A clean slate can be an intimidating thing, but for MC Lord Magrão and Suzie Blake, a fresh start proved to be just what they needed.
The duo are set to release their debut single as Lungs on July 29, having found new purpose by taking a step into the unknown. Until recently, Magrão was the guitarist for Guillemots, while Blake is a renowned photographer.
Together they had worked on film projects, and share a grounding in photography, but their musical compatibility came as something of a surprise. For Blake, a Melbourne native in London, stepping in front of a microphone was also particularly daunting.
“I haven't sung for a really long time,” she said. “I was like: 'Shit, what am I doing?' It was this form of expression that I hadn't used for such a long time. I think working with music together really felt right, it came very naturally and easily. I think that the dynamic that we have between us is pretty unreal.”
It's a good thing that Blake and Magrão can call on such chemistry, as their early days as a band weren't the smoothest. Their search for a drummer was fruitless and Magrão was determined to drag their songs away from the safe ground offered by heavy rock. By paring back their sound through necessity, though, they managed to find the essence of what they were after.
“We struggled a bit because we couldn't find a drummer,” Blake said. “We wanted to have a full band, but it just didn't happen. Not having a drummer makes it harder to pull a song together, so we just had to play around on Logic. Through limitation, I think we ended up defining ourselves, through the fact that it was just Magrão and I. We had to make do, really.”
Magrão added: “The songs were really different to what they are now. There were really heavy, distorted guitars, with edgy vocals. The songs were good, but the sound just wasn't very original, it was just like a rock band. We didn't want to be a rock band. We spent the next nine months just trying to develop the sound.”
The result is a double a-side single, Faraway/Loner, that shows hints of the band's past and present. Faraway is a dreamy, '90s-influenced affair, while on Loner, Magrão's guitars still bite. The songs were recorded in finest DIY fashion, with Magrão learning how to program drums in the early days and mixing the record in his lounge.
“It was a nice challenge to take on in terms of starting everything from scratch,” he said. “From being a member of a band to producing and working on things on your own the whole time. In terms of discussions – about a drumbeat or whatever – it was so straightforward."
The single will be released as a limited edition 7” by Hero Records – 250 on white, 250 on black, with Blake's photography on the sleeve – and a vinyl release was something that particularly appealed to the music fan in Magrão.
“For me personally, it's very important,” he said. “I think the whole digital era and that kind of stuff is a good way to get music out there, to reach a bigger number of people, and it's also a lot cheaper and more practical. But because of the way we approached the recording process and the artwork, everything is very organic and analogue, having the vinyl is a really good way to represent the creativity that we've put into it.
“That's instead of having a tiny little picture on my iTunes that no-one is ever going to look at properly. When I download music, I feel like I don't own anything. Even though it's there on my computer, it's not tangible, I don't care about it. A vinyl is a little thing, you know? You care about it, look after it.”
To celebrate the release of the record, Lungs will play a couple of London shows and again they will have to overcome some challenges posed by their status as a two-piece. Luckily, Blake's vision for their live show will take them outside the bounds of their recorded output and into something new.
“We have to use our instruments pretty creatively and really give it our all,” she said. “The live show is obviously different to the recordings but I think it gives us another level. Live is different to recorded, full stop, and it should be.
“You shouldn't listen to some music and go and see it live and it be exactly the same. To me, that seems like you're not fully understanding what it is to see a live show. Live shows are dirty, sweaty and dark. That's what our live show should be and we want to bring that rawness to it.”
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