Words by Harper Mahood
Inspired by a deep dive into reggaeton, neoperreo and Rap-Español, the Denton-Texas based band, Pyramids has given a whole new meaning to musical fusion. Melding their roots as a black metal, shoegaze band with steady dembow beats and a female singer, Pythagoras was born. Released on the dark music label, The Flenser, this album is a continuation of Pyramids’ discography of genre-bending sonics and aesthetics. Ideated by Rich Loren Balling’s explorations in extreme music and female pop artists, what could be characterized as clashing genres are blended into an eclectic coalescence of sound.
Off Shelf: Pythagoras was nine years in the making. That’s the last time that Pyramids released an album. How did you all know that now was like the right time to release something new?
Rich Loren Balling: It just seems like we’re always so busy with life. A lot of people have had kids in the last few years, so that of course has slowed things down. For me personally, I need some sort of impetus or catalyst that’s a motivator or inspiration to want to pursue a thread or idea. In this case, I had found myself in a rabbit hole of Spanish rappers, reggaeton and different Latin music and global music.
A lot of bands in the last 10 years have had luck with merging shoegaze and metal and making a sort of gauzy textured and dreamy music that came from a hybrid of genres. It occurred to me that I hadn’t really heard anyone play with a hybrid with this other music that I had become so passionate about. That instantly became the catalyst of wanting to do a new album.
OS: Thinking about reggaeton and metal, I feel like at first glance you’re like, how is that gonna work? How did you get there with the other people in the band?
RLB: I think that we’ve built a trust at this point after working with each other for a number of years and a number of projects. And I feel like they… probably somewhere in their mind were like, you’re crazy. But then there’s also a trust, so they’re like, ‘yeah, let’s do it.’ As soon as we introduced the female vocal element, which we hadn’t had previously, I think they understood what it was we were doing.
OS: The album is titled Pythagoras, after a Greek philosopher who made so many contributions to math during his time. Who decided on this name and how is that representational of the music on this album?
RLB: We have a drummer slash producer – because really the drums are created electronically – and he put forward the idea. This was prior to any songs being written, but something felt cool about it and we decided to tease it out a little bit. As things came together it felt organic. I wouldn’t say that we’re math rock but there is a complexity to the music, especially with all of the crossover in rhythms.
When we started to introduce that female element and the nails for the cover, designs that feel very complex, there was such an amalgam of art going on and ideas. It seemed in an abstract way to align naturally.
OS: I want to hear more about the nail art in the cover. How did that concept come to fruition and what does that symbolize for you all?
RLB: I feel like I always approach every project or album as a fan first. I’m immersed in all these artists that I listen to and that becomes the catalyst for the idea. I follow a lot of my current influences on social media that noticed that they’re all very into Miami nail art. There was one in particular whose nail art I really gravitated towards. She’s in Miami, KroCaine is what she goes by. She’s been featured in Vogue, and been doing Rosalia’s nails for years. I hit her up blindly and asked if it would be cool if we used one of her photos for our album and she said, yes.
The particular image that I chose really felt like it aligned with the vibe of the album. It’s got an ominous shadow under the hand and it’s reaching for something. It felt spooky in a metal way, but also representative of that amalgam of art and complexity and color.
OS: Do you think that your earlier fans were shocked by the direction that you guys have gone or do you think that kind of made sense with your discography?
RLB: Maybe a little bit of both. Our last album in 2015 on Profound Lore was way more metal, straightforward and structured than the earlier albums. So if anything, that might’ve been a surprise, but since it was more metal leaning, there might have been less disappointment from fans. Whereas with this people might know we do different stuff but think it’s too far. Or maybe people heard it and were like, ‘we love this.’ In general though, there hasn’t been near the hate that we like thought there might be. It’s been almost entirely positive. The struggle has been getting people to listen to it but the people that listen to it seem to like it.
OS: I loved the introduction of the female singer. I’m curious about how you all came up with that idea to move to having a vocalist and also the choice for her to sing in Spanish. Could you speak a little bit more to that?
RLB: I wanted to replicate some of the ideas I was hearing in the music that I was loving when the idea was forming. Back to the whole starting as a fan first, I wanted to pay homage to some of the female Latin rappers that I’d been listening to. I wanted to get as close to that as I could in terms of blending that ingredient with the genres that we already had going in the band. It was a matter of trying to do the avant-garde, metal version of that. It had to be a female singer because that’s mostly what I listen to. I almost exclusively listen to female pop artists. It also had to be in Spanish and have a kind of rap cadence, so that’s how that happened.
OS: Who would you say are some of those influences? Could you name a couple people?
RLB: There’s one who I think is just incredible. Her name is EMJAY. You know how about 10 years ago no one cared about Charlie XCX, but now everybody’s obsessed and they see the genius in it? I feel like EMJAY is in that realm, but she’s a Spanish artist, so I don’t know how long it might take to get that North American fire happening. I do think that with the Spanish population being what it is in the United States, it would start to increase in terms of making its way into what we listen to.
The second one I’m obsessed with is HELLOLOLA. She’s incredible. I also love La Zowi. She’s in Spain and she’s done a lot of collaborations with more known artists. Finally there’s one from Mexico, Six Sex, she’s amazing too.
OS: Pyramids debuted in 2008 with a self-titled album on Hydrohead Records. That’s more than 15 years ago at this point. What have you learned over the course of your time as a band? What has shifted in your musical style and what has remained constant?
RLB: I think the easiest entry point to that would just be talking about personal growth and age. 15 years into our adult lives, we’ve continued to write songs, continued to experience the world and continued to take more of a producer mindset. Sometimes when you’re young you’re almost fighting each other to get more face time in a song. One thing that we’ve learned through experience and growing as people, is how to take that producer mindset and do what’s best for the song.
Sonically, we’ve also grown in the equipment that we use and how well we use it. On the first album, I don’t think we really knew what we wanted to be. What we did know at that time is that we wanted to do very blissful, sort of dreamy, shoegaze type stuff on the top and then underneath have a churning blast beat sort of thing. Brutal and blissful in this push and pull. We knew that we wanted to do something around that idea, and we tried our best to manifest it.
I think that the longer you stay together and pursue a goal like that, the more refined the process becomes and the better the product becomes. So I feel like the natural learning curve is what has really happened. Nothing too unique about our process except for if you stick with something, hopefully you get better at it.
OS: I’m curious about your choice to not perform live. Is that intentional or has it just worked out that way?
RLB: Three of the guys live in California. I grew up in California but I’ve been in Dallas since 2006 so rehearsal is a whole thing. Also, we’re all in other projects that tour and my dayjob is a big deal because I have kids so I can’t not have that income. Emy, who does the vocals on this one, is in Argentina, so to get her to perform with us would be a whole other thing too.
This band has always been treated as a sort of studio experiment, but with this album, I really want to do something live. I would love to start with a festival, maybe Roadburn or something in Europe just to see what we could pull off. Maybe then we’d book a tour. I do remember early on with the first album, we were offered a tour opening for AlCest from France and we couldn’t do it. DeafHeaven got that slot and the rest is history.
Before it was a studio project, but now I want to do it, so we’ve got to figure out how to make it work.
OS: I know that Pythagoras just came out but is there anything else in the works that people can look forward to from you all in the future?
RLB: We’ve been talking about not letting another five years go by before we start something. I would love to start something this year, knowing that we wouldn’t maybe finish it right away, but at least it would be in the works. I don’t think that our work is done with this particular idea. Using the same idea fully formed and then maybe by that time more people will have given it a chance, felt what we feel and gotten on board.