BAND OF THE WEEK: Pynuka
Anda Szilagyi + Christian McKenna + Justin Broadrick = ?
Sometimes a bunch of musicians you might not have even realised have some connections between them will join up to form a new project and typically the new thing will pique your interest because you might know or even be a fan of one or two of those involved. But what if suddenly a band with a rather impenetrable (and honestly, a little silly-sounding in Portuguese!) name appears and you happen to be a huge fan of all three people involved? Chances are you’ll be blown away by the result, no matter what it is, and that’s precisely where I found myself when listening to Pynuka, the new project formed by Christian McKenna (End Christian, Empty Flowers, Zodiak, Hex Inverter, C Trip A, The Wolf - everything the man does is awesome and always super different, so dive in and check out everything if you have a chance), Anda Szilagyi (Antibalas, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Lee Fields) and some dude called Justin Broadrick who’s also been in a few important bands or something, I don’t know. It was obvious I had to check this out and that I would love it, what was definitely not obvious was the “why” and the “how”…
See, that there is the first proper song on their debut album, which by the way is called ‘Not In The Sense That We Did Something Wrong’, after the sort of title-track (‘N.I.T.S.T.W.D.S.W.’) serves as a kind of intro. It’s a fairly poppy, catchy, beat-driven (the “club mix” part of the title did give it away) little head-boppin’ number, which won’t really blow you away, but it’s quirky and will leave you curious as to how this will evolve from here, during your first listen. Then, after a moody, electro-ambient/psychedelic song surprisingly sung in Portuguese (from Brazil), you get this:
This is brilliant, in a chillout-but-still-tense Massive Attack-y kind of way, the various layers of voices and electronics seamlessly blending into one another as the track melts all over your brain. It’s here, at about the halfway point of the album (this is song four, if you’ve been keeping up, of a total of eight), that you begin to understand that this’ll be an a) impossible to pin down; b) fucking awesome; c) even harder to explain; d) all of the above, type of record. The ambient vibe then gets even deeper with the next track:
Anda has called this song both “lovely” and “surreal” in previous interviews, and I wouldn’t think of a better way to describe it. It feels at the same time alien and distant, but her vocal delivery and cadence serve as a sort of grounding agent, as the distorted beats, the heavenly choirs and other random noises all weave around each other in the background as if they’ve always belonged together. The last three tracks that close out the album not only reinforce its absolutely genreless quality, but also the bizarre way in which strange things that shouldn’t work actually feel incredibly natural when listening to them. For example, you’d be hard pressed to realise track six, the one that comes after ‘Breath’, is a cover. Well, it’s really not, only lyrically, but even then, I defy you to admit that you’d get that from the heavily processed vocals (sounding like a child clown who just took a big bong hit, if you can imagine that?) without reading the title ‘I’m On Fire’ first. Yeah, the Springsteen song. Christian says in the press release that he’s not sure Justin even knows it’s a semi-cover, which makes it all the more hilarious.
The also strangely titled instrumental ‘Ozzy Mornings’ (C Trip A fans will get it) comes next, a good tune to have as your wake up alarm if you really must have one, and the album is wrapped up with the immense ‘Burn It All’, a harrowingly intense song, emotionally speaking, that you can nevertheless hum gently to yourself, as contradictory as that might sound. That’s what dream pop that really comes from the heart does. There’s no proper video for that one, but they made a visualizer when it came out as a single some time ago, so here:
I don’t usually talk about records in this track-by-track commentary style, as I feel that’s very check-out-my-reviews-blogspot circa 2005, but there’s really no other way to do this album and this collaboration justice. It does make sense as a whole and it is a fantastic experience to listen to it all the way through, and therein lies its magic and the reason I’ve picked it for this week’s BOTW feature, but you have to understand that these songs must also be taken individually as their own little fuck-genres universes that they are. It’s an album of texture, of emotion, of sadness and beauty, of colours and their inevitable fade. Though the overall mood isn’t one of abject misery or sorrow, it’s not a happy-happy pop album either. Anda has apparently described Pynuka as “broken music made by broken people,” and it seems to have stuck with the rest of the band, and to be honest, that does make a lot of sense once you’ve let all its strange little nuances creep underneath your skin.
Fortunately, Christian McKenna was kind enough to accept a little chat, so we get an extraordinary opportunity to understand Pynuka and ‘Not In The Sense That We Did Something Wrong’ a bit better, straight from the mouth of one of its creators. Read it all after the jump.
ps - curious about the band name? NY (where Anda is located), PA (Pennsylvania, where Christian lives) and UK, for Justin. Jumble it up a little bit and presto. Not everything needs to be super deep and metaphorical, you know.
‘Not In The Sense That We Did Something Wrong’ is available now via Translation Loss.
You can check out Pynuka on Bandcamp, Facebook and Spotify.
“People can come up with their own descriptions. I just like music… I could be listening to Sabbath one minute then The Beach Boys, Justin Bieber, Throbbing Gristle, Rihanna, Frank Ocean, Velvet Underground, Perry Como, XXXTentacion… I’m all over the place.”
— Christian McKenna
Can you tell us the origins of Pynuka? Where did the idea for this music come from, and how did the three of you get together to make it?
Christian McKenna: In the fall of 2021 Anda and I decided we were going to record some music together. We had worked together a bit in the past.. I sang some backups on a Christmas song she had recorded. We also recorded some improvisational jams in the studio together that still need to be sifted through. I was struggling a bit with the song that would become ‘Tá N’agua’ so I reached out to Justin to see if he could help produce. We’ve worked together over the years on various things. He had done some remixes for different bands I’ve been in and he played some guitar and produced a song or two for the last End Christian. Ya see Justin is just a sweetheart and he was into it… he loved Anda’s voice. Anyway, the music was actually a piece that I originally intended for C Trip A but we didn’t end up using it for that first Ozzy record. It was a track I performed live, on the fly, for a two person audience that consisted of Colin Marston from Dysrhythmia and someone else that I’m not gonna say. Justin tweaked the arrangement, added some stuff then we gave it to Anda to do her thing with keys and vocals. We were pleased with the results. The response was positive and I was inspired to do more. I started talking of us as a band, as a power trio, before we really were. We just kept writing together, bouncing ideas back and forth till it was honed into this batch of songs.
The album is fairly varied in moods – though I do love the “broken music made by broken people” tagline! What would you say is the common denominator to all these songs, if there is any? Is there something above everything else that you’re trying to convey, musically or lyrically? Any specific way you’d describe it, overall?
Christian: The “tagline” was Anda’s description of the music. Justin agreed, he was like, “we have to use that!” The common denominator I would say is honesty… I’m not gonna get into specifics but I think everyone was struggling in their own way during the making of this grouping of songs. Look at the video and listen to the audio for the first track, the title track jam. I lifted that off her Instagram. She was having a heavy moment. I wasn’t sure Anda would be cool with it as it is so raw… but she loved it.
I can’t say that I personally had any preconceived concept to convey. I was just trying to provide a musical spark for everyone to join in. It was fun reacting to their responses. As far as a description goes.. I’m so bad at describing music so I’ll leave that alone. People can come up with their own descriptions. I just like music… I could be listening to Sabbath one minute then The Beach Boys, Justin Bieber, Throbbing Gristle, Rihanna, Frank Ocean, Velvet Underground, Perry Como, XXXTentacion… I’m all over the place.
How did the writing take place, in what way were the three of you involved?
Christian: There was no formula that was followed from song to song. Sometimes I would start the piece alone or work with a engineer, then send it to Justin and then it would go to Anda. Other times we had music with Anda’s vocals that we would send to Justin. Definitely no set formula.
Are there any particular songs you’d like to talk about, any of them with a special story behind or something of that sort?
Christian: I’m really proud of ‘Breath’. That was the piece we labored over the most. It was a tough one to land but it’s also my favorite. By the time it was finished we all thought it was beautiful. I just think Anda’s lyrics are so brave and honest. I love the space to it and how it unfolds. My friend, Andy, sang on it a bit... he did a great job. I think the track is very “British”-sounding. When I heard Justin’s first pass at it… I wanted to cry.
I am very curious as to where the Portuguese lyric comes from. Do any of you have any connections to Portugal or Brazil?
Christian: That was all Anda… her intuition. She killed it. We were on some John Denver vibes lyrically. That song is about the spirit of nature, it’s real meditative. There’s another song she sang in Portuguese that we didn’t use, it didn’t quite fit with this. It’s very different than anything on the record.
Will there be continuity to Pynuka, have you talked about the possibility of this becoming a regular thing in any way? Are there plans to ever play live, for instance?
Christian: Yes, but it will be a minute.
Speaking of other projects, Christian, as you know I’ve been a great admirer of a lot of stuff you’ve put out throughout the years. Do you have anything cooking at the moment, whether with one of your existing projects (which ones would you consider as “active”, by the way?) or with anything new?
Christian: I’m always writing and recording… I need to be doing this to stay sane. I thought we set the bar really high with the Bach record, that last End Christian one. I have a lot of stuff recorded but it’s gotta be super cool and insanely lit so that stuff is still cooking. There’s a bunch of Brazilian Gentleman stuff recorded too, easily an album’s worth, very cinematic type stuff. I’m taking an ear break from all this but I’ll get back into it at some point. I’m really excited about a project I’m working on with my friends called Soothing Kojak. Some great musicians are joining me on this project… it’s different. This will probably come out next. Also working on some other stuff that will probably surprise people.
