Putting Some Polish On "Wobble House"

The writing and recording of Holy Balm's second LP, Activity, came "fairly quickly", if you measure it by the band's sedate pace. "It only took a couple of years this time," says keyboardist Anna John. Over a decade together, the Sydney electro trio have taken their sweet time, largely due to the fact they've got full plates. John is not just a musician, but a sculptor, installation artist, radio producer, librarian and university lecturer. "I'm this strange jack-of-all-trades," she offers.

"Justin Timberlake was playing in the building behind us, which meant that the whole block was blocked off, and hardly anyone saw us."

Holy Balm were born when John, keyboardist/programmer Jonathan "Joni" Hochman, and vocalist Emma Ramsay were all housemates. "It was natural for us to hang out a lot, and listen to records together," John recounts. Taking influence from everything from Prince to Boredoms, they started out as a tranced-out trio, with John on guitar and Ramsay on drums. "It happened alongside of this community gaining a bit of traction in Sydney. Bands like Naked On The Vague, Say Cheese And Die! and Chooch-a-bahn!. The other bands we were playing with were a lot more dark and punky, so we stuck out in a weird way. We were a bit of an anomaly."

The trio took their identity from a song they called Holy Balm Theme. "We imagined it as our theme song," says John. "It's this party tune you can imagine a brass band playing in a parade, it's very uplifting and joyous." John isn't sure how it took Holy Balm six years from their formation to release an album ("the years just run together, really, truly"), but It's You came out, finally, in 2012. It was released on Not Not Fun in the US, which lead to an American tour in 2013, where the band played SXSW ("Justin Timberlake was playing in the building behind us, which meant that the whole block was blocked off, and hardly anyone saw us") and went through a "formative, informative, influential" experience.

"We were together for five weeks, playing a lot, having a damn good time," recalls John. "Experiences like that can be catalysing. It's an extreme change of environment, you have to band together. You're seeing shows together, playing shows together, travelling together. It both brings you closer as a band and can push you in different directions. It can be challenging, it can be very sweet and wonderful."

Energised by the experience, Holy Balm set out work on Activity, taking that mere two years to make it. "On the first record, we'd pulled in this wild, freeform, improv-ing approach to making music, but this time was different," John says. "Emma stopped playing live drums, and that really put her in the position of being the vocalist, the frontwoman. It was a real shift in dynamics of the band. Joni's parts grow more sequenced. We're still always called 'wonk house' or 'wobble house', we'll never escape those terms. But if we can draw those characteristics of our sound into a more structured, polished, programmed thing, that's an interesting challenge for us."