird," reflects Lynch, ahead of a Silver Columns show at Brighton's Great Escape festival. "I think people who know me and are used to what I do as the Pictish Trail might be wary of Silver Columns. It's out-and-out pop music, really, although there always has been an electronic element to what I've done, even if it's been really lo-fi and ramshackle.

"I like the way Silver Columns can relate to two different audiences, though. If we play in a club environment, it's got that Chemical Brothers thing, it's two guys fannying about at a desk with sequencers. But these are songs at heart, so they also work well in a gig environment. I'm interested to see how they go down on festival stages – we're playing a few this summer, including Bestival, Lovebox and we've just confirmed Glastonbury."

Lynch and Ilhan have been friends for a number of years, ever since the latter supported James Yorkston (who also releases on both Fence and Domino) on tour and subsequently invited Lynch and Kenny "King Creosote" Anderson to play a few dates as his backing band. The pair have played each other's festivals since (Ilhan at Homegame, Lynch at Homefires in London), and about 18 months ago Ilhan suggested that their shared tastes in 1980s pop and artists like Hot Chip might make it worth their while recording together.

"I went down and stayed at his flat in Stoke Newington," recalls Lynch. "We'd put aside three days to do some work and at the end of it we had three songs. This is good, I thought, it works well.

"I don't want to dig my own grave, but it was always going to sound a bit like Hot Chip, because I'm a massive fan of their music. There are a few nods to (fellow Fifers] the Beta Band in there too."

It's also been remarked upon, I suggest, by anyone who has seen them play live or heard the track Brow Beaten, just how much Lynch's falsetto has in common with Jimmy Sommerville's.

He laughs. "I am a fan, actually. The first couple of Bronski Beat albums are pretty powerful, and even some of the Communards stuff, these are all songs I've grown up with. So no, I don't mind being compared to him." Other names cited by Lynch are the Pet Shop Boys and Erasure ("their first four albums are amazing, Vince Clarke is a powerhouse").

Silver Columns are signed to Moshi Moshi, the label which discovered Florence and the Machine and Kate Nash. Lynch's new project is being pushed in all the right places at the moment, and he acknowledges a certain nervousness in waiting to see if the summer festival assault helps the duo take off.

"I've probably spent more time in London than I have in Fife this year. When I go home everyone asks when I'm moving down there, but I really have no desire to … It's a place to work hard, have meetings, have fun and then get out of. Saying that, I'll probably be there in August and you'll be saying I told you so."

It would mean that things are going as well for Silver Columns as they deserve.

• Silver Columns play the Stag & Dagger festival at Glasgow School of Art on 22 May, and the ABC, Glasgow, on 17 June. The single Cavalier is out on Monday. The album Yes and Dance is out on 31 May.