With their farewell EP out now, we checked in with long-time Hard of Hearing favourites Fake Turins about the stories behind each of its tracks.

Originally published at The Daily Music Report.

We have long been fans of Fake Turins here at Hard of Hearing, keenly tracking their progress from 2018 to present as their sound has evolved to bring psychedelic richness to touchstone influences like Roxy Music, Talking Heads and The Fall. In January, they announced that their forthcoming headline show at Village Underground would be their last, and that they would be releasing one final EP, ‘Inheritance’, before that momentous swansong.

On the week of its release, lead singer Dominic Rose takes us track-by-track through ‘Inheritance’.

“‘Inheritance’ is the record we always needed to make. To share these musical stories – so many of them written years ago, during the death of my father – and explore the arrangement possibilities of an 11-piece ensemble. This record may be the final part of Turins DNA, woven into our very conception — but our own Inheritance will continue to live on, through ourselves and others.”

Intro/Outro

“It was a significant decision to begin and end the record on the same studio jam of Beatnik that we’d teased out in the sessions with Syd Kemp. The melancholy tone of the piano is a theme that pulled together the more ‘arranged’ feel of this record, so fading into the outro and out of the intro creates a complete circle. With ‘Beatnik’ as the manifesto of the themes in the band, and also the lead single from the record, it made complete sense to have “it goes around and around” at the end of the last track lead back into the beginning. The final chapter of Fake Turins as a closed unit.”

The Finch

“The most recently written track that appears on the record, ‘The Finch’ was conceived as the antagonist in the story of ‘Inheritance’ — a look at how caustically biting remarks can dwell in the mind and lead to unrepented rage. This is a bottled track, built on slight changes and one static bass note to establish the tensions that place ‘The Finch’ as the seed of agony. As all agony leads eventually to beauty, the sprawl near the end of the track plays out as the uncorked id moves past pain and into animal sorrow.”

Yr Made Of Gold

“A song about the passing of time, watching ourselves become the heroes and villains we looked up to as children. Mutating into our parents and facing their struggles. This song was written about the anger of my father and how my inheritance of his rage became my own.”

Live Room

“Put together as a recurring theme across the record, and alongside other variations of our deconstructed ensemble – this final version stands alone as the emotional changeup in the record. Dividing the anger from the pain, we shift into a sombre, reflective state for the last tracks of Turins canon. Using the piano in the live room was also a real treat, so to develop an idea that captures more expressive orchestration was an opportunity not to turn down.”

Inheritance II

“With ‘Inheritance II’ we pushed the idea of a disco odyssey right to the forefront. We sometimes jokingly refer to this as our Bohemian Rhapsody for its multiple fragments, but here all of the musical themes explored at the beginning reunite in a final cathartic explosion. This approach to songwriting became a larger part of our identity as the group mutated, with this song perhaps sitting close to what we can say Future Turins would’ve sounded like. Compositionally the track began as an electronic-punk synth piece, written under this project’s very first name, Shinra Music. The ensemble’s additions over time have fleshed it out into the sprawling, psychedelic overture that we have today.”

Beatnik

“‘Beatnik’ is the original Turins track. It contains my manifesto for the project, and for the character I came to inhabit as Dominic Rose. It tells the tale of a false prophet, worshipped by hordes; with violent untenable screed, his mind falls into madness. The outline of this character was drawn in shades of my dad, taking our dream of plight (for humanity, for ourselves…) and seeing how it can easily corrupt human nature.”