Fievel Is Glauque’s co-founder Zach Phillips chats with Beats Per Minute on the group’s new album Rong Weicknes on the day of the project’s release. “I wouldn’t say it’s crucial to fully believe in what you’re doing—it’s more important to bear it out, to follow through, and to keep moving.“
It’s sometimes fun to mess with the Spotify-algorithm, especially when compiling music that’s all relatively obscure and undiscovered. At some point however, when it starts recommending new songs for your Obscure Playlist, it tends to glitch out – feed you the same things over and over. In my case, it predominantly started recommending two artists specifically: one being Death Grips and the other this project called Fievel Is Glauque. ‘What’s up with this band named after the cartoon mouse?’, I figured.
Fievel Is Glauque, as it turns out, are pretty damn great. It’s a transatlantic project founded by Brooklyn-based musician Zach Phillips and Brussels-based singer Ma Clément, who are joined by a rich cavalcade of heady instrumentalists. Their music sounds like vintage show tunes warped by a Jackson Pollock-level oversupply of chaos and color. It’s obvious that pop music this rich in flavor and frenzy demands a rather outré approach to manifest. Fievel Is Glauque seem to go out of their own way to avoid any remotely straightforward approach, and delightfully so. Every brand of madness, as they say, needs its method.
For their latest album recording Rong Weicknes, the group had more time than ever to sort out their dizzying dynamics, applying a recording technique called ‘live in triplicate’. In yeoman’s terms: record a live version of the song, then another one, and finally a weirder more improv-based version, letting all the little expressive idiosyncrasies of the players fester between the melodies. Somehow, Fievel Is Glauque manage to sound immediately fun and accessible, their wildly experimental recording methods notwithstanding.
That being said, Zach Phillips borrowed us some of his time – on the release date of Rong Weicknes no less – to talk about Fievel’s wildly experimental recording methods. As one would expect, the conversation went delightfully astray towards things like embracing the unplanned, getting outside validation and finding some cool weird shit in your parents’ basement.
Something that struck me when I started researching the band. It’s not just about jamming out. There are charts, interesting dynamics, and this mix of surrender and structure. Every song seems like a unique puzzle of impulse. Could you walk me through that process?
Yes. Ma and I first met in 2018, and from that initial session, not much has changed in how we approach things. By a “session,” I mean the whole process—rehearsals, recording, and sometimes even shows. It’s like a bite-sized experience of a band’s life in one go.
Since 2020, our approach has been consistent: Ma and I write an album’s worth of material, and I chart it out. These are pretty bare-bones chord charts—sometimes dipping into notation, but not often. Early on, I learned a lot from the musicians in the band about harmony, communication, and charting conventions, since I don’t come from a jazz background or anything like that.
The ethos of the sessions has always been open. If there are lines that seem important, we communicate them to the relevant people in the band, but beyond that, it’s very free. In my role as a director, I provide feedback, but I often delay that moment because I want to give people space to approach things their way. It happens frequently that my initial reaction to someone’s interpretation is, “No, absolutely not.” But after a couple of days, I start to hear it their way, and I realize it’s better than what I had in mind.
I can be reactive and compulsive—very “OCD” in scare quotes—but part of the model of this band is meant to challenge those tendencies. It’s been a deeply challenging experience. For instance, recording live was new for me. I’ve made plenty of records, but almost none were live before Fievel is Glauque. Getting my chops to a place where I can perform in this setting has been a journey, and I’m only just starting to feel like I have a handle on it.
Another big part of this project is letting people play what they want and not over-determining the outcome. That openness allows the group to evolve and keeps things interesting. Writing with Ma has been especially meaningful. I’ve had other co-writing relationships, but this one is the most intense and developed. We both bring so much to the table, and it’s incredibly absorbing and emotional.
For us, the writing sessions and studio time with friends are the highlights. Those moments are immersive, emotional, and the most rewarding parts of the entire process. We’re about to dive into another writing session, and I think I can safely say that it’s our favorite part of the whole experience.That’s the good stuff.
Yeah, there’s a sense of camaraderie and individuality in this band. Sometimes in bands, certain people hold down the base while others have more freedom. It’s an interesting balance—catchy songs that have this contained chaos. I read that a song like “Toute Suite” actually started in 2018, so many of your songs have been on a journey before ending up on a record.
I actually wrote “Toute Suite” in 2017, the same week I wrote “Bring Me to Silence,” another one of our tunes. We hadn’t planned on doing “Toute Suite” during this session at all. In fact, the version on the record is the only version we recorded. It was a last-minute, 11th-hour decision.
We had wrapped up everything we’d planned to record, and there were just a couple of hours left. Ma suggested we try “Toute Suite,” and I thought, “Whoa, amazing idea.” So we did it. Another song from that session, “The Rose,” was actually the first song Ma ever sang—that’ll come out soon.
We ended up cutting five or six songs from that session, so there’s an EP in the works for those at some point. Not sure if I’m supposed to say that, but there it is. As for “Toute Suite,” it was a last-minute afterthought. Luckily, the changes are so simple that I just charted it out by hand for a few people in the band. We did a single take, and it turned out great. I’m so glad we decided to do it.
It sounded pretty personal, the way you described it—like chronicling something to save your life for one more day. Based on those words, it seems you were trying to get out of something when writing that. Was that song a marker for the band in some way?
Yeah, it was written out of emotional need. That kind of writing is special—you can’t really look for it, but sometimes it happens when you need it. Something comes out that corresponds to a specific emotional need.
What can I say about that song? Well, if you put it next to “Bring Me to Silence,” and consider they were written in the same week, I think that provides some explanatory value. I have complicated opinions about what’s termed mental illness, but the bottom line is I struggle with depression and anxiety. Life gets intense sometimes, and that’s definitely reflected in the music. It’s also part of the humor underlying some of the songs. For example, a song like “It’s So Easy”—the impetus for that is kind of dark, but when Ma and I wrote it, we were cracking up.
Sometimes I hear this whispering, darker voice creeping under the songs. It’s really unsettling, but also kind of funny—it’s subtle, something you might not notice on the first listen. I think it’s on a couple of songs on this record. It almost has a Leonard Cohen-like quality—dark, understated. Is that you, or someone else?
We actually talked about Leonard Cohen during the session—not very favorably, though I wasn’t the one coming out swinging against him. I actually liked him a lot growing up, especially the song “Field Commander Cohen”. I haven’t listened to it in a while, so maybe my feelings would be different now, but I remember learning it in high school and being blown away. It just keeps moving to these distant chords, and the melody makes it all work. There’s something in common between that approach and the way I use melody to make harmony work.
As for the whispery stuff, that was all in the “third layer,” the third take, and it was Ma improvising—trying to freak us out, make us laugh, or just do something cool. Early in the mixing process, we went back and listened to all those isolated third takes. They’re these improvisations that either push against the structure of the songs or support it. They’re really funny, and I hope people get to hear them one day.
At the beginning of mixing, we were a bit stumped on how to approach it. We invited our friend Russ Titelman to Steve Vealey’s studio to check out some in-progress mixes. Russ is a legendary producer and songwriter—he’s written with Brian Wilson, worked with Carole King, and more. His opinion means a lot to me.
When he heard the mixes, it was almost a “back to the drawing board” moment. Then he asked, “Can I hear the isolated third takes?” So we played a few for him, and he said, “This is the record. This is as good as Stockhausen! You should put this out.”
It was such a surreal moment. When I was younger, my wildest fantasy was that my most radical, ridiculous ideas would be validated by respectable heroes of my form. Now, that idea is kind of my worst nightmare because I’m trying to do something else—not just be the most radical or experimental. But hearing Russ’s reaction was still a powerful validation of what we were doing.
I can imagine that outside validation is a double-edged sword. On one hand, you feel validated by someone with an incredible ear for music—probably one of the best. But on the other hand, you have your individuality as a musician that you don’t want to lose or have absorbed into convention. Was there a bit of tension between those two things for you?
Sure, I mean, I think we all—by “we all,” I mean human beings, especially those with the privilege of living in this kind of hall of mirrors of self-representation—struggle with that. There’s this constant reflection of our ideal selves that we project, and then the distorted, “telephone game” version of that reflection that comes back to us, which we don’t recognise.
Self-conception is a big, challenging area of life. For younger musicians, I know some who just work incredibly hard at their craft, at their instrument—harder than I ever did. There are ways to focus on the work itself and skip some of the mental consternation, or at least postpone it. That focus can be a way to make progress, take chances, and develop.
As for validation, if you think that’s what you need, you’re already a little lost. At the end of the day, you have to authorise yourself. But I wouldn’t say it’s crucial to fully believe in what you’re doing—it’s more important to bear it out, to follow through, and to keep moving.
I’ve often avoided the question of, Do I like this? That avoidance has allowed me to create some things that, in the end, I really do like.
There’s this idea of an “art of forgetting” that comes to mind when I listen to Fievel’s music, especially with how some of it was recorded. It feels like drawing a portrait from memory over and over, layering those attempts over each other to create this “mutant” version. In your music, it seems like you layer takes—the ‘live in triplicate’ approach—where one take might be live, another an alternate live version, and another more bizarro improvised version. I reckon it’s fascinating in hindsight to see where impulses diverge or things go astray. Was that process fun and addictive, or even maddening at times?
Well, before getting into the live-in-triplicate approach, more into the ‘keeping busy’ part: I’ll say that when Ma and I write, we aim to write a song every day. We don’t worry too much about the quality of the songs—we just try to get into a flow state where stuff happens that we can’t account for. That’s the metric: are things happening unintentionally, and do we like those things?
What you mentioned reminds me of the Greek word aletheia, which is sometimes translated as “truth” or “disclosure.” It’s a negative word—”a-” as in “not,” and lethe, the famous river of oblivion and forgetting. The idea is that what gets remembered or memorialised is really cool. Something is saved from its natural state of oblivion. That corresponds to what making a record is like—saving fleeting moments from being forgotten.
As for the live-in-triplicate method, it was totally unplanned. This session was different from others because we had multiple days in the studio, which was unusual for us. That was really weird. What happened was, it was maybe the second day of running takes. This was the first time we’d ever had multiple days in the studio, which felt strange. Normally, we don’t have the luxury of overthinking anything because we only have one day.
Normally, our approach is very rushed—“go, go, go, go, go!” We’re usually focused on getting takes, working until the last few hours of the day. If someone says, “Let’s take a break,” we’re like, “Sure, but let’s blast through a few more takes first, then we’ll gorge ourselves after.” Everyone gets on board with that energy.
This session, though, was different. We weren’t in a rush, and that changed the dynamic entirely. We had solid takes of the songs already, and everything had been going so smoothly. During a break, I was chatting with Chris Wiseman about how I’d originally planned to use a Nagra mono tape machine for live mixing. I wanted to capture everything on high-quality mono tape, but there was an electrical issue with the machine, so we had to abandon that idea.
Then Chris reminded me of something he’d told me years ago: that The Clash experimented with live full-band overdubs. He thought they might’ve done it on London Calling or earlier albums. Whether it’s true or not, the idea stuck with me. In my mind, I imagined those Clash records as layers of the entire band playing, creating this thick, unique sound.
So, on a whim, we decided to try it—live triple-tracking the band. We’d brought up the idea to another engineer in the past, but they didn’t have enough inputs or headphone mixers to make it work. This time, Steve Vealey, at Outlier Inn studio, was immediately on board. Within five minutes, he had it all set up, and we couldn’t believe how easy it was.
When we listened back, it was hilarious and amazing. We were laughing like drooling infants because it was so funny and sounded so good. It was a completely improvised idea, but it added something unexpected and exciting to the session. It’s those moments where things don’t go as planned that make the process so addictive—and sometimes maddening—but ultimately worthwhile.
Were there other records that informed the ‘live in triplicate’ method?
The two big references I remember are ones I gave to Steve when he asked for examples of stuff I liked that reminded me of this approach. The first was An Electric Storm by White Noise, which was created by Delia Derbyshire. That record was a huge deal for me. I found it in my parents’ basement when they made me clean it out as a punishment—not much of a punishment in hindsight.
It was tucked behind a shelving unit mounted to the wall—just a vinyl record without a sleeve. I pulled it out and saw it was White Noise: An Electric Storm. I asked my dad if we had a record player, and he said, “Somewhere in the basement; you’ll find it while you’re cleaning.” So, I found the player, put it on, and I was probably 15 or 16 at the time. I was just blown away. I still listen to that record a lot. The mixing on it is very collage-like—mixing as composition.
So wait a minute, what did your parents do to have records like that in the basement?
That’s the weird part. My dad had some creative records, but they were very “expectable dad” fare. I asked where An Electric Storm came from, and they had no idea. They thought it must’ve been left by the people who lived in the house before us.
Wow, lucky find. What was the second reference?
The second reference was a song called “Strange Ships” by the British band Fox. It’s an amazing track, and I’ve heard they were influential to Kate Bush. The producer and engineer, Andy Arthurs, did something incredible with the mix.
At first, it’s just a really well-recorded, well-mixed song. Then, a couple of minutes in, the mix morphs into a completely different take of the song—with a different singer and a completely different arrangement. It holds that alternate version for about 30 seconds to a minute, and then it flips back into the original. The effect is unlike anything else I’ve ever heard.
It’s like suddenly, you’re no longer in Kansas.
Exactly. And not to get too heady, but that ties into some lingering ideas I have about representation and neutrality in music. A lot of my youthful radicalism and dogma has faded as I’ve gotten older—I don’t have that same urgency to unmask the wizard, so to speak.
I was just reading Nietzsche’s The Gay Science, and in the introduction, he talks about how we’ve “been there, done that” with denuding mysteries. He suggests that mysteries are good and should sometimes be left alone, and I relate to that now. But some questions stick with me, like whether the traditional process of recording—just capturing music, making it sound good in the mix, and calling it done—is missing something. Do we really think that’s all there is to it?
Yet there will always be that tug-of-war against that part of you that needs to know, that wants to chase the ghost. Self-awareness, what a maddening thing, right?
I used to have this analogy about writing that I think still holds true, and it connects to the idea of an alibi. Imagine the creative act—writing a song, for example—as a bank heist. The problem, and why it feels impossible, is that you’re trying to break into a hyper-secure facility without knowing what you’re stealing. The vault is new every time; you’ve never seen it before and have no idea how to open it. Your job is to break in, get into that vault, and take something before the cops arrive.
Here’s the twist: the cops are you. You’re both the bank robber and the cops, and the vault itself is also you—it’s the self, the ego, the mind, and intellect. You’re trying to extract something from within yourself, something you don’t even recognize yet. If you succeed, what do you have? An alibi. You’ll say, “Oh, I wasn’t robbing the bank. I actually work here. I was trying to stop the intruder. But it seems something has gone missing.” That’s how I think we account for our creative work, for all of us who do these things. And maybe it applies to ordinary behavior, too—to phenomena like love or friendship, which are just as inexplicable.
When you bring up self-awareness, I think there’s a double meaning there. There’s the ordinary sense—where we presume knowledge of ourselves and try to be aware of how we operate. But there’s also self-awareness in the sense of recognising that the self is constructed, and that in some ways, we aren’t really ourselves. This ambivalence is observable in simple ways. For example, when you’re automating a track of music and suddenly make it go silent—that silence can feel incredibly loud. It’s the interplay between presence and absence, clarity and mystery, that makes these creative moments so profound.
Rong Weicknes is out now via Fat Possum. Grab your copy of the album on the group’s official website.
Follow Fievel Is Glauque on Facebook, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram and Bandcamp.
