BeatRoute Magazine BC Edition October 2018

Arctic Monkeys
high rollers double down in a new direction
By Johnny Papan
Photo by Zackery Michael
Arctic Monkeys are exploring the past and distant Future
with Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino.
Every evolution of Arctic Monkeys is
a seismic dance that regularly leaves
listeners blissfully capsized with
each subsequent release. It’s been
an unflinching progression since
the start, and their latest album,
Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, is an
intricate offering that is just as much
a mind-seducing portrait as it is a
musical odyssey.
In “Star Treatment,” the opening
track, frontman Alex Turner
immediately submerges your
imagination into that of a ’50s hotel
lounge decorated in neon lights and
advanced technologies. Suited men
vape along a crisp, mahogany bar.
Women in sparkling dresses kiss the
edge of their martini glass with plump
lips painted in dark cherry reds and
aquatic blues. Some may even face
attempted romantic persuasions
from lizard-esque extraterrestrial
humanoids. It’s a jazzy, loungey,
piano-laden tune that sets the tone
for what will be discovered as an allencompassing
audio experience.
“I think you’re allowed to step
outside your own experiences,” says
Turner. “Songwriting gives you the
scope to do that. There may have
been a time 10 years ago where
I wouldn’t have felt that way –
everything was more like a diary entry
at that point. But those days are long
gone.”
Turner blends topics of science,
religion, technology and politics into
a soundscape that takes influence
from the far past and layers it with
atmospheric waves of the distant
future. His sharp tongue illustrates a
clear picture of the Tranquility Base
Hotel & Casino, a luxurious structure
firmly planted exactly where Apollo
11 and thus, humankind, first landed
on the moon in 1969. The rock upon
which the hotel is donned gently
floats through the star-speckled black
of infinite space. We get to know
the hotel’s inhabitants, seeing the
likes of Jesus Christ relaxing at the
spa, a wannabe government official
prancing about in their knickers, and
an advertiser spreading gospels of
the four-star taqueria located on the
building’s roof.
Turner did not go into songwriting
sessions with any particular intentions
or messages in mind, and instead
allowed the musical phrases to draw
words from him like a flowing river
stream that escaped through the ink
of his pen and spilled onto papers of
pearly white. He adapted his vocal
melodies to instrumentation like a
curious chameleon modelling new
skin-tones along the catwalk. The
relationship of voice and instrument
on this album is a unique contrast.
“For me, the songs seem to have
a mind of their own to some extent.
Everything seemed to decide it
wanted to go into this sort of other
world, I suppose,” Turner explains. “I
think a lot of that is instinct at this
point. There is not a moment where
I’m sitting with a blank piece of paper
and I’m thinking, ‘What kind of ride
am I gonna take the kids on this time?’
It’s just sort of… yeah, instinctive.”
Tranquility Base Hotel &
Casino, musically, deviates from its
predecessor, the critically acclaimed
AM. Rather than the guitar-heavy
smashings and ambiances explored
in the last album, as well as all those
before it, Turner found himself
gravitating towards the ivory of
an instrument he’s never truly
acquainted himself with, adding yet
another layer of experimentation to
his songwriting prowess.
“The places where my fingers fell on
the piano made sounds that surprised
me and encouraged me to move in a
different direction than I would have
if I was sitting there with an acoustic
guitar,” Turner says. “The music
seemed to suggest these melodies and
lyrics to me. A lot of it came from the
piano.”
Arctic Monkeys recorded the
album as they were writing it.
Intentionally or not, Tranquility could
be considered some of Turner’s most
thought-provoking work, especially
when you link the pseudo-psychedelic
lyrical stances to things happening
around us today.
The song “She Looks Like Fun”
touches on the subject of virtual
reality, discussing a patron “plugging
into” a non-existent New Years Eve
party held at Wayne Manor, the home
of Batman. “American Sports” sees a
character’s virtual reality mask thrust
them amidst a “parliament brawl.”
Another character in the song speaks
of FaceTime phenomena, using an
emergency battery pack to ensure
they don’t miss their “weekly chat
with God on video call.”
“You sort of reveal a piece of
something as you’re writing and
recording it,” he says. “Then you find
what you’re attracted to, scribble
away a bit more of the dust and
discover a bit more of the picture.
Gradually, it becomes what it is. Each
time you reveal another bit of it, it
commits you to take the next step. I
think it was Michelangelo who talked
about the idea that there’s a block of
marble, and the sculpture is already
inside, and he’s just chipping away at
the excess. [The album] is not quite
that, but there’s something I like
about that statement.”
In an interview with BBC Radio
earlier this year, Turner felt there
was a strange connection between
Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino and
Arctic Monkeys’ first album Whatever
People Say I Am, That’s What I’m
Not, the punkish debut that soared
the band into mainstream populus,
spearheaded by the garagey hit
single “I Bet You Look Good on the
Dancefloor.” At the time, he couldn’t
quite put his finger on the similarities
between these two vastly different
records. When questioned about it
again, Turner responds:
“There’s something in the style of
[Whatever People Say] and the style
of [Tranquility] that felt quite direct
in its lyrics. I was perhaps more willing
to put myself across than I have been
in the meantime in between,” Turner
says. “The first couple of records, a
lot of it was explicitly about exact
renderings of real events that had
happened. After that I sort of scurried
away from that kind of style, or at
least being that explicit about it. I
got more ingested in other areas of
writing lyrics, or trying to write in
different ways. This time around, it
seemed to have some of that essence
of being as straight and direct as it
was in the very beginning.”
Despite these similarities, it’s clear
that the Arctic Monkeys of today are
far different than that of the past. The
boys in the band have matured, as
did their creative outputs and tastes.
They’re not the angsty teens they
once were – they’ve grown, changed,
almost to the point where Turner feels
like he’s a completely different musical
entity than that of his early days.
“It feels like we’re doing a cover
or something when we play the first
album, really,” Turner claims. “But
that’s fine. I don’t hate doing that.
It’s just come to the point where I
play ‘Mardy Bum’ or something like
that and it doesn’t even feel like mine
anymore.”
Alex Turner is 32 years old. When
Arctic Monkeys released their debut
album, he was only 20. 12 years in the
spotlight, and the band has released
six albums, each holding up as a
stand-alone album different than the
others, yet sitting perfectly within
Arctic Monkeys’ repertoire. The group
is as eclectic as they are electric,
and after releasing such an audio
mindbend in Tranquility Base Hotel
& Casino, it’s interesting to see what
comes next.
With all the talk of virtual reality,
science fiction, and advanced
technology, Turner was asked “If you
could go back in time and tell your
20-year-old self one thing, and one
thing only, what would it be?” Turner
pondered for a moment.
“Kiss her before she gets in the cab.”
Arctic Monkeys play the Pacific
Coliseum (Vancouver) on October 25.
October 2018 17